Apostilling we will go Appostilling we will go...

Kenya and I took a trip to Austin on Monday to get some more things apostilled for our adoption. She was so excited to get some alone time with Mommy and I loved getting to hang out with just her for 2 days.

The first part of the road trip was AWFUL! It was raining and there were times when I couldn't even see the road. Ms. Kenya slept the first half of the trip which was nice because I was trying really hard to focus on driving and nothing else.

I tried to take a short cut to get to the highway which ended up adding at least 30 minutes to our trip. Then our GPS took us the wrong way and then had us do a u-turn at the next exit which added about an hour to our trip because there was so much traffic.

Once it had stopped raining and traffic cleared up the rest of the trip was nice and easy.

We stopped at Rudy's BBQ  about 2 hours out and I just have to say I LOVE their food. It is by far my favorite BBQ ever!

Here we are enjoying our meal (sorry about the lighting I am still learning how to shoot in manual).

And here is our food. Loaded baked potato with meat YUM, corn on the cob, turkey and 2 root beers!

This church is pretty close to the Secretary of State's office and I think it is beautiful!

We were in the office for maybe 5 minutes they called us up printed the apostilles, stapled them to our paperwork and we were off. 

Her face cracks me up in this picture! 

Kenya took this picture and did a pretty good job I thought.

Our photo shoot in front of the capital did not go well. The pictures were turning out awful then I realized Kenya was standing in the shade and the capital was in the sun so once I moved her into the sun it helped the lighting a lot. At that point though she was done taking pictures so this is the best we got ha.

Kenya was so excited to get to see her family in Austin! This is Uncle Toe Toe and one of her cousins Anisa. 

And here is a shirt I got for our soon to be (well maybe sometime next year) Texas Cowboy!

Over all it was a great trip. I loved spending time with Kenya and visiting with family in Austin. 

SO way beyond excited!

I have some very exciting news.... WE RECEIVED OUR TRAVEL DATES for our first trip!!!!! Now before you get too excited let me explain what this trip is. When we go to Eastern Europe this time it will be to meet Baby A and officially commit to his adoption in Eastern Europe. We will not have court this trip and we will not be bringing him home this trip. But I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am to know we are going to finally get to meet our BOY!!!!  I have thought  about this day non-stop for almost 9 months I can't wait to love on Baby A! We are not going to be sharing our travel dates but I will say we will be going before the end of the year!

After this trip we will come home then we will have to wait two or three months for a court date. Once we get a court date we will go back to Eastern Europe to adopt Baby A. Once we are approved in court there is a ten day waiting period before we can take Baby A home. We still have a long way to go but we are getting so much closer!!!

Please be praying for a safe trip for us and that Baby A will not be freaked out by us being there. I am so hoping to get some amazing cuddle time with our boy but I know the reality is he might not want a whole lot to do with us. Either way I just can't wait to be in the same room with him!!! Please also be praying for some paperwork that we are trying to get for court. The wording has to be done a certain way but so far it hasn't been done exactly right so please be praying we could get this taken care of quickly.

AHHHHH SO EXCITED!!! Adoption Update!!!!

I just found out the office that accepts dossiers is back open!!!! As soon as our dossier is finished being translated (I thought they were done with it) then it will be submitted and we should get a travel date not too long after that. I will not even try to guess timing on this because I have been wrong every time but I am so excited right now we can move forward again!!! WOO HOO! God is so so good! 

Back on track.

We are still not finished getting everything ready for the dossier but we are getting much closer. We only have a few things left to do. Then we wait and wait and wait for USCIS approval.

 Trying to get the last few papers filled out for the dossier.

I started out with one folder for our paperwork but quickly realized I needed something MUCH bigger. There are well over 200 papers in this file holder all for the adoption :)

My sweet hubby filling out paperwork. I made him use my girly pen :)

Even though our day did not go as planned last week it has not made me want to stop but move faster. It is so strange to me that I can miss someone that I have never met but I miss Baby A so much and I often dream of going to visit him. Even though the adoption process is hard at times it is so worth it. The best way I can describe it is like this... If someone took your child across the world and told you you had to do X,Y and Z to get your child back you would do everything they said and more to get to bring your child back home. It wouldn't seem like a burden to fill out paperwork but a joy knowing you would soon get to see your child. It is my joy to do above and beyond what is required to get to bring Baby A home.

I hope you will all continue to lift us up in prayer, we still have a long way to go but he is so so worth it.

Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming, swimming, swimming

We are just as busy as ever getting everything together for the adoption. The kids and I mailed in our FBI background checks last week and I have been working like crazy trying to get everything together for the dossier.



I called the USCIS office last week to get a better idea of the process the lady I spoke with was so nice and I am praying that she will be able to be our USCIS officer once it is time for us to have one. She said it could take up to 75 days to get approved but if there is a reason to expedite it they most likely would do that. I called back this week to see if we had an officer yet and we don't but I plan on calling back next week to see how things are coming along. I am praying they will be able to get our paperwork going quickly. From what I understand it will most likely take about 2 months to get approved. Then we will get all of our paperwork appostilled and mail it off to our agency. Once our agency gets it they have to fill out paperwork and get some things from their state all of which will take about a month. After that our dossier will be ready to send to Eastern Europe and be translated which will also take about a month. We might not be able to travel for the first time until September depending on long all of this takes. That makes me kinda nervous because we are not officially committed to Baby A in Eastern Europe until we travel for the first time and sign paperwork. There is nothing we can do about that part but pray that the Lord would work out all of the timing :)

I am super excited to let you all know that  Debby has extended the Thirty- One Gifts Fundraiser for Baby A's adoption until the 29th of this month. If you haven't gotten to order anything yet now is your chance. Click HERE and see all the great stuff they have to offer! Thank you so much Debby this is truly a gift to our family!

I hope you all have a great weekend!

Exciting Stuff!!!

Today was a big day in our adoption journey, we mailed off our USCIS (immigration) paperwork. I am so super excited about this because once we get our clearance back and get all of our dossier paperwork done we can take it all to get appostilled and then will be ready to send it to our agency for a final check then it will be off to Eastern Europe.   We still wont really know a time line until after our paperwork gets to Eastern Europe and we get a travel date. We could be traveling as soon as August but we wont know for sure for awhile. I miss that sweet boy more and more each day and I can not wait to hold him and love on him!

Me about to mail our USCIS paperwork off! Sorry for the extreme close up but I zoomed in so you wouldn't see our address :)

Two of my kiddos and I on Mother's Day. I can't wait until next year when I can take a picture with three of my children. It just blows me away to think next year will be Baby A's first Mother's Day ever that he will (officially) have a mom and I get to be that mom! I am so thankful for his nanny though because she is his momma right now. It really does break my heart to think about taking him away from her. They love each other so much. Maybe, Lord willing, we can still keep in touch after we adopt him.

 Laura from Laurel Creek Designs  made the most beautiful necklace and earrings for Baby A's other adoption fundraising blog. The necklace and earrings were inspired by Melody, Madison and Baby A's stories. I fell in love with this jewelry and I really wanted it. I was so thankful that she made them to bid off to bring our boy home and I was trying to be excited for whoever won :) Well it turns out that her mother won the bid so I thought that was really neat. You will never believe what happened next. She sent me the necklace and earrings as a Mother's Day gift, I couldn't believe it! I was so super excited! They came in the most beautiful shadow box with a beautifully written note talking about why she wanted me to have them and the story behind the jewelry. I am really still blown away that she did this. I love them so much and I think of Melody, Madison and Baby A every time I wear them! Thank you again Laura, I really do love them!  

The kids were also super excited, but not about the necklace, but about what it was packed in. 

They had an all out war with the paper from inside the box

 (just so you know my kids don't normally dress like this ha) 

Judah getting ready to nail Kenya.

She is such a good big sister and is making it a little easier for him.

He got her! 

I'm pretty sure pay back was sweet!

He is laughing so hard right here he looks like he is crying.

And the after math... 

Don't forget about the Thirty- One Gifts fundraiser that is going on for Baby A it will only last for 5 more days. Click here for details!

I hope you all had a great Mother's Day!

 I will try to keep y'all posted on the progress but for now I will just be getting everything ready for the dossier so if this blog is quiet for awhile just know I am filling out paper after paper after paper after paper :)

Our psych. reports are done!

I am so excited to tell you all that I will be picking up our psych. reports tomorrow and mailing them to our social worker so she can add that to our home study. Our psychologist said we passed our testing and I can't tell you how relived I was to heat that news! Everyone kept telling me not to worry but it was so hard not to. I am just glad I can put my mind at ease and stop stressing :)

Once our social worker adds the psych. report to our home study then we will send our home study and our USCIS paperwork off and bug them to death.... well call them a lot and see if we can get things moving along quickly.

I am so excited to be one step closer to bringing our boy home!

Vanessa

Dear Anton

I had the opportunity to write a letter for Anton and have it translated into his language and send it with a volunteer. I was so excited about sending a note to him and expressing our love for him but I had a really hard time trying to figure out the wording. Eastern Europe wont consider us committed to him until after we meet him for the first time and we sign paperwork saying we are committed to him. So I couldn't figure out how to word the letter. I didn't know if I should say hi I'm Vanessa and my family loves you very much and..... I couldn't really figure out how to word it with out saying too much so I decided not to do it. But after I saw the video on Anton's FB page of him sitting up all by himself I knew I had to start writing letters to him on here because I have so much I want him to know.

So here goes...

Sweet Baby Anton,

There is so much I want you to know so much I want to say I am not sure where to start so I will start at the beginning. Jason and I have always wanted to adopt we have talked about it since the beginning of our marriage but weren't really sure when we should start. We knew after having Judah that he would be our last biological child and we would adopt all of our future children. We were so excited to start the process to adopt but again we really didn't know when we should start.

The Lord allowed us to be blessed with conjoined twin daughters on November 11th 2008 and it was during my pregnancy with them that I began to develop a HUGE heart for kids with special medical needs. I was hoping we would be able to adopt a child with special medical needs because I truly knew what a huge blessing all children are.

I had thought maybe we should wait until Judah was 2 to start the process to adopt but a few days before I found out about you I started really wanting to adopt right away. I kept thinking "no we should wait" then I would think "no I really want to start now." These feelings of wanting to adopt soon only increased as the days went on. Then on February 8th I clicked on my friend Kristy's FaceBook page and she had posted a link to your story and it was love at first sight. The more I read your story the more I fell in love. It is so hard to explain but I knew you were supposed to be our son and we needed to do whatever we could to bring you home!

I had about 30 minutes to wait until my husband got off of work to tell him all that I had just discovered. I prayed and prayed for Jason that if this was the Lord's will God would prepare his heart and he would be just as excited as I was. It finally came time to call him. I started telling Jason your story and I was brought to tears more than once telling him about your first year of life. After I got through telling him all about you and my desire to adopt you I said "so what do you think?" He said "we are all for adoption let's go for it." I was so excited!

I got off the phone with him and called Kristy right away to tell her that it is was our desire to be your forever family. She didn't answer but called me back about ten minutes later. I told her how much I loved you and how much we wanted you and she said "Vanessa I just got chills. I was rocking Hope to sleep when you called and I was praying asking the Lord if it was His will for us to adopt Anton would He please show us and if not would he please close the door." I thought that was so amazing! She told me about Patrice (Jonah's Mom) and how she was wanting to help raise money for Anton's adoption. I couldn't believe all the support we had so quickly.

I got off the phone with her and started contacting the volunteers who were working so hard to find you a family. I started calling adoption agency's and home study agency's and working for hours and hours a day trying to get moving on your adoption.

I have never doubted for one second from the moment we found you that you are supposed to be our son and Lord willing one day (hopefully very soon) we will be able to officially say you are a Delgado.

I can not wait for the moment I get to hold you in my arms and tell you I am your Momma! I love you more then you will ever know and I want you to know we are working as hard and as fast as we can to bring you home.

I love you sweet boy and I am so excited to see how well you are doing through your FaceBook page!

Love your soon to be Momma!

Vanessa

We had our psych. evaluation's today.

Jason and I had our psych. evaluations today and they went really well. I was really nervous the whole time but overall it was a great experience. I am so thankful that none of the other psychologist were able to do it for us because we really really liked the one we used.

We did an interview together first then he interview me by myself while Jason did his testing then I did my testing and he interviewed Jason by himself. He was super easy to talk to and had a lot of really good advice for us.

He said everything looked good as far as our interviews went and as long as our testing results came back without any problems then we should be good to go (I can't remember exactly what he said but that is pretty close). We should know the results of our testing next week. Once we get that back we will send it to our social worker and she will finish up our home study. Once we mail our home study and our USCIS paperwork off then we will start working on our Dossier. Exciting stuff!!!! I am still not sure how long it will take it all depends on how long it will take to get the approval from USCIS but I will be calling often and doing everything I can to speed it up.

Thanks again for following our families journey to bring Baby A home!

Vanessa

We're still here.

Hi! I just wanted to write a quick post to let everyone know we are still here and busy as ever.

We are scheduled to have our psych. evaluations done THIS Wednesday and I could not be more excited! The Lord worked it out so perfectly and I can't wait to be able to get it do so that our home study will officially be done and we can send in our USCIS paperwork!

I might not be posting a lot just because a lot of what will are doing a this point is paperwork and there is only so much you can say about that :)

A few prayer requests:

1)Please pray for our psych. evaluations we will be there for at least 4 hours and I really want everything to go smoothly

2)Please pray our USCIS paperwork is processed quickly

3)Please pray I wont overlook anything in the paperwork (USCIS and dossier) that would cause a delay

4)Please pray God would be glorified through all of this

My love for Baby A grows more and more everyday and I can't wait for the day I get to hold him in my arms for the first time!

I will try to post after our psych. evaluations.

Vanessa

What's Next?

Now that we have PASSED our home study we have a lot of paper work to do. The country we are adopting from is now requiring a psychologist evaluation to be included in the home study which our social worker found out about the day before our home study. We went ahead and did the home study knowing it couldn't be completed until we had our evaluations done. Our social worker is almost finished with the draft for our home study but she wont be able to finish our home study until we get our evaluations. I am trying to get that scheduled asap!

After our home study is complete then we will send that and our USCIS (immigration) paperwork to... well the place you send the USCIS paper :) That takes about 3 months to get back. I will be calling them often trying to get that part going as fast as we can. While we are waiting for that to be done we will be working on our Dossier. The Dossier is tons and tons of paperwork that will need to be filled out. Once that's done and we get our USCIS approval then our adoption agency sends our home study, dossier, and USCIS over to Eastern Europe and we wait for and invitation to travel to the country and meet ANTON! We will be there for about ten days that trip and that is when we will get to officially commit to his adoption (we are officially committed in America). Then we have to come back home for two or three months and wait for our final court date. When we go back the second time we will go for about two and a half weeks. We will go to court and officially adopt him then bring him home 10 days later. It is going to be so hard to go meet him on that first trip and spend time with him then come home without him but I know this is all part of the process. We love Anton and can't wait to bring him home no matter how long that take.

A few people were asking if we were covered as far as bandages go once we bring him home and I am so excited to say we are. There is an organization that will be providing us with everything we need until our insurance adds him to our policy. Praise God for this!

Anton is doing really well. He is gaining weight and he loves his baths which is amazing because it can be very painful for some people with EB. There is a new update on his Help Anton FB page if you want to read more about how he is doing. That is also where I get the pictures of Anton from.

We love this baby soooooo much and we can't wait to bring him home. The whole process could take anywhere from six months to a year but we are praying if it is the Lord's will that we can bring him home as soon as possible.

Don't forget to check out The Hope For Anton Blog to see what's up for bid or if you were wanting to make a donation with out biding on something you can click on his picture on the right side of this blog and donate directly through his Reece's Rainbow page but I will say the bidding is fun and you can get your Christmas shopping done early. Reece's Rainbow's server is having a hard time with all the traffic it's been getting lately so if the link is not working you can try back later.

Thank you guys so much for the support and donations we are so thankful for the work God is doing in our lives!

How cute is Anton with baby food on his face!?! He is getting so big!

Our home study is today!

I just wanted to let everyone know that our home study is TODAY! Time is flying by. It amazes me that we found out about and fell in love with Baby A on February 8th and the Lord has already allowed us to commit being his forever family and tomorrow TOMORROW is our home study. God is so faithful and I can't wait to watch the rest of this story unfold. I most likely won't blog for the rest of the weekend ,well maybe I will do a 2 second post to let y'all know if we passed or failed the home study, but other than that I am going to spend time with my family and enjoy breathing (not sure if y'all knew this but it's hard to breathe when you have a home study in 6 hours ha).

Talk to you soon (well maybe not talk but type... oh I am full of jokes at 2am)

Vanessa

do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Philippines 4:6-7

Lots to do...

Hi everyone I just wanted to stop in really quick and say I made it home safely and I am crazy busy :)

Jason and I just completed three and a half hours of adoption training online and we are about to go for one more hour. We have learned a lot and we look forward to learning more.

I had an AMAZING time with the Williams' Family and I miss them so much. I told Patrice they should more here but she keeps saying something about how they have beaches and mountains blah what are beaches and mountains compared to the joys of living close to us haha :) I'm kidding of course... well kind of.

I have a lot of paperwork to get together before our home study and I have a few more things to do to get our house ready so I might not blog very much over these next few days.

Our home study is officially scheduled for Saturday at 9am!!!!

I will try to keep y'all updated. I can not tell you guys thank you enough for all the prayers and support! God is so faithful and it has been so neat to watch everything coming together!

I leave you with a few amazing blogs to read. The first one was written by Kristy titled Little People Big Difference and it is about Kristy, Patrice and my children who are alive (including our sweet boy Anton) and the ones that are with Jesus it is so sweet and you will not regret reading it HERE.

The other one was written by Patrice and it is the full story of how she found Anton and how I later found him on my friend Kristy's FB page click HERE to read it.

The last thing I will leave you with is the link to the Hope for Anton blog there are some really neat fundraisers going on over there right now so hurry before you miss them :)

Answers about fundraising

Hi again! Today has been a really fun day! I spent the day taking step by step pictures of all things Jonah :) diaper changes, getting dressed and undressed, bath, dressing change, before bed routine. I am feeling more and more prepared to care of Anton's EB. I know a lot of it we will have to wait until he is home to see exactly what his skin can and can not handle but I think we have a GREAT starting point thanks to the William's Family!

A few people have asked me if we are still raising support for the adoption and the answer is YES! You can still donate directly on Anton's Reece's Rainbow page when you click on the link you will notice he has two profiles on Reece's Rainbow one has our family information beside it the other has his story beside it. One of them has more money than the other but I wanted y'all to know that all of the money from both of those places will go toward the costs associated with Anton's adoption. So don't worry if you gave and it is not on the new page it is still on the old one and we for sure be able to use it. Reece's Rainbow also made us a Pay Pal button for our blog and that will go directly to his account through Reece's Rainbow. I just haven't had a chance to put that up yet.

There is another really cool way to donate and that is on the Hope for Anton Blog. Patrice Williams (my friend I am staying with) found out about Anton through the EB community around the end of 2010. She has a HUGE heart for Anton and wasn't sure if God was calling their family to adopt him. They soon realized that God was not calling them to adopt Anton but she knew she wanted to help this sweet baby find a home. It was at that time Patrice decided to start doing fundraising for Anton's adoption it was around the same time that Recce's Rainbow added him to their page. Patrice wrote a VERY detailed blog about how she found Anton and how I then found him through a mutual friend Kristy. You can check out that post HERE! If you want to give towards Anton's adoption make sure you check out the Hope for Anton Blog and see if there anything on there you want to bid on or buy.

It is my desire to update this blog as often as possible because I truly want you guys to know where we are in this process. I know there are so many people that love Anton and are praying for him and I want you all to know we appreciate it so much!

Sweet little Anton I just wanted you to know that we love you very much and we are working as hard and as fast as we can to bring you home!

Vanessa

Anton has found his forever family... AND IT'S US!!!!

I would like to introduce you to the newest member of our family

Anton!

We love Anton so much and can't wait to bring him home. I'm not exactly sure the timeline of everything but as soon as I know I will post it. We are soooooo excited and look forward to the day we get to kiss our Anton's sweet cheeks!

http://reecesrainbow.org/sponsordelgado

Please make sure in sharing Anton's story you do not post what country he is from. You can say Eastern Europe but not the country.

Thanks

3/8/11 Staying with the William's Family

I didn't help with dressing changes today because Jonah's grandmother was still here so she helped and I took video. I am going to get to help tomorrow though and I am excited about that! Patrice's friend (she is now my friend too more about that later) Muffy is going to come over and take pictures of me doing dressing changes on Thursday.

Back to Muffy she is hosting a women's Bible study at her house and they are going through the book Radical. Patrice and I went last night and it was a great time of fellowship and challenging each other. All the ladies were so sweet and so nice. If you haven't read the book Radical you must order it right away. It is so convicting to see how much the world has influenced my walk with the Lord but such a neat time for repentance.

Here is a picture of the ladies at the study.

Patrice posted a blog about our last few days go check it out here.


We took Jonah to the doctor today for his two year check up today. He was really upset when we first got there just because he knew where he was. He was crying so hard at one point it made me cry. I was just so sad that he was sad. Patrice is such an AMAZING mother. She sang to Jonah and just loved on him until he calmed down. He snuggled with her for awhile then got down and played happily for the rest of the time we were there.

We went and got hot fudge sundays after we left the doctors office and I have to say eating hot fudge sundays before lunch is the only way to go :)

I had so much fun playing with Jonah today. He LOVES bubbles and playing outside! I had fun pushing him in his car.

Sorry I'm not posting many pictures I am using Matt's computer and I don't want to upload them all on here. Once I get home I will post more blogs with pictures.

Patrice and Matt have such a great routine. It is so neat to watch them work together everything they looks like it takes no effort at all but they are working hard most of the day. They work great together as a team and know exactly what to do to help each other and Jonah. I pray if we are able to adopt Baby A we will also be able to work together like this.

I'm headed off to bed but hopefully I will post all about helping with dressing changes tomorrow.

Vanessa

Are you sure you want to do this, you know it's a life long commitment right?

I have had a few people ask me if I was sure we wanted to do this so I thought I would address that question. I had been thinking about this for a while but never got around to posting it. I saw my friend Kristy's blog post a few days ago and it was along these same lines. Her and her husband are becoming foster to adopt parents and have really had a lot of opposition as they have moved forward. If you think about it could you please pray for their family. Here is the blog she posted answering the question "Why would you do that?"

So now to answer the question "are we sure we want to do this???" The easy answer to that question is yes with out a doubt we are sure we want to do this. Now for the long answer. When I was about 8 weeks pregnant with Melody and Madison before we even knew we were having twins and before we knew they were conjoined I had a feeling that something was wrong with my baby. I remember telling Jason I really think something is wrong with our baby I think our baby has Down Syndrome. Jason and I talked a little bit about it but we just prayed and trusted the Lord for His will not ours. During the next few weeks I started having a HUGE heart for special needs kids.

A few weeks before we found out that we were having conjoined twins we went to a discernment conference put on by Justin Peters. I was so blessed by his ministry. Justin Peters was born with Cerebral Palsy and he has such a neat testimony. Justin travels the world preaching the truth of God's word and exposing the Word of Faith Movement. If you have never heard of his ministry please check out his website. Justin has a hard time walking and is often in a wheel chair but his parents loved him enough to teach him the truth of God's word and he has never let his Cerebral Palsy slow him down. I remember praying after the conference and I prayed something like this "Lord if you ever choose to give us a child with special needs I pray that we will teach our child the hard truths of God's word and I pray that you would use our child for your glory." It was just a few weeks later that we found out that we were having twins and that they were conjoined.

I found out that our twins were conjoined with I was 19 weeks pregnant and I delivered them at 32 weeks. We spent those 13 weeks going to the doctor all the time and learning as much as we could about them and things we could do to help them. Our girls had a zero chance of survival but we knew that God was the one forming them (Psalm 139) and He would decide when they were born and when they would die. We trusted God with our babies lives. We did everything in our power to help our daughters. I went into labor at 32 weeks and our daughters were born ALIVE! They lived for about an hour and we were so blessed to spend time after they were born.

I was saying all that so that you all would know I really feel like God has been preparing us to care for a child with special medical needs for over two years now.

When I read about the baby we want to adopt his medical condition didn't scare me at all. I had been following blogs of families whose children had EB on and off since I was pregnant with the twins. As soon as I found out about him I started doing everything I could to learn about EB and figure out how to care for him.

I know that caring for this baby is a life long commitment and Jason and I are more than willing to commit to caring for him for the rest of our lives. I don't feel any differently about him than I would if I was pregnant with him. If I was pregnant with him and I found out something was wrong with him abortion would not be and option I would do exactly what I did with the twins. I would go to doctors, talk to other families whose children had the same thing, I would contact insurance and make sure everything our child needed was covered and I would cover that sweet baby in prayer. Those are all the things I did for Melody and Madison and those are all the things I am doing for the baby we are wanting to adopt. This is not option for us we want to move forward as fast as we can to bring this sweet boy home.

The next big thing for us is the home study. I talked to our social worker today and I just love her! Our home study will be longer than normal because our social worker wants to extra time to document everything we are doing to prepare to care for Baby A. She said it would only take a week to finish and write the report which is AMAZING! Lord willing we will know by the end of this month if we passed the home study. I can not wait for the day we are able to "officially" commit to him! We of course are already committed in our hearts but if we are able to commit on paper that would be amazing! It is still early in the process and someone could get him before us but we are praying if it the Lord's will that He will allow us to keep moving forward.

Our big prayer right now is we will pass our home study and be able to officially commit to him. We will see what the Lord has in store for us.

Thanks for keeping up with us!
Vanessa

updates

I just wanted to write a quick blog to update y'all on how things are going.

I ended up not driving to go stay with the Williams Family but I will be flying there in two weeks!

Our home study is scheduled for March 19th and our social worker told me she would most likely have it back to me in a week. I couldn't believe she was willing to get it back to us that fast! Almost everyone I called said it would take 30 days and she is going to do it in a week! Well Lord willing of course.

Please be praying I can get all the paper work done for our home study and please be praying for wisdom as we will have to answer some very hard questions about why we want to do this and how we plan to care for the baby. The why is not hard and the how we plan to care for him is not hard either but proving to the country he is from that we are able to care for him might be hard. So if you think about it could you please be praying that God would begin working even now in the hearts of the people involved and that if this is God's will he will give us favor with them.

Those are all the things for now. Not much to report but news none the less.

Thank you all for following our story. It has blessed me so much to see how many people are supporting this possible adoption. We will keep moving forward and do everything we can to get him as long as the Lord keeps opening the doors.

I thank God for giving Jason and I the desire to be this child's parents and I pray if it is God's will that we will get to bring him home soon!

Vanessa

Paper Pregnancy (adoption term)

Have you ever heard the term paper pregnancy??? It is what they say about someone who is in the process of adopting a child. I always loved that saying but it came true for me today. We are trying to get all the paperwork done for our homestudy as fast as we can and part of that required a trip to the doctor. Today Jason and I had to go to the doctor to get a TB test and get a letter signed saying we are in good health. This was the first time we have done something for the adoption outside of the house and it was soooo much fun. After we left the doctors office we celebrated with a small Frappe from McDonald's and a dollar movie. So here is where the paper pregnancy part comes in. I remember being pregnant with Kenya and after our first sonogram with her we went out to eat to celebrate. I remember how excited and giddy I was all day and that is exactly how I felt today. I don't really know how to describe it but it is so neat to be moving forward.

I got to see some new pictures of the baby we want to adopt today and it overwhelmed me with joy but it also broke my heart. There is a picture where he was leaning out of his nanny's arms to see a toy and it reminded me so much of Judah. I also read that his nanny had to leave him for a little while and he cried most of the time and wouldn't eat. I got so sad thinking about him having to leave her if we get to adopt him. Of course he needs a Mommy and Daddy and if the Lord allows us to adopt him I know we will bond with him and he will bond with us but she is the only Mommy he has ever known. I know it is going to be hard for him to leave her. My heart has been heavy for that sweet boy today.

You see all these emotions today??? Remind you of being pregnant??? Happy sad happy sad...

In other news the Williams Family has invited me to come stay with them for a week. Patrice and Matt are going to teach me how to care for their son Jonah who also has EB. If you have never read their blog you HAVE to check it out. They are an amazing family and I am so blessed that they are allowing my to come stay with them! I am planning on going at the end of this week!!!

Please be praying for my family while I am gone. This is the first time I am going to leave Judah and he is a Momma's boy!

Those are all the things I can think of to update you on. Please feel free to ask us any questions that you might have.

Vanessa

God is AWESOME!!!! Home Study update

I was starting to feel like things really hit a stand still. I felt like I was taking everything into my own hands and not trusting God with this adoption. I stepped back prayed and tried to keep reminding myself that God is sovereign over all things.

We were having a really hard time finding a home study agency we felt comfortable with. Our friend Kenny told us about a company his friends used to adopt two of their kids and they had nothing but good things to say about the company. I hadn't really heard of the company so I wasn't really wanting to jump on another crazy long phone call just so they could tell me they couldn't do it. I spent some time in prayer and then I thought I would go over the list of home study companies that our adoption agency had given us and wouldn't you know it the last one on the list was the same one Kenny recommend! I couldn't believe it. I called them right away and the director talked to me for a really long time and explained soooo much to me. I told her all about the child we wanted to adopt and she was excited for us. I told her we wanted to get moving on this right away so she told me to fax her our birth certificates, social security cards and our application and she would get working on our background checks to speed things up! I couldn't believe it the Lord provided someone who was personally recommended and was wanting to get this done as fast as we are!!!!

God is so faithful! We don't know for sure if we will get to adopt this baby but we will keep moving forward and trust that whatever God ordains is right!

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I just wanted to clear up what I meant when I said we can't talk about it. Here is what we are not allowed to do... we can't say where he is from, what his name is and we can't post a picture other then that we are good to go. I will be keeping up with the adoption blog so y'all can join us on this journey I just wont post any of those things above.