Im not sure if any of you have seen this video before or even heard this song...but I hadn't and I had to pass it along. Its incredible. Click on the link and prepare to cry :)
EVERYTHING TO ME
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
The wait...in words.
My friend Lori posted this on her blog recently and it hits so close to home for us and it really puts into words the feeling of the wait and roller coaster ride of adoption.
If you haven’t been through an adoption think of it like this, you haven’t eaten all day; you’re starving so you go to a restaurant. It’s a good restaurant and as always there is a line of people waiting to be seated, so you go to the end of the line. After a time you make your way to the front (hooray you’re at the front) only to have the Hostess give you a pager and tell you the actual wait is an hour (boo you have to wait some more). An hour goes by but your pager doesn’t buzz. You watch as another party is seated (you are certain they arrived after you). You check in with the Hostess and she promises it will be just a few minutes longer. She tells you you’re the next to be seated (you think about going to another restaurant but the wait is long everywhere and since you would have to go to the back of that line and since the food here is REALLY great you decide to stay). A half hour later your buzzer goes off and you rush to the Hostess, who finally brings you to your table. Now since you spent the last 90 minutes studying the menu you know just what you want to order and you are more than ready to eat. Just then, the waitress hurries by apologetically, "I’ll be right with you" she promises as she disappears without explanation.
BUT TO REALLY GET A SENSE OF THE PATIENCE REQUIRED TO ADOPT ….
Now imagine the waitress after her inexplicable absence comes back and says “I’m really sorry but I need to take a break right now. I’m not sure how long I will need so just be patient and enjoy looking at the menu until I get back. I know you are hungry but I promise the food is soooooo good it will be worth the wait.”
Well it's something like that.
If you haven’t been through an adoption think of it like this, you haven’t eaten all day; you’re starving so you go to a restaurant. It’s a good restaurant and as always there is a line of people waiting to be seated, so you go to the end of the line. After a time you make your way to the front (hooray you’re at the front) only to have the Hostess give you a pager and tell you the actual wait is an hour (boo you have to wait some more). An hour goes by but your pager doesn’t buzz. You watch as another party is seated (you are certain they arrived after you). You check in with the Hostess and she promises it will be just a few minutes longer. She tells you you’re the next to be seated (you think about going to another restaurant but the wait is long everywhere and since you would have to go to the back of that line and since the food here is REALLY great you decide to stay). A half hour later your buzzer goes off and you rush to the Hostess, who finally brings you to your table. Now since you spent the last 90 minutes studying the menu you know just what you want to order and you are more than ready to eat. Just then, the waitress hurries by apologetically, "I’ll be right with you" she promises as she disappears without explanation.
BUT TO REALLY GET A SENSE OF THE PATIENCE REQUIRED TO ADOPT ….
Now imagine the waitress after her inexplicable absence comes back and says “I’m really sorry but I need to take a break right now. I’m not sure how long I will need so just be patient and enjoy looking at the menu until I get back. I know you are hungry but I promise the food is soooooo good it will be worth the wait.”
Well it's something like that.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
3 weeks, 6 days...
So, its not like I'm counting down the days or anything...I mean, its not like I have a calendar laying next to me on the computer desk with huge X's crossing off the days until April 19th.....Because "if" I did, I would be able to tell you that we are 3 weeks and 6 days away from this date...and that would just be coo coo. :)It just started hitting me how close we are to this huge change and event in our life that we have been so patiently waiting for. And I use patiently, very...very...loosely.
I continue to keep my promise to post updates regularly :)
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
When it's time to change, you've got to rearrange...your blog :)
Alr
ight....so I didn't really stick to my New Years blogging resolution as promised and those who know me well, won't be too surprised. Oops! And I decided today to change up the blog a bit. I was tired of the old one and needed something different :)
But, the good news is...........we have good news!
Since my last post alot has happened, where to begin?!
Once our adoption homestudy had its official "stamp of approval" in December we started looking at profiles. We were overwhelmed with how many children were looking for their forever families. We always knew that there were ALOT of children waiting to be placed, but when you are actually looking at these children and their profiles, its definitely overwhelming.
We came across a child that jumped out at us. It was as if he was popping out of the computer screen saying "Im yours!" We sent in our homestudy to be considered and waited......
And then we waited some more.... Finally a few weeks later we were given some more information about him!! After a few more weeks we were narrowed down as prospective parents and given his long profile to read (this includes his bio family history, medical history etc). This information was given to us on a very special day...our Wedding Anniversary :) This was the BEST gift either of us could've asked for. We let his caseworker know that we were absolutely still interested in him!
Here we are a few weeks later and we just received an invite for an Adoption Staffing!! :) We will have our meeting on April 19th and they will decide THAT day if we will be a Forever Family of 3 :)
About "him": He is 5 years old and we are only sharing the first letter of his name at this time, "S".
From the beginning of our adoption journey we always said our age range was 0-12 months....2 years at most. After seeing "S", our age restriction went out the window.
Alot of people dont understand the adoption of an older child, some of our family included. Im sure on the other side of it, it is a surprise since we always thought and planned for an infant. Well, as most everyone can attest, Gods road map is the only one that matters. He has a path for us that we are just now beginning to see and we are so excited for the rest of the road left to travel.
We have chosen to keep his biological family history and reasons for his placement private. We will share the information with "S" when the time comes but we feel that it is his information to share if he so chooses. We know that this information would put our cautious family members a little more at ease to know what a happy, healthy child he is...but hopefully you will soon know this first hand :)
Please say a prayer for us and for "S", he deserves an amazing Forever Family!
ight....so I didn't really stick to my New Years blogging resolution as promised and those who know me well, won't be too surprised. Oops! And I decided today to change up the blog a bit. I was tired of the old one and needed something different :)But, the good news is...........we have good news!
Since my last post alot has happened, where to begin?!
Once our adoption homestudy had its official "stamp of approval" in December we started looking at profiles. We were overwhelmed with how many children were looking for their forever families. We always knew that there were ALOT of children waiting to be placed, but when you are actually looking at these children and their profiles, its definitely overwhelming.
We came across a child that jumped out at us. It was as if he was popping out of the computer screen saying "Im yours!" We sent in our homestudy to be considered and waited......
And then we waited some more.... Finally a few weeks later we were given some more information about him!! After a few more weeks we were narrowed down as prospective parents and given his long profile to read (this includes his bio family history, medical history etc). This information was given to us on a very special day...our Wedding Anniversary :) This was the BEST gift either of us could've asked for. We let his caseworker know that we were absolutely still interested in him!
Here we are a few weeks later and we just received an invite for an Adoption Staffing!! :) We will have our meeting on April 19th and they will decide THAT day if we will be a Forever Family of 3 :)
About "him": He is 5 years old and we are only sharing the first letter of his name at this time, "S".
From the beginning of our adoption journey we always said our age range was 0-12 months....2 years at most. After seeing "S", our age restriction went out the window.
Alot of people dont understand the adoption of an older child, some of our family included. Im sure on the other side of it, it is a surprise since we always thought and planned for an infant. Well, as most everyone can attest, Gods road map is the only one that matters. He has a path for us that we are just now beginning to see and we are so excited for the rest of the road left to travel.
We have chosen to keep his biological family history and reasons for his placement private. We will share the information with "S" when the time comes but we feel that it is his information to share if he so chooses. We know that this information would put our cautious family members a little more at ease to know what a happy, healthy child he is...but hopefully you will soon know this first hand :)
Please say a prayer for us and for "S", he deserves an amazing Forever Family!
Friday, January 1, 2010
Happy New Year!
Ok....so one of my resolutions for 2010 is to do a better job at this blogging thing!
We FINALLY received our letter in the mail that OFFICIALLY tells us that we have completed the pre-adoption process!!!!! Basically...means that we are waiting for a phone call for a placement!
We both literally cried...actual tears when we opened the letter on Christmas Eve. It was the best Christmas present ever, next to actually having our child here of course :)
I hope everyone had a VERY Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
I hear 2010 is the year of the baby :)
We FINALLY received our letter in the mail that OFFICIALLY tells us that we have completed the pre-adoption process!!!!! Basically...means that we are waiting for a phone call for a placement!
We both literally cried...actual tears when we opened the letter on Christmas Eve. It was the best Christmas present ever, next to actually having our child here of course :)
I hope everyone had a VERY Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
I hear 2010 is the year of the baby :)
Friday, September 11, 2009
Let's see if I remember how to blog....
Sooo....It has been some time since our last blog post. Ok....almost 4 months! Yikes!
Alot has happened in the last 4 months, personally and with the adoption.
I wont bore you with the personal since we all know that you want to know about the adoption!!
JD and I decided in May that due to finances and other factors, our International Adoption was not meant to happen for us at this time. It was a hard pill to swallow, but we knew that we would have to put our Kazakhstan adoption on hold. Before we even had the chance to discuss what we were going to do...we met some amazing people that educated us on state adoption. After a ZILLION questions....we felt that this was the path to our baby. The timing of meeting them and when we knew that our International adoption would have to be put on hold was definitely a God thing. It was too ironic to be anything else.
We know that if we had not started our Kazakhstan adoption journey, we never would have met the families that have supported us on this journey and given us advice for all of these months. We truly feel that our reason for starting our journey on the Kaz path had aligned us with friends and supporters that we needed in our life. We learned so much about ourselves and the true meaning of patience!
We decided to keep this news private for awhile, even from our family and closest friends, because its easy for us to handle the ups and downs of this process, and all of the changes or re-directions...but it is alot harder for them and we wanted to wait until we had jumped through all of our hoops (classes and inspections) before we shared. Thank you all for sticking with us on this long and crazy journey! We hope to be able to pick up where we left off with our Kaz adoption one day....maybe for baby #2!
I will definitely get better at updating the blog now. We are closer than ever to meeting and introducing you to Baby Hanks. :)
Alot has happened in the last 4 months, personally and with the adoption.
I wont bore you with the personal since we all know that you want to know about the adoption!!
JD and I decided in May that due to finances and other factors, our International Adoption was not meant to happen for us at this time. It was a hard pill to swallow, but we knew that we would have to put our Kazakhstan adoption on hold. Before we even had the chance to discuss what we were going to do...we met some amazing people that educated us on state adoption. After a ZILLION questions....we felt that this was the path to our baby. The timing of meeting them and when we knew that our International adoption would have to be put on hold was definitely a God thing. It was too ironic to be anything else.
We know that if we had not started our Kazakhstan adoption journey, we never would have met the families that have supported us on this journey and given us advice for all of these months. We truly feel that our reason for starting our journey on the Kaz path had aligned us with friends and supporters that we needed in our life. We learned so much about ourselves and the true meaning of patience!
We decided to keep this news private for awhile, even from our family and closest friends, because its easy for us to handle the ups and downs of this process, and all of the changes or re-directions...but it is alot harder for them and we wanted to wait until we had jumped through all of our hoops (classes and inspections) before we shared. Thank you all for sticking with us on this long and crazy journey! We hope to be able to pick up where we left off with our Kaz adoption one day....maybe for baby #2!
I will definitely get better at updating the blog now. We are closer than ever to meeting and introducing you to Baby Hanks. :)
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Lowcountry Forever Families Festival PICS!
I'm sorry it has taken me a whole week to post pictures from the first annual Lowcountry Forever Families Festival! It was a busy, exciting, and exhausting day which yielded a week long recovery! :)JD and I were SOOO very pleased with the amount of support and attendance at our first year event. Families came from as far as Columbia, SC!! And a few people even asked if I would help them do this same event in their city! :)
We met some amazing families who have adopted from Guatemala, Columbia, Russia, and Kazakhstan! One family we met had adopted FOUR children from Kazakhstan. It was so great to have met them and to have the opportunity to hear about their journey and experience....which is exactly why JD and I chose to do this event in the first place!
We hope to make next year an even bigger event with an even bigger turnout!
Thank you to our incredible sponsors. Without you, this event would not have been able to happen! Thank you to every person who came out to support this event and helped us increase the community's awareness about adoption!
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