Hello!
I haven’t posted an update in forever, mainly because it always feels like there is nothing to update you guys on. But truthfully, there are updates, just not positive ones which are harder for me to share. We received many more “not yet’s” throughout the end of 2020. Some of them were harder to take than others. Honestly, all of them are very painful now as the possibility of adoption seems further out of reach each week. Our home study expires in March, so we will likely need to renew it. However, we are not positive if we will renew as we are set to move back to Ohio this June. It seems silly to renew it for a few more months and then receive more “not yet’s” just to move to Ohio and pay for a completely new one months later. We are full of disappointment & sadness as our kids continue to grow. Most of you who know me, know that a big desire of mine is to have all my kids super close together right around the 18- month mark. I just love that age gap and think it is absolutely perfect. Joelle is now 22 months, and we have no ending to the adoption process in sight, so that has made the No’s harder to take.
Sometimes we feel that maybe it is not God’s will for us to adopt. Or maybe we misunderstood when we were supposed to. We don’t know. But as the weeks pass, we also have had to accept that we may no longer be able to present our “yes” to moms outside of the state of Florida. Isaiah will no longer be allowed to have paternity leave come February as he will be in a school program. Therefore making it hard to leave the state and stay somewhere for a few weeks while we wait on ICPC. Again, all pretty hard to take as it seems like we are receiving a massively closed door towards the possibility of adoption.
However, we KNOW that God is in control. We TRUST His timing. We have FAITH in His plan. The difficulty comes in that we thought this was what we wanted and thought it was also His plan. We accept that things will not happen the way we desire or in our timing, which has been painful, but like I said- whether we adopt 3 years from now, or tomorrow. We do have FAITH in His plan, but we are still hurting that His plan has not aligned with ours thus far. We ask for continued prayers as we seek His plan for us and our future hopeful adoption. As of now, with our ability to be able to drop everything and go dwindling away, and moving across the states approaching. We have decided to just pray & trust God to open the doors for us and our desire to grow our family. Whether biologically or through adoption. As a lot of you know, I found out that I only have half of my uterus, so getting pregnant is naturally harder for us. So while we are no longer trying to control the situation and ‘prevent’ pregnancy, we are still very hopeful and wanting to adopt. Whatever God brings our way we are ready for.
For those of you who have given to us financially, we SOO appreciate it and are overjoyed that if we are matched, we likely have enough funds for the first payment (usually 50% of the costs are due up front). We have spent around 10K already of our own personal money- to sign with a few agencies, two consultants, we’ve done our profile book and had it updated, and paying for a lot of the paperwork and processes. We feel we have tried to control the situation and add extra agencies and consultants in hopes to do this in “our time” and we no longer feel comfortable doing that. We are trying to be content with what we have already done and just give complete control to God and trust in His timing and plan.
In summary, our prayer requests are:
*continued prayers for the expectant mothers, their babies, and families- some of these situations are just completely heartbreaking and devastating. Pray for them to have support, love, and to know Jesus.
*Prayers for us to continue to have faith and trust in God’s plan
*Prayers for this to happen sooner rather than later
*Prayers for our upcoming move as we transition out of the air force.
I would love to update you guys tomorrow or even in an hour if we get chosen for a quick adoption. I love to be hopeful for those things even though I know the possibilities are slim. But regardless of what happens, we appreciate each of you. We love you and we are so thankful for your prayers and support.
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