You Can Get Excited Now

October 27, 2005
We made the long drive, and met with Betty, our caseworker, this morning to turn in our profile albums. She read through the albums, and even got teary-eyed as she read our "Dear Birthparent" letters. She said the albums were perfect, and was really excited to see them.

She will be meeting with the Washington caseworkers on November 8th, and will hand out our albums to them at that meeting. Our homestudy legal paperwork should be finished processing through the state by the end of November. (Although, our albums could possibly be shown before the official completion.)

Betty mentioned that they have 3 pregnant moms at the Oregon office right now that are due in the Spring. It is still a bit early to start showing them family profile albums, since it is preferable to wait until they are further along in their pregnancy/counseling process before they begin considering families. Betty hadn't heard yet how many moms are working with the Washington offices right now.

It was a good time of just chatting with Betty, and getting questions answered. She said "You can start getting excited now, and start putting the nursery together!" (To see our nursery plans, you can click on the Baby Registry site, listed on the Links section on the left side of our blog.)

The Waiting Begins

October 20, 2005
Betty called us at 9:00 am from her cell phone, even though she was out of town, to schedule our next appointment. (We had called earlier, and left a message; assuming she would respond when she returned.) It was good to hear from her again.

So, we have an appointment to take our profile albums up to her office on Thursday, October 27.

We've still been working on grant applications, but other than that, all we can do now is patiently & prayerfully wait.

Special Visitor

October 19, 2005
Today, a Christian African-American man whom our church does business with occasionally, stopped by my office for his scheduled visit. After all the paperwork stuff was complete, he surprised me by handing me a photo album! Inside were pictures of his beautiful new baby girl! He mentioned that they had adopted her this year, and I told him we were adopting also. He asked where we were in the process, and described a little bit about their journey as well. I had one of our adoption profile albums close by, so he was able to look through it. He seemed to enjoy looking through it, and complimented it throughout.

He stayed for quite awhile, and I tried to soak up all the information he could give me. Not only did he have some great comments about the general adoption process, but he also had some wonderful advice for parents who are potentially adopting minority/biracial infants. As a biracial couple, he and his wife have also recently been speakers for adoptive parent training classes! Since we are open to adopting a child of any race, he emphasized a fact I had read recently and pondered over, which is that "You need to make friends with people of other races who can give you the advice you need in parenting a biracial child." Then he said, "So, I am now your good friend. You and Calvin are welcome to call us anytime, and we'd love to get together for dinner & talk." He specifically encouraged us to make Christian biracial friends, if possible, since of course, that is how we want to raise our family.

So, God has succeeded in surprising us again, as he is preparing us along this journey. He had a purpose in bringing this man into my office today. It wasn't a coincidence. It was an answer to prayer.

God's Math

October 17, 2005
God has blessed us again! We received a check for $500 to go in our adoption savings! (This is unrelated to the financial gift previously mentioned a few days ago.) We are praising God for His provision. It is so amazing to see "God's math" at work; that He is able to "multiply and divide" dollars in the miraculous way only He can.

A Call From Betty

October 12, 2005
Betty, our caseworker, called this morning to see how our albums were coming along. It was exciting to be able to tell her that they're all done! She said that she will be out of the office for about a week, so we will work on scheduling a time to visit her office after she returns. She was happy to know that we're all "on the same page, timewise."

The CPR class went well last night, so we're all prepared now. The instructor was kind of "spastic," so it was an interesting evening. She couldn't find any of those little wallet-size CPR cards, so she just wrote a note saying we had completed the class. (We needed to prove to Betty that we had completed it, so that she could mark that in our file.) I felt like a kid asking for a hall pass or something!

Another Class

October 11, 2005
We are scheduled to attend another class tonight. This time, it is an Infant/Child CPR class at the hospital. We studied our books the other night, and we're ready to go! There was a mix-up in the registration process when we paid & signed up, and they accidently registered us for a class at a different hospital scheduled for last month. They mailed us our books and receipt, and we discovered the error. When we immediately called to notify them of the error, we were told it would be corrected right away. Well, we never heard anything, so Calvin called the instructor the other day, and discovered that the error was never corrected. Thankfully, she still had room in the class, and added us to her list! So, we should be all registered now.

One More Step Completed!

October 9, 2005
Steve gave us our final two adoption profile album copies today that he has been printing for us! We really appreciate the blessing of all his hard work. Our friends enjoyed looking at them with us, and we are so excited to have this big step completed. Now we need to call Betty, and schedule a time to go up to her office to deliver the albums.

We also spoke with several of our friends, who informed us that they have been filling out letters of reference forms for our grant application we sent in awhile ago. It is so neat to see our friends taking initiative and being actively involved in this journey with us. (We didn't know the letters would be arriving, but they filled them out without us even asking!) Thank you!

Surprise Gift

October 3, 2005
I just returned from the bank, where I deposited a check for $300 into our adoption savings account! This check was a surprise gift from a church ministry team, and they have also committed another $200 for us by December (for a total of $500!). Thank you! We are just standing in awe of God, as we are watching Him provide for these expenses.

Friends' Blessings

October 2, 2005
Today, we were really blessed by our friends! When we arrived at church this morning, Steve was waiting for us with 2 copies of our adoption profile album that he had printed for us! They look great, and he will be working on printing the final 2 sets later this week.

After church, we stopped by some other friends' house, and picked up the crib & mattress they had offered us! (They had requested that we please hurry and get it out of their garage, so they could start parking their cars in there!) It is an adorable white crib. I'll need to clean it, since it has lots of "dust bunnies" on it, and then we can start setting it up! (We'll post a picture later.)

People keep asking us if "we've heard anything yet," and "how things are going." Sometimes, it seems like everyone else is more impatient than we are!

Later in the evening, I put the 2 sets of profile copies into our photo albums, so those two are now ready to go to the agency's offices. Thank you, God!

The Family Doctor

September 30, 2005
This morning, we had an appointment to meet our new family doctor. Her office is right next to the hospital, only a mile away from our house. After several mix-ups by receptionists, we were finally able to see the doctor. We really enjoyed talking with her, and she was able to answer a lot of our questions. She was genuinely interested in our lives, and was excited about our goal of adoption. She assured us that she will definitely be available for our family. (We had been previously scheduled to meet with another doctor last month, but had to cancel, since she is moving out of town.) We're thankful for friends' recommendations of our new doctor, and that we were able to see her so quickly. It is a blessing to have one more step completed on the "checklist," and we are praising God for His provision.