2013 Part 1

This blogging thing is not all that I hoped it would be. I thought it would be easy and that I would enjoy it. The fact is that it is very hard for me and that makes me not enjoy it at all. A lot has happened since my last post and there have been several times when I've tried to blog about them but just couldn't get the words out the way I wanted to. When I was pregnant with Bryson we blogged about everything all the way through his first year of life and for his first birthday we made the blog into a book so we could have it forever. I realized that my other children might want their stories in a book also. So here is Part 1 of their story.

 

On January 23 I was fixing dinner when the phone rang. Earlier that day I had gotten impatient and called our agency to see if they had forgotten about us because we had not gotten a call about a placement yet. I just kept worrying that there were babies out there that needed us! Our case manager informed me that they thought they had a placement the day before but it didn't work out and she assured me that it would not be long. So when the phone rang that evening I though nothing of it. My hands were dirty so I had Chris answer for me. He handed me the phone and told me that it was the agency and that they had a placement for us! I took the phone and our case manager gave me what little information she had. She said it was an 11 month old girl and her 6 week old brother. She told me that several other families were also contacted about them so it would just depend on who contacted CPS first. We wouldn't have anymore information until the next day. I hung up the phone and then it hit us... did she say 11 months and 6 weeks? That's only a 9 month age difference! We immediately called our family and filled them in and then called some friends with younger children to see if we could borrow some clothes, car seats and other baby items we thought we would need.

 

We were already scheduled to go to a training at the Buckner office the next morning. We walked in expecting to hear some more news but nobody said anything. I can not tell you what that training was about because my mind just wasn't there. We finished around 11 that morning and finally our case manager called us back to our office. She told me that we were the first to contact CPS so that they would be coming to our home! The next thing she said was that she had never had this happen before but CPS wanted one of us to go to Houston to pick them up. The 6 week old was a preemie and he was still in the NICU and one of us would need to be there for his discharge. We agreed that I would be the one to go and Chris would stay here to pick up Bryson from Mother's Day Out. We laughed at how surprised he was going to be when I came home with two babies because we had not told him anything the night before.

 

I few hours later I was on the road with a CPS worker heading to Houston. I wondered how the 2 hour ride home was going to be with two babies. The case worker had more information about the children and their mother. She explained that the girl was currently in her second foster home and that we would be her third. She also said that the mother had not visited the baby while he was in the hospital for one reason or another. She was also unsure of who their fathers were. We were about 45 minutes outside of Houston when the case workers phone rang. It was the hospital and they told us that he would not be able to go home that day. All preemie babies are required to do a car seat test to make sure that being in a car seat does not effect their breathing. They had planned to do the test once we got there but decided to get it out of the way. The nurse told us that they would have to wait 2 days for him to retake the test. We decided to go ahead and visit him at the hospital because we would not be able to pick up the girl for a few more hours.

 

So let me just tell you that God has a very funny sense of humor! I'm not sure if you remember or not but we decided to do fostering to adopt because I can't carry babies full term and didn't not want to have another preemie! So here I am about to walk into the NICU to visit a baby that would soon be mine! He was a 6 pound little bundle of cuteness! Absolutely perfect! I was able to hold him and feed. It was sad to leave him there that evening but it was also a relief knowing that I would be able to go home with only one baby instead of two which would make things easier for me to get things together for them both.

 

We walked out of the hospital and waited in the parking lot for the other foster mom and little girl. We literally picked a baby up in a parking lot! She was the most beautiful little girl ever! Since I can't share her name I will just call her Lady Bug. The other family unloaded all of her stuff into the trunk of our car, gave her a kiss, told her they loved her and put her in my arms! I was in love! I had brought her an extra outfit and it was a good thing because she was wearing shorts and a short sleeve shirt in January. She actually came with a huge box of clothes which I was not expecting. They told us in our training that most of the kids would be coming with just the clothes on their backs. We loaded up in the car and headed HOME!

 

We got back to the house late that evening. I think Bryson was already asleep but Chris had explained things to him earlier. He was upset because her name was not Lily like he wanted, (we had friends that just had a baby named Lily) but other than that he handled the news well. I took Lady Bug to her new room and rocked her to sleep and put her in her crib. I slept on the twin bed in her room to make sure she was ok. The other foster mom had told me that she cried in her sleep. She didn't wake up once that night but I'm pretty sure I never went to sleep. Over the next few days we all just learned how to be together. We had to learn what she liked and didn't like. Now we just had to wait to bring her brother home too!

 

Well, since this is starting to turn into a novel this might be a good place to stop for now. I will finish up in the next few days. This maybe part 1 of 7!

~it's official!~

 

 

 

"I just don't think I could do it, I would get too attached."

 

I have heard it from almost every person after we tell them about our decision to adopt through foster care and we even said it ourselves in the beginning. I came across a blog post earlier that pretty much sums up why we are doing it... why we are choosing to get attached.. Please read!

 

THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD IN FOSTER CARE

Posted by Jason Johnson

 

I have been wanting to share my feelings on the subject for a while so when I found the blog I thought it was the perfect chance. But on a different note, we did FINALLY get the letter telling us that we are officially certified! Yay! Now we are just waiting on the call....maybe tomorrow :)

~still waiting~

Well we had the second part of our home study a few weeks ago and not much has changed. We are still just waiting. We finished with everything that we were responsible for so now we have to wait for all the paperwork to be finished. Hopefully we will be getting the call that we are certified any day now! Until then we will just keep waiting....waiting, waiting, waiting!

Did you see my new profile picture! Isn't it cute! I was so excited because it matches the background of my blog! Yeah! My aunt and uncle came to visit a few weeks ago and while they were here my aunt took our family pictures! 

Look at those beautiful eyes!
I will post the rest of the pictures after I send out my Christmas cards. I don't want to spoil the surprise!

One Thing Remains - Bethel Live

Just wanted to share :)

~home study, bunk beds and fall decorations~

  

We had our home study yesterday, well, the first part anyways. I was a little disappointed when she said she would have to come back another day to do the home environment part of the home study, but she said it wouldn't take as long as yesterday did. I thought I would have a lot to share about it but I really don't. We each had a personal interview and then we had a couples interview. She asked us a ton of questions about our family, our parents, our childhood, how we discipline, what sort of things we expect will change after children are placed with us, stuff like that. We also talked about the range of age we would be interested in. We would like for the children to be under Bryson's age but we would be willing to go up to age five if we need to, but we will see what God has in store for us! She did say that she thought it would be possible that we could be certified in three weeks! She also told us about a family that got certified on Monday and got a placement on Tuesday! How crazy would that be! I'm hoping to be able to spend Thanksgiving with a new little one :) 

 

I have been preparing our home for the home study for months now! I wasn't really sure what they would be checking for, but if they opened a drawer or a cabinet I wanted it to look perfect and clean! So I have cleaned every inch of this house and organized all or my drawers and cabinets. The best part about getting the house ready was preparing a room for the new kiddos! I wasn't really sure what to do for the room since we don't know the age or gender, so I did the best I could! The room isn't anything special right now but hopefully I can find some little things to add every now and then. Here's a picture!

 

It still needs some curtains and some stuff to hang on the wall and maybe a night light. It's sad that Bryson is too big to sleep in the crib now. In fact, he is so big that he has bunk beds now!


 

  

I was so excited to get them, probably more excited them! I just loved the thought of getting a brother for Bryson and all the fun they would have playing on these beds! Makes my heart happy! Thanks Aunt Beth for the bunk beds and all of the bedding! Such a blessing! Bryson loves them! He loves that the bottom bunk is like a tent, and I have to admit, it is nice and cozy under there! I may have taken a short little two hour nap in there yesterday!

  

 

I also did a little fall decorating to get our home ready! Here are a few pics!

 

 

 

 

 



I love this time of year, everything about it! Can't wait for Thanksgiving! 

 But that's all I have for now! I need to get a little stinky boy to bed! Please continue to be in prayer for us! We are oh so close to finishing!

-this little blog of mine-

I have been hitting the keys on this stinking keyboard for an hour a week now trying to write exactly what I want to say. I type a sentence or even a paragraph but it's quickly followed by the backspace key. I've had this problem since I started this blog in May and I think its because I just have so much that I want to share that I am having a hard time finding a place to start! So I'm just going to start typing and hopefully it will all make sense in the end. :)  I started this blog in May because I wanted to share with everyone about our decision to adopt through foster care. Adoption has always been apart of the plans for our future but we always figured it would be after we were done having kids of our own, but we are learning that God's plans are greater than ours!

After much prayer we decided that pregnancy was not a good option for me or our family so we started looking into adoption. I started researching different agencies and I even requested informational packets from several. They all sounded like good options, but the only one that had a local office was Buckner Family Services. On the back of their brochure was some information about fostering to adopt. This was an option that we had never considered and we thought that we should look into it. We had a ton of questions! So in March we met with the people at Buckner to discuss what fostering to adopt means and left feeling confident that God was leading us in that direction. There are hundreds of children in our state and even our county that need to be loved and cared for. Opening our home and our hearts to these children just made sense to us.
We want to show love like we are shown love.  

We started all of the paperwork and classes in May. Everything moved along smoothly until summer came. It was the busiest summer that we have ever had! Chris went to Africa for two weeks on a mission trip, then we went to youth camp for a week, we all went on a mission trip in Houston for a week and we went to visit family in Amarillo for a week. On top of that, my most favorite sister stayed with us for a whole month! :)  I knew that once summer was over that we would be able to finish up the last of it quickly, but there was a change of plans....

~SuPrIsE!!!~

Yep, it was a surprise! Big time! I showed Chris the test and we laughed... and then I cried! It wasn't going to be easy especially since our family lives 10 hours away. The next few weeks included blood work, doctors appointments, and lots and lots of prayer but about three weeks later I had a miscarriage. From day one we chose to praise God and trust in His perfect timing and in the end we continued to trust in Him! Through our loss He confirmed the desire in our hearts to open our home and our hearts to the children in need of love.

Thank you Jesus for your perfect timing!

  

We are excited to continue on our journey to meeting the special little ones that will soon steal a piece of our hearts! Your prayers are very much appreciated along with any questions or advice that you might have! I am excited to share this journey with you through my blog! Don't worry, next time there will be real pictures and I promise that I will update often! I might even blog about my Pinterest projects gone bad! (cause they all go bad)

 

Thanks for stopping by!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**I got the picture of the pregnancy test from google. That's not actually the test I used. Just thought I should clarify.

 

***If you were wondering about my past pregnancy problems you can check out the old blog here.