Finally an update!!!!!

I have been hesitant to post updates here, as there hadn't really been any...and now there are a couple, so here I am.

1~We were finally able to meet our new social worker, who has finished our homestudy. YAY!!!! Last Thursday the 22nd, she came to our home and had lunch with us. We spent some wonderful time getting to know one another. She is wonderful, and after meeting her, I am just so glad that she is in place to ride out the rest of this journey with us. I was pretty down and dissappointed and scared, quite frankly, when I found out that such a huge change (our initial social worker who completed all of the homestudy visits, quit before he wrote our report) was happening in the middle of our homestudy. It was a real exercise for me to not completely loose it and to keep reminding myself that God is in control and He is directing all the steps of this entire process. Then we met her....I just want to say..... I love her. She is awesome and thorough and fabulous. I feel in such good hands with her. It is so clear to see He had this all planned out all along.  So now our homestudy is in the approval stage and just about ready to join the pile of other waiting papers resting up for the journey to Ethiopia.

2~Last Tuesday, the 19th, I ventured downtown Chicago to the Sec of State office to get two very important documents certified. These two papers are vital parts of our dossier. So, I made the drive and navigated my way through the busy city streets and parked on the 9th floor of a parking garage, walked two blocks and up to the 10th floor to the office that would certify my documnets. All was going great. Not even a line. I filled out my form and approached the window, the girl behind the window told me it would be 4 $. AWESOME!!!  Then........she informed me that they could not certify my documents. Our dossier cover sheet was worded in a way that she said was not appropriate. I explained to her how this is form is issued by the State Department and this is exactly how it needs to be for them. She insited that it was wrong and that I was going to have to contact them and get a different form. She was not very pleasant either.  I will tell you, I about broke down crying right there. But I opted to put on a smile instead and remind myself that God has this, ALL of this. So I went home and did some investigating. I called our family coordinator and she was puzzled and even tried calling that office herself, same story. The odd thing is, other families from Illinois have taken this very same sheet to the very same office and had NO ISSUE. So I decided to part with these documents and send them off to the Sec Of State office in Springfield with a cover letter telling them what I needed and a check for 4 $, and TA- DA........TODAY, I recieved the documents back, certified and perfectly ready to head over to Ethiopia. I dont know what the issue was with the lady at that office downtown, she was downright rude to me and apperantly misinformed. I guess God just didnt want her involved in our paperwork...and that is just fine with me. Again, I was scared and frustrated and nervous about the next step, but again...He led the way, I followed, and all turned out perfectly.

So now, we just wait on this homestudy approval, hopefully it wont be too long. I know this much for sure, it wont be one second sooner or later that He sees fit. That I can totally trust in and rest with. This journey is just beginning and I know that there will be bumps in the road. I am just so grateful to have The Very Best Navigator in the universe, steering us and leading the way. Leading the way to the perfect baby girl He has for us.

3~ And Last but not least...on October 20th 2010, Zachary became a teenager. 13 years have flown by. WOW, I have 2 teenagers and a baby on the way. I am beyond blessed!!!!

                                          
Father, thank You for loving me. Thank You for comforting me and helping me to keep my eyes focused on You and Your plan for our lives instead of being derailed by the roadblocks of life. This adoption journey is such an awesome experience and one that I am so grateful for You guiding us to. I pray Father, that You will continue to illuminate this path for us to see clearly the direction You have for us. I pray that You will continue to go before us and pave the way for the rest of this journey. I pray for Your Blessings on any and all people who are in any way involved in this process for us. The staff here in the states and over in Ethiopia. I pray for blessings and protection over our little girl's birth mother and father and whatever situations they are facing and enduring that contribute to the decision they make, to give this child up in order for us to love her and raise her. I thank You Father, for all of the friends and family You have provided for us, to encourage us and love us and celebrate with us along the way. My heart is overwhelmed with Love for You, and  I am so excited to watch and discover how You unfold the rest of this story in miraculous ways. Thank You for blessing me with fabulous teenage boys and for their hearts to being open and receptive to You. They are the joy of my life and I cant wait to see the big brothers they become to one sweet little sister!!!
In Jesus Precious Name~Amen

Application to America World 4/10/2010

Acceptance from America World 4/22/2010

Finger Printed for FBI and Illinois 5/6/2010

First Home Study Visit 5/10/2010

Physicals completed 5/17 and 18/2010

First Garage Sale for Adoption Fund 6/3 and 4/2010

All Paperwork for Dossier is officially aquired, now we wait for Homestudy Completion 6/7/2010

Second Homestudy Done. FBI Clearances are back. 6/11/2010

Final Homestudy done. now we wait for our Homestudy report so we can move to the next step. 7/1/2010

Sent our Application I-600 A  to immigration service. Cannot complete this process until the homestudy report is ready. 7/12/2010

Still waiting on that darn Homestudy 8/29/2010

Today we met our new social worker . She has completed our HomeStudy and it shall be VERY SOON for this process to be done. 10/21/2010

State Certified Documents returned to us. 10/27/2010

Homestudy approved by the state of Illinois 11/29/2010

Homestudy sent off to USCIS 12/6/2010

TODAY WE GOT OUR FINGERPRINT APPOINTMENT for Jan 3.2010. YAY!!!!  12/14/2010

Final Fingerprints for USCIS Jan 3rd 2010 (our dossier is now ready and waiting for the last and final addition of our USCIS approval  then we can send it off)

Recieved our I-171h from Homeland Security. We are good to go. Sent off our dossier to AWAA. 1/10/11

Dossier approved , now we wait for our official DTE date. 1/11/11

Coming Soon...

Our Decision to Adopt.

Our hearts have been on a journey to this place for longer than we have known. Once God revealed this to us, we just knew without a doubt that our hearts and our family were created for this.

God has blessed our family beyond measure. Honestly, it would seem that we have it all. We have a wonderful love story, we have 4 healthy children. A beautiful home in a wonderful, safe Midwestern community, A successful business. God has led us as we have have triumphed through our own personal heartbreak and He held the wheel that helped us navigate our children through the stress and adjustment of a blended family. We have laughed and cried and prayed our way to this wonderful place of peace in our lives. It would seem strange perhaps then, that we would each feel this longing for something more. Not in a way of needing something else, not discontentment....but that God might HAVE something else for us? An opportunity to serve, to enrich, to bless, to be blessed? Maybe any of those, maybe all of them, maybe more that we can even imagine.

I have always loved babies. Anyone who has known me for even a nano-second knows this. Adding a little one to our life is something I have dreamed of and at the same time have known would not happen. I have spent the sweet six years of our marriage trying to come to terms with the fact that my baby days are over. There are times I would even try and convince myself that we were actually better off NOT having another child, a 'love child'. After all, our children are all wonderful and healthy and happy and bright and fun and most of all....INDEPENDENT. We are almost freeeee. I must be nuts to want to do this all over again. Steve would certainly be nuts for doing it over again, considering the age he has on me ;-) I convinced myself that what I really had longed for was the chance to experience babies with Steve. I really felt like I had gotten to the bottom of what I thought my heart was longing for. After all, I had , in times of great bravery, mentioned this possibility to Steve and although he never came right out and said NO WAY....He was never really jazzed about the idea. I wouldn't want him to go along with it for my sake, so each time...I dropped it and went to God and asked Him to please take this from me again. I love God. I love the way I can take my every thought to Him and be comforted by knowing He gets me. He made me after all.....no one gets me like Him. I feel such sweet comfort and safety in just sitting in silence with Him. This topic sent me to Him many, many times. So I knew He knew my heart and my longing and my regret at not sharing this dream with my husband. So I prayed that He would help me and give my heart peace with no more babies. Every now and again though, when I was sure this was dealt with......It kept coming up. Maybe from one of the kids mentioning 'It would be fun to have a little brother or sister' and then I would inevitably say...'well, ask dad' and dad would say ' It would be kind of nice to have a little girl around, Ill admit that'. Then my heart would set to dreaming again. I would have to ask, often with tears just near the surface...'Why do you say things like that? Are you maybe a little bit serious?'

What I didn't know, was my husband had been carrying around some of his own thoughts of us sharing this experience together. So a few months back when this topic came up again. He leveled with me and explained that he had been thinking about it a lot more lately and couldn't really put his finger on it, but that life is about more than all he thought it was before. He is done chasing a career and focusing on building his net worth and preparing a nest egg. He doesn't define himself that way anymore. He told me that he knew he was getting older and people would think it crazy, but If I wanted a baby...lets do it. He kind of liked the idea of taking everything he has learned and trying to be an even better father this time around. He feels like his priorities are in a better place. Maybe he had some of his own baby dreams.

I was SHOCKED. I thought for sure he was giving me a few days to let it all sink in and yet secretly hoping I would come to the conclusion that it wasn't really a great idea after all. But he kept bringing it up, even suggesting names. It was kind of starting to scare me. SERIOUSLY?????? COULD IT BE?????

I started to really try and get my mind around, what this change would really bring for us. I quickly discovered that having a baby around doesn't scare me, toddlers, don't scare me, teenagers ( well they do a little) but we are doing it. We have GREAT kids and chances are, we would have another great kid. Doesn't scare me. I prayed and asked God to help me see clearly. He knew my fears....health related really. I'm over 35 and everyone knows the risks. Steve would have to have 'a reversal' and that added another element of un-known to the so many other un-knowns. That was the part I really could not get past. I even mentioned to Steve, if we could be guaranteed a no-problem, safe pregnancy, that would happen quickly and prove 'the reversal' worked....I would so do it. But I couldn't get past the risks. Even though they are not out of this world risks, I couldn't get past them as much as I wanted this. It just didn't feel right. Again and again, things were being shown to me that re-affirmed the things that concerned me. I was really ready to shut this down once and for all. As much as I wanted this, it just wasn't sitting right with me.

I have learned in my life how to seek and watch for God's leading and this was no exception. Something just wasn't right.

Then one night, Steve wanted to read me something from this book he was reading. Now, Steve has never been much of a reader, other than business related things and Stock News, but I knew he had really plugged into this book and it was changing the way he looked at his life and his values and the way he had always done things. This book had stirred him. He wanted to share this with me. It had moved him so much, that he had to collect himself before he could read it to me. It was about an orphan.

Where I have always had a heart for the needy and the poor and down-trodden, I never really considered adoption because A- we were done with having more kids right? And B- if we were to have more kids, why not have one of our own? I always wanted a baby. I didn't realize that you can get a baby through these foreign adoptions, I figured they were all older and hard to actually get. When the Haitian earthquake happened, I saw that maybe there was a possibility, but a slight one. After some quick research I discovered the Haitian option was off the table for us anyway because we haven't been married for 10 years. Different countries have all of their own requirements and this was one of Haitis. That story really caught our attention though, like for so many, and we both talked about how we would take them all in if we could. This was not a surprising thought process for me....I am wired like this, I always have been (right dad? )What did surprise me though, was the spark I saw in Steve.

Was God using this time in our lives; Steve's quest for more meaning in his life and my yearning for a child of our own, and the worldwide plight of orphans now on the world stage to show us that maybe this was for us?

We did some research and a lot of praying and felt incredibly led to Ethiopia. I don't know if I can explain it, but it has clearly been a leading. This is not an easy process, it is not a fast process. The more we read, the more questions we asked, the more need we discovered, the more we realized.....maybe God has a miracle in store for our family on the other side of the world. Maybe it is in the experiences we will encounter, maybe it is in the journey, maybe it is in the witness, maybe it is a love like we have never known we had to give, or receive. Maybe it is getting closer to God than we could have ever imagined in this life. Maybe this is His call and maybe He is using the cry of my heart, to fulfill a need and the cry of another heart, on the other side of the world. My longing for a baby may or may not be in Gods plan. Maybe it will be a young toddler or even older. A little girl to add to our brood of boys, may or may not be in Gods plan. Maybe our boys are going to be used by God to help guide and lead and love a younger brother. We have opened up our hearts to whatever it is God has waiting for us. He knows how He designed our hearts for helping and serving and He knows how to use us where He needs us and He knows where He is leading us. We also know how beautifully He can bring all of these things full circle. He alone can take the cry of my heart and the need of a child and serve a bigger purpose than ever could have been imagined in my baby dreams. So now.....we wait and pray and follow.

The beauty of all of this, is we have been so blessed with our children. We know the experience of having our own children. The fact that they are healthy and happy and know Christ is like cake, dessert at the end of the day. Adding to our already awesome family through the miracle of adoption is just like.... EXTRA FROSTING!!!!!!