Well like most of my posts, we have been doing a lot of paperwork. I guess not as much on our end, but more on other peoples. We have been getting lots of paperwork notarized, certified, and double checked. We have now received Kyles birth certificate, our notarized back ground checks, our certified marriage license, 2 notarized reference letters, and one awful bank notarization.
We have a lot of our savings in Fidelity, which up until Monday has been wonderful. We received in the mail on Monday the paperwork we were waiting on. I was excited to see it in the mailbox only to be disappointed by what we saw. It was raining that day, and the paper actually got wet and the ink was starting to run, because they had put it in such a flimsy envelope. We opened it up, to find an expired notary... 2008!! Come on people, that's just insane! We also found they had spelled Kyles name wrong and added tons of extra information we didn't need. Now, I understand this is a process, but we had given specific directions and a copy of exactly what it was supposed to look like. Kyle had to call and cancel everything, because they weren't able to do what we asked, even when we called and talked to someone. We now have to wait, for another few days before going to Chase and asking for yet another notarized copy of our stuff. We LOVE Chase though, they are so so nice and so dependable.
I will be filling out some paperwork for our USCIS stuff, which is the US approving us to adopt an orphan(s) internationally. This usually takes 8-10 weeks, but we can be on the waiting list before that is turned it, so yay! We are staying hopeful this process will move along quickly, and I think we have reason to be hopeful because everything has gone pretty smoothly so far. :) My goal was to have everything in and be on the wait list by the end of the year, I think with how things are going so far, we will be on there in time.
My wonderful mother-in-law found a website where anyone can go and buy a t-shirt, a sweatshirt, bracelets, mugs, etc. All of the merchandise is adoption based, and its super cute. Here is the best part, for each item purchased, we would get 40% of the purchase toward our adoption. All the money goes straight to our agency, so it can help fund our process. Once I get all the instructions I need I will be posting again about details and to really promote this thing. If you want to look around the website is: ordinaryhero.org
Have a blessed weekend!
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Decisions Decisions
So tons has happened since last week, and most of it for the good. Yay!!
On Sunday we celebrated our nephews 1st Birthday! I made some cake pops, and I won't lie, they were pretty stinkin cute! I will post a picture on the bottom of the page tonight. He was adorable as always and his big brother helped him open all of his presents, so cute! On Monday Kyle and I celebrated our 2 year anniversary. How fun?! I can't believe it's been 2 years already! It feels like we have been together forever and we are best friends who will never grown apart.
On Saturday afternoon we had our home study and it went great. Our social worker is super sweet and we got along with her very well. She has adopted 3 kids of her own, so it was great to be able to relate. Everything went very smoothly, and she asked us a question that I had thrown out to Kyle before, and he thought I was nuts. She asked us if we would be open to more than one child. Kyle and I looked at each other and I of course smiled huge, and I could see it in his eyes. He was open to it. We of course asked some questions about it and what that meant, that sort of thing. She said here's what could happen, if you say you are only open to one and you go to Ethiopia and find out the baby has a sibling, and you can't bear the thought of breaking them apart, you will have to stay in Ethiopia longer and get some more paperwork done. Or, you could say you're open to two and not have that worry, but you don't have to accept 2, it is your choice. So, we are open to 2 and we are open to the fact that God may be calling us to siblings. We shall see with time thought. Our agency was very open to this too, and she said we can still put a lot of boundaries on it, or not a lot. It is all in our ballpark. So we are open to siblings, no older than 4 and we would still prefer one of them be baby... but how cool would it be with twins!?! We may be nuts ;)
Our dossier process is still moving along, slowly but surely and I will take that. :) I got my birth certificate in the mail yesterday, which was shocking because mine was the one I was freaking out about and I ordered at least a week later than Kyles. We are still waiting on Kyles, but I'm not stressing about it. It will get done, and there's only so much I can honestly do anyway. Hopefully next weekend I can really sit down and go through what we still need to get done. From my memory, it isn't too much more!!! :)
This weekend we are going to St. Joseph MI where Kyle and I got married. We are going with his mom, dad, the 2 girls, his sister, brother-in-law, and their two boys. We have been looking forward to this all summer, and I cannot explain how excited I am to get away and enjoy each others company. His mom and sister are such joys to talk to, and I love just watching everyone interact with each other. Sometimes I just sit back and watch them, and it will literally bring tears to my eyes because I see how much love they all have for each other. How did I get so blessed with in-laws like that?!
In my last update I had mentioned not wanting to really take any medicine to have our own children. Kyle and I had talked about it and completely agreed. To help us know we made the right decision, I called the Dr. to see how much and what she wanted me to take. She said they would be injections, and she would want to go straight to an IUI. With that entails, blood work, 2 ultra sounds, and tests for Kyle. Also with that is a lot of money out of our pockets because our insurance won't cover any of it, and to me it's still a question mark. It is only 30% chance that it would work, and those odds aren't in our favor. We are open to taking a pill, but it would only be a couple months until my endometriosis would come back. As I write this paragraph, I have a smile on my face, because there aren't questions anymore, there is no gray area.... its black and white now and I can't tell you guys how thankful I am for that. Every month was disappointment, I was constantly reminded that I wasn't going to get the chance to be a mommy... but now I am to maybe two beautiful Ethiopian children. I cannot wait for those moments of seeing their picture, getting to meet them, and just touching them.
Thank you all for the support and knowing people are out there reading, it is much appreciated and I love posting about our journey.
On Sunday we celebrated our nephews 1st Birthday! I made some cake pops, and I won't lie, they were pretty stinkin cute! I will post a picture on the bottom of the page tonight. He was adorable as always and his big brother helped him open all of his presents, so cute! On Monday Kyle and I celebrated our 2 year anniversary. How fun?! I can't believe it's been 2 years already! It feels like we have been together forever and we are best friends who will never grown apart.
On Saturday afternoon we had our home study and it went great. Our social worker is super sweet and we got along with her very well. She has adopted 3 kids of her own, so it was great to be able to relate. Everything went very smoothly, and she asked us a question that I had thrown out to Kyle before, and he thought I was nuts. She asked us if we would be open to more than one child. Kyle and I looked at each other and I of course smiled huge, and I could see it in his eyes. He was open to it. We of course asked some questions about it and what that meant, that sort of thing. She said here's what could happen, if you say you are only open to one and you go to Ethiopia and find out the baby has a sibling, and you can't bear the thought of breaking them apart, you will have to stay in Ethiopia longer and get some more paperwork done. Or, you could say you're open to two and not have that worry, but you don't have to accept 2, it is your choice. So, we are open to 2 and we are open to the fact that God may be calling us to siblings. We shall see with time thought. Our agency was very open to this too, and she said we can still put a lot of boundaries on it, or not a lot. It is all in our ballpark. So we are open to siblings, no older than 4 and we would still prefer one of them be baby... but how cool would it be with twins!?! We may be nuts ;)
Our dossier process is still moving along, slowly but surely and I will take that. :) I got my birth certificate in the mail yesterday, which was shocking because mine was the one I was freaking out about and I ordered at least a week later than Kyles. We are still waiting on Kyles, but I'm not stressing about it. It will get done, and there's only so much I can honestly do anyway. Hopefully next weekend I can really sit down and go through what we still need to get done. From my memory, it isn't too much more!!! :)
This weekend we are going to St. Joseph MI where Kyle and I got married. We are going with his mom, dad, the 2 girls, his sister, brother-in-law, and their two boys. We have been looking forward to this all summer, and I cannot explain how excited I am to get away and enjoy each others company. His mom and sister are such joys to talk to, and I love just watching everyone interact with each other. Sometimes I just sit back and watch them, and it will literally bring tears to my eyes because I see how much love they all have for each other. How did I get so blessed with in-laws like that?!
In my last update I had mentioned not wanting to really take any medicine to have our own children. Kyle and I had talked about it and completely agreed. To help us know we made the right decision, I called the Dr. to see how much and what she wanted me to take. She said they would be injections, and she would want to go straight to an IUI. With that entails, blood work, 2 ultra sounds, and tests for Kyle. Also with that is a lot of money out of our pockets because our insurance won't cover any of it, and to me it's still a question mark. It is only 30% chance that it would work, and those odds aren't in our favor. We are open to taking a pill, but it would only be a couple months until my endometriosis would come back. As I write this paragraph, I have a smile on my face, because there aren't questions anymore, there is no gray area.... its black and white now and I can't tell you guys how thankful I am for that. Every month was disappointment, I was constantly reminded that I wasn't going to get the chance to be a mommy... but now I am to maybe two beautiful Ethiopian children. I cannot wait for those moments of seeing their picture, getting to meet them, and just touching them.
Thank you all for the support and knowing people are out there reading, it is much appreciated and I love posting about our journey.
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Bittersweet Day
It's been awhile but I was waiting for my post op appoitment with our fertility Dr. to update again.
This morning Kyle went to get his physical for our HomeStudy and to get another paper notarized by the Dr. office saying we are in good health to adopt. During the same time, I was at the post op appointment. Kyle's appointment went just fine, he just had to get a shot and needs some blood drawn tomorrow morning. The person who notarizes wasn't there today so that part wasn't finished, we were both pretty frustrated about it, but we will get it on Monday.
My appointment wasn't as much good news as Kyles. Pretty much she wants me to be on medicine and see me every month, and get a 3D ultrasoun to make sure my fibriods haven't returned. There are tons of things against at this point, more than I ever thought possible, so if you want more info I will share it, I just don't want to bore everyone with the details. What a tough decision this is... to take the medicine and fork out more money, or not take it and leave it up to God. I feel like so many times before going to the Dr. I was trying to take control of this situation in getting pregnant. Obviously my way didn't end the way I planned on, so now Kyle and I are choosing to trust God in this. It doesn't make it easy, but at the same time it does. It's bittersweet.
As we were at lunch I just got this rush of emotion flow over me, that I'm going to be letting so many people down by not taking the medicine. We have so many people praying for us and thinking of us, but I don't want them to be disappointed in us or our decisions. We are not giving up, but to make less stress on ourselves, we are going down this road of adoption. We haven't closed off the road of pregnancy, but it's just not the road we are heading down at the moment. I also have been realizing, as much as I wanted to be pregnant and to experience everything, I ultimately just want to be a mommy. Either way, from pregnancy or adoption I'm going to be a mommy and that's what is important to me. :)
As the day went on, we talked to many people, went many places, and there were lots of bumps along the way. I tried to keep my cool and not get frustrated, and as I did that I found so many opportunities to talk to people our what we are doing. How great is that!? I feel like God placed everyone we came into contact with today for a reason. There were so many people interested in what we were doing, they asked lots of questions, and were excited for us. The people at the bank told us to make sure we bring in the baby when we get the chance. I mean, how cool is that?!
Today was bittersweet, but the more I reflect on it, it was sweet. Thank you everyone for the prayers and thoughts today, it was much appreciated.
On a lighter note: We have our HomeStudy on Saturday morning!! So quick, yay God! I will fill you in how it went probably next week. We are celebrating our nephews 1st birthday this Sunday and our anniversary on Monday. I love September!!!
This morning Kyle went to get his physical for our HomeStudy and to get another paper notarized by the Dr. office saying we are in good health to adopt. During the same time, I was at the post op appointment. Kyle's appointment went just fine, he just had to get a shot and needs some blood drawn tomorrow morning. The person who notarizes wasn't there today so that part wasn't finished, we were both pretty frustrated about it, but we will get it on Monday.
My appointment wasn't as much good news as Kyles. Pretty much she wants me to be on medicine and see me every month, and get a 3D ultrasoun to make sure my fibriods haven't returned. There are tons of things against at this point, more than I ever thought possible, so if you want more info I will share it, I just don't want to bore everyone with the details. What a tough decision this is... to take the medicine and fork out more money, or not take it and leave it up to God. I feel like so many times before going to the Dr. I was trying to take control of this situation in getting pregnant. Obviously my way didn't end the way I planned on, so now Kyle and I are choosing to trust God in this. It doesn't make it easy, but at the same time it does. It's bittersweet.
As we were at lunch I just got this rush of emotion flow over me, that I'm going to be letting so many people down by not taking the medicine. We have so many people praying for us and thinking of us, but I don't want them to be disappointed in us or our decisions. We are not giving up, but to make less stress on ourselves, we are going down this road of adoption. We haven't closed off the road of pregnancy, but it's just not the road we are heading down at the moment. I also have been realizing, as much as I wanted to be pregnant and to experience everything, I ultimately just want to be a mommy. Either way, from pregnancy or adoption I'm going to be a mommy and that's what is important to me. :)
As the day went on, we talked to many people, went many places, and there were lots of bumps along the way. I tried to keep my cool and not get frustrated, and as I did that I found so many opportunities to talk to people our what we are doing. How great is that!? I feel like God placed everyone we came into contact with today for a reason. There were so many people interested in what we were doing, they asked lots of questions, and were excited for us. The people at the bank told us to make sure we bring in the baby when we get the chance. I mean, how cool is that?!
Today was bittersweet, but the more I reflect on it, it was sweet. Thank you everyone for the prayers and thoughts today, it was much appreciated.
On a lighter note: We have our HomeStudy on Saturday morning!! So quick, yay God! I will fill you in how it went probably next week. We are celebrating our nephews 1st birthday this Sunday and our anniversary on Monday. I love September!!!
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