Can you be nervous and calm at the same time…

Oh boy….so tomorrow is a BIG day for us! Tomorrow afternoon we meet the birth mom who really liked our profile book. I think we are a mixed bag of emotions but every time I think about it I feel calmer than I think that I should. I feel like I’m supposed to be all mixed up and freaking out, but I’m not.

I’ve been drawn to this birth mom since October and I’ve only known here form a paragraph in an email update from the agency but when I think about her I pray for her and I feel God around me keeping me calm. I have no idea what will happen tomorrow or how we will feel or how she is feeling but I’m praying that she feels the same calmness that I do and I hope she can feel the prayers we are all saying for her and the decision she will be making.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m nervous — kinda like a blind date sort of nervous — she only knows us from a book and tomorrow we will get to ask each other questions about our families, what we see for this child, how we would raise them. I’m nervous that I won’t answer a question ‘right’, I’m nervous that I will forget to ask something and then think of it tomorrow night as I’m trying to go to bed. Nervous if we look better in the book vs in person 🙂 You know, all the crazy thoughts that run through my mind.

I am really looking forward to meeting her and seeing what she looks like. From what the Expectant Parent Advocate (EPA) has said she is a wonderful person, easy to talk to, easy to like, very open about everything and won’t shy away from questions. We have some questions from the EPA that she may ask us and we will be getting our list together tonight.

Thank you all for the continued prayers as we navigate this adventure! We know that God has a path already set for this little child and for the birth mom — she is an AMAZINGLY STRONG woman and I wish she knew how much we already love her and support her and pray for her.

Tomorrow at 3:15 we will be meeting her!! I can’t wait to update you on how everything went.

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We need your help

Hello everyone out there searching the inter-webs of the cyber world! I am looking for some help, ideas and advice. After our last training meeting two weeks ago for our adoption journey, we learned that we need to find a way to ‘market’ ourselves to possible birth families out there. We were told that the agency will do 50% marketing and we should do the other 50% marketing.

So, I am wondering if you’ve gone through the adoption process in the past or if you know someone who has that would be willing to give advice I am all ears! We have a website (through our agency – the also have 2 profile books we printed and delivered for profile viewings), I try and keep this blog going and we have told anyone and everyone who we talk to about our adoption adventure. We have also reached out to our church and they know we are an official waiting family, we also let our adoption support group at church know as well.

Some of the suggestions from our training:

• Add a little business card to our holiday cards for friends and family to pass along to those at their church, or if they know of a potential birth family
• Make flyers and hang up around town (coffee shops, churches, clinics, work…) this one makes me a little more nervous
• Create an email for all potential birth families vs using our personal email addresses
• Create multiple profiles for different adoption sites so we are now more visible (there is a cost involved with this option, more than the other options)

One of the families that the agency has worked with created a Craigs List ‘ad’ and actually ended up finding their birth family that way! They did say that they needed to do a LOT of screening and that their social worker talked with multiple people to figure out if they were real interests and not scams. Also right now agencies are noticing that there aren’t a lot of birth families creating adoption plans, this makes me a little nervous as well, I know our child is out there just really unsure of when we will meet them.

With all that said, we need your help! Please feel free to share our story, website, or contact information with anyone and everyone you know 🙂

Website: Ryan and Marianne

Email: ryanandmarianneadopting@gmail.com

Until next time!!

 

 

Holy Cow — We’re OFFICIALLY on the waiting family list!!!

Yup that’s right! We are officially a waiting family!!!! I can’t believe it and we are SOOO excited! I know, I know, I know…it can take YEARS to be picked by a birth family BUT this means that we CAN be picked and all the stress of filling out piles of paperwork and getting our finger prints and health physicals and interviews with social workers and everything else has been signed off on and we are OFFICIALLY APPROVED!

So now what…well we wait and continue to pray for our birth family and baby (or babies) to find us. We continue on house projects, adding to the nursery, finishing the basement, fencing in the backyard – there is always going to be an endless ‘to do list’ and I feel more comfortable waiting for our baby now. It was always a “hurry up and wait” feeling but I’m ok with it and I have a peace about it. We know that God always has our little one (ones) picked out for us and he is working in our hearts as well as the birth families heart – we will connect and click and it’s going to be an amazingly awesome adventure.

Speaking of the nursery and house projects…HUGE thank you to my older brother Nick for his help with creating my accent wall 🙂 I absolutely love the way it turned out! Dark walls with white furniture and a whitewashed wood plank wall, and as a fan of Harry Potter – a quote from Albus Dumbledore to add to the room. Right now it is being used at Hunter’s toy room while we finish the basement (it’s been a REALLY slow process waiting for people to come in and do their part). Hunter doesn’t call it his toy room he calls it the baby’s room. “Hold on mom, I need to go to the baby’s room” or “can I go play in the baby’s room” — I love it, he’s ready for a sibling – and if you ask him if he’d like to have a brother or sister, he’ll say sister.

Ryan and I are already going through names and talking about what their personality will be like. How Hunter will react and how awesome it’s going to be. The journey of infertility is not an easy road and for a lot of people it can really break up a marriage or it can bring you closer. I’ve said it before, for Ryan and I, it has only brought us closer. Now going through adoption and having social workers in our home and really deep diving into our financials, pasts and family dynamics it can be stressful and take it’s toll as well. But again, it’s only brought us closer together and both of us feel like this is where we are supposed do be and this is how our family is created. Not how we ever thought our family would be formed but it’s exciting and it’s been an adventure to get here and it will only continue to get better.

Pics of the nursery progress 🙂

If you are just starting out on the adoption adventure of if you have been waiting for a while, I really recommend reading Tandem: A Devotional for Adopting with God at the Lead. It is an amazing devotional and the way that Alison writes, I think she I could be great friends. PLUS she has a Facebook support group you can join and the families on there are truly, truly amazing. The stories that are shared and the different situations others have been in, it’s just really nice to know that you aren’t alone in this and that there are others in the same spot that you can lean on.

So if anyone has any other great options for devotionals to get through a waiting period in your life, I’m welcome to ALL suggestions! Or, if you have any tips on helping to not dwell on waiting let me know! I’ve started a Mary Kay business to help with financials as well as keep myself busy, plus I love meeting new people and sharing our story. There are so many out there who are on the same journey.

Until next time!