Family visiting, time with cousins!

We have a 4 year old!

Clear Direction

God has truly answered our prayers for clarity and direction!  We talked with the Hope Box ministry on the phone today and are so excited by the wonderful work they are doing and are planning to be doing!  They seek out abandoned babies and their ministry is to keep them safe and find families for them.  They are working to advance their ministry to include what they called 'border babies' who are babies born of illegal aliens or born in complicated situations.  These babies are abandoned, but the state does not know what to do with them legally and eventually they are placed in the foster care system.  The Hope Box is also wanting to expand the safe haven laws in Georgia to include more facilities for birth mothers to anonymously leave their babies since right now only medical facilities are legal and only if identifying information is left as well.  In talking with them today, it became clear there is a huge risk for many of these babies to fall into the black market and the heart of those who are running the Hope Box is to build awareness of this need.  They asked for prayer as they work to intercede for these little ones.  I am including a link to their website and will be updating more on this wonderful ministry!  They have a short video on their ministry and what it will be like when the box is officially opened.

http://www.thehopebox.org/

Wisdom

We are praying about signing with an agency that sounds really wonderful and even had a baby boy needing placement recently.  We think we could meet a need with this agency, while at the same time take a break from all the searching and just wait.  Our biggest concern is that the state this agency is located in has a 10 day period after the birth mother signs relinquishment papers in which to take the baby back.  It would be easier to take this risk if it was not a 2 full day drive from home and require lots of precious vacation time for Gary.  Also,
I cannot imagine making the drive, holding my baby, signing papers and then have the baby taken away a few days later.  Apparently it looks like 1 out of 3 birth mothers do take back the babies in this state, so there is risk.  We are taking a few days to pray and consider before we make a final decision.  Thank you again for all your prayers as we make these decisions!

Fall Leaves and Update

The Hope Box

After looking into many different agencies and searching for crisis situations we believe God has led us to the Hope Box in Georgia.  They are a facility that opened this year where women can bring their newborn babies and safely leave them with no questions asked.  Initially we thought that the need may not be as great here even though we loved the ministry.  We talked more with the agency working with the Hope Box and heard that adoptive couples are needed at this time.  We are now starting the process to become a Hope Box family, waiting to see what God brings to us.  This has been exciting, and we are thankful for the Lord's leading!

Adoption Updates

We signed off on our home study yesterday, so we can start the search for baby Tessa in earnest now!!  Our Colorado Training also took place yesterday and that was the last requirement to be covered.  We are thankful to the Lord for bringing us through this part of the process and are now eagerly starting to contact agencies/lawyers looking for Tessa.  I will try to keep this up to date from here on out as we hear from agencies in the days/weeks ahead.  With Blake's adoption this part of the process only took a month, we will see what God has planned for us this time!

Some news

It is time to make our baby girl name official!  After much consideration, and lots of ridiculous suggestions, we have all decided to name our baby girl Tessa.  The kids are happy with the name even if Banana or Santa or Godzilla might have been top of their list.

Here is the latest.  On Thursday our agency here let us know about an agency in Georgia that has a program for babies abandoned in local medical facilities.  They are looking for adoptive parents for these cases and also for other situations that may be difficult to place.  I contacted the agency yesterday and was told that there are several situations that may be a fit for us.  I do not have any specifics, but we are filling out paperwork to begin the pre-application process with this agency.  We do not know if this is where we will find baby Tessa, but we are eager to find out more and see if this is where God is leading us.  As always, we appreciate your prayers for wisdom.

Where we are now

I spoke with our home study agency today and all our paperwork is in and all that is left is for the home study to be written up.  Our wonderful social worker will complete this process for us so we are just going to wait for now.

Here is the family picture we plan to send out to agencies and adoption lawyers once the home study is complete and we are ready for placement.  A dear friend took this picture for us while our families were at the park last evening.

This summer the Denver zoo had Lego sculptures up as exhibits.  The kids loved looking for them as we made our way around the zoo.

Museum and Farm

Change in plans

Our final home visit has now been bumped out 2 weeks, but it sounds like the home study should still be written up soon since the final visit is more of a formality.  The training has also been postponed, but we found out it is not required until finalization which means we could bring a baby home and still have plenty of time to do the training if necessary.  It looks like we will hopefully be wrapped up in a couple weeks and ready to start looking for a baby.  We are excited!

Home Study and Nana

The latest on the home study is that we will have our final home visit this Wednesday evening.  The last of our paperwork should be ready by the end of the week and our part of the home study should be completed.  The Colorado training class we need to take is scheduled for mid September, but it is not required to complete the home study.  We are rejoicing that this has been so quick and a relatively easy process so far.


We had visit from Nana this week and she gave each of the older children some basic piano lessons.  It was a fun visit and we miss her!

Home visits update

We had a wonderful visit with our social worker last weekend!  She was so kind and fun the kids were eager to show her the house and share all the details of our lives.  She will come for one more visit in two weeks and then she will be able to write up our home study.  We are getting closer to wrapping up the home study
and are praying that it will come together soon so we can start the search for placement.  Thank you for your prayers, God is really giving so much grace for this process!

Family visiting