Checkin in..

I have news on the adoption front.. I don't want to get ahead of myself and post too much about it but lets just say that things are happening!! THINGS ARE HAPPENING!!! Thank you God, my faith and trust in you is being rewarded ten fold!!!

I will update when I can!! :)

Have You Ever Seen A Miracle?

Have You Ever Seen A Miracle?

Have you ever seen a miracle,Beheld one with your eyes,Seen the magic & the mystery,The wonder & suprise?
Have you ever touched a miracle,With your fingertips?Have you ever kissed a miracle,Brushed one with your lips?

Have you ever held a miracle,Gently in your arms?
Knowing that you must protect,This precious gift from harm?

Have you ever loved a miracle,Loved right from the start,Loved with all your being,Loved with all your heart?
I have done all these things,I do them everyday,I see miracles grow & learn,I see them laugh & play.
I'm an ordinary person,Not special at all, you see.
God gave me not one miracle,He saw fit to give me three. ~smile~



© 2000 Sue Saladino

No news..

We haven't even had a phone call from the state since we went to orientation, very discouraging. The woman told me that I would probably be calling them before they got around to calling me, but it's been over a month! I thought for sure they would at least have started our homestudy or training classes. I guess I'll call, I didn't want to be pesty..but you do what you gotta do right?

We are still working for the agency and we just said goodbye to baby Sawyer. He came to us at 2 days old and he went home yesterday at 18 days old. I met up with his family last night to visit with him, His parents are wonderful and he now has a big brother... he is a very lucky little boy! :) I'll get to spend a little more time with them before they head back home ( out of state.. WAY out of state) so I'm really looking forward to that!

I need to go read some adoption blogs.. ( or maybe I don't)

Hmmm... what to title this post..

I don't have any adoption news to report.. though I wish I did. But I do have a giveaway going on at my other blog, feel free to stop by and check it out!!

Sad day..

We got a call about a little girl.
8 years old.

We were told it was a desperate situation. ( I can't go into detail obviously) but suffice it to say that it was a DESPERATE situation. We only had one day to prepare so we rushed around to get things ready for her arrival, Gabbie and I went shopping for baby and barbie dolls, P.J.s.. fun little girl stuff ( and Gabbie was such a help knowing what she might like, they are the same age after all) We prayed for her, that she would not be scared, that she would feel our love the moment she entered our home. I couldn't sleep Thursday night, I kept thinking about her, wondering how she was feeling at that very same moment, probably not sleeping either.. loving her.. and wanting her.

We were to leave Friday morning to pick her up. At 12:00 we had heard nothing, so we called. The case worker went to her home and they were GONE. just gone.

My heart is breaking for this child. It's times like this when I wonder if I am cut out for this. I cried all day and I can't stop thinking about her. I look at all of her little things, and it just makes me so sad. The case worker was on the phone with me crying..so I know that she must be in danger.
Please.. please, pray for this child. I just want to wrap my arms around her and tell her that she will never hurt again..and I can't.. that's hard to swallow.

Our first Meeting ( details)

I know I said that I was going to come right back and post details, sorry about that..

Everything started off rather frantic .. our washing machine broke 2 days before and we have been waiting for the repair man to show.. well, he decided to show up about an hour before we were supposed to leave, which would have been fine if he weren't a talker.. Sweet man that he is, I was about to hurl him out the door myself. I kept opening my bedroom door and giving Terry the evil eye ( thank goodness Mr. washing machine fixer guy couldn't see me around the corner) Every time we thought he was about to leave, he would turn around and start walking back over to Terry to tell him yet, one more thing. Finally, he left and you should have seen Terry racing around to get ready..I didn't realize he could move that fast!

Terry dressed and I made the kids dinner and we left. Terry had been telling me all day that he knew where we were going.. guess what? ( can you guess????) He didn't.

So it's 10 minutes before the class starts and we don't even know where the building is. We pull over to ask..and guess what? we're there!! We get to the second floor and walk up to the desk and she informs us that we're early and should just have a seat. I was so nervous for some reason, I was shaking. Terry passed the time by trying to drive me insane by snapping pictures of me with his cell phone, this went on until I threatened to post the picture of him at Gabbie's tea party wearing her costume jewelry and a sticky gem stuck to the middle of his forehead on the internet.

Finally, they called us all back. There were about 15 people in the group. Basically this was an orientation type deal where they explain, the good, the bad and the ugly of adopting through foster care, afterwards they asked if there was anyone who during this talk wanted to change their mind, The couple to my right changed their mind but didn't want to just up and walk out, so they sat through the rest of it. At the end of the meeting, they asked anyone who was still interested to fill out paperwork and to my delight, Terry was one of the first to grab a form!! :) We filled out our paperwork to begin the process and we should be hearing from a caseworker soon!!

We have decided to foster with the option to adopt if the child we have becomes available. One step closer!! :)

Class tonight!!

Welp.. the time has come for our very first meeting!! We meet at the DFCS office at 6:00P.M. YIPPIE!!! I'll post more about it tonight when we get home..one step closer to bringing home Logan and Gabbie's sister or brother!!

Serious life Magazine

Maybe you've noticed the button of little Abby on my sidebar..She is an amazing little girl and she and her family are such an inspiration . They own this magazine , please take the time to check it out, you'll be glad you did!

I wanted you to know about this publication I’m a part of called Serious.Life Magazine. They just published the February issue today, and I am in their Featured Blog Directory. It’s a very high quality magazine… you’ll really like it.

The magazine includes a lot of great content from bloggers you’ll appreciate, as well as great features, photos and other content. The magazine is owned and published by a family who have seven kids, three adopted and one who has Leukemia (http://www.riggsfamilyblog.com/). The magazine gives away a bunch of ads to charities and ministries. Besides great articles on interesting people, there is a lot about family, adoption, personal finance, spiritual life, humor… all sorts of “life” topics.Again, the subscription is free, and I know you’ll enjoy the magazine, so take a minute to check it out and sign up to get future issues. http://www.seriouslifemagazine.com/

Not much happening...

Nothing too exciting to report, we are having our water tested Tuesday ( we have a well, and so it has to be tested) we are just doing this on our own hopefully to get it out of the way so when they say it's time to get it tested we can just hand them the results ( I've been through all of this before...it's making me crazy that I have to wait until the Official homestudy update begins.. ) We tried to go get our fingerprints Wed. but they said we had to have the fingerprint card from a caseworker..find me one, and I'll get a card from her!

Am I the only one that things it absolutly CRAZY that you have to be fingerprinted each time.. why can't they run the prints they already have on us? isn't that how they catch criminals every day?? Why do we have to physically redo fingerprints.. if any one has the answer to that.. please, by all means, enlighten me.

progress.. er' kinda..

I set up apts. for Terry and I to get our physicals, and there is a 2 month waiting list.. yeesh.. so much for trying to get ahead of the game. I was hoping to have all of this completed before they requested it, so it would speed things up.
Logan and Gabbie already had physicals this year, so we won't have to do those again, unless it takes them 7 months to get to us.

I have to schedule Gidget to update her rabies shot. I'll be doing that Monday hopefully.

We are trying to figure out if we should buy beds for each of the kids rooms ( I've heard it has to be child ready by the home study) we don't know if we are getting a boy or a girl, so I wonder...... can we set up one bed and move it to the other room if needed? or do we need to have a bed in the boys room and a bed in the girls room?
( I know mom....I'm thinking way too much..LOL) I am just so excited and I want to be prepared...and I want to feel connected to my little one?? Is that weird? Having his or her things set up, somehow will make me feel closer to them.

Yesterday was an emotional day for me.. I don't know why. I guess the realization that this is real, I have a child out there somewhere..and I just want to find him or her, and hold them, and kiss their little cheeks and tuck them into a nice cozy bed.
**sigh**

Our first meeting

Our first meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, Feb 3rd. at 6:00P.M. Basically this just tells us what we are about to embark on, the pro's and con's etc..we have already been through this and we know that we are up for it, but we have to do it again, it's routine procedure.

We have a home study ( which includes background checks, physicals for everyone in the family, home visits etc..) because we have to go through all of that in order to be a caring home for the agency we work with, BUT.. the state is making us redo it all..I'm a little bummed, because it takes a while to complete, but I "kinda" understand and we are willing to do what ever it takes to bring our new little love home. We do already have our CPR and first aid certification, so I'm sure we won't have to do that again.. I I know... it's only been a couple of weeks since the decision was made, and I'm ready for my little one TODAY..I'm in for a long road..:(

I would be lying if I said that we weren't completely freaked out at the possibility of loving and loosing a child, it's a chance we have to take. We have to just pray that we can handle what ever happens and just know that we will give each child that comes through our door all the love their little hearts can handle. God has a child(or children) for us, and when it's time, he will bring them home.

**note to self** be patient

And so we begin

Wow, I can't believe that I am actually sitting down creating a blog about MY journey through adoption. My husband and I have been a caring home family ( we get to love on and care for children that have been placed for adoption until they find their forever homes, it's a bit different from being a foster parent through the state) for 6 years now and every time I have to say goodbye to a precious little one, it's like a dagger through my heart. Even knowing that they are going to wonderful, loving families, I have an empty space in my heart when they leave.

We have discussed adopting for a long time, I have always known that I wanted to adopt a waiting child and for the past year or so, I have thought about it constantly. On the day of our 11th year wedding anniversary, we made the official decision, sitting on the sofa, watching T.V. it just came out.. it's time, lets get the ball rolling ( I had envisioned the whole thing being a big ordeal when we finally decided to make the first step) I had to keep mentioning little things about he process to Terry and wait for his response just to make sure I hadn't dreamt it. I still couldn't quite believe it, I kept waiting for him to say something like " lets wait until Gabbie is a little older" or SOMETHING..so it was hard to be really excited at first.

I started cleaning out Gabbie's closet and I asked him to take some of her outgrown clothes to Goodwill and he responded with " But what if we get a little girl, these are cute clothes!" I about fell down.. HOLY COW.. this was REAL! but just to be absolutely sure that I wasn't dreaming, the next morning I told him that I was calling the local DFCS office to set up our classes and home study and his response " OK" WHOOO HOOOO.. folks, I'm tired of goodbyes, I want to bring a waiting child home "For Keeps!"

We will use this blog to document our journey, thanks for coming along for the ride! :)