Our journey coming to an end

I wanted to share the email that we sent out to immediate friends & family yesterday. I would like to post here as well.  I know a lot of you "silent" readers have been prayer warriors for us throughout this process and we will forever be grateful to you for keeping our family in your prayers.  I do ask that you do not stop praying for adoption though.  At our agency, they are at their highest numbers ever of waiting families and have now started putting people on waiting lists.  Pray for the waiting families, the children, and the birth parents.  Though this didn't work out for Ross & I, I do not want to leave a bad taste in any one's mouth about adoption.  We are still 100% supportive of adoption and are so thankful and blessed for going through this journey, even though it didn't end up how we expected.  Thank you for following us throughout this journey!


Hello Everyone,

 We felt it was appropriate to update family & friends with our adoption status as you were all there from the first steps we took with the process.  Many of you were skeptical of the situation but were supportive, which is what we needed.  After 1 year of preparing our home study and 2 years waiting on the adoption list,  Ross & I have made the decision to not renew our home study  and be removed from the list. 

 It's been a very hard decision for us, but the reasons for getting off the list out-weighed the reasons for staying on.   We are ready to move on with our life, and accept the fact that we are and will only be a family of 4, even though we had at times visions of something else.

We have yet to understand why we were brought to the adoption process and waited patiently for 2 years with nothing but disappointment.  We have cried, laughed, and prayed until we were blue in the face for two straight years.  We're exhausted. We are thankful for the opportunity and know that God has bigger and better plans for us,  we are needed somewhere else.  That's not to say that we aren't mourning the "visions of our family" that we once had.  It's hard to have a plan and have it not go as planned but as we all know, God's plan is much bigger and better.  

I want to thank you all for your love and support throughout this 3+ years.  I know we wouldn't have gotten this far without the support of wonderful family and friends. 

Until our next journey,

Ross & Anne

Prayer Request

I don't have much to update but just wanted to ask for some prayers for our family as we decide together the next few months if our adoption journey is coming to an end or if we should continue it.  Our home study is up for renewal at the end of August and we truly feel torn.  We are exhausted. Mentally and Emotionally and are not sure how much more we have left to wait another year.  We know God has a plan and whichever way he leads us, we will follow.  Right now I could use a crystal ball if you happen to have one laying around :)

Thank you!

May

Hi Everyone! Sorry it has been so long since I've posted. We haven't had any phone calls or anything since so nothing to really report!  Our agency is up to 29 waiting families and out of those only 1 is "pending" an adoption so there are a ton of familes in our shoes.  For some reason, summer seems to always be a slow time with adoption, I'm not really sure why. We are staying busy over here though!  We have started building a guest cabin at our lake home and finding new projects to complete around the house. Never enough time in the day to get it all done but once  it is done, it will be wonderful!

Our youngest graduated from Preschool this year and will attend full time Kindergarten in the Fall.  It's hard to imagine our "baby" is 5 and going to school soon.  Big milestone in our family.  Ian will go into 3rd grade which seems crazy as well!  Another big milestone that is approaching way too fast is my 30th birthday!  I always said I wanted to be done having kids by 30 and clearly that "wish" is not coming true very quickly!  I may have to add 31, or 32 :)

Both boys started baseball followed by soccer so we will be running Mon-Thur nights with that.  Welcome to the world of kids in sports! Busy, busy!  Ross will be coaching both boys' baseball teams this year so that will be fun for all of them.  Looking forward to watching their games!

Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers.  We've had a lot of people give us the "dont give up" talk lately and we do appreciate it. Somedays we do feel like we want to give up and then we get the push to keep waiting and holding out hope. I cannot believe it's almost been two years since we started the journey of waiting and almost 3 years of actually starting the journey.  Time sure flies.....

May

May already!?!  Cannot believe some of you got over a foot of snow today.  We were lucky to not get any. 

My lack of updates has been mostly due to no updates. It's been very slow on the adoption front, which gets me frusterated. Trying to focus my energy on other things so the frusteration doesn't turn into negative energy.   I'm not really even sure what to say anymore on our blog but we're still here. Waiting. and Praying. 

March Update

These last few weeks have been pretty quiet in the adoption world but we did just get the March update outlining the agencies current clients and inquiries.  There are a few birth moms who are considering adoption that are due this summer and have not started looking at families yet.  Keeps me positive knowing this I guess. 

Tomorrow afternoon, Ross, Nolan & I are heading to Arizona for a few days.  Spending the night in Pheonix with some friends we met in Mexico and then heading to Lake Havasu to spend the rest of the weekend with Ross's sister.  Even though we just got back from vacation 6 weeks ago, Ross & I are definitely ready for another one! And Nolan is super pumped he gets to come with this time :)

Finally, if anyone is interested/or know anyone who would be interested,  the Catelynn and Tyler (Teen Mom fame) tour will be on the following dates:
-Tuesday, April 16th: St.Cloud State University
-Wednesday, April 17th: U of MN
Please help spread the word to their target demographic (18-24!)

:(

I'm so frustrated today!  We got word that the birth mom decided that she didn't want to look at profiles so far away from her.  (She lives in Georgia).  It frustrates me that the social workers let it go this far.  Involving 14 families, sending our books down to GA and getting all of our hopes up and then none of the books even got looked at. 

I am at the point where I have removed most emotions from the profile showings and have refrained myself from getting really excited, but it truly is hard to remove all emotions 100%.  Every profile showing that goes by we wonder "is this the one?" Like a woman trying to get pregnant, every pregnancy test she takes wondering if this is it, that's the feeling I have. You try so hard to not get too excited but it's unavoidable. 

It will be 2 years this summer that we have been waiting and have a lot of hard decisions we have to make soon if we will continue this journey or not.  It's truly an exhausting process, one we could have never prepared ourselves for 100%.  Some days I feel like I am constantly on a roller coaster.  Please pray for our family.  We are not ready to give up, yet we also don't know how much longer we will be able to continue.  I love this quote......

March Profile Showing

Just wanted to give a quick update that we will be having an out of state profile showing on Monday of next week (25th of March).  There will be approx 14 families shown coming from all over United States!  Baby is due in early May.  As always, please keep all the families involved in your prayers! We would LOVE to welcome a spring baby to our family this year :)

Quick March Update!

Hello All!  We have just returned from our Mexico vacation and it was so amazing!  I forget how much I love going on trips with JUST ROSS :)  Though we missed the kids dearly, that one on one time is sure priceless. 

The adoption front has been a little busier than normal this last month.  We've been contacted to show our profile for two separate situations.  Unfortunately, both of them did not quite seem to be a good match for our family so we did not show our books.  In both situations, we prayed before we made the decisions and both of them seemed clear that it wasn't meant to be.  So we continue to wait!

Eagerly waiting for Spring and Summer.  This winter has seemed like the longest winter ever. I'm sure all of you can relate!

Rule #964 :)

The "Perfect" Family

In reflecting this weekend after our last profile showing the title of this post popped into my mind.  "The Perfect Family."  I cannot tell you how many times I have heard people say to us, "I cannot believe you guys have not gotten chosen yet, you're the perfect family"!  (On a side note, I am not telling you this to brag, I am telling you this to make a point. I actually get offended when people say this to me.)  It got me wondering.....what constitutes "The Perfect Family?"  What do Ross & I have that makes us "The Perfect Family?" The real answer is nothing because we are FAR from perfect!  We fight, we sin, we make mistakes.  Lots, and lots and LOTS of mistakes.  We ask for forgiveness, we cry, we say things we regret, we lose faith, and we are don't always appreciate what we have.  We are far from the perfect family.  However, we love as hard as we can, we try to live each day as the last, and we try to follow God's word each and every day, and when we don't we wake up the next day and try again. 

When looking at the profiles of the 30 waiting families at our agency, they all "look" perfect.  They all have perfect family pictures, choose the perfect words in their profiles and have the perfect jobs.  Each profile is unique in it's own way and almost all of them seem...well...."perfect!"  There are times when I think, "wow, I want this family to adopt me!" :)  However, when prospective birth parents look through the profile's they are not looking for the perfect family.  They are looking for families that have a connection with them.  They are looking for families that when they close their eyes, they can visualize their child being a part of that family.  So as we wait to be chosen, we pray that a birth family can look through the profiles, and see past the "perfectness" and find the real connection to the family.   

Thank you everyone for the thoughtful notes, texts and emails this weekend.  It is clear that this is what is meant to be.  Friday night I opened my my daily devotional book and this is what it said for Friday, Feb. 1st. : "Wait with Purpose"  "My (inner) self as well as my body is also exceedingly disturbed and troubled.  But you, O Lord, how long until You return and speak space to me? Return to my relief, O Lord, deliver my life; save me for the sake of Your steadfast love and mercy. Psalm 6:3-4.  It then goes on to say, "Avoid getting negative when you look at your circumstances.  Actively wait on God to give you strength to walk in the fruit of the Spirit.  Wait with purpose, silently listening for Him to speak, eagerly watching for Him to Act."  My tears stopped immediately after reading this scripture and I haven't cried about this profile showing since.  How amazing to have this reading for this exact same day.  I can tell you for sure, it was not coincidence. 

Many Blessings to you all this week.  We will be busy getting ready for Nolan's Monster Truck 5th Birthday Party for this weekend:)

Another Profile Showing

This morning our book was shown to a couple who live VERY close to us.  I have to admit, I was the most excited for this profile showing. We first heard about it a week ago but I didn't want to announce it until after I knew more information.  It seemed like the birth parents had everything that we were looking for and we loved that the baby would be born in the same hospital as Nolan was.  What a cool story to tell, right?  The only kind of scary part was that the baby was due Feb. 17th which is 2 weeks from now!  We were prepared to cancel our trip if this profile showing went well but I guess we will not be doing that.

I hate that I let my guard down and let myself get so excited about this one.  I haven't slept all week and if I did, my dreams were filled with this baby in our arms.  I had really almost 100% convinced myself this was it.  I also liked that the birth mom was open to everyone but would put preference on the longest waiting families.  Well at 18 months, we are in the top 10 of longest waiting.  On a happier note, she did choose a family who had been waiting 2.5 years and my heart does smile knowing after 2.5 years they are finally getting their call. 

So back to looking forward to the wonderful things that February is bringing us! Birthday parties and Beach trip.

Have a blessed weekend,

Please tell me your plans are better than my dreams!

Sorry for the lack of posts. This month has been really hard for some reason. Not sure if it's the typical winter and being cooped up in the house or lack of any adoption updates.  Either way, it's just been an emotional month!

February is bringing lots of fun things planned though so looking forward to that!  We will celebrate Nolan's 5th Birthday in a few weeks and at the end of February, Ross & I will be getting on a plane and heading to Cabo San Lucas.  We are very much looking forward to a "husband & wife" vacation!  Happy Wife=Happy Life right? :)

I recently read a blog with some advice on how to get through the waiting process and thought I would share some of my favorites!

1.Setting ground rules for the family.  I don't think this one really applies to us. We have a wonderful, supportive family who has truly been great throughout this process.  I have heard nightmare stories of mothers or mother in laws calling every day asking for an update.  We are very fortunate we don't have this!  They have given us the space we need and know if we know anything, they will be the first people we tell. 

2. Shop BEFORE you get the call.  A lot of people have mentioned this to me and all though I have the "basics" for a baby, I don't have much!  I am one of those skeptical people and feel like if I'm actually all ready and prepared with a nicely decorated nursery, our baby will never come!  I know that's crazy but it's how I feel.  I know if we get "the call" and have just a few days or weeks or months to get ready, between us and our families, we will get the shopping done!

3.  Spend more time with your spouse.  Isn't this one true?!  I mean, how many of us can say this now after we had kids?!  Once a baby comes, adult nights out become very limited.  Ross and I try to do date night once/month and even though we would love to add in maybe one-two more a month, it's not always feasible when you have children!  We are looking forward to our trip and spending some alone time together though!

4.  Prepare Frozen Meals ahead of time.  I love this idea and if I was pregnant and knew that in 9 months I'd have a baby, I would totally be doing this!!! Not sure why I didn't do this when we had Nolan because I remember being stressed about meals!  If we have time before our baby arrives, this is definitely something I would like to tackle! 

5.Obsess less and stay off adoption blogs. There is too much information out there, it's overwhelming and a lot of the times not correct information.  I can totally relate on this one. No need to even comment :)

As always, thank you for praying for our family! 

2013

Wow, it's 2013 already!  I literally feel like it was New Years Eve 2012 yesterday and I was saying to myself "This year is it, I just know it!" Well 2012 failed us :/  We have been staying busy as usual and all of us fighting off to stay healthy this cold season!  Our social worker should be back to work this month so I am excited for that. She is our biggest advocate.

We did get an update a month ago on some new birth moms.  There are 4 new moms and out of the 4, 2 are pretty sure they are going to parent.  All of them are pretty early in their pregnancies so we won't hear much about them for awhile. 

Some exciting news for 2013 is that Bethany Christian is planning on hopefully two visits from Katelyn and Tyler (from Teen mom reality show on MTV).  This is huge with our target age range.  They held a similar event and had 800 people attend which was huge.  So with that said, it's good to know they are trying their best to get Bethany Christian Services name out there. 

So now that it's 2013, I'm telling myself "this is the year!" 

Thank you again for the prayers,