A letter of love

A few months ago Pastor Leisa at our church gave me some advice about our adoption process. The first thing she said to me was " Girl you about to have the ride of your life!!" She is so right! It has already been crazy! Another thing she suggested was to get a nice journal and write to future child. Most adopted children don't know much about their birth parents or where they came from; but it will be really nice for her to be able read about our journey. This will include prayers, updates on the process, things her big brother says about meeting her, quotes and Bible verses.

Our adoption journal

I am calling this our love letter. I may not be able to labor and give birth to her but I will show her through this journal all the blood, sweat and tears we put into bringing her home. It is encouraging when I write in it, because with each journal entry we are that much closer to the finish line.

Thank you SO much for your love and support! If you would like to donate please do so here.

Brooke

Let the fundraising begin!

Our agency's fee for our adoption is $24,500. That is just the fee for the agency. That doesn't include $250 in multiple background checks, child abuse clearances, possible plane tickets, hotel stays and not to mention thousands of dollars in legal fees. Which puts us closer to $30,000 - $35,000. 

Here is a break down:

Application Fee: $250

First Home Study Fee: $875

Last Home Study Fee: $875

Profile Submission Fee: $2,500

1st Match fee: $4,000

Placement Fee: $16,000

So, we started out with opening a Go Fund Me page. Within 12 hours we received $1,500. It brought tears to our eyes to see all of the love pour in so quickly! To date we have saved and raised $3,405. Which is awesome!

 Next we decided to send out fundraising letters. I typed up a letter explaining our story and included a little picture magnet of our family to remind the recipients to pray for us and a stamped and addressed envelope if they wanted to send money.

Blake insisted on signing his name on every letter!

A few weeks later we pulled everything out of our garage, plus a few friends donated and we had a huge yard sale! It was a decent turn out and we made about $300. Unfortunately, it started to rain about 4 hours early so we didn't get enough time to sell everything. But, Blake got to have his first lemonade stand! He was SO excited to help raise money for his baby sister!

So Cute!!!

Our next plan is to do a fundraiser night at some restaurants in the area. Chipotle will give you 50% of a bill if the customer brings in the flyer or donates their receipt. Which is a pretty great deal! More to come!!

Thank you for all of your love and support!!

Brooke

If you would like to donate click here!

First Post!

As most of you know, our adoption journey officially started in January 2015.  We were approved by Lifeline Children's Service to begin our Home-Study on February 2, 2015. So far the process has been flawless. We couldn't ask for a better social worker. Here is a little break down of the process so far:

                                                                 Our approval letter!
                                         
Orientation Interview:

This was our very first interview and meet and greet with our social worker, Megan. The meeting was broken up into three sessions. First, she interviewed us together asking various questions about our lives. Second, she interviewed us separately and then together again. It lasted about three and a half hours. Grueling. Gunnar and I felt like we had been sent to the principals office. However, the meeting couldn't have gone better. She emailed us immediately along with over 80 pages of paperwork! WOOHOO!

                                                                    So.Much.Paperwork.


Home-Visit Interview- AKA Home Invasion!!

For this meeting, Megan came to our home. I was positive she was going to judge me and my dirty baseboards and my garage that lacked any form of organization. I was completely wrong! She was simply there to make sure we actually lived in a house and had enough room for another baby. The meeting consisted of a lot of questions about our marriage and conflict resolution. It lasted about three hours, by the end of it we were both mentally exhausted, but incredibly happy to be done with our first home visit!

Second Interview:

For about a month after our home visit we had to put together our autobiographies. Which ended up being about 4 pages long for both of us. It was pretty easy, but a little challenging when it came to some questions. The second interview was done individually. Gunnar did his first because he was leaving to go to training for 6 weeks. I did mine a few weeks later. The meeting lasted about two hours and mainly focused on our autobiographies. Both of our meetings went great. We also learned a lot more about the process.

We have two more interviews and a conference in August and we are DONE! Then we will have an adoption profile ready to be shown to birth moms!


Thank you for all of your love and support! If you would like to donate please click here!

Brooke