interview #1

Tomorrow afternoon we have our first of 3 interviews. We go together to the Bethany office at 4:30 for our "couple interview." Lisa, our new social worker, called me on Monday i think it was and I chatted with her for a few minutes. She seems really down to earth and I am excited to work with her. I am hoping that we can get our personal interviews set up for sometime next week, possibly??? And then, the home visit to follow, which I am hoping can be the following week. I still haven't started on our profile yet. We might be needing that soon!!! I am wanting to get that started this weekend. I am not good at that kind of creative stuff. Anyone got any good ideas??? I'll post saturday probably to say how the interview went. I am so excited!!!

comments...

We have been so encouraged and feel so loved and supported from all of you. So many people have been so interested in what we are doing, so monitarily generous with the garage sale and just with your own personal financial gifts; generous with your prayers, I am sure; generous with your time throughout the day to call and check in and to keep up with our blog. We want to say THANK YOU again. The feeling of being loved and knowing you are supported in your journey makes things so much easier, and much more fun! I love the comments that you guys leave....dad, that last one was a tear jerker and I love you! I love that people like DeeDee Barfield can comment on things, when otherwise I probably would have no contact with her. All this to say that, silly me did not know that I could change the settings so that ANYONE can comment, whether you have an account or not. If you don't have an account, just sign your name at the bottom of your entry so we know who it's from. Keep them coming! They do our hearts more than yall can know.

a little news...

We got great news this weekend! Friday, after conversation through email about the psychologist and how he doesn't know how to return phone calls or do things in a timely fashion, I was informed by Bethany that as soon as they have our psych report, which should be Monday morning, that they would be contacting us to set up our interviews, with the home visit to follow. In their words....'we are in great need of families and would like to get you through the process.' There are normally two domestic social workers, Carolyn and Amanda. We have been working with Carolyn so far, and Amanda recently went out on maternity leave. So, because of Carolyn being so swamped, i guess, they are switching who we will be working with. Lisa will be doing our interviews, home visit and writing up our homestudy. I really liked her at orientation. She deals mostly with the international adoptions normally. I don't know why, but for some reason, once again, a wave of reality passed over me. I kinda freaked out again! I know, I know, I have to stop freaking out at the thought of being a mother! Sometimes I think that some of you, after having read my blog, think I am some deep thinker or whatever, but just to give you an example of how not deep my mind thinks...when I think of being a mom, and start to freak out, in my head I am saying, 'oh, shoot! oh shoot! oh shoot!' Deep thoughts, huh? Ha ha, anyways, I just wanted to let everyone know that the next step is near, and we are very excited! It makes me real sad that they are in "great need of families." I hope that anyone and everyone who reads this blog will prayerfully consider how they can specifically meet the need of an orphan. I don't have a clue what that might look like for any one of you, but probably the greatest desire I have in doing this blog is that someone else might be inspired to reach out to a little girl or boy who needs love and support. Eric and I have already been blessed in ways that we would not have been had we not pursued this thing that is so much bigger than we are. We have been challenged in our faith, in our marriage, in our personal lives...already. I never would've dreamed of being in this moment that we are in now, and I have a feeling that it has only just begun. We haven't even met our child yet!

At church this morning, we had a really neat opportunity to meet a group of refugees who were being persecuted in their country for practicing christianity. Women were being raped and beaten, and I actually don't even know all the details. But, instead of denying their faith, they have left everything they know, their country, their way of life, their friends and some family, and fled to smyrna, tn so that they can worship God freely. I think they said there were 80 of them currently. They don't speak our language, have driver's licenses, or have much money. But for them, nothing was worth the freedom to worship and serve God freely. First I want to say what a great country we live in. I have never honestly taken the time to appreciate my freedom. But this morning, I sat in my chair listening to their story and looking into their faces, tears streaming down my face and just feeling an overwhelming sense of thankfulness. Then came a feeling of conviction. Would I do that for my freedom to worship? How am I intentionally reaching out to people today and yesterday and everyday, since I have the freedom to do so? It seems that I have put a lot of energy and focus into this adoption as if that is my "mission" for the year. But I believe God desires much more from me. I hope, with God's grace that I can begin noticing others in need and stop being satisfied with the fact that we are adopting right now. I definitely don't feel this adoption is a prideful thing in our hearts, but can you see how it gets that way at times in regards to us doing our 'good deed' for the time being? Just something I thought about today. I'll post when we hear from Bethany again! Have a great week.

free...

Again, it has been awhile. We are kinda in a waiting phase right now. As I mentioned before, after we turned in our paperwork, everything is out of our hands now. It's kinda funny how deceiving that my perspective is in this life. My perspective causes me to believe that I actually have control of things, and that in a weird way is very comforting. I have really believed that during the paperwork portion of this process, that I was in control of the outcome, of how quickly we finished and that I could control how quickly we get to our child. But, I am wrong about that. I was no more in control of the paperwork than I am of the Psychologist who did our evaluation and of him turning our report in to Bethany. No matter how many times I call this man, he will not return my calls and for whatever reason, has not turned in the eval yet. I can't make him turn it in, so that we can hurry this thing up. Do yall see how funny this is? We rush, and I mean rush through the paperwork, get our fingerprints and background checks, study ourselves...but quickly (the long self study) all to get to the psych eval and have it take over a month and counting from start to finish to get it completed. 'What the heck is going on?'...i am thinking to myself. Then, I am reminded by a sweet friend of the truth that God is in control. He took us on this journey and He will finish it, in his time. Again, we will be parents, in His perfect timing. I see such a revolving door in my life in the area of control, especially in this phase of growing my family. And the even funnier part is that I like to think that Eric has the problem with control in his life. (sorry babe) I am quick to see his sin, but cannot see my own. Ha ha ha...it makes me literally laugh out loud at myself. Thanksgiving is technically over, but I am so thankful for friends who keep me grounded, cause God really knows how I like to float around a lot. I am thankful that He is in control of everything, and promises that He always will be. This is a truth that I used to not really get, or like. I have frequently been held captive in a sense, regarding God's control in my life. The idea of Him being completely in control, when from the wrong perspective can feel that way. Maybe none of you have ever felt this way. I have always heard the phrase, 'there is freedom in Christ' and I believe that this is one way that I have truly experienced this freedom. I am not a prisoner or a puppet of God's, due to his control. Nope, not at all like I once thought. I am free. Free to live my life, free to put aside my shortcomings, my sin and free to just live in his grace and know that He holds the future and the He is in control. AND that His plans for the future are plans to bring me life and to bring himself glory. I can trust Him. I can rest in Him. I can stop worrying. I can enjoy the journey He has us on.

I have spent the past few weeks worrying about if we are ready. Is our marriage ready? Am I ready? What if it comes too soon, or too late? My friend reminded me that I can pursue infertility, adoption, and even specific children, but there is one that is ours, and God will bring that child to us when He is ready.

I talked with Carolyn (our social worker) this week and she told me that as soon as the psych eval comes in, she will call us to set up our interviews. Then we will have a home visit and be completely done and ready to be officially "waiting." She did tell me not to expect to be finished until after the first of the year. I am glad to know this because I feel it gives me a little time to not be wondering when we'll be done. We can just enjoy the holidays. She sent out an email recently of several situations of babies who are in need of homes, some due this week and some due in the next few months. I am compelled to pray for these little ones who have no home before they are even born. Something that the agency encourages us to do while "waiting" is to pray for the children who are in need of families, whether they are to be a part of our specific family or not. As I remind myself how much God cares for orphans, I hope that all our friends and family who keep up with our blog will be inspired to pray for these children as well.

"A father to the fatherless, a defender of the widow is God in His holy dwelling. He sets the lonely in families..." Psalm 68:5-6

"He executes justice for the orphan..." Deut. 1o:18

"Vindicate the weak and fatherless; Do justice to the afflicted and destitude" Psalm 82:3

"Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and father is this: to visit orphans and widows" James 1:27

"How blessed is he who considers the helpless..."

Psalm 41:1

"psych eval"

Okay, sorry everyone, for not updating sooner. I did not even want to talk about that day last week that was so long and way boring (much more than I had imagined) I am just going to start by saying that we got to the office 20 minutes early (thanks to eric) and we enter the building to find a long hallway lined with a lot of closed doors. To our surprise, all the doors were locked. Even the one "105" which we were supposed to be going into for our appointment. We knocked. No answer. We walk upstairs to find the same thing, long hallway of locked doors. OK...we thought...lets go knock some more. Seriously, no one could be found except this one guy who sells insurance and he doesn't know anything. Then suddenly, about 5 or 10 minutes after 11 a guy comes walking out from behind one of the locked doors and is like, "yall lookin for me?" It was all we could do not to just bust out laughing. where the heck had this guy been? and what was he doing? weird. So, anyways, he procedes to give us a bunch of questions to answer, then we have the oral part of the evaluation. Basically, he just had us talk about our marriage and our "stuff" and what our issues are and all that. Then he gave us some advice and some test questions. We sat in this room, Eric at a desk and me on the couch and began doing this test of questions like 'I would like to be a fireman....true or false' and 'when I get angry I want to smash things' and 'I think about sex during the day' and all kinds of random things like these. Then you would find the same questions worded differently later on in the survey. About what I thought was half way through the test, I thumbed through to the back to see how much more I had to go (this is a common test taking habit that I have....sometimes i like to start at the back and work my way forward, just for fun) and I kept flipping and flipping. Finally I got to the last page....633 questions!!!!! so you know its not a typo...six hundred thirty three questions. I felt this overwhelming sense of dispair. I did not think I could ever answer that many questions that are formatted like these. It was truly really really long and really really boring. Finally we both had finished and once again the guy had disappeared. We were kinda over this whole experience at this point, so we left our answers and test questions on the desk and left...it was 10 til 4!!! That thing took almost 5 hours! Hopefully he returned and found our answers and we don't ever have to do that again. And then, we get to the car and I check my voicemail where I find that many of you had called to see how it went... thanks! But the best message was from my sweet, psychological guru of an aunt, Stephanie....and i quote..."Hey, just wanted to see how it went today, I hope you got to do the MMPI...that one is so fun to do...." The mmpi was the name of the 633 question test we had just finished. I let her know that there is NOTHING fun about the MMPI. All in all, it wasn't that bad.... but of course, we don't know if we have passed or not yet! We are hoping no news is good news. Again, sorry it took so long to blog this time. I just couldn't think about that day before now.
p.s. (I have been very melodramatic in this blog. please, just humor me.)

so, here is Aubrynne! My sweet niece who is the MOST precious girl. I promise Eric is not drunk.... just a little tired!
Here we are at our yard sale!

This is the first 5 bucks we made!

Let me tell yall about our week. A situation with a brand new baby girl was brought to our attention by some sweet friends at work that had been brought to the ER and would be needing a home. Without going into all the details of how and why this situation occured, I will just say that a need for a family came up, and Eric and I had the opportunity to make ourselves available to take her. When I recieved the call from the ER, it did not feel real...until I talked to Eric about it. When I told him what I knew of the situation, his response was, "What are you waiting for??? CALL THEM!" We hung up the phone, and with my mom as a witness, I began having chest pain, feeling short of breath and feeling like I was gonna vomit!! Some of you may be thinking 'wow, you really aren't ready to get a baby if you are gonna freak out!' You can rest assured, I was not freaking because we might be parents, but just at the thought of my baby being without me...alone...without a name! I have wondered if I will naturally feel that 'motherly instinct' or 'instant bond' with my adopted child. I know, after this week, that I will. I was overwhelmed with worry and an extreme amount of love for this little girl I have never met, seen, held, and quite frankly that was going to be a stretch to actually come into my home. After all, all we were doing was making ourselves available to the people in charge of this baby. It's not like this was actually something we were doing through our agency that actually had potential to be in our home. But it did not matter. If she was to be ours, I wanted her, and loved her, and immediately began praying for her and for her birthmom who is quite obviously in a really bad situation. Realistically though, I tried to keep myself grounded and remind myself that this was a long shot. But it did not matter. I still loved her, and wanted her, and prayed for her. At one point shortly after getting this phone call, I looked at my mom and asked her what on earth will I do with a baby? I don't have any stuff, like diapers and uh, a crib, or clothes! It's really cold outside! My mom calmly responded, "We'll go to target!" I said, "oh, okay...we'll...go to Target." So, we made the appropriate phone calls, to the appropriate people and then just have waited to hear something. I talked with a social worker this morning and it looks like that little baby girl will have a family soon, through the state's custody and provision. I am glad that there are other families waiting to take home little girls who don't have a home. I am glad that I was able to love her so much, so instantly, so unconditionally. I am glad that we got to experience the real possibility of becoming parents. I am happy with our response. I know that God is sovereign and in control, and that He is still preparing us for parenthood. I am really, seriously okay and actually great with that baby girl finding a home through the state program. I rest in knowing that our child will come to us soon enough. And it will be the child for only us. I am not having anymore chest pain or shortness of breath or nausea now that I know I am not separated from my little girl, cause she's not mine! I am also excited that i felt what a lot of my "anxious" patients feel and they never can quite explain it or why they have these symptoms, but the are real. And now I can stop thinking they are making it all up! (just kidding...I am not that harsh, but I am sometimes a little skeptical)

So, it's back to waiting some more, to finish our homestudy. We have sent letters now to our employers for their references and hopefully they will be prompt. Someone asked me today if this event makes me feel more anxious about the wait, or more ready for it to hurry up and be here. I think a little, but not too much. I am still not in 'wait' mode, because we aren't expecting to get a child yet. I still really see good in both sides of it coming fast and then we are parents! But here are the reasons that it is soooo okay that we aren't there yet:

1. we need to save some major money so we don't have to borrow it!



2. we get to spend more time together, alone!



3. we need to be training our dog to be outside



4. we need to be reading our required books about being adoptive parents



5. we get to continue preparing our hearts



6. me and mom have time to find some good material to decorate the nursery



7. we have time to soak up Aubrynne (our new niece)



8. we get to enjoy dreaming about what our child will look likel (it's kinda fun)



9. we get to continue to trust God and experience Him in this time of waiting, in ways we wouldn't if we could just always have our way, when we chose and how we chose. I am convinced and expect that our child will prove to us and hopefully to any of you who are in this journey with us, that God's timing is perfect, His ways are better than ours, and we can learn to be thankful, hopeful people as a result of this truth and how it plays out in our lives.

We received a letter in the mail today that informed us of the status of our paperwork. We both have to give reference forms to our employers then once they are turned in and one more person turns in their personal reference form, we will move on to the next step...the interviews! We also are going to have a psychological evaluation done on November 12. First of all, this is my birthday. I kinda was being selfish in scheduling it on my birthday, cause Eric has to take off work to have it done cause it takes 3-4 hrs to complete. But, does this sound scary to anyone else... 'psychological evaluation'???? What on earth will this be like? I assumed we'd be able to adopt, but who knows what will happen if Eric and I both have to convince a psychologist that we are sane! I don't think either of us have felt 'sane' in a while now! Some of the people in these groups that we are going to for support have said that they actually try to trick you. There is some kind of validity score/test that is in the evaluation to see if you are being truthful with your answers. I don't do well when I am being tricked....I am quite gullable. May the Lord be with us! We also received our financial statement in the packet today. This basically told us what we have already paid, what we owe, and when to pay. It did not include lawyer fees (which comes after placement of the child) but I felt great about the cost. It was right at what we thought, actually on the low side of what we thought and that is ALWAYS good. I am feeling excited about everything, but still nervous. I am nervous that I am totally gonna be freaked out by bringing a baby into my house, forever. It sounds awesome, but feels crazy. I held my beautiful, sweet, precious, little neice Aubrynne tonight for like an hour or more. She makes me want to hurry up and bring our baby home. I also kept the Vinson boys again today. Tate (the youngest of the 3) is EVERYWHERE! At one point I found myself washing out his cloth diaper that was poopy, by the way, while owen was pooping in the potty right next to me, tate was just sitting in the floor laughing and smiling, while griffin was trying to 'help' me wash the poop out of tate's CLOTH diaper. He was pointing out what he thought Tate must have eaten earlier in the day and just thought it was so great! They began talking about all the different aspects of 'poop' from their 3 and 4 yr old perspectives and I thought to myself, 'This is where you are headed...poop land!' Laurie....more power to ya with the fuzzy buns (cloth diapers) and to having 3 boys who are so wonderful, but very busy! We really had a great time, as usual. I write all this to say that I am excited and curious about this next phase of life for us, but incredibly nervous and hesitant at the same time. I hope that is ok. I also feel really humbled and honestly quite amazed that someone (and God) is going to trust me with a child....on purpose!

I still feel like we are running like crazy right now. I don't forsee it getting better anytime soon. Between my work and then Eric's work and basketball starting up a few weeks ago, we definitely aren't looking at a lot of downtime. Please pray for us that we would make time for each other to strengthen our relationship. Also, that we would keep our priorities straight of what is important as far as our time is concerned. I'll be posting about that psych eval coming up. In the meantime, thanks for "waiting" with us!