Happy Birthday, Sweet Caroline: Turning Two!

Today our baby girl turns two.

It's such a melancholy day for us. Her life has already brought our family so much joy, just knowing WHO she is, without even meeting her yet. We pray, and hope and pray again that today (and everyday!) she is made to feel just as special and celebrated as she so deserves to be.

Selfishly, I'm sad that I can't be with her on her day. I hate not knowing if she's getting a cake, or what her favorite flavor ice cream will be, or see her open any presents. I so wish I could be a fly on the wall of her foster home- today especially! This year, her birthday will have to be celebrated thousands of miles apart, eating a cake over here in celebration of her life, that is beyond valuable, and hoping that by the grace of God that this will be her last birthday not being with her family.

Today my heart hurts for her birth momma. Granted, we don't for sure know that her birthday is November 21 exactly, but we do know it's near today. I'm sure her birth mom's heart is so sore this month especially. Will you pray for her, that God would comfort her heart today and always?

Happy Birthday to our Sweet, Sweet Caroline. She's already changed our hearts and world, and we are confident that she's just getting started. We eagerly anticipate what this year brings, our precious girl. We love you more than we ever imagined loving someone we've never met before, and are blessed to have the honor to call you our daughter.

"I love you forever, I like you for always. As long as I'm living, my baby you'll be."



 PS: As a quick update: Still no news on our immigration paperwork. Our check has still not been cashed (almost 4 weeks later- they typically cash it within 5-10 business days), and unfortunately just calling to find out if they've even received our application is not as easy as it sounds. They require an email to the processing facility, who will email you back within FIFTEEN BUSINESS DAYS. This is getting beyond frustrating. Please pray for this part of the process. Nothing else can move forward until we receive this approval.

On Friday, we went to try and apply for Smith's passport for travel. We went to two different locations (with the snow, with three boys), only to be told we needed to come back due to some inaccurate information we had previously received. I was so frustrated I literally started crying at the County Clerks office. SO EMBARASSING. We ended up coming home, and I went upstairs and sat in Caroline's pile of "stuff" in our bedroom (her room won't be set up until we are closer to travel), and I just cried. In this process, you just want to keep seeing movement. No movement and no answers are SO frustrating. Please just pray for patience on our end.

Praying my next update will have some good news to report :)

Thanks for joining us, celebrating with us, and loving us well. Thank you for being the friends and family that let us talk about this process, and let us cry about the stress. You are all so, so good. I cannot let this Thanksgiving week pass without acknowledging that YOU (all) are such gifts to us, and we couldn't be more thankful for you.

Another Update!

Hi Everyone!

Just an update for you all in regards to Caroline's adoption for those who are following along...

We're having to learn to become more flexible with every passing day. Our original goal was that we would have DTC (Dossier to China) by my 30th birthday on November 13. That day has come and gone, and we are no closer.

There is still no news in regards to the I-800A Immigration approval. Our home study agency mailed in the application the end of October, and per USCIS, they typically cash checks within 5-10 business days. Unfortunately, here we are on November 15 and it still hasn't been cashed. I feel like I'm struggling to get answers from anyone, so we pray that this is all just God setting us up in His perfect timing, for His perfect plan to come to completion.

Having things out of my control is really, really hard during this process. It's so urgent to us, but there's also so many adoptive parents around the world, all advocating on behalf of their child, trying so hard to emphasize the urgency of each specific situation.

However, on a positive note: we have been praying boldly that God would perform a miracle, and we would be fully funded by Christmas. That is SUCH a bold prayer, and may be far fetched, but we serve a powerful God, who LOVES the fatherless and orphaned, and LOVES to do things that are only able to be attributed to Him and His faithfulness. By His grace, we heard back from the first grant agency last week, and we have been approved for a $2500 grant! How cool! We now find ourselves only about $9500 away from being FULLY funded (including the approximate cost of travel)! Please continue to pray over our grant applications and the decision makers, and join us in boldly asking God to provide for us to be fully funded by Christmas.

Also please continue to pray for our immigration approval. Please pray for it to reach the right hands, and to be processed quickly, and for us to have peace in God's timing.

Thank you so much for joining along with us on this journey. We have been overwhelmed by your kindness, graciousness and support. You're (all) the best.

The Hardest Part

I've been trying to find rest during this stage of the adoption process, but it is hard. I've been trying to have faith in God's provision, in His time.

You all have blessed us tremendously with your financial, emotional and physical support to our family as we chase after Jesus and His plan to bring Caroline home. You have donated money, let us talk, and have even watched our kids for us as we do "stuff" for this adoption. Thank you, thank you, thank you. You have been tangible reminders for us of God's continued hand on this process, and for that we are so very thankful.

If you haven't purchased a shirt yet and would like to, click here and follow through to our GoFundMe. All you have to do is make a minimum $25 donation, and either email or PM me via Facebook or Instagram your size(s) and mailing address and I will order them all together at the end of the campaign.

Adoption is harder than I thought it would be. We have to sacrifice a lot, and it's been a wonderful measuring stick: do I want to buy this shirt (or home decoration, etc) more than I want to bring Caroline home? Nope! She's helped us get our priorities straight, and has taught us to value a life more than on a possession.

My sister just had her precious baby boy a week ago (time FLIES!) and it's been so hard to not be there. I wish more than anything I was there, or were going there soon, but I've had to do a lot of self talk: Turner has a mom and dad, and a family, and is being so cared for. I can love him as much as I do as his auntie, but I am not his mom, and by the grace of God, he is safe and sound and loved. Caroline Mercy is still orphaned. It creates this urgency in me, that even when my heart so longs for "home" and the people I miss so much, this little girl's life it on the line. Thank you, God, for perspective.

The hardest part of this process so far that I've found is having to "hurry up and wait." Everything in an adoption feels urgent, but once I've completed my part, it's 100% out of my control and I need to shift gears back to waiting and resting mode, and it's SO hard to do.

We were rushing, rushing, rushing to get our home study completed so we could submit our grant applications and submit our I-800A (our request for immigration approval to bring a child into the country as our child permanently). Now that those are done, we just WAIT... and if you know me even in the slightest, you know how terrible I am at waiting. I get things DONE, and when I can't do anything it's ridiculously impossible for me to sit and twiddle my thumbs. I need to feel like I'm doing SOMETHING to speed it along, but it's teaching me so much to have to rest and wait and trust.

I keep trying to remind myself that along with praying for this process to be quick and smooth, praying for Caroline's body and mind, we've also been praying that God would prepare her to come home. So perhaps, the timing is slowing down a bit so her little heart and mind may be more ready to come home, and have a family to love her and welcome her as a beloved daughter.

Will you continue to pray for/with us? Here are a couple of ways that you can join along side us before the Throne:

1) Please pray over our I-800A Immigration approval. It's the last piece of our dossier, and is 100% out of our hands now. We are waiting to receive a request for our fingerprints from USCIS (US Immigration), which is the last step towards approval. Once we submit our finger prints, we have to wait for our final approval from them, which will be mailed to us. Once we receive it, we will have it authenticated by the State of Colorado, and over-nighted to our placing agency up in Utah, who will then send all of our originals to Washington DC so the State Department can authenticate on the federal level, and then have them couriered to the Chinese Embassy for their authentication, at which point we can finally send the dossier to China. Please pray for all of this to be processed quickly. If this takes longer than the second week in December, we will have to pay more money (long story short- they need everything authenticated by the Chinese Embassy before a certain time frame, or we would have to start over with a number of the documents).

2) Please pray for the decision makers of the grant agencies. We've submitted 12 of the 16 eligible grants we could qualify for. 2 of them don't allow you to submit until after receiving final approval from immigration, until you're only 3-4 months out from travel (we are currently about 7-8 months out from travel). The other remaining 2 have application fee's. We are waiting to submit the grant applications with the fee's until we see the decisions from the grants without application fee's. There are so many people trying to adopt, who are relying on the generosity of grant agencies (ourselves included). Will you join me in praying for clarity of mind and wisdom in their generosity? We are praying that they can see our need, and select us in their processes.

Our sweet friends and families, thank you for joining alongside us in this journey. Caroline may be Kris and my daughter, but she's ALL OF OUR girl. That's an incredible feeling, and such a joy.

 

Happy Weekend :)