Home Study

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A few weeks ago while ago (yes, that's how long I've been working on this post!) we had our home study visits with our social worker.  I wasn't sure what to expect from a home study - in my mind I envisioned a very stern lady coming through our house and opening every door and examining every nook and cranny only to finally announce whether or not we made the cut.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

Before our social worker came for our visits we each had to write and submit a self-study to our agency.  The self study consisted of several (around 30) questions that we each had to answer.  We could not discuss our answers with each other.  The questions consisted of just about anything anyone could ever want to know about Clay, myself, our background, our marriage, parenting views, adoption, etc.  Let's just say that those who read it will know everything about us - good or bad! ;)

Here's a few of the questions we had to answer:

• Describe your personality.  Include what you view as your strengths and weaknesses.  Briefly explain the events and experiences in your life that you feel have shaped your personality.
• Describe the family you grew up in.  Who was in the family, what were their relationships to each other?  What was your relationship with your parents like?  What were your feelings about other family members?  What were the positive and negative qualities of your family?
• Describe your parents relationships to each other while growing up and currently.
• How has your relationship changed since the ‘honeymoon’?  What do you admire about him/her now?  What are his/her strong and weak points?
• What are your main areas of disagreement?
• What are your relationships with each other’s families?  Do they live within visiting distance?  When do you get together?  What is your relationship like with your father-in-law?  Mother-in-law?  What are the similarities and dissimilarities between the two families of origin, and how have these differences impacted your marriage?
• Please explain your view of a birth parent and why and/or how a birth mother releasing a child for adoption?

After we submitted our self study, we were contacted about two months later by our agency's social worker. It just so happens that she goes to our church, but it was super fun to get to know her even better through this experience!

She was required to do 2 visits with us, one of which had to be in our home. We did the in-home part first. She had to work through several questions with us and so she did 1/2 of the interview plus the walk through of our home that day. She asked us questions about our families, our backgrounds, our personalities, what led us to adoption, etc. It was very much like the questions we answered in our self study. Then she did the walk through of our home, which was seriously just that. It was more like showing a friend your house than an investigator trying to find a reason why you are unfit to parent. (I was fretting for no reason!)

A week later we met her for lunch and completed the second half of the interview. We each had to have a few minutes at the table alone with her to ask some individual questions so I came late and Clay left early. The questions this day were more parenting and discipline oriented. After that, we were done! It was honestly a delightful process.

This was our official last step in the "paper trail" process of adoption. Technically, our profile could have been shown and we could have been matched before the home study was complete but now we are 100% ready to go and waiting.  

And oh how we are ready to meet this precious little one that God has picked out for our family. We are praying that we meet him or her very soon!

A Garage Sale Fundraiser

[I'm sorry for the blogging hiatus recently - my only excuse is that life has happened. :)  We've had so much going on but I already have a list of things I'm ready to sit down and write about so hopefully this summer will lend me the time to do so!]

A few weeks ago we had a garage sale fundraiser at my parent's house.  My mom and our best friends, the James and Harrison's, all kicked in to make this sale happen. 

Natalie, Kim and my mom all cleaned out their houses and contributed to the sale.  We also had a few people from our community give some things, and some stuff was donated from a church wide garage sale our church had earlier this year.  

My mom, Natalie and Kim all helped out working it and organizing it because I had to be at work a lot of the time.  I am so thankful for these three women!  

I teased my mom and said it was the least successful garage sale of all time! Ha!  I only say that because in the 3 hours that I was able to work it not one person came!! We ended up making a good little profit. As we were saying all weekend ... every little bit helps!  

There were some fun finds in our little sale ... it was fun to see the things that each household was ridding themselves of.  

One of them was this amazing Avatar mask that our friend Nathan did not realize he was getting rid of (you can thank his dear wife Natalie for that!).  My dad thought he needed to model it and soon thereafter it sold!  (For  $5.00!) 

We were all shocked that the most valuable item in the garage sale did not sell!  Our dear sweet friend Kimmie did this self portrait in college and she has been hiding this little gem away for years.  We're thinking the garage sale audience did not realize what a masterpiece was in front of them and it might need to hit the auction scene in order to get it's true value in profit. ;)  

(Kimmie, just get ready because this little thing might start making it's appearance in all kinds of fun places!)  

Once again we have been incredibly humbled by the support we've been given in helping to fund our adoption.  Thank you mom and dad and to the James' and Harrison's for giving of your time and resources!  

We also contributed an entire room of furniture to the sale in order to clear out a room to make a nursery -- I'll hopefully be putting up a post about that soon!  

Village People

We have been completely blown away by the support we've received from our t-shirt sales. I know I KEEP saying that over and over - but it's seriously crazy how this tiny little fundraiser has brought such a huge response!  I told Clay in the beginning that I would love to sell 100 shirts - and we've now sold almost 500!  The LORD continues to be our provision and teach us that HE is our provider!  

We are also very excited to announce that we are now at 60% of our needed funds to complete our adoption! 

I do not want to only focus on the financial aspect of our journey - I only say this to celebrate what the LORD is doing!  I do not ever want to forget how the Lord has used so many of you to teach me of His own character.  He is our provision.  He will always provide all that we need in His timing and in His ways.  

Four months ago we would have never been able to conceive of where any of this money would come from - but we knew we had to step out in faith and trust Him.  What a journey it's been!  Thank you all for your sacrificial giving and your obedience to the Lord.  I could not put into words how much the Lord has you to teach me about His heart and how He can use others to teach us about Him.  It is so humbling.  

Getting your "Village People" pictures does nothing but warm our hearts!  It has seriously been so fun to see all of you who bought one wearing them in support!  I CANNOT wait to show Baby C the pictures of you all and how loved he/she was before we even knew their name.  

If you haven't sent us a picture - please do!  We would love to include you in our book!  

Thank you all for your continued support!  May God get the glory from every little step in our journey!  

We are ready to meet our little one!  

Waiting Joyfully, 

Stacy and Clay 

Open-Handed Faith

Many of you have asked about an update - and to be quite honest there is not much of one other than the same thing we've been saying for a while now:  "We're just waiting for that phone call!"  [Please know that you are welcome to ask me this question ... I might just have the same answer for a while :)]

My dad has also told me that I can no longer call him unless I have news that his new grand baby is on the way! He said he is tired of almost having a heart attack each time he sees mine or Clay's names on the caller id. ;)

However -- we have completed 1/2 of our home study visits so expect a post about those details soon!  (There are some of you like myself who love knowing details so I'll try to make it detailed ... if any of you out there would want to know!)

While I knew that this waiting would have many different emotions and lessons attached to it, I could not expect the blessing that it has become.  It must be noted that blessing does not mean that it has been all fun and easy - no, that's not true.  There have been a few tears and some conversations with Clay hashing out my need for control.  The phrase "I just wish I knew..." followed by several different statements have been coming out of my heart and mouth in the last few weeks.

The blessing is that I (and Clay) have been able to walk by faith in ways that I never understood before this journey.  It seems that is one of the most precious ways that the Lord works - by teaching us through our obedience in the midst of uncertainty.  There have been no deep theological truths revealed, or emotional mountaintop experiences, or big revelatory moments so far.  Instead, I am learning to walk with every step as an act of open-handed obedience to the Lord.

Proverbs 3:5-6 have been so refreshing and challenging to me as we are waiting.  I can remember a day a little over 2 years ago as Clay and I sat on our couch discussing our plans to expand our family and this was the verse that he mentioned in that conversation.  At that time, these verses were nothing but the verses that Mrs. Margaret taught me in Sunday school years ago.   

But oh how God has deeply used these two verses to teach me about walking by faith.  Trusting the Lord is not always easy but it is always good.  Leaning on my own understanding will get me nowhere.  I may never understand why or how or when, but God does. In fact, I may never grasp why things happen if I leave it up to my own understanding.  He is in control.  He has a sovereign plan that does not need my understanding in order for it to be in place.  

For now I am learning to build my trust in my Sovereign Father.  I can do this by acknowledging Him in all my ways.  This is a lesson in putting one foot in front of the other and clinging to God's promises and His commands.   I want to always view this season of our lives in this way as we wait for our precious little one!   

The Village People

It has been so fun and humbling and awesome to see people wearing our adoption t shirts.  I have nicknamed you all the Village People - it may be corny but I think it's fun!  ;)

We've had such an overwhelming response to this fundraiser! Thank you for your generosity and support of us in this journey.  I have been completely blown away by the faithfulness of the Lord in every step of the way.  Why do we ever put limits on the Lord?  So far we have sold twice as many shirts as was my original goal! It's one of the many stories we have and will have about how the Lord is teaching us through this process.  

We are thrilled to announce that we are now at 38% of our needed funds!  Through our t-shirt sales, we added 10% of the money needed to bring our precious little one home.  It is incredibly humbling to see all that happens when you surrender to God's plan and walk entirely by faith.  You guys are all a huge part of that lesson!  

There are still people out there who have ordered shirts, and they are on their way to you!  We ran out of all the ones we did have but we are printing more!  AND if you would still like to order one - we are taking orders until next Friday, April 5th.  Just shoot us an email, Facebook message or text and let us know what size and whether you would like a crew neck or a v - neck!  

And don't forget to send us a picture if you have already gotten your shirt!  You can appear in a "Village People" post soon!  You will also be included in the book for our child to have one day!  

You can email your picture to us at:  ourroadtoadopt@gmail.com 

OR you can text it to either me or clay

Waiting Joyfully, 

Stacy and Clay 

The Shirts Are In!

We have been completely humbled by the overwhelming response to our t-shirt fundraiser. Our child is certainly blessed by many people who already love him or her.  I cannot wait to start getting pictures of you all in them so we can start putting together our "Village People" book for our little one!  

Something that was really fun was that Clay and I actually got to be part of the screen-printing process for our shirts!  Some of you may or may not know that I work at a t-shirt and promotional product store in our town, and my boss amazingly agreed to help us out with our fundraiser.  Clay and I got to go and be a part of the whole thing and help print our shirts!

This is the screen that was used to print our shirts!  Clay stood over by the printer and loaded and removed our shirts as they went around and were printed.  He then placed them on a dryer for the ink to dry.  

I stood at the other end of the dryer and caught shirts as they came through.  It was so much fun to get to be a part of this process.  My bosses Petey and Sara and their daughter Dakota were all there helping us print.  I was so mad after we left because I realized I didn't get a picture with them!  We are so thankful for them and their help to us in this process!  

We then took the shirts to my parent's office and used their conference room as a sorting line.  My sweet mom came and helped to get all the shirts sorted and labeled.  

And this is what our living room has looked like the past few days!  The shirts are now done and are ready to go out to all of you!  If you are a part of our church, Clay has them in his office and you can run by there and get them.  If you are in our area, I will be contacting you to work out the details of getting them to you.  If you don't live close, you should be getting yours in the mail soon!  

And one more thing I don't want to ever forget:  these precious cards a sweet friend made for us to put in each bag.  We would love for each of you to keep this card as a reminder to pray for us and this entire process.  We have sincerely been so encouraged by each one of your sweet prayers over our growing family!  

If you still would like to order one, please let us know!  We have a few extras but are going to be doing another printing run as well! 

Words do not seem to be enough to express how thankful we are for each of you.  Please know that every day the Lord is using the people He has placed in our lives to teach us more about Himself and His working in every day lives.  

Waiting Joyfully, 

Stacy and Clay 

Already Spoiled

Baby C already has a few things waiting for him or her at home.  Our family and friends have been blessing this baby from the moment we announced our adoption.  This little one does not even know what is coming!  I have only allowed myself to buy one thing outside of these gifts ... but I'm afraid all that will change when we know he or she is on the way!  (Who am I kidding?  I am not sure how much longer I can hold out!)  

And yes, that is a teeny tiny 6M cardinals tee ready for our little one!  Clay was ecstatic!  

I really want to use this space as a way to keep others updated, but I also want to make sure I'm documenting special moments along our journey as well.  There have been some cute moments thus far and I don't want to forget them because they mean so much to our story.  

Along with our families, we told a few friends of our plans before we went "public" with our news. Clay wanted to tell a few guys that he is really close to about our plans to adopt so he asked them to meet him for lunch.  None of them really knew what he was going to say.  One of them walked in and immediately said, "Ok so you are about to tell us 1 of 3 things:  Either you and Stacy are pregnant, you are leaving the church, or you have cancer.  Now which one is it?"  Clay laughed so hard! 

  One of my favorite moments came the night we announced we were adopting to a dear family in our church.  The entire family was there waiting for us as we announced our news.  Clay had mentioned a few days before that we wanted to talk with them about something.  They were scared to death of what we were going say, but the sweet grandma of the family jumped up as soon as we could get it out of our mouths.  She exclaimed, "I knew it!" and got up and ran into the kitchen and came back with a small baby gift.  It was such a fun moment for me as I opened it and realized that I was receiving my first baby gift!  It was surreal.  

Wednesday will mark one month since we signed our sign-up paperwork.  These are such fun days that we never want to forget.  I want to continue this journey with the same joy and excitement that we've had the last month.  I know that as the waiting goes on and the unknowns remain it is bound to get harder.  I am thankful for this as it is a daily lesson in placing my hope in Christ.  I have written the words "My hope is found in nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness" across my bathroom mirror.  Each day when I look at it I remind myself that my hope does not come from getting that much awaited phone call; it must come only from the hope that the gospel brings to my life.  I pray our child will one day know the same hope.  

I realize more and more every day just how ready I am to meet our precious little one.  It is amazing how much love you can feel for someone you do not even know!  

Waiting Joyfully, 

Stacy and Clay