Happy Thanksgiving!

We have a lot to be thankful for this year! God has blessed us in so many ways. He has especially blessed us with wonderful, supportive family and friends. We are very thankful for all of the support, listening ears, and kind words from you all!
We hope that everyone has a safe and Happy Thanksgiving!

We finally found it!

After looking all over Richmond, we finally found some furniture for the nursery! We were looking for something simple, but that also still had some style. We bought the matching changing table and crib. We picked up the changing table today, but the crib is on back order until mid December so that will come later. Here are some pictures of the furniture from the catalog. And I promise...I did not choose this crib based on the turtle baby bedding!

Agency Link

Ok, I think I figured out how to link you directly to our picture and letter. This might be easier than following my directions. At least I hope so! Ok, click here for the link!

We're approved!

Now the real wait begins!

Earlier this week we received a letter in the mail from our agency stating that we had been approved to be adoptive parents. After reviewing all of our interviews and paperwork, they gave us legal go ahead to become parents. Now, we just have to be matched with a birthmother.

And, since we are approved, we are now on the agency's website of waiting families. Our picture and letter are out there on the Internet for the world to see. Something about seeing our faces and story online has made this VERY real to us. We are so excited! We still don't know how long we will wait, but in a long list of steps, we know that we only have one more and that thrills us! If you'd like to check us out on the web, you can click on the agencies website on the right (Children's Home Society of Virginia). Once you are on the homepage, click on "adoption", scroll over "adoption" on the top and scroll down to click on "waiting families". We are at the bottom!

As far as our monthly purchases, we are a couple months behind. We have gotten some great suggestions, but I think we were a little gun shy to buy more things. We wanted to have the approval letter in our hands before the shopping really started. Now that we have that....we'll see what this weekend brings!

What to buy?

Never in my life did I ever think that I would have trouble thinking of something to buy. Well that is the case now, as we are on our 2nd month of waiting. We have walked through Babies 'R Us countless times and strolled the baby aisles at Target. We just can't figure out what to buy.

The only reasonable thing we can think of is the baby furniture, but we aren't sure if we are ready to buy that. Plus nothing has struck our fancy quite yet. So we deflect to clothes (they are all so cute). But we don't know if we'll have a newborn, 3 month old, or a 12 month old. A 12 month old cancels out the need for a swing or bouncer. Then do we buy things for a girl or a boy? Well then comes the fact that what will be the nursery is now our office. So we need a new laptop right? We'll that's not really what we had in mind when we decided to by something "for the baby" each month. So many possibilities, but we just can't decide.

So no monthly purchase yet...we are going to the beach this weekend. Maybe little baby Gerke will need an OBX shirt, or we'll find something cute and unique there. We'll see. Of course any suggestions are much appreciated!

As far as the process goes, we are very close to being "approved". Then our faces and letter will be up on the agency's website. I never thought I'e be so excited about my face being on the internet! We'll let you all know when we are there. In the mean time, you can always take a look now. The link it to the right side of the page!

Hail to the Redskins

So apparently the outfit we bought for the little one has brought good luck to our team! Since we bought the set, our Redskins have won EVERY game. I only wish we would have bought it a week earlier...we could have been undefeated! I guess we'll have to settle for 3-1. Let's hope the little outfit continues to be good luck for our team and for a short wait for us!

While we wait

Once Scott and I finished the homestudy, we decided as a way to help us through the wait, we would buy one thing for the baby each month. When we were completing our home study, we had each appointment to look forward to. Now, we have the wonderful joy of becoming parents to look forward to, we just don't know when that will be. We thought that buying something each month would give us little things to look forward to.

This month, in honor of football season starting we thought we'd get the baby some Redskins gear (yes, we know they lost last week, but we are faithful fans)! We headed to the Redskins store and bought this little set. Even if we have a girl...we'll teach her "Hail to the Redskins". Maybe by next football season, we'll be posting a family pic with us all showing our Redskins pride.

Back From a Much Needed Vacation

We're back from the beach! It is so hard to come home from vacation isn't it? Especially when the weather was in the mid 80s all week and the ocean was nice and refreshing! We had one rainy/cloudy day, but that was spent going to lunch, shopping, and napping. The rest of the week was spent at the beach, in the pool, or in the hot tub. What more could you ask for from a vacation?

There were 10 of us at the house, plus our nephew Noah. He had fun swimming in the pool, splashing in the surf, and digging in the sand. Plus he was the cool kid on the beach in these shades.


So now it is back to work for both of us! I'm starting in Hanover County as a Special Education teacher tomorrow! Where did the summer go? Where ever it went, it went too fast!

No updates on the adoption since my last entry...we'll keep you posted! We did want to share a couple of pictures from our beach vacation though!

The Waiting Begins

We have finally completed our home study! We have completed all of our interviews, turned in all of our paper work and now we get to wait. Our last appointment went well. Our social worked came to our house and completed the interview portion, then took a little tour of our house. I cleaned and cleaned the house for a 5 minute tour of the house. Oh well, at least the house it clean:-) This is probably the cleanest the house has ever been the day before heading on vacation. At least we'll come home from the beach to a clean house!

At our appointment, we turned in our "Dear Birthmother" letter. That was by far one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. How do you put your life in a one page letter to be accompanied by just one picture? I think we must have revised each paragraph at east four times! After a while we realized that we couldn't continue to analyze every word of our letter. We just had to trust that we painted a small, but honest picture of our life together. Thank you to all that proofread it for us and weighed in on picture and wording choice! We couldn't have completed this step without you guys. Here is the picture that we decided on. I'm not going to post our letter here, but if you'd like to read it we'd me more than happy to share it with you. Just shoot me an e-mail.


So now we wait. Wait to meet with a birthmother, wait for the baby to be born, wait to bring our bundle of joy home. We might not have a lot to report on for a while, but as soon as we have anything to report you better believe we will pass the information along! If you check back often you might just be reading about Scott and I, but hopefully after a while, you'll be reading about the new baby Gerke!

And then there was one!

ONE! Just one home study appointment left. We had our final appointment at the agency this evening. It was the shortest one yet. We handed over a big pile of paperwork only to get a couple more pieces to complete. At this appointment we were mostly talking about our parenting style and adoption issues. It was hard to talk about how we would discipline our child as a teenager, but luckily we both had great experiences from our parents to pull from!
Our next step is for our social worker to come to the house. She will take a look around and then we'll finish up the interview part by talking about what we are comfortable with in terms of adopting. That is scheduled for August 7th. We were hoping to complete the home study before we go to the beach and it looks like that will happen!
We are so excited to have the home study almost behind us, but at the same time it was something to look forward to every couple of weeks. It was a sign of progress! We may not get those signs of progress once the home study is complete. But then again the end result is so much better than a home study appointment! When we left the agency this evening, our social worker said that the next time we came back to the agency it might be to meet our baby! How exciting is that?
Thanks for all your prayers, phone calls, and e-mails! It certainly helps to know that we have your support! We'll let you know how it goes on the 7th!

Change of Plans

Well, we were supposed to have our third home study appointment this week, however our social worker called to reschedule. We were a little disappointed, but understand that things come up. It was a good reminder to us that we aren't in control of the how things will play out (this is a very hard thing for me to accept). I am sure this is something we will be reminded of over and over again as we go through this process. After playing phone tag with the social worker for a while, we finally rescheduled for next Thursday, July 24. We were hoping to complete the home study by the end of July, but it looks like it might be a little longer. We'll let you know how it goes!

Our Anniversary

We celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary this past weekend with a short trip away! We started off Saturday morning with a drive along Shenandoah National Park's Skyline Drive. Then we hiked to a great 70 foot cascading waterfall. It was called Dark Hollow Falls and it was beautiful!

We worked up quite an appetite on our hike and stopped for a picnic lunch, but the bugs we just too irritating so we ate in the car. Next stop Luray Caverns! It was extremely crowded as you would expect being that it is the coolest place in Virginia on a Saturday in July. We took our time exploring the caverns and had fun playing tourist!

We stayed at the Mimslynn Inn in Luray, Virginia. It was a beautiful inn that originally opened in 1931. It had recently been renovated and was a wonderful place to stay. We enjoyed an amazing meal in their dining room, swimming and relaxing in the hot tub, and a leisurely walk around the gardens.


We finished out our weekend Sunday with stops at Sharp Rock Vineyards, Christensen Ridge Winery, Burnley Vinyards, and Horton Cellars. It was a great way to end an amazing weekend. It is hard to believe that we have been married for 5 years already. Where has the time gone?

Paperwork

So we headed off yesterday to take care of the things that couldn't be taken care of by mail. Our first stop was the doctor's office. We had to have our doctor fill out a form based on a pretty basic physical. When we made the appointment on the phone the receptionist made it sound sounded like "oh another form", but when we got there, the whole staff was excited and congratulated us. The receptionist, nurse, and doctor all shared their stories of someone they knew who adopted a child. It is encouraging to hear stories like that!

Our next stop was the police station for fingerprinting. After 6 years of living here, we didn't even know where to find the police station (I supposed that's a good thing!). We finally found it and got in line to be fingerprinting. Once we were called and told the officer why we were there, it was nothing but excitement and congratulations from the police officer.

The doctor's office and the police station don't sound like enjoyable errands to run, but once we realized how supportive even complete strangers can be, it wasn't so bad!

One more piece of paperwork to get our hands on, and we should be done with the paperwork. That is until we meet with our social worker and something else comes up!

We've been reading!

Thank goodness Henrico County has a great library system! I think as of today we have checked out every applicable book on adoption. We have read magazines, old books, new books, and legal books. Well today we reached a little further into the adoption book category and looked at some children's books. There are some great titles out there. Here are couple that we have found that were great and are on our list for the next trip to Barnes and Noble!

Tell Me Again About the Night I was Born by Jamie Lee Curtis
We Belong Together : A Book About Adoption and Families by Todd Parr
I Wished for You: An Adoption Story by Marianne Richmond


We have our third home study appointment next week. That will be our last one at the agency! We still have a little bit of paperwork to get done. We should have the majority of it done by our next appointment! We'll let you all know how it goes!

Just in case you are curious!

Here is the link to a great website that we visit at least a couple times a week. It has an almost overwhelming amount of information. The articles on the homepage change every couple of days, but there are TONS of topics on the left sidebar.
Have fun reading!

www.adoptivefamilies.com

Thank you!

We have the best friends and family! Thank you all so much for all the prayers and well wishes for our adoption journey. All your phone calls, gifts, cards, and e-mails have been wonderful. Needless to say, we are VERY excited. Through this blog we hope to keep everyone updated on where we are on our journey. Then when the new Gerke comes, we'll post pictures and keep you posted on how the little one is doing!
So, check back often!
So far, we have had two of our four home study appointments. The first three will take place at the agency and the last one will be at our home. We weren't really sure what to expect, but they have turned out to be just fine. We weren't necessarily nervous, just curious. Our social worker is great. She is very easy to talk to and obviously very experienced. This instantly made us feel at ease. Of course we have some paperwork to complete here and there, but other than that it hasn't been too painful. So it looks like we will be on track to complete our home study around the end of July, then we will just have to wait. Once the home study is done, we will probably start working on the baby's room. That should help us get through the waiting period!
That's it for now, again thanks for all your well wishes and keep checking back for updates!
Love you guys!