i Heart Faces: Hilarious Outtakes

I Heart Faces : Hilarious Outtakes

Over at I Heart Faces, they are having their weekly photography contest.  Here are my 5 entries for this week:

1.  This is my lovely sister, Lisa, making a random fish face while at Rainforest Cafe.

2.  My authentic friend, Trish, wondering why I am taking a picture of her!  :)  She should know better.

3.  Some of our teens at church, Hannah and Rachael, playing a game at camp.  Two body parts are called out and they have to find each other in a crowd and put those parts together.  It appears that this round was elbow to eyeball!

4.  During our New Year's Eve bash with the teens, we played Survivor.  In this challenge, the teens had to hold the water balloons with their arms extended for a long as possible.  Perry was dying at this point, but was determined NOT to lose!

5.  And my favorite:  Baby Seth, totally not happy, and looking like an old man!!!!!  Poor thing!

Discouragement and encouragement

So, we got some discouraging news. 

While in Hampton, we decided to stop by the credit union that we belong to and talk to them about a loan.  We don't want to wait until we are matched to come up with the money.  We'd rather be prepared.  So, we got some bad news.  Because of the fact that we don't have anything that they can hold against us or anything to borrow against, they won't give us the loan.  We have good credit and they weren't concerned about us making payments.  We do own a house, but because we bought at the peak of the housing market and since then, the value of our house has gone down, that it out of the question.  We do have two vehicles, but neither one is worthy of helping us out with a loan. 

I cannot lie.  I was VERY discouraged.  VERY.  To the point of being in tears for over an hour.  It felt like another door was closing and the hope that I had felt just a few days earlier was slipping through my fingers.  I started seeing us as that couple that watches everyone else have a family.  That couple that is lonely and spends more Christmas vacations just as a family of 2.  It was a very, very dark place to be. 

Then, I'm encouraged by the amount of support and love we have felt from family about our decision to adopt, especially the encouragement we have gotten while around family this Christmas.   I have to remind myself that we will find a way, that maybe God has to help us realize that we can't do this by ourselves, that the only way it will happen is with His power and will. 

It's a ....

...NO!
Well, we waited too long.  :(  I just got an email from the attorney.  The baby has arrived and the mom has already made her decision.


Guess this was the answer that we needed.  We had been going back and forth all day and were torn.  Guess God just took care of it for us.

Please Pray!

I got up this morning and had received an email from the local Jax attorney.  The baby that we had been told about that was due in January is being born TODAY!  The mom is currently in labor and we have to decide TODAY if we want to be a possibility when she chooses an adoptive family.

So far, there are four other families that are "in the running".  If we decide that we want to be considered and are not chosen, we will be out of $100.  If we are chosen, we could possibly have a daughter by Christmas.

Here is some information I can give you:  (There are lots of things that I can't share.)

Here are the pros:  The mother is in her 30's, has given a baby up for adoption in the past, and since the baby is already being born, the mother would be choosing after the baby being born, leaving little time for her to change her mind.

Cons:  The mother was on birth control when the baby was conceived and remained on it for a while before she realized she was pregnant, we would have to get money ASAP, and I mean ASAP, if chosen, would have to leave for Florida right away (we're in VA with our families), and the baby is being born a month early, giving concerns.

I am so torn.  I feel like there are the cons there to keep me from saying yes, but wow, there are lots of pros too.

Wish decisions were easier.

Hope!

It's the most wonderful time of the year, right?  Or at least it is supposed to be.

Yes, it is a hard time of year for us.  We are still on our journey.  We don't have answers.  We don't have an end in sight.  We still wonder why we have to go through this.  We thought we'd have a little one traveling home with us to Virginia for Christmas.

Yes, it is hard, I'm not going to lie, but this year, I have hope.  I know that I don't have a "match" yet and I don't have a baby in my arms this year for Christmas, but I do have hope.

Hope that someday, hopefully before next Christmas, that we will be a family of three instead of a family of two.
Hope that this year is the last year that I have to send out a Christmas cards with only the two of us and our puppies.
Hope that instead of just seeing the baby's first Christmas ornaments in the stores, that I will actually be able to purchase one for a VBK baby.
Hope that there will be three stockings to hang instead of two (and one for the pups, of course.)
Hope that Brennen (our nephew being born in the spring) will have someone to play with and grow up with.
Hope that God will get the glory and honor from all that happens.  I can't wait to sit back years from now, or even months from now, and be able to say, "I can see how God had this planned from the very beginning."

As Melody, Dave's cousin in Michigan, wrote in her Christmas card to us this year:  May 2010 be a year to remember!   :)

(More to come later.  I have a lot to say, but I'm struggling with how open and honest I can be on the blog.  I've had this one post written in my head for almost a week now, but every time I start, I delete it for fear of what people will think. )

One way or the other!

So, we still haven't heard anything from the agency.

Dave and I kept the kids in PVB today and we had planned on dropping off our corrected profiles at the agency on the way.  I was hoping to talk with them and find out more information.  But...I got sick right before we left the house and then we ran out of time.  Maybe tomorrow.  They already have the other three, so it isn't like they don't have our info.  We just wanted to give them the corrected ones.

Tomorrow, we are going to scan one of the corrected ones and send our profile to the agency in Miami that we had spoken with over the last few weeks.  They are an agency that we got information from through our social worker that did our home study.

I also sent an email to the Florida Baptist Children's Home here in Jax.  We've spoken a few times through email and I plan on calling tomorrow and getting more information.

I did talk to an attorney here in Jacksonville today.  Through a friend, we found out about a baby due on the 29th, as in December 29th.  Basically, we don't meet the criteria of the birth parents, so we aren't going to pursue it.  They wanted a couple in their mid-thirties and a couple that doesn't live in Jacksonville.  Through this attorney, we did find out about another baby that is due in January (probably going to be a no, but not sure yet) and he said that he would put us on the email list for possible situations.

I've got a lot of deep thoughts on my mind and I'm hoping to share more tomorrow.

No News

With so many people following our journey and asking if we've heard anything, I just wanted to keep you guys updated.  So far, we haven't heard anything.  Obviously, this isn't a quick decision on the part of the birthmother(s) and we have no time frame as to when we will hear anything.  I will keep you posted, though!  ;)

Thank you so much for all of your prayers.  Some people have asked me how I'm holding up and to be truthful, I have thought about it, but with school being so busy and our trip to Virginia coming so quickly, it hasn't taken over my every thought.  Just praying that God will lead us to the perfect match.