HOW IT ALL STARTED

I am really tired of seeing no updates on our blog so I thought I would answer a few of your questions by telling you how it all got started. I cannot tell you exactly how it happened but one day and many days, weeks, and months after I felt this strong desire/pull to have a baby. I just could not get it off of my mind. It made absolutely no sense and really to this day I cannot put it into words. The feeling would not go away. I tried keeping myself busy with school, work, kids, hobbies, even opening my own business. There it stayed. I finally could not deny it any longer and brought Doug into it. We talked about this for days, weeks, and months. When we knew that we were truly ready, we talked to Britnee and Brandon. I will only say that the decision was unanimous. So, in thinking of all of you and the obvious questions and wonderings you would have in regard to this exciting and wonderful (we think!) decision, I decided to try this blog thing. I have to be honest in sharing that I have no idea what I am doing, but why should that stop me? Well, I thought I would use this post to bring you up to speed on where we have been and where we are. When we made the decision to pursue adoption, I set right out to learn everything there was to learn. I made calls, surfed every website I came across, talked to anyone I knew who was remotely connected to the adoption world. I was immediately fascinated (and more than a little obsessed) with everything I learned, and the more I learned, the more questions I had. What is the process? Who are the children? What is the timeframe? I quickly discovered that I knew very little about International Adoption. Now that I have been forced to slow down, taking it one step at a time, I am reminded to take a look around. We may be facing a long road, but I believe there will be plenty of moments to stop and learn some more (mostly patience) Let me share the details we are most often asked about:After hooking up with an agency near home (20 minutes from our house), we began to collect a small mountain of paperwork. I have been reassured that this is only the beginning of paperwork to come. Lucky for us, my schedule makes tracking down legal documents more manageable. We began to share our news with our dear family and friends. What can we say? You have always been supportive and loving in our lives, and have shown us only the same again. We are so blessed. We attended adoption education classes (only one more to go). The classes were great. I think that had a lot to do with our fabulous teacher, and the truly great people we were lucky enough to attend with. We have also completed our "Home Study". We have a case worker assigned to our family. Irene. She has been to the house once already. We felt very comfortable with her. She will come back again two weeks after our daughter is home. We have had a few ups and downs during this trying time (they all said, "adoption is not for the faint of heart" how true that is). We have completed most of the steps required to enter PGN (the great and powerful one's with the final say) we are waiting for Pre-approval from the United States Embassy and registration receipt from Central Authority (it does exist!). For now, all we know is we are adopting a baby girl from Guatemala soon to be legally named Allyson Faith (Faith for knowing during this whole process it is one of the greatest things we counted on). It is a long and scary process. We have faith that one day,we will be bringing our daughter home and she will be so loved. Is it possible to love someone you have not even met yet? We are happy, we are nervous, and we continue to feel truly blessed. Thank you each for your support now, and for that which I know we will need in the coming days and weeks.