happy first birthday carter!

I cannot believe I have a one year old! Where did the last 50 weeks go? Since it has been ages since I updated anything on here I wanted to share some of the things my very toddling toddler is now doing.

Talking. All. The. Time. (I just don't know where he gets it!) He can say Mommy, Daddy, Up, No-no, and a variety of words that only he understands. I do believe he is trying to say please when he wants something but I am not completely sure of that.

Walking, falling, crawling, etc. He started walking at 10 months and about 2 weeks later decided that the two or three steps he was taking at a time were not sufficient so he started taking mote like10 steps at a time. He is now into EVERYTHING and babyproofing is a constant challenge

Carter is an observer. We have noticed when we go out places where there a lot of people that he is just content watching them. It is so strange to see his almost shy side around other kids because at hone he is anything but reserved.

I am sure most parents would say this, but he is funny! This baby or big boy I guess I should say is stinkin hilarious. He knows when to do things to get a laugh out of someone and he takes it. He also thinks that I am quite funny which is a huge confidence booster. (:

He loves music which is good since his radio is never, ever turned off. We leave K-Love playing in there nonstop and he will "sing along" and even dance to some songs. It fills my heart with joy to know that he enjoys music so much... I truly pray he is not tone deaf...

Carter loves to read, in fact, in all his toy crates around the house are books and it is not uncommon to see him sitting in he floor reading to himself. It is one of the cuter things.he does.

Lastly this buy likes to eat. And eat. And eat. He has to have the worlds fastest metabolism because he eats like he is a 14 year old. Some favorites are broccoli (yeah you read that right), raisins, chicken, turkey, cheese, pickles and his current all time favorite is blueberries. So far he is not a huge fan of mandarin oranges, cucumbers, and zucchini but we will try them again in a few weeks and see what he thinks. We made the switch to whole milk about 2 weeks ago because I just couldn't stomach the idea of buying another can of formula and it has gone remarkably well...especially considering that we also began to transition away from the bottle and only use sippy cups except for the bedtime bottle.

Carter, you have brought so much joy and love into Daddy and my hearts that I can't even explain it to you. I love the opportunity to be your Mommy and I love Miss Megan for allowing me this privilege. I pray that as you continue to grow that you will begin to know and love Jesus and begin to listen to Him guiding you through life. I am so proud of all the things you do already and so well and I can't wait to see what else you will learn this year. You are so special and Mommy loves you. Happy 1st birthday.

here's the story, part 2

thursday, march 10, 2011

i woke up after a relatively restful night's sleep and immediately began to pray for everyone involved- M, S, the interim care mother, and us. during my prayer i suddenly grasped the enormity of the situation and it really started to sink in and i completely dissolved into body racking sobs of thankfulness. i laid there praising God for His faithfulness, asking Him to forgive my lack of trust and honestly brokenhearted for M and S. i was so thankful for this gift they were going to entrust us with, but i was so burdened for them at the same time... it was the strangest and most powerful combination of emotions i have ever experienced.

at 830 we called mark, our adoption worker, and told him that, yes, we were going to go pick up our son and he told us to head on over the office to sign all of our paperwork so we could get to the tri-cities by 12. i called christie who had agreed to go with us to take pictures of our first encounter with carter and told her what time to be at the house and we were out the door to bethany. mark went over many things with us and had us sign so many papers and going over all the legal responsibilities, et cetera, et cetera... it felt like 5 hours, but in reality it only took bout 1 1/2.

we left bethany's office and headed home to pick up christie and get the carseat loaded. the drive there was a blur of excitement, anticipation and angst. when we finally arrived at the bethany office in johnson city i felt as though i was about to throw up, i was so nervous. i kept thinking, what if this is one of those ugly newborns? (be honest, you know there have been times you have seen a newborn and thought, you aren't quite finished... not all babies are cute). we met julie and she told us that hope, the interim care mother, was in the next room with him so we walked in...

"thank goodness he isn't an ugly baby!" that was my honest to goodness first reaction when i saw him. you are lying to yourself and everyone else if you honestly believe that all babies are beautiful- miracles, yes, beautiful, no. so for the sake of honesty there you go. after that we talked with hope and christie was taking pictures for us and we loaded up and went to the pediatrician for his discharge visit. the whole thing was surreal. dreamy. not at all what i expected it to be, yet so perfect at the same time.

i remember as we were leaving tri cities and headed back to knoxville feeling like something would fall apart and they would realize that they were just handing over this beautiful, precious baby boy to us and sending us on our merry little way. at that moment all the trainings, meetings, interviews, etc we had done with the bethany staff didn't even register with me and i just kept thinking- is this real? are we just babysitting this baby?

when we got home we were so excited for everyone who had prayed him to us to come over and witness God's faithfulness and provision so we had a crazy night and lots of company and carter behaved like a champ. the first few weeks were such a whirlwind of company and travel that by the time we were finally home in april i realized almost an entire month of my leave had gone by.

so the past two months have just been glorious. i will not apologize for my lack of blogging as i am trying to soak in every single second with him before i return to work on friday/doom's day/ day of death/ whatever. i can't believe how absolutely quick you can fall in love with a child and be willing to fight or die for him. i can't believe that after years of heartache, pains, and questions we finally got our answer. and he is a smiley, happy, bouncing baby boy. God is good, all the time.

here's the story...

tuesday, march 8, 2011

this evening i decided to look over our budget calendar and get a handle on how many vacation days i have and how we might be able to make our budget work for us whenever we got a baby. this is an activity i had done several times before in different stages along the way so there was no special significance- i just wanted to make sure that i could take off as much time as possible when we got a baby.

wednesday, march 9, 2011

i go to work, just another wednesday, and i did my work thing- a few loans, vault stuff, and i was trying to get some loose ends tied up; there was a sense of urgency, but no reason really, i just wanted to make sure that i had everything in order in case we were to be audited. it was a rainy and dreary day and i had forgotten to pack a lunch so i ran down the road to subway and was feeling pretty good so i decided to grab a box of these new delicious raspberry cheesecake cookies at subway for the branch to share. had my lunch, went back to work.

i went to the bathroom (tmi- perhaps, but this is part of the story) and while i was back there i started thinking, "we have 4 new employees; i should probably send out a refresher email that if mark or terri calls for me that it is urgent- this way i wouldn't miss their call and someone wouldn't tell them i was unavailable- because short of being unconscious at the credit union, there was nothing that would keep me unavailable from that phone call! so then i begin contemplating what our birthparent's names will be and if I would use an A or S or K to signify their name...whatever; wash my hands and i leave the bathroom.

i walk out the back and one of the girls, anita, says, "hey sass, a mark akers just called you..." i know there was more but i took off running and the only other thing i heard was "call you on your cell phone". so i have just run the equivalent of 10 yards to my office and i am sucking wind (duh, i am not known for my athleticism) and i hear my phone ringing so I take a deep breath, and acting as though i hadn't just depleted my lungs of oxygen from the marathon i just ran, answered my phone ever so suavely.

mark proceeded to shoot the bull with me about my day, blah blah, and then he said, "well cassie, today is march 9th" at which point i thought, great, he's going to talk about our renewal that is coming up for our 1 year approval... "yeah mark, i know" "and i really need to see you and chris just as soon as possible. we have a situation. either tomorrow morning or today..." "today will be fine. let me call chris. (dialing) chris, mark's on the phone and he needs to see us, can you leave? i'll meet you there! mark see you in just a few!"

i stand, i cry, and i go to tell my manager that it is time for me to leave because finally, FINALLY we have a "situation" and lo and behold, she's not there! she had to run out to drop her car off at the shop so when i called her she asked me to give her 15 minutes... does this woman even KNOW how long 15 minutes is? but i obliged and when she got there i took off out the door and called my mom to keep keep me calm as i drove to the bethany office (which i must say seemed to be at least 20 minutes longer than every other time i have driven there!)

so i get to the office, and chris was already there and mark sits us down and tells us that terri, the director, is just dying that she had to go out of town, but she wanted to be there with us, so she was going to conference call in, until it was time to board her flight. mark gave us a free question at the very beginning and it was, "boy or girl?" boy.

now i feel it is only fair here to stop and explain something. i never expected to get a boy. i fully had expected to adopt lillie faith and she was going to be a biracial or african american little baby girl. never ever in my head did i expect to have a boy. b-o-y. do you know how scary having a boy is to me? i am girly. i don't like dirty things, i am annoyed with sports programming, i hate video games, boys do not have as cute clothes or bows, you can't pain their fingernails... do you know how intimidating that is for a priss like me? it's not that i wasn't open to a boy, it's just so foreign to me and that is scary... not to mention all the boy parts... whew.

so mark starts with carter's story. the birthmom, M, is young and has another child. so he has a biological brother. she chose to make an adoption plan because she couldn't handle having two babies (her other child is young) and she has dreams and goals for herself. she hasn't had a great life growing up. she chose us when she saw our profile and was adamant that we were his adoptive family. not anyone else. in fact, she didn't even want to look at other profiles when she saw ours. here is where i jump in again... remember that prayer journal i have been keeping for her? i prayed specifically on a number of occassions that she would see our profile and know beyond a shadow of doubt that we were the family for her child. god is so amazing.

at this point mark stops us and wants to know if we have any questions. no dude. we're good. we have all the information we'll need. yes of course we have questions; how much time do you have this afternoon? so we ask a few questions, which was futile, because he kept telling us we would get to that part later. pshhh. so then he tells us about the birthfather, S, who is a little younger than chris and me and has also had a rough life. he really wanted to keep our sweet boy, but when it came down to it, someone close to him told him that one day he would be a good dad, just not then. so he made the decision for his child that he would give him the best life and signed his waiver. that was march 4th.

mark stops again and wants to know if we have any other questions. yeah- when is M due? we're getting there... sheesh. eventually mark lets it slip that carter had a negative toxicology screen... no drugs! and i was like, woah. (just like joey lawrence on blossom, woah) he's born? when? what? huh? explain! so since he spilled the beans mark told us that yes, M had delivered sweet carter on february 24, 2011, in the tri cities area and he was 6 lbs 10 oz and 19 inches long at 37 weeks. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

so we of course wanted to know right then when we could go pick him up but mark told us to just go home and pray about it and see if it was the right decision and to let him know the next morning at 830. we had prayed all along that we wouldn't be presented with a situation that we had to turn down and there was nothing at all in carter's history that made us think we needed to stop and tell mark that he wasn't the child for us. God clearly has big plans for carter, M and S. the rest of the evening was filled with hundreds of calls, texts and emails as we ran around babies r us and target picking up necessary items we needed to go pick up our sweet boy the next day...

thursday, march 10, 2011

to be continued....

open mouth, insert foot

ever had one of those situations where you said something and immediately wished you could put your foot, calf, kneecap and even thigh in your mouth? or have you ever asked an honest question and received a suprisingly awkward response from the person in question? well this post is one i am copying from an amazing family who has adopted transracially and has put together a sort of "adoption etiquette" list. hopefully this will save you from a humiliating moment, and from a less than polite response from a protective momma. :)

"Where did you get them?" I politely inform them of the agency we used and the city they were born in.

"Are they foster kids?" No, but even if they were that's not right to ask. If we had foster children, pointing that out only reminds the child of the situation with their first family. They need to feel loved and chosen, and not reminded all of the time they are only here for a little while. They aren't my adopted kids either...they are my children! They just happen to join our family through adoption. It's not a label, just a part of their story.

"Do they have the same parents?"- Yes, my husband and I are their parents. No, they do not all share biological parents. And why does that matter anyway? Questions about birth families are generally off limits. I will tell you what I want you to know. That is very private information and very intimate to my child. I want them to understand their story first before everyone else does. I could not say that enough...be very sensitive to the subject of birth families.

"Do you have any of your own?" - I really don't like this one. What makes a child more my own than these three? Please use the right words: biological children. And no, we don't have any of those, we chose not to. This wasn't our plan B.

"Do they call you mom?" No lie, I got this one yesterday. Lady...come on. Have you never known a child in an open adoption? Yes, I am their mom and they call me that. This one was almost laughable. But so many people have questions about open adoption. We often talk about how our kids have 2 moms that love them very much. We know less about their birth fathers, so we don't talk a ton about them except for in very quiet moments.

"How do they feel about open adoption?" First, we never say that "open adoption". They just know adoption and they know their story and it's very natural for them. They have no weirdness that adults put on kids about having relationships with their birth parents. That's all bunk in my opinion. That's adoptive parents making excuses for why they don't embrace birth families. Kids pick up on how parents feel about their birth parents. They will be weird about it if you are...and I seriously believe it will become an issue down the road. They will embrace it if you do, and your closeness with your child will deepen because you are loving and accepting ALL of who they are.But some of the worst things are not questions at all, but what people think are compliments.

These make me want to gag.

"They are so blessed to have you." Are you kidding? We are BEYOND blessed to have THEM!!! I mean, I think we are good parents, but every family is blessed to be together.

"You are doing the ultimate mission for God." NO! This is not a mission, these are my children. I didn't save them. Yuck. That's awful for a child to hear that someones sees them at "outreach" or a good deed. Please don't adopt children because you feel this way. Can you imagine what it must feel like for a child to be brought up feeling this from home?

"I just couldn't do it. I couldn't handle losing a child." Well, life is not about you. How come I have never heard someone say that of marriage? One in every 2 marriages fails, and yet no one says I just couldn't get married because chances are we'd be divorced. No one could walk into this wanting to lose a child, but it's well worth the risk. We are not super heroes, we are parents and we have to take that risk because it's a part of the journey. Don't act like we don't have feelings and intense bonding and deep love for every child placed with us. God carries us through, it's not by our own strength.

One of my sisters wanted to know what IS okay to say. She sees families like ours in public and wants to show her love and support. Yes, we have a need to talk to everyone in our family! Here are things I love hearing and we actually get a lot of these:

Your family is beautiful! Sorry but we just couldn't keep from staring.

Your family looks just like my family. I love seeing that!

Your children are gorgeous. They behave like angels too (just kidding, just wanted to see if you were still paying attention!)

Your kids are beautiful. We have always talked about adopting, do you mind if I ask questions?

Your family makes me smile.

2010 year end review

ok so i know it's mid-december, but to be honest i can't see how 2 weeks will change anything and i am not sure i will do it later if i don't do it now, so just give me this one. :)

this has been a year. (i would like you to reread that sentence and stress the words "a year"). it's been every single emotion, sometimes with the polar opposite emotions running rampant at the same time. but i am going to do my best to break it all down, mainly for myself to look back at years from this moment because i want to remember it all.

january:
chris and i started the year off by submitting our formal application right at the close of 2009, so entering january we were excited about moving forward in our adoption process. in fact, i was so excited that i deemed 2010 "the year of baby lawson". towards the end of the month we started working on our taxes and realized we owed 1200 bucks. super fantastic news to the couple who is trying to scrape together the money to adopt. we were very irritated, but God provided for us and we didn't have to dip into our savings for the adoption.

february:
this was a busy month for our adoption prerequisites. we did full day of required training and had several parts of our homestudy done. we purchased a crib and dresser/changing table combo that was in great shape and matched our current furniture on craigslist, and found our bedding on clearance at a store in north carolina. once again, i continue to press on believing strongly that we will be parents in the very near future. i also started back at my old branch working with the girls at the west knoxville branch and could not have been happier to have gotten out of the branch i was in and back to familiar territory.

march:
oh blessed march. a season marked by new beginnings, thus, new challenges. march was an expensive month. i had a minor wreck, got 2 traffic tickets, chris had dental work done, oh and lest i forget, my car had to have almost $2000 of repairs done. we really struggled with the car and how to repair it- finance, sell drugs, set it on fire, etc. and when we were pouring our hearts out to our good friends jesse and leslie, God showed us exactly where He wanted us to take the money from- our adoption savings. march was a pivotal month in our faith journey part of the adoption process. at this point we had not run into any real obstacles with the adoption and had already begun saving a good amount of money, and this really stretched us. but we submitted to God's plan and trusted that as we took this flying leap off a cliff that He was going to catch us and provide in ways we couldn't understand. this is also the month when we began our cookbook fundraising campaign. i also got to spend several days with my sister who flew out here to visit me during her spring break.

april:
i turned 27 and it was emotional, for reasons that i don't really understand. the only thing i could really put my finger on was i always expected that by the time i was 27 i would have at least1 child, if not 2 or 3 and here i was with none. but i believe it was about this time that i had to make a choice to rejoice for the time i had with my husband, uninterrupted by the demands and needs of a child. in april we had wrapped up our homestudy's with our caseworker, i had spent hours upon hours creating our 3 identical profile books for the birthmom, and we were able to turn in the final application fee.

may:
on ma 14th we got our approval letter from our agency letting us know that our profiles had gone live and we were an official waiting family. that phrase is so funny to me because we had been a waiting family for years prior to that letter, but i guess the :official: part is what makes this different! :) i believe it was may when my sister in love, maggie, came down for the weekend and i got to help her purchase things for her upcoming wedding, and just spend some great time together.

june:
the 10th of this month marked 4 years of marriage for chris and me. we were very reminiscent of the past 4 years and really looked at where God brought us in not only 4 years, but really just the past 6 months in the adoption process. we really began to see how His plan is so much better than ours and we were able to rejoice for what adventures and journeys we will face in the coming years. we were presented with a potential situation out of memphis with a baby boy, but the birthmother chose to find adoptive parents outside of the bethan christian services network. i saw an amazing family go through the heartache of an adoption disruption, and come out on the other side looking more like Christ than i could ever hope to in a similar situation.we were also immensely blessed by 2 anonymous families at our church with a large financial gift to go towards our adoption, and then several other wonderful families in our Bible Fellowship class donated as well. i wish this was all for june, but unfortunately, i had a little slip up at work on some water and injured myself pretty seriously and even knocked myself out cold.

july:
chris turns 27 and we had a big soiree at the house with loads of kabobs and homemade ice cream, and big chunks of a tree in our backyard falling on our power line. thankfully our friend, Mike (aka Gary Bunyon, Paul Bunyon's brother) came to our rescue and helped move it off the power line before it snapped. july is when doubt and fear began creeping in that we were not going to have a baby by december 31st, but i continued to place my trust and hope in the Lord. for the 4th of july we were able to hang out with some new friends we had made at our monthly adoption meetings and it was a grand ole time meeting more of their support system.

august:
we found out that we had been selected as the top family for a baby but at the hospital the birthmom decided to parent. we had never been informed of the situation because the staff at bethany was afraid she was going to waver, and through their infinite discernment, they saved us some heartache. it was still very emotional to think that we could have had a child, but the reminder that we have a special birthmom and child for us helped us get past it all. we were also so thankful to know that we are chooseable! I believe it was the end of this month when we got a grant from phillip and tiffany rivers for the remaining balance of our adoption fee. More than what we spent on my car in february. :)

october-present
i haven't written since october and even now it's hard to break down everything that happened month by month so i am just going to write a generalization of events. at the beginning of october i had a miscarriage, the night before i was scheduled to go out of town to shoot bridal portraits of my sister in love, maggie. the miscarriage was my first indication that i was pregnant and the shock of what was happening and what had been growing in my womb rocked me to my utmost being. my last post was probably the most raw and open post i have ever shared with such a large audience. through the next several weeks, in fact, almost the beginning of december, i had some medical issues with this miscarriage that were scary, frightening and at times overwhelming, because this one was so different from when i miscarried kya joy. i was in such a different place this time on so many levels. i wasn't expecting a pregnancy becaus e i was so focused on adoption and seemingly so close to expanding our family via adoption. a great friend of mine made the comment to me that perhaps God allowed me to get pregnant in order to remind me that adoption is His plan for us right now and that if He wanted us to have a biological child, He can do it. and how true i believe that statement to be. i have held on with both hands and my teeth for dear life to that statement. i absolutely have to, because if i allow myself to ponder the what if's of this loss, i will literally go insane and i will miss out on the blessings of this journey. do i mourn for what is lost? absolutely. but i have never been more confident that adoption is God's plan for our lives right at this moment.

as i go into 2011 i am going expectant. expectant to hear and feel God's voice and presence guiding chris and me through life and through this painful, excruciatingly difficult journey we are on in our efforts to expand our family. trying to plan it all the way i wanted it to be has obviously not worked out the way i intended it. and how bold of me to act as though i have some say or control in how it will work out for who knows where and how it will end up but God?
so 2011... the year of baby lawson? hopefully. but even if it isn't, it will still be the year of expectancy. because i am expecting God to continue to blow our minds and rock our world with His faithfulness and goodness in our life.

4 words

grief: sharp sorrow; painful regret
hope: to look forward to with desire and reasonable confidence
understanding: superior power of discernment
confusion: perplexity; bewilderment

it's 3 am and I am awake, plagued by an outpouring of emotions i don't fully comprehend. the above listed words are probably the four which have been most prevalent lately. grief for what was lost. hope for our future family. understanding of which I have none. confusion of which i have too much. you see these four words do not make life easy when they are constantly battling each other. especially in the context i am feeling them.

there have been other times in my life when these four emotions/words were making life difficult and unfortunately i dwelt on confusion, which spawned anger, frustration, and depression. perhaps my faith was not as strong. or i've grown up. whatever the reasoning, right now as i am sitting on the floor of the nursery for the child who is not yet here, i cling to hope and pray for understanding.

i choose to choose joy, hope, and understanding. i choose to trust Your will is perfect. i choose to believe that Your promises are true. and i choose to let go of the hurt in my heart and allow You to heal. You promise peace; i'll take it. You promise Your presence; i need it.

contentment

i have restarted this post several times because while i have so many thoughts i am having a hard time finding the words. i have gone through the gamut of emotions today: joy, relief, anger, happiness, delirium, frustration, longing, hopefulness, emptiness. i suppose the latter is what i feel right now; i have tears on the brim, they just don't seem to have the energy to fall.

last night the director at bethany asked me what i wanted to know about our profile being shown and comments, etc that have been shared. i, of course, said i wanted to know; stupid, silly girl that i am. so terri proceeds to tell me that at some point in the last two months we were chosen. hands down. some sweet birth mom looked at our profile and picked us. in bethany christian services infinite wisdom they decided to not bring us into the situation at that point because they were concerned she was wavering. at the hospital the birth father showed up and they together decided to parent.

when terri first told me we had been chosen my heart went from my chest, to my stomach, to my throat in a matter of about 2 seconds. when she told me they decided to parent my stomach resurfaced, and was quite confused about the series of events that left it very upset. now please do not mistake my current frame of mind as one who is not happy because i am truly thrilled to know the following things: a) our profile is being shown, b) bethany cares about us and allows God to speak clearly to them about when to bring us into the situation, and c) we are pick-able.

insecurities are a constant companion in my life and while i am able to put on a happy face or just shove them aside most of the time, this adoption journey, especially in the last few weeks, has really pushed my insecurities to the forefront and they will not be silenced. i know satan is using those to his advantage and his quest to keep me discouraged works better some days than others.

i also know that there is a specific child and a birth mom who God wants to bring into our lives but it doesn't mean that my heart isn't a little broken knowing we were really so close and now are back at square one: waiting. which i do not do patiently or joyfully most days. i desperately want to find that contentment that i had at the beginning of our real waiting phase and i am trying to pray my way through this, but tonight i feel broken and defeated. i cannot do it on my own tonight and so i ask my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ who read this blog to please ask God to grant me contentment in the days to come. after all that is what the body of Christ is for, is it not?

as you pray for me i ask you to please also lift up the other waiting families, particularly our friends who are walking this road: brian and zerita brockman, and lauren and andrew jurbergs. the jurbergs have been waiting about a month longer than us, and the brockmans have been waiting just over a month. the length of time is irrelevant to many of you, but let me assure you, every day counts when you are waiting for the dream of your life.

be blessed.
cass

crazy

some crazy good and crazy nervewracking things have been going on here lately. first off i ask you to pray for c&j and their family's right now. they are in the process of adopting their second child, took braxton home, and the birthmom is now having second thoughts. she is expected to make her decision tomorrow (monday) about whether to parent or place. my heart is torn for c&j and for m, the birthmom, because as a waiting mom that is my biggest fear- the birthmom will change her mind; but having such a heart for birthparents i also cannot imagine the difficulty in placing a child that i carried for 9 months into the care of people you barely know. so please pray for m, c&j, and all those involved that God will help all of them to offer grace, understanding and love to the other and that He will make peace in the raging storm.

jess and les had cade about 4 weeks ago, some other friends (who I am not sure are ready to announce via mobile media) found out they are pregnant, and shaun and jen have gotten their first placement as foster parents! there are babies galore all around us, and all we can hope is that our turn is coming soon!

we get asked a lot, "any news?", and our answer is always, "no, not yet" (in a super sweet, kind voice) when what a lot of the time what i want to do is wear this shirt! i am joking but it can be overwhelming to try to live your life everyday without checking the phone 45 times an hour to see if the adoption agency has called you yet and then it only magnifies it when so many other people are so excited for you. so if you ask me and i seem a bit cranky please forgive me!

God has really been doing some work in my life lately and i can't wait to share it with all of you after i have a better understanding of what He is trying to teach me. what i can share with you all right now is that His faithfulness and encouragement comes in strange, wonderful and unexpected ways. we were blessed beyond belief this past week with 2 outstanding financial gifts to aid in the cost of our placement fee. we are only $3530 away from our placement fee! we are trusting in the Lord that He will provide that remaining amount when we need it so we don't have to take out any debt. His goodness and faithfulness has been such a sweet salve to my anxious heart.

profile: check!

after over 6 months, yes I said six months, we are an approved family! i have spent the last few weeks struggling over our profile books, but they are now completed! tuesday night we have a monthly waiting families meeting and when we walk in the door, not only will we have all 3 profile books, but we will also be carrying in our $2000 check!
one one hand we are super excited to have our profile available for viewing because we have been working towards this for so long now, but at the same time i am feeling anxious because there is nothing less for us to do now but wait. some more. because we haven't done enough of that!
tonight we were talking about what will happen next: who the birthmom will be, if we will get to go to the hospital; when family is coming, how we are going to pay the remainder of our placement fee, how long it will be, etc, etc, etc. so much to consider, and so much to look forward to! and predominately, so much to be thankful for!
now to recap in case you are new to adoption, this blog, or are just really confused about where we are and what happens now: the profile books are the first impression and sometimes the only thing the birthmother knows about us. she will look at the books and if she likes what she sees, she is liable to ask to meet us. at that point we will meet her and hopefully be matched. this period we are going into is the blindest area of adoption because this is where the real, true waiting begins. we have to wait for our birthmother to make the decision to place her child. then we have to wait for some girl to choose us from our profile books. next we have to wait for a phone call from mark with a "situation" where he will present her situation and see if we are willing to meet her. then it's waiting for labor and birth. and finally it is waiting for her to relinquish her rights and for the revocation period to end. we've come so far, with so far to go!
but get excited people! i am hoping that in 3 months time (because that would be a "term" pregnancy) that we will be coming home with our own little bundle of pink... or blue. :)
be blessed. cass

thankful

what a busy and astounding past few weeks we have had! last post i shared with you how disgruntled i was with uncle sam and the money we owed him and i even alluded to the fact that we were trusting God was going to show up in an unbelievable way. at the time i had no idea how unbelievable but He just continues to outdo Himself using people in ways they cannot possibly fathom. so our tax situation will be taken care of in about 2 weeks time.



secondly we had a heard that our church, sevier heights baptist church, was going to be partnering with bethany christian services (which is who we are adopting through) but we didn't want to allow ourselves to become too excited because we didn't want to be disappointed. so about 3 weeks ago we walk into church for missions month kick off and hear tim tell the church they are looking for 10 families to accept the call to adopt, and those 10 families will be receiving a grant!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! of course that is as long as the people in the church give, but we are still excited at the opportunity to possibly adopt debt free. after much discussion we agree that regardless of whether or not we are the recipient of a grant, we are just so thankful God has brought us to a place that recognizes the ministry aspect of adoption and wants to be part of it. but i would be lying if i told you that we didn't want that grant, so do please pray that the right families will receive the grants and if it is His will, that we could be one of those families.



yesterday we bought our baby bedding! *if it seems as though there is a lot of excitement in this entire blog, it's because there is. i feel like i am going to burst out of my skin at some points.* we had chosen cotton tale designs', "elephant brigade" but couldn't find it in stock anywhere; we later learned that are discontinuing it, but found an outstanding deal on it and decided to purchase it.

oh and did i mention that we did our registries at babies'r'us and target AND bought a crib a few weeks ago?!?!?!?!



today we had our adoption training and while we were there and completely and utterly blessed, we were able to schedule 2 of 4 parts of our homestudy for this upcoming thursday. people may say to me that we are overeager and overzealous, but i will say once again that i believe we will be receiving a baby in the very near future so i am trying to be as prepared as possible. i also look at all these little stepping stones that are leading up to this most incredible experience and i can't even tell you how excited it makes me to see what else God has cooked up for us.



please continue to pray for us as we enter the final stretch of our homestudy and as we begin doing our profiles, applying for grants, and completing the nursery. there is so much to be done and an uncertain amount of time for it to be completed! but then again, there is so much to be thankful for! be blessed.