Some Exciting News

We have some exciting news we would like to share with everyone. Rob and I have been talking about this for a very long time and we have come to the conclusion that we would like to extend our age preference range from 0-6 months to a 0-24 month old boy or 0-48 month old boy/girl siblings. That's right, siblings. What are the chances that we will receive a referral that involves 2 little ones? Very small. In fact, it will probably not happen, but we are letting God decide that for us. The referral wait time for siblings is much higher than for a single child. Why, you may ask? Well, there is so much paperwork involved now a days for a referral to be ready * 2 = long wait. Only God knows what our future and the lives of these babies’ future holds.

Because you asked for it, here is the story on how we came to this decision. I will start on why I really wanted a 0-6 month old baby. I am going to sound selfish but it is nothing but the truth, so I apologize in advance. I wanted to experience the whole nine yards with my children. I wanted to change poopy diapers, get vomit on my hair, and have my baby sleep on my tummy as I watch TV. I had a list ready for what would be needed for the diaper bag, whether we were going out of town or to the grocery store. I wanted to buy a beautiful crib and feed my child with a bottle. I wanted to be there, front and center, with a camera when my child took his first steps and said his first words. I don’t remember the exact date of when I asked Rob “what do you think of an older little boy?”, but I will not forget his response. He calmly told me that he would love to adopt an older child, even a 5 year old…what? That is how selfish I have been! I mean we both prayed, talked, and pondered about the gender but the age preference, it was all me. Sad, I know. But Rob is one of the most easy going, accommodating people you will ever meet. Plus, he spoils me a little too much. We have since prayed, talked and pondered on the age preference. We are getting approved for a 0-48 month old but have updated our age preference with Gladney to a 0-24 month old. One step at a time folks! Since we made our decision I have started to awkwardly stare at 2 year olds. I would like to take this time and apologize to any family I have made feel uncomfortable at the local store or restaurant. We have nephews in that age range and I try to imagine us with our son at that age and boy am I excited. They are so funny and full of energy. Rob even tried to teach our 2 year old nephew how to fish this past weekend, which by the way is one of his dreams at the moment, to take his son fishing. So yes, we are ecstatic with OUR decision. Yay!!

God, if when I meet my child or children they are either 2 months old or 4 years old, I will be just as excited and thankful. I will love my child or children so, so, so much, whether I get to change a poopy diaper or not. And let me tell you, I can’t wait! If we do get to meet our child when he is 2 months old, bring on the poopy diapers. If we get to meet him when he is 4 years old, bring on the fishing trips. And if we get to see two little faces on the day when we get our referral, then we shall change poopy diapers on our fishing trip. See, we have a win-win situation here :).

We already knew we wanted to increase our age range when we went on our vacation in August. Therefore, we bought our son a 2T t-shirt and of course, a sea turtle stuffed animal (wink).

Thirteen Months

Months on the wait list:

On our thirteen month waiting anniversary, we went to work. After work, we tried our hardest to find an Ethiopian or even an African restaurant here in town, but there is not a single one...boo. So, we decided to go to the movies. It took us an hour to figure out what movie to watch. We watched the trailers to every movie that was showing and of course, had to read the reviews. We ended up going to the Alamo Drafthouse and watched Lawless. We ate some popcorn plus Rob had a philly cheesesteak and I had the macaroni and cheese with green chiles.

In other news, we got back from a much needed vacation a couple of weeks ago. We had so much fun!! It was nice to spend some time together away from our normal day-to-day routine. Of course, our camera broke mid-vacation but we were able to capture the following:

The view from our room 

Kayaking  

We spent a lot of time relaxing by the pool and the beach 

Playa del Carmen 

Snorkeling

Rob is officially a sailor

Celebrating our wedding anniversary, again

The highlight of our trip was when we had the opportunity to release a baby sea turtle into the ocean. We got to name our turtle and we received a certificate as proof of the event. I named my turtle "Blake" and Rob named his "Mr. Turtle". Because we were in Mexico, they misspelled his poor turtle's name on its birth certificate.

:(

Happy thirteen months waiting!!!

Twelve Months

Months on the wait list:

Current longest waiting family has been waiting for (months):

26

We were fortunate enough to meet another gladney mom a few months ago (hi Jean!). She has been on the wait list for a year more than we have and she told us that the way she deals with the wait is by looking at the adoption process in 3-6 month increments. That gave me an idea. Due to the one-year mark, I will include a more detailed post of where we are on the list and how long the longest waiting family has been waiting for, every three months. I think this can help our family better “see” where we really are in the process but not obsess over it. Thanks to my OCD, I will start with this month in order to have an even four detailed posts within the next year. 

 

There are currently 78 families ahead of us, 16 of which are waiting specifically for siblings. Therefore, we are about number 62 on the single child list. (Remember, this does not mean that after 61 we are next. We could be skipped or we could receive a call before the families ahead of us when we get closer.)

On our twelve month waiting anniversary, we relaxed by the pool and grilled some burgers. My sister graduated yesterday and my nephew's birthday is tomorrow. Therefore, we are spending the weekend with family in Kingsville, TX.

Happy twelve months waiting!!!

Hitting the One Year Mark

We finally hit the one year mark tomorrow!! It really did fly by. I will admit however, the first 2 months were emotionally difficult. It felt as if time stood still. But time did keep ticking and now we are 12 months closer towards meeting our son. Referral wait times are still increasing but everyone, from our agency to the embassy, is working their behind off in order to provide a more ethical and stronger adoption program. That does not mean that times have been easy. Some days I get sad, some days I get frustrated, but most days I am hopeful and excited. I know in my heart that things will start to stabilize. I see us with an Ethiopian little boy…I see it! I know it will happen, maybe not tomorrow, but it will happen. Why else would God plant this little seed in our hearts?

I am anticipating the day when we will meet our son and officially become a family of three. Oh, man I can’t wait for that day to come! To witness such a beautiful miracle unfold before our eyes is going to be life changing. The love that we have for our son keeps growing with every day that goes by. We are and will continue to thank God everyday for walking with us on this incredible journey. Waiting this long for our little boy can only mean that we will forever cherish and love him. That the day when we finally get to hug and kiss him will be even that much sweeter. Once he is with us and we begin to live THAT life, the one with homeworks, school recitals, vacation trips, soccer practice, family dinners..., we will absolutely, no question about it, appreciate every single second of it.  

I have never made a prayer request...until now. Will you please pray with us? Pray for the process to start stabilizing. For all of the families that are waiting with us, especially for the ones that have been waiting a lot longer than we have, to feel at peace during this hard wait. For the children to feel loved and protected while THEY wait to be united with their new family. Finally, for the birth families of these children. I can't even imagine what they must be going through. Pray for God to guide them through the most difficult decision that they will ever make in their lives. 

Special gifts our son has received so far

Celebrating Our Anniversaries

WARNING: Picture overload!

Last night we decided to celebrate both our 11 month waiting anniversary and our 10 year wedding anniversary. Because there were two different celebrations we went out to eat at two different restaurants. We couldn't decide whether to go bowling, visit a museum... but our love for food is too strong to pass a nice dinner. (Remember this?)

To celebrate our 11 month waiting anniversary, I chose the restaurant where we had a nice appetizer. I LOVE cheese, love it!! Therefore, we went to the Melting Pot and had a traditional swiss cheese fondue with a nice glass of red wine.

To celebrate our wedding anniversary, Rob chose the restaurant where we ate dinner. It was our first time to Tre Trattoria. It is a beautiful contemporary, tuscan-inspired restaurant. Rob had the slow roasted pork belly and I had the goat cheese pizza with pistachios...delicious!!!!

Ten things we love about us:

1. We have a good laugh at least once a day.

2. We are each other's best friends, by choice.

3. After all of this time, we still kiss with our eyes closed.

4. We tell each other "I love you" multiple times a day.

5. We have fun together. We will make a Saturday night watching a corny lifetime movie into an adventure.

6. We eat lunch and dinner together, email and text throughout the day, and we still miss each other when we are apart.

7. We are madly in love.

8. We can read each other's minds and emotions.

9. We respect each other.

10. We love our son, truly love him.

Here are ten pictures of us throughout the first ten years:

Our first dance as husband and wife

Celebrating our six year anniversary

First visit to Las Vegas

Celebrating New Years

Silver mine tour

First time hosting Thanksgiving dinner in our new home

Guanajuato, MX

Visit to Lake Tahoe

Haunted house

Sea World

All of the challenges that we have had to conquer together have brought us closer to each other. I love the life that we live. I thank God everyday for letting me be your wife and I cannot imagine my existence without you. You truly are the love of my life and I am so in love with you, ALL of you. I adore you and can’t wait to have our son be a part of our little world.

Eleven Months and Ten Years

Months on the wait list:

Current longest waiting family has been waiting for (months):

25

I feel awful, awful, AWFUL that I have not posted anything about our 11 month waiting anniversary. I feel like a bad mom, but trust me, we have been talking nonstop about our son. This last month flew by. On Thursday, I had a project due and an exam for my final class. Also, my family from Mexico arrived to our house that night. Therefore, on our 11 month waiting anniversary (last Wednesday), both Rob and I worked and I spent the evening studying like crazy and Rob spent it cleaning like a maniac. We did not even have time to take a picture of the madness. Plus, I don’t think anyone would like to see Rob sweating trying to finish up and me pale, freaking out in front of the computer. We did however, have lunch together on that day but of course, I left my phone in the office.

On Friday, we celebrated our 10 year wedding anniversary. Ten years!!!! Holy moly macaroni, when did this happen? Rob and I typed up a list of ten things we love about our relationship to post on the blog that Friday but I underestimated the ease of being a good host to 20 people. Good times :).

On Friday, we just hung out and played catch up with my family. Some of them had not visited us since our wedding day so it was neat to spend our anniversary with everyone 10 years later in our home. On Saturday, we all went to Schlitterbahn Water Park. I have not laughed/giggled so much in a very long time. Sunday and Monday were spent at the mall and they all left Tuesday morning :(. Then at 1 am today, our niece was born!

As everyone can see, this last week has been very exciting. We are planning to celebrate both our 11 month waiting anniversary and our 10 year wedding anniversary this Friday coming up. I will post pictures of the celebrations with our list then to keep this post relatively short. Meanwhile, here are some pictures of the fun past few days.

My beautiful aunts and cousins

My silly family (I miss them)

Eating pizza at the water park

Photobomb (my nephew)

Everyone in the water is part of my family

Eating breakfast on Sunday

Our cute niece, Annalise


Happy eleven months waiting!!!!

Ten Months

Months on the wait list:

Current longest waiting family has been waiting for (months):

24

To help our family and friends better understand the process, I will talk about how our agency handles referrals. The wait list consists of all the families in chronologic order by the date each was placed on the list. Every family submits a child preference profile form stating their gender and age range preference. For example, a family could be requesting a girl between 2-3 years old or like us, a boy 0-6 months old. Once the agency has a referral ready, they basically go down the list (by date) and find the perfect match. That family then receives the call we are all dreaming of. This means that when we get closer, if there are many little girls ready for homes, we will probably get skipped. If there are many boys and the families ahead of us are requesting girls, they get skipped. Got it? Get it? Good.

As of May 2012, the current longest waiting family has waited 24 months for a referral. There are approximately 87 families ahead of us, 15 of which are waiting specifically for siblings.

As everyone can see, we still have quite a while to go. Only God knows when we are next. So for now, we celebrate.

On our 10 month waiting anniversary, we went to work and decided to have Mexican food for dinner. We had chicken and beef fajitas with rice, beans, guacamole, and pico de gallo.

Thank you Mr. Waiter for including your index finger in our picture.

We decided to take a slightly better picture than the one above :). 

Since it is currently 98 degrees Fahrenheit, we found it appropriate and necessary to have frozen yogurt for dessert. We went to Orange Leaf and ate our yogurt outside to watch the sunset.

We could not decide on one flavor and ended up mixing them up.

Can you guess which one is Rob's?

Happy ten months waiting!!!

We love you so much baby boy!