We're now #11 on the waiting list!

Movin' on up...one (cari)baby step at a time.

On The List!

I never promised to update our blog regularly, just remember that when you look at the 5 month difference in this post and the last. This is a judge-free zone, deal? 

It feels like a lot has happened in the last few months in the adoption journey! Here is a little timeline to get you caught up:

March 6: 

We submitted our i600a, which is the application to the U.S. Government petitioning to be able to adopt internationally. This is also the form we must fill out in order to get our biometrics (fingerprinting) appointment. They basically send you a letter with a date, time, and location (Ft. Smith, AR or Kansas City, MO...both are over 2 hours away) and you have to drop everything and be there. Not stressful at all, right?

March 11: 

We got an email that our i600a was received and being processed!

March 20: 

We received our biometrics appointment! We knew we had a trip to Baltimore and a trip to Texas planned in the near future so that meant there were only 4 days out of the next few months we couldn't make it to an appointment. Guess when our first appointment was ... when we were in Baltimore. We submitted a request for a new appointment and had high hopes we would get a good one!

March 30: 

We received our next biometrics appointment! Guess when it was ... when we were in Texas. Of course. Because that's how adoption journeys go.

April 1: 

Bad news: We received a letter saying our home study was missing the sentence, "The child's bedroom meets the requirements set forth by the state of Missouri." Because of that, our i600a wasn't accepted yet. Good news: Our social worker is amazing and added in the sentence, got 4 new notarized copies, and brought them to us so we could send them off!

April 9: 

We received our next biometrics appointment! WE WERE AVAILABLE! We put it on our calendars with permanent marker (ok, Isaac put it in his phone but I am basically living in the Stone Age and put it in my trusty planner) and vowed to be there, come hell or high water.

April 15: 

Y'all. I have the sweetest friends EVER. Seriously. Ever. Just when I thought I was about to lose my mind with this process, they COMPLETELY surprised me and planned a fun night of painting pottery for the nursery, eating yummy cupcakes, and giving me sweet encouragement. My cup runneth over.

April 18: 

We FINALLY received Isaac's long-awaited birth certificate from the U.S. State Department! We had been waiting on this for a couple of month's and weren't able to send in our dossier without it. Isaac was born in England so in order to get certified copies of his documents, we basically had to sell our souls to the government in exchange...Ok, it wasn't really that bad. But we DID have to wait a million years for it. Or 3 months. Whatever. It wasn't good. Moral of the story: be born in America OR if you're born in England, at least have a sexy accent to make the wait more tolerable for your wife.

April 21: 

We submitted our dossier (big stack of paperwork with everything from marriage license to life insurance policies to doctor's notes to proof that we're not horrible people)! Once our agency received this, we were officially on the list waiting to be matched with a precious Caribbean child that needs a family. 

As of now, we are on the waiting list and have absolutely no idea how long until our number is up. It could be tomorrow, or it could be in 12 months. My stick-to-my-paper-planner-and-always-know-what's-happening-a-year-in-advance self loves this aspect. Or not. 

But in all seriousness, we are so thankful to be on this journey. This time of waiting has been so unbelievably sweet. We are loving our last bit of life together as a twosome and eagerly anticipating life as a threesome (or foursome? I'm praying for twins!). God has been faithful to remind us of our purpose in this: to be able to show love, comfort, protection, and hope to a child who otherwise may not know those things and above all to make the love, comfort, protection, and hope of our Father known to a world who otherwise may not see it. When those things are the end goal, how could we ever complain about the wait? We look forward to the day when we get to tell our child about the way God orchestrated every detail for their joy and for His glory. 

See you in 5 months! Just kidding. I'll do better. Maybe. 

Sometimes you just need some inspiration from your 3rd grade teacher to get you blogging again. Thanks, Mrs. Pybus! 

Broken Expectations

We had a lot of expectations coming into our adoption journey. We expected to be exhausted. We expected heartbreaks. We expected confusion and impatience. We expected people to not understand. We expected negative comments from friends and strangers alike. We have been connected to enough people’s adoption journeys that we knew it wasn’t all rainbows and butterflies.

What we did not expect was to see our friends, family, neighbors, and community rise up to link arms with us and walk beside us down this road in such an incredible and humbling way. We have been absolutely blown away at the support we have received.

It’s truly overwhelming to look back at the last 10 months and see what God has accomplished through the people in our lives...

-Last summer, two dear sweet friends handed us a check for $1,000 to begin the raising of our funds. These friends are young and in ministry alongside us (a.k.a. they don’t make the big bucks). Their sacrifice for the sake of our family is something we will never forget.

-In November, we held the Caribaby Craft Sale in our home to raise adoption funds. 50 people from across the country made the most amazing handmade treasures you’ve ever seen. We had bags from Wyoming, bows from Georgia, ties from Ohio, prints, jewelry, and scarves from Texas, and an unending list of things from our amazing Missouri family and beyond. Every flat surface in our house was covered with something to be sold. Over 100 people packed into every square inch of our home one Friday night to help us meet our goal. Our neighbors made goodies for everyone to eat. Our best friends kept things organized and took the money. And I walked around in a daze crying every 5 minutes because our people are a-maz-ing. Also I didn’t realize until halfway through the night that I never changed out of my house shoes. Whatevs. That night we raised $4100. Say whaaaat??

-Over the last few months, it hasn’t been uncommon for people to slip a $100 bill in our hands as they walk past us at church on a Sunday morning. It isn't rare to open the mailbox and find a card with a check inside from family and friends all over the country who want to partner with us in following this call. Again, our people are a-maz-ing.

-About a month ago, we received a text from our pastor asking how much we still needed to meet our financial goal, which at that point was $11,000. A week or so after that, he called us into his office and handed us an envelope. Inside was an anonymous cashier’s check for $11,000.  He said it was from a family in our church who was thankful for our ministries and wanted us to not have to worry about the rest of the cost. 
Because of this gift, our adoption is completely funded. 
Is this real life?! 

God called us to something we were terrified to jump into. When we switched to working with an agency, our costs raised from $15,000 to $27,000. When we were debating whether or not to make the switch, my dad said this to me, “Maggie, you are not allowed to not follow this plan out of fear of finances. Money is an obstacle God can use his people to overcome in a matter of seconds. You can say no, but not because of money.” He was more than right. Our thankfulness for the people God has surrounded us with grows immensely every day.

We could not be more excited to raise our child in this community of people. 

It takes a village, and our village is simply the best.

The journey begins...

This past year, we began talking about expanding our family. We knew we were becoming ready to be parents someday soon, but when we thought about starting our family with a biological child, there was a disconnect. We were ready to be parents, but not ready to have a baby. That made absolutely no sense to us but we couldn't ignore it.

In April, after much prayer and a trip to the beautiful and amazing country of Haiti, we decided to make adoption the basis of our family growth and begin the process of adopting a baby from the Caribbean! We could not have been more excited! ... and also terrified, very terrified. Let's be honest. 

We began working with some amazing people in St. Vincent & the Grenadines (SVG) to start the private adoption process. We filled out the application, completed our home study, and began compiling our documents. We were on our way to becoming a family of 3! It was just about this time that we learned about the Universal Accreditation Act (UAA) which was signed into effect to essentially ban private international adoptions as of July 14, 2014. We knew we would most likely not have our adoption completed by then so we decided to end the private adoption route. We were heartbroken and confused. 

(p.s. the UAA may be causing some problems for potential adoptive families, but the hope is for it to provide protection and advocacy for orphans and birth parents. We're big fans of adoption ethics so our hope is for this purpose to be accomplished!) 

Rewind 7 months...

In April, when we first decided to adopt from the Caribbean, we contacted Creative Adoptions, Inc., an agency that works in SVG, Dominica, and now St. Lucia. I asked if they could give me some information regarding adoption in SVG but I let them know we were going the private route and that we would not be working with them. They told us that they have a waiting list to be able to apply and asked if we wanted to be on it anyway. We said no. Bad move, Schades.

Fast forward 7 months...

In November, following the UAA discovery, we were sad and confused and had no clue what to do next. It was just about that time that Creative Adoptions, Inc. contacted us and said, "Congratulations! You're at the top of our waiting list and you are now able to apply for your adoption!" Say what!? Remember how I so confidently assured them that we did not want to be on their list because we had it all figured out and knew it was going to work perfectly according to our plan?! Well thank goodness for divine intervention! We happily accepted and began round 2 of adoption applications! 

We have been accepted to their Eastern Caribbean program and are working on compiling our dossier (a fancy word meaning "more paperwork than you even thought possible") and revising our home study (shout out to our awesome social worker, Jeremey Wolfe, for making a million changes to get it agency-ready!). Once all of this is finished, we will take our official place on the waiting list! 

Once we are matched with a child (which shouldn't be longer than 12 months from now, fingers crossed), we will make an immediate short trip down to meet the our child. Then, we'll come back home (without the our baby) for 3-6 months to wait for our court date. Be prepared for Hot-Mess-Maggie during that time. Cookie dough is welcomed. After the court date, the THREE of us will come home!

That's where we're at now. We'll keep you updated as we know more. Thank you for your prayers and encouragement. We could not survive this insane process without it!