A Snowy Christmas

Christmas was very busy around our house. Most of my family came into town (6 adults, 1 child) for the week before Christmas and left the day after. It was really awesome to have them around and give them the opportunity to meet Abigail. We even had snow flurries on Christmas Eve. Our big worry was how the dogs would react with my 15 month old niece running around but they were great. Buddy even killed a squirrel on Christmas Eve - that was his present to us.

Abigail has been growing like a weed. You can almost see her growing from minute to minute. She is starting to sleep in her crib half the night because she gets active in her bassinet and her arms hit the sides and wake us up. She's not quite on her routine because of all the visitors and we are seeing more this weekend for New Year's. We are hoping to put her on a true schedule next week.

She is smiling a lot more which is tons of fun. Her little dimples are so cute in her big chubby cheeks. You can also really tell that she recognizes mommy and daddy's voices and faces. She loves to look at lights and listen to music. She is also hungry right now as I heard her let out a little cry from the bedroom. Gotta go make a bottle and feed her so that Jenny can get some more rest.

It has been great being off work during the holidays so that I can help Jenny out. She's going to be really tired come next week when I'm back at work.

We'll right more soon and post pictures of the holidays.

In Christ,
Jerry

I think we are clean...

Okay, that is probably a really bad attempt at a joke but we have had so many baby showers over the past few weeks I just couldn't pass up the silliness. It is amazing to realize how many lives we have touched and to see it through the physical support showing up in the showers that have been thrown for Abigail. From family to friends to co-workers to former patients it is just amazing how God has surrounded us with such a great support system. If we didn't already know, it would be pretty obvious that God is saying this is the family he wanted to create.

And we have been so busy with the showers and family coming in town for the holidays that we just haven't taken the time to sit and write about it. We also mixed in refinancing our home in the midst of all of this. But on to how Abby is doing. She went for her two month doctor visit and got a clean bill of health. The doctor said Jenny is doing a great job and is doing everything right. She's obviously grown since the two week visit but she is picking up speed compared to other babies. We know that Abby is going to be a petite person when she grows up because her birthparents we both short and petite. But Abby has gained percent wise from 1% of babies in size to about 4%. Not that it matters, we are just glad she is healthy.

She also received 5 shots on this visit. Not a pleasant experience but it has to happen. She is such a well mannered baby that this was the first time that we saw her really open up her lungs and scream and cry. It didn't last long though and she was sleeping it off. We've been trying to work in our family Christmas picture but it has been difficult getting times arranged properly. I'm off work from now thru January 5th so hopefully we will be able to get that done soon and posted for all to see. We apologize for not getting Christmas cards out this year but we think that everyone should understand. Maybe we will send out a Happy New Year card instead.

She is really starting to smile when prompted, at least when she is really awake. She is slowly starting to sleep better but with all that has been going on it has been difficult to get her on a routine. That will have to wait until January once all the family is gone and there are no more trips out of town. But she is so good about going to other people and not getting fussy. She's also been very good about not getting sick (like she really has anything to do with it) with both the weather changes and being around so many people.

Now that all that is explained - the really important thing that happened since my last post is that we got Abby's life jacket out and sized her up. She's just a tad too small for it right now but by March it should fit just fine and she'll be ready to go. And now that my project of remodeling the travel trailer is complete it is on to building her water skis. I know some people think I'm crazy, but those of you who have seen me on the water know that it will be safe and fun. Plus those who really know me are already asking when her first ski trip will be. I'm targeting June because the water should be warm enough by then. And yes Jenny is on board with this idea, she actually stopped me the other day when I said I needed to build Abby's skis. She said "If we have new skis, she is going to have a new ski also". And I did find this really cool new ski trainer online that floats and starts the kids off in a seated position, so we may be investing in that.

I'll end this post with a few updated pictures.

We have much more on our cameras and the cameras of others that we need to download so that we can share. For now, we thank everyone for all the prayers and support. We love you all.

And don't forget - the Real Gift of Christmas is Christ!

Jerry

Daddy's World & Pictures

Howdy! It is hard to believe it has been two weeks since I've posted anything. I have to admit it was tough going back to work after being home with Abigail since the day we picked her up. I even had to spend a night out of town for work which was really hard, but I know it was even harder on Jenny to be alone that night with Abigail.

Jenny has been great! She takes care of Abigail each weeknight trying her best not to wake me up. We both agreed that since my job entails so much driving, that she would try to take care of all the night feedings/changings so that I would not get tired while driving during the day. She has been awesome and I could not ask for anything better than the relationship I have with my best friend.

On to Abigail, I'm sure that is what you want to hear about right? She is growing and growing. Jenny weighed her yesterday and she is about 8.5 lbs, which is up a pound in two weeks. She's finally out of the newborn diapers and is just about to outgrow the newborn clothes. She is starting to smile more and on rare occasion will smile upon request. She is also becoming a little more vocal, but she still doesn't cry much. We are learning still on the hair care issues but everything else is falling right into place thus far.

Tuesday I took Abigail up to Jenny's Weight Watcher meeting so that all the members could meet her. They threw an unannounced baby shower for Jenny the week before, which was awesome. Then on both Wednesday and Thursday, Jenny took Abby up to her old workplace for two separate meet & greet luncheons so that some of Jenny's former patients could meet Abby. The generosity of our friends has just been amazing. We are truly grateful for everyone and I have a feeling we are going to be taking quite a few people out on our boat this summer. In my mind there is no better way to repay generosity than to take people out on the water for a day of fun and relaxation.

So what is it like being a dad? I can't explain how awesome it is. My little princess is just so beautiful and perfect. She is a blessing and truly fills our house with joy. I know everyone says we should not hold her all the time, but it is so hard to put her down. And you know what - I don't care I'm going to hold her anyway. We've waited 8 years for Abigail to come into our lives and to think that she is not going to be spoiled is crazy.

As I was telling someone yesterday, the waiting felt like forever while we were in the moment but now it feels like it just flew by. It feels like just yesterday we were starting to fill out paperwork with Generations and praying that we would have our baby before Christmas. The most awesome part of this whole journey is the prayers that God answered along the way.

Other adoption related news, we had our first post placement visit with our social worker. It went really well, even the dogs were good. We have basically one a month until our finalization date in court, which we found out this week will be on April 23rd. The next big date is Abby's two month doctor's appointment on December 17th - more shots and I'm not looking forward to that. It is a whole new world of protectiveness for me. I'm not a gun person but I've even thought about taking a couple of gun classes so that I can be prepared for when she starts dating - Abby, when you are old enough to read this I want you to know that is a joke of course.

So let me close by adding some recent pictures. We are trying to capture her hair after a bath but it doesn't photograph very well. It gets so curly and is just so cute.

God Bless!

Jerry

Week 1 Stay at Home MOM!

Wow! Stay at home Mom.... It was amazing, interesting, exhausting, and so worth it. It was so weird not going to work. It was such an important part of my life that it was almost like I woke up thinking I'm late for work. Even though I miss my coworkers and my patients dearly (I talked to them almost every day last week) home is where I want to be and am blessed to be able to be here. My life has truly transitioned!

Here are a few things I've learned:
*Even little girls can "spray" you
*My right arm is exhausted! Guess I better switch to the left occasionally...
*Sleep.......what's that?
*Clean house.....laundry...yeah right!
*Typing with one hand takes forever.
*Spreading cream cheese on toast is really difficult with one hand.
*Whew......there is a ton of baby laundry to do! oops....there is another wet onesie.....BLOWOUT!
*I love cuddling with my daughter.
*She is so yummy!

Things I am working on.....
*Sleeping when she sleeps
*Not worrying about laundry and dirty house
*Having things in order all the time
*Keeping her spotless hahaha
*Being confident in my "motherly instincts"
*It's ok to put her down for a little bit
*and the hardest one.........letting her cry a little bit..... ugh!

It was an amazing week and I am so thankful to be able to stay with my daughter each day. Jerry is an AMAZING father and is so eager to help whenever needed. In fact, he even says "my turn". Wow!

thanks to each and every one of you for your well wishes and prayers. Stay tuned for pictures and more on STAY at home week 2.

love to all,
Jenny

So much to be Thankful for...

Hello,

We have so much to be thankful for this year. Here is a recap on our Thanksgiving weekend:

We went to my parent's house in Boerne the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving. What was usually a 4 hour drive took 5 1/2 hours. We stopped a few more times and once to feed our little girl. We are learning so much! You can't just stop and feed her....you gotta stop, take her out and change her diaper, feed her, burp her (boy can she burp! I am so proud!) let her sit up for a while to prevent spit up, cuddle with her a little with mommy then daddy, then put her back in the carseat and go. Of course one of us was sitting next to her the whole time. We finally got to Pipe Creek at 10:30 pm.
My parents were of course up and waiting for us to arrive. Mimi and Granddaddy were super excited to meet little Abigail. It was precious! Mom is still recovering from her surgery so with gentle hands she held Abigail and it was priceless. We have waited so long to fill our arms with a baby and it is finally here and "Mimi and Granddaddy" were elated. God is so good!

Thursday morning: Thanksgiving........what an amazing Thanksgiving gift God has given us. We will never forget this day. We gave Abby a bath that morning and about that time my brother, sister in law, and niece came over. Immediately, Brooke took to her new cousin, Abigail, and they were attached. What a great little mama Brooke is. I can't wait for Abby to meet her big cousin Alex!
Then Nanny, Da, Grandma, and the rest of the family came over and it was wonderful to see everyone rejoicing with us. Even my "little sister" Sadie, the yorkie, was a good girl and was excited but gentle with Abigail.
Over the rest of the weekend, except for a few hours in the middle of the night, she was in someone's arms the whole time! And she loved it! Let's just say we are trying to get her out of that habit right now. :)
All in all we were all together all weekend and it was amazing! One thing for sure......we are blessed beyond all understanding. God's timing is just right and eventhough we still have Mom's chemo/radiation on the horizon we are so thankful that God brought us Abigail to remind us that He loves us and has not forsaken us. To God Be the GLory!

It is because of all of your prayers that Abigail was our little Thanksgiving miracle. Thank you! You will never know how much we appreciate all of you. Thank you is not enough....

(Jerry will upload the pictures from Thanksgiving as I don't know how to do that yet! heehee....)
love, Jenny

First trip to Church - 11/22/09

I've told this story a few times now and I know I'm not giving it justice as to just how amazing it was on Sunday. First of all we got to church on time, which is unusual for us...we are usually about five minutes late each week. But we knew there was a big crowd of prayer warriors just waiting to meet Abigail, so we rushed to be on time. It almost appeared like we snuck in because only one or two people stopped us in the lobby area.

We sat at the back of church in our normal section but I was on the last seat in the row so we could take Abby out quickly if need be. The service started off with a worship song and I looked over to see a good friend of ours, Mark. He and his wife Julie have really helped us thru the years with our emotional journey. He looked over and saw Abigail and got a huge smile and then shot both arms straight up into the air, just like a tennis player does the first time they win Wimbledon. That brought tears of joy to my eyes.

So the worship song is over and one of the pastors, Matt, greets everyone and then asks us to greet each other. I looked at Jenny to my right for a brief second and then turned back to my left towards the aisle. We had been mobbed with people in a scene of support, tears, joy and just an amazing outpouring of love. The huddle around Abigail must have looked like the championship celebration of a basketball team, with the crowd spilling out onto the floor to lift up the team on a great win. As Jenny said on our way home - how are we ever going to be able to repay all of these people for what they have helped us through.

Back to the service, people kept coming up to us as they entered church during the worship music portion of the service. And after the sermon but before our dismissal there was another special moment. Matt was going thru the church announcements and I asked Jenny if she wanted me to hold Abigail, to which she said ok. Right after the exchange Matt called on Jenny and I to stand so we could introduce Abigail to the congregation. Everyone turned around to see her as I was holding her in a seated position in my left arm. Matt said some very kind words about our journey to start our family and as he called Abigail's name to introduce her, she stretched and raised her left arm straight up in the air as if to say - that's my name, I'm over here!

God is working wonders in our church and we are living proof of that. We love our church family greatly and we would not be the family we are today without them.

May the peace of Christ be with everyone today on this Thanksgiving day 2009. Do I really need to tell you what I'm thankful for? Really?...I've been up since 3:30am feeding, changing and snuggling with Abby (she's been curled up on my chest as I have been writing this post) and wouldn't change any part of it. Jenny gets the shift until about 4am and then I take over since I'm a morning person. I love it because I get to see her start every new day.

To God Be The Glory!
Jerry

Picture Time!

Here are some pictures from our first few days. The saying is a picture is worth a thousand words so I'll not bore you with my dialog.

Mommy & Abigail

Daddy & Abigail

Christen, Caroline & Abby

Christen, Aubrey & Abby

Girls from Bible Study group

1st nap in crib

Fresh curls All clean & happy

Ok - I had to put a few captions in there so everyone knows what they are looking at. So thankful for Jenny's grandmother getting us the digital camera! Can't wait for everyone to meet little Abigail in person.

'Til next time.

Jerry

I LOVE MY LITTLE GIRL!

Ok.......it's my turn! :) First of all, how awesome is my husband? He is an amazing Daddy! It has been so amazing to see him just jump in and help. We make a great team! I am so blessed.

Well, let me start from the beginning. This is a story that I haven't been able to tell for 31 LONG days. We weren't allowed to share too much information due to legal issues but now that that is over...here you go.........Let me start by saying......God's timing is Perfect! I have been hearing people say that and I nodded and said "I know..." but really It IS perfect!

My mom found out that she had breast cancer a few days before my 35th birthday (Oct. 11th). I was feeling very strange because as most of you know.....I love my birthday! But this year I was Not going to celebrate because I didn't feel I had anything to celebrate. (I was being a brat! and complaining a lot). So I got through my birthday and was planning a trip to San Antonio to go with mom and dad to the oncologist and breast cancer surgeon appointments. It all started October 14th. I was reflecting and daydreaming on my way back to Waco. I was feeling very negative about the adoption "lack of news" and feeling very sad for my mom and what she was going through......

Then Jerry called and said we got an email about a baby! A birthmom called from the hospital and wanted to place the little GIRL for adoption. What?? So Jerry very quickly said we were more than happy to show our profile and would anxiously await the news. Right then and there I started to cry. God was listening and He is faithful. The next day we would find out that the birthmom chose us and we would meet her 2 days after the birth. We met the birthmom and she is precious. What an amazing young lady! She loved her daughter so much that she chose a better life for her. Most of all she chose LIFE for her! Our journey to Abigail began................

When Abigail was born of course her mom had given her a name but because of confidentiality reasons the nurses in the hospital weren't allowed to call her that. Also, the birthmom was discharged from the hospital the same day as the birth and nobody had come to visit the sweet baby........SO the nurses in the hospital nicknamed her baby HOPE and kept her at the nurses station and loved and prayed over her. "Baby Hope" was discharged from the hospital on the 16th and sent to stay with an amazing transitional family's home that works for our agency. She was placed there temporarily because of legal issues and we were notified that it may take up to 31 days to bring her home. THE LONGEST 31 days of my life!!! But in that time we were allowed to visit our baby.

Speaking of which..........the moment I picked her up I knew she would be ours. A tiny gift from GOD! THose 31 days........we were on our knees constantly with a huge outpouring of prayer warriors praying for patience, guidance and God's will. Wow! It was amazing!

So on the 32nd day........I got a phone call from my mom re: her breast cancer. We were so hopeful that the surgery had gotten all the cancer and that she would not need chemo/radiation. We were crushed when we found out that 1 lymph node was infected and she would need additional treatments. In the midst of all the sadness, I cried out!
2 hours after the cancer call.........I got a call from the agency stating that we could come pick up our daughter in 3 days. God heard my cry and He moved a mountain. I got to call my mom on what may have been her worst day.......and tell her that she was going to meet her granddaughter on Thanksgiving! Wow! I still get chills.

As I hold my sweet daughter in my arms.....I am so thankful. It reminds me that I am not in control and that I will always be on my knees thanking God for my blessings.

LIVE by Faith One day at a time..........

love to all of you,
Jenny

Mr. Mom - First Morning

I thought I should report out on my first morning alone with Abigail. It started at 2:30am when Abigail was ready to start her day. I took her into the nursery and laid her down on a pillow that was on my lap. she finally fell back to sleep at about 3:30am. So, since I was now awake and watching her sleep, I read over all the genetic history documents that we received from Generations. It was awesome to read about the birthmother's family and her reasoning for adoption. She is an amazing person!

After I took about a 10 minute siesta, it was time for the early morning bottle at 5am. Jenny had just woken up for work so she got the bottle ready for Abigail. After she finished and said her goodbye to mommy, it was time for bed again for both of us. I'm a pretty heavy sleeper so I got as close to the bassinet as I could without being in it so that I could hear her wake up. I don't think it worked though because the dogs actually woke me up at 7:15am and it appeared that Abigail had already been awake. But she was just laying there looking around not making a sound.

So we got up and I started to change her clothes when as I'm getting ready to take her diaper off she starts to make that face. Yep - perfect timing...after her business was done I changed her, lotioned her up and put her clean clothes on. Now that she was clean, it was time for me. I put her in her crib and changed clothes, put the dog beds away and said my hellos to the dogs.

On to breakfast. I made her a bottle because she seemed to be hungry but by the time I sterilized everything and mixed the formula she was asleep in my arms. So instead I made my cereal and sat down to write this one-handed while eating my breakfast, which I finished about the start of the third paragraph. So she is snoozing with a bottle in the fridge ready to go...wait she just spit out her paci cried and looked at me. It's been 4 hours so I guess I need to finish this post off and warm up the bottle.

I hope everyone else is having as much fun this morning as I am! Stay tuned for a post about how amazing our trip to church was yesterday. God is definitely moving in our family and the support we have is truly amazing. As Jenny said yesterday, saying "Thank You" is not enough but it is too hard to express in words just how thankful we are too all of our friends and family.

To God Be The Glory!!!
Jerry

How Amazing It Is!

Well, we made it through our first full day with little Abigail. She is so amazingly beautiful and a very well tempered baby. I think we have used the cameras more today than ever before. I received a request for a picture with her eyes open. This was taken this afternoon, but as you may know about babies - they sleep alot so having the camera ready at the same time that she is awake can be a hefty task.

Jenny is having a blast! And we actually haven't fought that much about who gets to hold her. We've both taken turns and we've even put her down in a portable bassinet in the living room while we watched football this afternoon. Of course she didn't stay in the bassinet long before we picked her back up, but we want her to get used to resting on her own without being held.

The dogs have been great with the transition thus far. In fact they have had more difficulty because it has rained most of the time and they don't want to go outside and get wet. So they have some energy to burn, which they have taken out on some of our visitors. We have had a few people come over to visit and meet Abigail, but we are planning on going to church tomorrow as well as our Fellowship Family bible study group tomorrow night.

There are a few more pictures I want to add before I end this and hit the sack. And by the way, she was a great baby last night. She slept in her bassinet next to Jenny's side of our bed. Jenny handled the night duty last night and then I handled the morning duty while Jenny slept in with the dogs. Hopefully we can both get rested enough tonight so that we don't fall asleep in church tomorrow - although I think that will be hard to do since we will have Abigail to focus on as well as the sermon.

OK, so here are the pictures.

That's all for now. Oh wait, almost forgot one funny thing that happened today. We learned that there are "slow" and "fast" bottle nipples. I won't say who didn't know but the fast nipples are just that and they soaked poor Abigail's shirt. Lesson learned for the day.

What an amazing gift from God!

'til next time,

Jerry

Introducing....

Abigail Elizabeth Snider! She was born on October 14th and finally came home with us on November 20th. This picture is from her trip to her first doctor appointment and is courtesy of the transitional care family. They are wonderful people and we can't thank them enough for taking care of our little girl while we waited out the legal process.

So the day finally came after 8 years of struggles and desires for a family. We are so blessed and amazed to see how God brought us together and his timing seems so right. What a beautiful little girl, if I do say so myself. I never thought I would be so ok with so much pink, but I just can't get enough.

This picture is of us picking Abigail up at the adoption agency. This is the first picture of the three of us, we will hold off for a little bit before we get a picture of the whole family - including the pups.

Our little princess is home! Praise God!

Jerry

AND THE NEWS WAS GOOD....

We got a call yesterday afternoon from Generations. The attorney was able to get the information he needed in order to file the relinquishment suit in court. So everything is in the clear as of right now. PLUS - he was able to get the court date moved up to THIS FRIDAY, 11/20!!!!!!

This is obviously the news that we were praying for. It is just awesome how God works. We are still a little reserved just because nothing is final in the eyes of the courts until the judge rules on the case. So we still need prayers that nothing will come up to delay or change the current plan. I am confident enough though to share the news, at this point we have become attached and if something were to come up at the last minute to delay or change the desired outcome it would crush both of us. We are simply leaning on God and trusting that this is His plan.

Just be prepared when you hear that loud noise coming from the Waco, Texas area on Friday afternoon...that will be the sound of JOY that only comes from God creating a family.

Gotta go get ready for work. Yeah, I've got to work the next three days? That's probably not going to be very productive but hopefully it will help the time fly by.

In Christ,
Jerry

Getting closer every day.

So Jenny wrote a few weeks ago that we had been matched and we would know something within 2 weeks. Well, what we know is that the baby was born in October and we have been waiting out a period of 31 days before the birthparent's parental rights can be relinquished in court. We and the adoption agency are being very cautious due to some details which I'd rather not discuss in this forum. The 31 days have completed and now it is on to waiting for legal paperwork and court timing, which thanks to the Thanksgiving holidays, has been delayed until 12/4.

In the meantime, we have seen the baby a few times now. We are still being as guarded as we can, including not calling her by name but rather referring to her as "the baby". It is really tough emotionally but we know that she is being cared for by a wonderful family right now. As hard as it is to know she is here in the world and not yet in our house, it is so much better doing it this way than bringing her home and then having to give her back because of a change in the birthparent's plan.

So we wait again and again in a different state of emotions. In the meantime, it had been 6 months since our last home study so we had to get an updated home study done. We completed that yesterday. Over the weekend, we put the final touches on the nursery - curtains & hanging pictures. So everything is now 100% ready for this transition.

Thanks again for all of your prayers, we truly could not have made it to this point in the journey without your support. Just a few more weeks to go.

In Christ,
Jerry

Hope......

Well, there is a bit of adoption news! We have been matched again. I won't share all the details just yet but we will know in the next 2 weeks if we will be bringing our baby home. It is all very exciting but we are very guarded as well.

One of these days........when we get to welcome our baby into our home.......you all will hear me scream it from the mountain top! As most of you know.....I am not exactly a "quiet" person nor am I shy nor am I able to keep secrets very well. So, this is very HARD to withhold from everyone. All I can tell you is that.......we are cautiously optomistic.

On a related note: God is moving in our lives. Especially in mine. I have been really leaning on the Word and digging deep for some guidance. Praise for that! It has been a challenging month in more ways than one. Probably the most challenging and difficult time in my life and by God's grace I have a sense of peace in my heart. It is an amazing feeling. You all know how I usually react in a crisis..............yep.......I freak OUT! :) Not that I don't have my moments.....but still.

I have a couple prayer requests: Please pray for my mom. She is going to have surgery in the next couple weeks. Please pray for her strength, faith and recovery. She is an amazing person and I am so thankful for her every day. Pray for her to lean on God during this difficult time and know that He is in control and He knows what is best for her.

Pray for our adoption situation and all that that involves. Guidance, patience, FAITH that God has a plan and a reason.

Thank you all so much for all of your prayers and your support. This journey is filled with ups and downs and we wouldn't be able to make it through without all of you.

love,
jenny
"Live by Faith One day at a time" Don't ask God "Why" ask Him "What do I do now?"

October Showers???

So, it has been very rainy for the past few weeks. We went from one extreme of drought and heat in the summer to rain and no sun for going on 2 weeks. I guess we are in for a wet fall and winter.

Not much news on the adoption front. We are still waiting to be chosen but we know that the day will come before we know it. Our adoption agency is holding their annual fundraising gala on Nov. 3rd and we have not yet decided if we are going to go. In fact we have not really even talked about it much. It is on a Tuesday which is the night that Jenny teaches her Weight Watcher class so she would have to find a sub for her class.

Anyways, we are just hanging out and enjoying being able to do things without debt.

More to come I'm sure.

Jerry

September Already?

I can't believe it is the middle of September already! It has been a busy, interesting, challenging, and exciting summer. Yesterday, Jerry and I were reflecting on what all has happened in the last year. It was hard to list everything! But we can definitely say that we have learned from all of the things and grown closer to each other because of it. For that we are thankful.

Praise! Spriritually we have grown the most! It is amazing to see how God is moving in our lives. Yesterday during church, we were asked to talk about our journey and how it has affected us. It felt good to share that with others. Maybe our job is to help others by what we have learned. We can't wait to see what God has in store for us.

On the adoption front: Nothing new to tell. We are still waiting for our baby. Please pray for patience and understanding. Also, pray for guidance. Occasionally we get an email from our agency about a potential situation and whether or not we want to show our profile. Those emails are very difficult and we find ourselves asking....who are we to judge this birth family and child?? It is in those times that we pray that God will show us what to do and it is difficult for me to not ask WHY we get these difficult situations but to trust in Him to guide us.

That is about all for now. Thanks again for all your prayers and your friendship. We love you guys and are so blessed by all of you.

Love,
jenny

Freedom!

The big news as of recently is that WE have paid off all our debt except for the mortgage. It has been a long road but we finally did it. All the credit cards have been cancelled and destroyed. And we received the title for Jenny's Jeep on Friday, so we now have the title's for all of our vehicles/toys.

It is an amazing feeling to OWN everything. We are celebrating this coming weekend with a night out, something we have not done in a long time because of paying off debt.

Now it is on to the 6 month emergency fund, retirement savings and paying off the house early.

On the adoption front - there is not much of a change. We are still in a holding pattern waiting for a phone call. Having the debt paid off though sure gives us some stress relief.

Thanks for all of your continued prayers. Someday this waiting time will be over and we will look back thinking - that wasn't really that long.

In Christ,
Jerry

It keeps going and going and going...

Just like the energizer bunny, the waiting just keeps going. But that is okay, we are ready whenever we get the call. It has been tough the past few weeks for reasons other than the adoption. But with the prescription of plenty of water skiing - the mood is slowly starting to improve.

It really hasn't been that long it just feels like it. We first started our process with Generations on Feb. 13th. That was only 6 months ago. And just on the horizon there are several things to keep us busy. We will be debt free but the house this week, so we can finally start putting some money towards repairing, fixing up and remodeling the house. We have had a few non-essential items stop working in the past few months and decided to get out of debt first before paying to fix/replace them. Next month we get to start putting a little attention towards those items which should help remove some of the stress of waiting for a baby.

Well, not much else to say right now. I'm off work today and just waiting for Jenny to get home so we can go out to the lake and ski some more.

God bless,
Jerry

Life, Love, Loss

Well, it's been another few weeks since the last blog. No adoption news at this time. That area of our life has been pretty much the same routine......wait....wait....wait....no new news. I am struggling with that lately but our minds have been on other things.

The last few weeks we have been busy.
July 26th: I completed the Waco Triathlon. It was difficult but fun. I was praying the whole time to just survive it! For that i am thankful. That same day we received the news of Jerry's Papaw's passing. He was 86 years old. We went to his burial in San Antonio last weekend. We spent a much needed weekend with the family. One thing we know for sure is that Papaw is in heaven and not in pain anymore. WE are thankful for that.
Tomorrow i will compete in the Temple Triathlon. Please pray for that.....

All this to say that God gives us things in our life to help us cope with other issues....to set our minds at ease. I truly believe that. Each day we get a little stronger. Of course i have some sad moments but I know that one day we will have a baby.
Please pray for Jerry in coping for his loss. He loved Papaw very much and it will be hard to see the future without Papaw in it. One thing is for sure. Jerry will be a better father to our child because of the things that Papaw taught him. A part of Papaw will always be with Jerry and in all of us.
Please pray for me....I need strength to cope with life at work and home. My mind is distracted and I am having trouble trusting that our baby will come soon. It is hard to walk into the completed nursery but yet have no idea when it will have our baby in it.......ugh!!
Please pray that Jerry and I will cherish every moment we have with each other and enjoy our life and all of our blessings.

That is all for now. May God bless all of y0u daily.

love,
Jenny

In the meantime...

Hello,

It has been a while since our last blog. We have been keeping ourselves busy over the last few weeks since the disruption. We completed the nursery!! We painted and placed all the furniture in its place. It looks really cute. We haven't hung anything on the walls yet. We have several picture frames but don't want to hang it just yet. That can wait til after the baby arrives; then we will know for sure boy or girl. For now, that room is just right. We hope to post a picture of it soon.

We went on a much needed vacation last week. In January, every year, we plan a camping vacation with Jerry's family. This year we weren't sure what was going to happen but it turned out we were able to keep our vacation plans. We did however stay near Waco and camped at the lake for several days. It was great! It couldn't have come at a better time. God knew what we needed and it was granted. Basically it was just Jerry and I. We skied and camped and had a great time together.

The adoption process is still moving along. We are just waiting for our baby. No news just yet on a birthmother. I just keep telling myself that it is not about me it is about what God has planned and in His timing. That is comfort enough right now. Believe me, I have rough days but overall I think I am handling it pretty well. Please continue to pray for our patience and understanding in this all.

We love you guys and are thankful every day for our blessings. My plan is to enjoy every moment of every day and thank GOd for those moments. It is through Him we are strengthened.

Take care for now. God bless,

Jenny

Just keep Breathing

Well, that was an exhausting weekend. I experienced every emotion possible. It was all so difficult and definitely sad at times. But we've got to keep breathing and praying that we will have our baby soon. Another reminder that I am NOT in control but that God is. He knows what baby is ours and His plan will be revealed in time. Hopefully soon.

We have been in contact with our caseworker and our profile will be reactivated today. Our prayers were always for a baby by Christmas. We still have time for that so we are hopeful. Again, just praying for some clarity and trusting that it will all happen in time.

thanks to all of you for thinking about us and praying for us. We definitely felt God's arm around us and through all of you we felt love.
**
What would we do without text messaging and email? Texting was a huge help when I couldn't find the words to speak and couldn't get the words out without crying. So......brief advertisement........text messaging is great in any situation! :)

love you all very much. we will keep you all updated as best we can in the coming months.
**Jenny

Proverbs 3:5 "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean NOT on your own understanding."

Sad News

The risk that was involved with this adoption came true. Our birthmother decided to parent the baby last night after her parents found out about the baby and convinced her to keep the baby. This is obviously difficult but we knew that the risk was there and both Jenny and I had fairly strong feelings that a disruption would happen to us. That is probably why many of you couldn't understand why we were not getting more excited about this birthmother choosing us.

We do know that God is in control and will take care of us. We know that his plan is for us to have children, there are so many reasons why we know. So we are going to be put back into the available approved family group and pray for another birthmother to find us.

We thank you all for the support you have given us and we know that we can lean on you in this tough time.

Walking with Christ,
Jerry

Happy Birthday!

We received news yesterday that the birthmother was close to delivery. The doctors actually began inducing labor this morning at 5am. By 10:05am a baby girl was born. She is 5lbs 8oz and 17 inches long. She is amazingly beautiful. There is a pretty funny story that goes along with today that could have only happened to us.

We got the call to go to the hospital at about 11:30am. Luckily the hospital is just 5 minutes away from our house so we were there before noon. Our birthmother wanted to make sure we were in the building for her support and for the baby. So we waited in the lobby until the proper paperwork could be done to clear us to go to the nursery. Well, there was a complication with the birthmother's last name since she was recently divorced and does not have a photo ID with her now legal last name. This went on for 4 hours and the funny part happened at about 2:30pm or so.

As we are waiting and talking with one of the social workers from Generations, they announce over the intercom "Code Purple, Infant Abduction!" With that several staff and police began running thru the lobby to guard the entryways and hallways. Jenny and I looked at each other and without saying a word about it both were thinking the same thing - what if a family member found out about the birth and tried to steal the baby for the family. This went on for about 5 minutes before they announced it was only a drill. At which point Jenny and I almost hit the ground in laughter, of all things that could happen and make this journey any more difficult. The stress overload just made us laugh, what an emotional test.

So finally around 4pm we were cleared and allowed to go back and see the baby girl. She is so small and adorable. We got to do the first feeding and Jenny got to change the first diaper. We took pictures and videos and were able to stay with her for about 2 hours. The birthmother requested to spend time with the baby tonight before she is discharged in the morning. The baby will stay in the hospital until after 48 hours and the paperwork is signed giving us the ability to bring the baby home. So we will go see the baby tomorrow morning and spend most of tomorrow with her.

We appreciate your continued prayers of peace for the birthmother. She is making an extremely brave and courageous decision. We hope that her recovery is quick and that she finds peace with her decision.

36 hours to go!

Daily in Christ,
Jerry

It could be soon!

Well, yesterday our birthmother went to another follow-up doctor's visit. The doctor said that he thinks she will have the baby by this weekend. A little early but we are definitely okay with that. Our birthmother has decided that she does not want anyone there while she is in labor and delivery, but she has asked her social worker to call us as soon as the baby is born so that we can go up to the hospital and see the baby in the nursery. She does want to spend a little time with the baby at first but then is planning to go home and leave us "in charge". The baby will stay in the hospital until the paperwork is signed at 48 hours giving us custody of the baby.


The nursery is almost finished. All that is left are some paint touch-ups and painted the baseboards. This past Tuesday I had to go to College Station for work. As I was driving around town I realized that we still needed to get an Aggie outfit to bring the baby home in. So before I left town, I went to our favorite Aggie store - Aggieland Outfitters, www.ao12.com, and bought a maroon outfit and cap. I also found a cute giraffe wearing a maroon A&M shirt. I had to buy that to go with the baby safari them of the bedroom and it fits right in. So there is really not much left to do to prepare.


Please pray for a safe weekend for our birthmother and the baby. This is potentially going to be a very busy and stressful weekend for all involved.

In Christ All Things Are Possible!
Love to All!
Jerry

Fund Completion

Isn't it amazing what God can do when you let him be in control and you follow his word? My mom had a garage sale 2 weeks ago to raise money for our fund and raised just under $500. So once we put that in the adoption fund at the bank it put us over the top. We now have enough money to cove the final placement fee for the adoption - 2 weeks ahead of schedule. For those friends, family, co-workers and anonymous donors that donated to help us - We can't thank you enough.

The only thing we have to worry about now is unknown fees. But if we continue to let God control the process then I know that should any other costs arise He will give us the means to pay for them. So there is really no worry at all.

So what is left - besides waiting and praying? We started painting the nursery last night. No hints as to color or design but we will post pictures when we are done. But other than painting there is really nothing left to do but pray and make sure our phones work and are on at all times.

If I do not post again before Sunday just let me say Happy Father's Day to all the father's out there. Hopefully this will be the last time that I do not get to celebrate father's day.

God Bless,
Jerry

The Waiting Game.

Well, I haven't posted in a while but then there hasn't been a whole lot going on either - at least with the baby. What has been going on you ask???

TEXAS A&M Men's Track Team won their First National Championship!!!!
And TEXAS A&M Women's Track Team won their First National Championship!!!!
And LOS ANGELES LAKERS won their 15th NBA Title!!!!

What a weekend for my sports teams.

Now - on to what this blog is all about. The nursey is coming along as Jenny said. Haven't painted yet but everything else is pretty much in order. We have not heard from Generations in a few days so we are assuming that no news is good news. So we wait and wait and wait. And when we get tired of that we wait some more. I've even gone so far as to look up the date of the closest full moon to our birthmother's due date. It is July 7th. If you do not already know, baby tend to be born more on the night of a full moon than any other night of the month. Interesting little fact.

Well, it is time to feed the dogs so I've got to finish this off. As Bartles & James used to say "Thank you for your support!"

Jerry

The Nursery

The nursery is almost ready. All the furniture is in place and the clothes are put away. Jerry worked really hard getting the closet finished and fixing the drawers in the "chester drawers". Ok Chest of Drawers....to be exact. The only thing left to do is paint the room. Jerry won't tell me what color he is gonna paint it but he has a "plan".

I washed all the clothes on Friday. That was the most fun I have had washing clothes EVER! They were so cute and tiny. I can't wait to see a teeny, tiny, tooshie in those diapers! We will take some pictures of the nursery and post them soon. In the meantime, if you want to know the general idea....baby safari with the pattern malawi by kidsline. Google it and you will see. So CUTE! (I think!)

No new news about the birthmom. We are just continuing to pray for her and her decision. I am sure she is having a difficult time right now with her decision and preparing for the birth and.....it is 102 degrees outside. I am sure that is super tough being 9 months pregnant and 102 outside. We do know that last week at her appointment she was dilated to a 2. The doctor felt that that could mean she could advance by this week but on the other hand she could stay at a 2 for a few weeks even.

Please continue to pray for us and for her and the baby. Thank you so much for all your support and encouragement. WE love you all and love taking you on this journey with us.

Have a good week. We will update at the end of this week after her appointment on the 18th.

Take care and God bless you,

Jenny
**Give your family and friends a hug everyday and tell them you love them!**

Baby Shower....

We had an amazing weekend last weekend. Again, God's timing is Perfect! We were elated when we got our CALL last Friday and what a perfect time to go see family and friends. It was an emotional weekend and it is just what I needed!
We shared our news with our family face to face and were so blessed with a huge amount of support and prayers.
Saturday we spent with family celebrating my cousin's recent wedding. Sunday we spent with family and friends at OUR BABY Shower! I can't believe I said that. It has been a long time waiting and I was so blessed by it. It was a lot of fun to share it with my "girls" from high school and college. They have been my solid support system through all the tears, disappointment, and heartaches. It was only fitting that I got to share this happy time with them. Also, all the moms of these girls, my mom, my grandmas, aunt, and some of my Mom's friends were there. WE had had a lot of fun catching up on each other's lives.
Then the awesome display of baby gifts ........Wow! I was amazed at how generous and caring all of these ladies were with the gifts they showered us and the future baby with. WE all at some point were teary eyed. Me for sure! MOm and I couldn't even look at each other without crying tears of JOY of course! Praise God in all this!
stroller, carseat, pack n play, diaper bag, diapers, wipes, pacifiers, musical "soother", onesies, Winnie the Pooh outfits, handmade blankets (thanks mom!), comfy sleepers, adorable toys, bottles and so many more things.....
We are officially ready for baby. This was perfect timing and perfect giving. I am in awe of how supportive people have been and genuinely excited for us.
Thank you to everyone for everything!
Update: Our birthmom has been to the doctor and everything is going well. The baby is healthy and now we wait. She has chosen not to know the sex of the baby, which is fine for us. It will be surprise! Please continue to pray for her decision and that it will be a peaceful decision and she will be emotionally strong in her decision. It is ultimately what God wants for this baby. Let that be a clear picture for her and for us. Pray for our hearts as well. It is really hard not to know what will happen and not to get too excited.

stay tuned for more details. I am off to help Jerry paint the nursery!

love to all and God bless,
Jenny

The Call!

I really wanted to post yesterday because I could have used a phrase from what was one of my favorite rap songs in high school - "Today was a good day" by Ice Cube. This was a very good week really. It started off with the Texas A&M Men's Golf team winning the NCAA National Title (WHOOP!), then Wednesday was our 9th Anniversary and we enjoyed a trip to relax on the lake. I'll only mention this once but Thursday The Lakers won game 1 of the NBA Finals. So I'm pretty excited and pumped as Friday starts. I'm out making sales calls on schools on there last day of school for the year, another reason to be pumped because my summer is starting and I won't be driving nearly as much while school is out. Well, I get a call about 11:00am from a number I don't know. My immediate thought is that it is one of my schools and they need something right away before they leave for the summer.

But it wasn't a school, it was Generations calling. Cathy was calling to let me know that we have been chosen by a birthmother. Needless to say that I got lost in a neighborhood while on the phone with her until I finally pulled over at the school I was originally heading to. So what do we know? Well, let me go back to the beginning. About 3 weeks ago we got an email about this birthmother asking if we wanted our profile shown to her. She didn't exactly fit our pre-set criteria so they asked if it was okay and we said yes. Then last week we got an update that she never came in to look at profiles because she does not have transportation. So we figured that this wasn't going to happen and we needed to prepare our hearts for waiting a little longer. Then out of the blue the call came.

So what can we tell you about her? She is 25 and recently divorced. She had 2 children thru her marriage that are healthy so that is a good sign. She is not wanting to meet us right now, the agency said she is very shy but is committed to the adoption plan. She is Hispanic and the birthfather, who is not in the picture at all, is also Hispanic. Her family does not know that she is pregnant and planning adoption. This is a HUGE RISK FACTOR. The Hispanic culture has a very strong family bond, which is really great, but it also means that very few Hispanic birthmothers get the support needed to follow thru with their adoption plan. So we are proceeding with guarded hearts. We are excited yes, but very nervous. Oh, and I guess I should mention that she is due on JULY 2ND! That's right less than a month from today and less than 7 months from the date we started filling out paperwork for the adoption.

Obviously we need your prayers but we also ask that you pray for our birthmother. Yes I said "Our Birthmother". I can say that now, especially after the agency sent us the invoice for the matching fee (did we say somewhere in our blog before that adoption is not cheap). She needs a lot of encouragement from God and her friends who are her support system right now. I pray that God gives her the courage and strength she needs to make it through this difficult time in her life and the peace to know that she is making the right decisions with her adoption plan.

Last little story. Wednesday night I was working on Microsoft Money and looking at our budget. Back about 2 months ago I decided to include the payments that we would be making to Generations in our budget and just picked some "random" dates for those payments. So Wednesday I was looking at the dates and told myself "we haven't heard anything yet so I am going to move the matching fee payment date back one week from June 5th". Yes, 2 months ago at random I put down June 5th as the date for making the matching fee payment. So after I got off the phone with Generations and then Jenny, I sat in my car and asked God forgiveness for not believing in Him on Wednesday night. He obviously had a plan all along and I tried to take over by changing the date. And to go one step further, the original date that I put in the budget for the final payment to Generations which comes when we take the baby home was July 1st. That's pretty close the the due date for our birthmother isn't it. GOD IS AMAZING AND I'M SHOUTING IT FROM THE MOUNTAINTOPS (or at least the new age mountaintops called the internet)!

I know this is a long post but HELLO, this is big news. We thank you all for your prayers and just ask for support over these next few weeks. It is going to be very nerve-racking knowing that there is a strong chance she may decide to parent the child on her own. We are going to write her a letter this weekend to hopefully reassure her of who we are and that God is in control and will take care of her. As I said, it is with guarded hearts that we tell everyone because this could be very exciting but it also could be very difficult.

Jesus is the Reason no matter what the Season!
Jerry

Hello!

Hi,
What a busy couple of weeks! We haven't blogged in quite a while and have a few updates. Right now we are keeping ourselves busy by registering for baby stuff for our upcoming shower on the 7th in San Antonio. That has been fun. Also, my parents bought us a crib and we set it up in the nursery. It is really cute!! Jerry has been doing what he loves........building stuff! He is redesigning the nursery closet.
All these things are coming along and are quite fun. It is also helpful to be busy so we can keep our minds off of baby "when, where, why and what". That is difficult some days because we are officially "active and waiting" so we know that news could come any time or way LATER. God is definitely helping me with patience right now. Some days I am more patient than others. :) For those of you that know me........patience isn't exactly my strongest attribute. PRAY for me!!
Other ways we are keeping busy are........water skiing and boating. Of course it is great that it is summer because we can be out on the water enjoying the weather, hanging out together and not worrying about anything else.
That is all I know right now. Thanks to all of you for continuing to be involved in this process and for praying for us. We look forward to sharing each update with you.
God be with you and bless you always,
Jenny

The Fun Begins!!

Howdy!
This week has been fun. Since we found out we were officially approved and waiting for baby we have been busy looking for baby stuff. We are having a baby shower on June 7th in San Antonio and the invitations went out. But we weren't registered anywhere so......Wednesday we went to Target and had a blast registering for baby stuff!
For so long we stood clear of the baby aisle for obvious reasons so now it was really cool to go in there for US and OUR baby! It was surreal but really fun. Jerry had more fun once he could use the registering "gun"! :)
One thing became chrystal clear though.........we have no idea what in the world most of those things are for. The obvious things were there....diapers, formula, cribs etc... but which ones......noone told us there were 10 different kinds of diapers and formula and 5 different cribs ranging from 200-500 bucks! Yikes! What do we do and which one do we choose? So we registered for what we knew and came home to research different cribs. Thanks to those of you moms that helped me decide! Once again, I couldn't have done it without you. Also, since we don't know if our baby will be a boy or girl we couldn't register for anything blue or pink. That is hard to do. Next time you go to the store check out just how many things are blue and pink. ALOT! No big deal though...that time will come and then we will go nuts with color. We have chosen to use an adorable baby pattern that a friend of ours gave us. It is called Malawi by kidsline. You can google it to see. We love it!
One more thing........we are now on the website of Generations. Go check it out! Our profile is on there with our letter to the birthmom. We don't have a picture of the pups on there because it wouldn't fit I guess, but they are on the paper version of the profile that the moms are looking at at the adoption agency.
That is all for now....Thanks for all of your prayers. We are getting closer and closer every day to our baby.
Have a great weekend. We love you all.
*Jenny

It's Official

That's right......it's official......WE are approved! We recieved the approval this morning and are officially "waiting for baby". Jerry dropped off the check and the scrapbook today and now we just have to wait for the phone call telling us a birthmom has chosen us. It could happen at any time and it could be a couple months or several. It is all in God's hands.

Please continue to keep us in your prayers; specifically for patience and trust in God for THE baby for us. There will be decisions, questions, and concerns along the way that might be difficult but we are hopeful that God will let us know what is right.

We are heading out of town this weekend so I will give more details next week. Thanks again for all your help and stay tuned for any updates.
God bless,
Jenny

Training etc...

Hello,
So sorry I am so far behind on updating you all on our training from April 23rd. So much has happened since then! Wow! What a crazy couple of weeks. Thank God we had the energy to make it....and it all turned out very well. I can't believe I was so stressed about it. :)

First of all, the training went great. We really enjoyed it and felt at peace with our decisions thus
far. We learned alot about open adoption and even talked more with the social worker, other adoptive parents, and even a birthmom about the entire process and also about multiracial adoptions.

As Jerry stated, we have decided on an open adoption plan. It is just that...open... for us to decide the level of openess when we meet the birthmom. We have learned that most adoption agencies and birthmoms prefer open adoptions mainly because they just want open communication with us. That is a good thing! The more open we can be the more comfortable the birth mom will be with her baby being raised by us. We hope and pray that we will be comfortable in that situation when it arises. We are truly looking forward to that meeting!

I would say that Jerry and I have learned a ton about adoption going through this all and would love to answer any questions you have about the process. Adoption has changed so much in the last 2o years. One thing we have learned is that through open adoption the birthmom, child, and adoptive parents cope much better in the years to come. There are answers to those questions such as "Where did I come from?" "What was my mom like." With those questions/answers the child can feel more at peace with being adopted and we will be able to comfort that instead of not knowing. The birthmom can also feel more comfortable with her decision and have closure knowing that her child is safe and thriving. There are some great books out there that are very helpful as well.

All that to say..........it has been a great learning experience and we know we have a ton to learn yet. Now I am feeling much more comfortable looking for baby stuff and setting up the nursery. We get to register for baby stuff. I can't believe it is really happening. It has been 34 years in the making! I am gonna be a mom soon........and Jerry is gonna be a dad. Wow! God is good and He is faithful.

thanks for all your prayers and text messages re: our home study. We love all of you very much and are so blessed everyday.
To all you Moms out there..........Happy Mother's Day. Mom, I love you and pray every day that I will be an amazing mom just like you. You are my friend, my constant support and I treasure you more every day! Mom Snider- you are the best mother in law and I admire your strength and character and I love you very much.

love,
Jenny

"Unofficially Approved"

What a busy weekend. Not quite as busy as the garage sale but it was full of tasks around the house. We both took Monday off from work so that we could be home for the Health/Environmental Evaluation and Home Study. It went very well and the puppies behaved themselves beautifully, as I expected.

The health inspection was simple and easy. There were really no concerns at all. The funniest part though was our lame excuse at marking the glass door at a child's height. It is required so that the kids do not run through the glass (like I did in college so I'm all for it). Although I don't know how often we will be worried about that with an infant. Anyway, we could not find peel and stick decals anywhere so we decided to stencil with glass paint. Totally a waste of money on the stencils, they didn't work at all so we just spray painted 2 lines about 2 inches thick straight across the doors. It gets the job done, you definitely notice the doors and probably would stop to laugh at them instead of running through it.

On to the home study. It was very smooth and not stressful at all. Our social worker had put together most of the information she needed from our application and autobiographies, so there were very few questions to answer. We answered a few together and then she "interviewed" each of us individually. We toured the house, went over a few specifics about what we are open to with the adoption and discussed the next steps. Which basically are waiting to hear that we are "Officially Approved", which should happen later this week, and then just waiting to find out when a birthmother picks us. We should be listed on the Generations Adoptions website under the approved families section by next week.

So the "wait" part of the "hurry up and wait" situation is upon us now. Please pray that we can keep our emotions in check. We know that God has a baby already picked for us and we have to remember to let him bring us together under his timetable and not ours.

What are we going to do now you ask? Jenny is already talking about registering for the upcoming baby showers that people have planned for us. My focus is back to our debt. I figure we should be able to complete our adoption fund and be out of debt by mid-August. How our lives are going to change over the next few months in so many ways.

For those of you still waiting for information about how the 8 hour training class went, Jenny will be posting about that soon. She'll probably also tell you a little about our decision to move towards an open adoption and what that means. So stay tuned.

In Christ,
Jerry

And remember..."If you're not first you're last!" from the great Ricky Bobby (yes he has two first names).

Need Prayers....

Praise.... We just passed our fire inspection. The fire dept. just came by to inspect our house and we passed with flying colors. We had to describe our evacuation plan and now we need to have it on paper to turn in to the agency. The pups behaved marvelously! (thank God!) They greeted them at the door and ran right out the door to the front lawn. Thankfully the girls ran right back in and Buddy came back when called. What a crazy thing that would have been........Jerry and I and two firemen running down the street after Buddy! Thank you Lord for not letting that happen. :) All in all it was a good experience and the pups did great!

Now we are gearing up for a long and tiring weekend. We are so exhausted right now so we are planning on taking tonight off and just chillin and going to bed early. Saturday and Sunday we are in mass cleaning mode since our home study is Monday. Here is our schedule for the weekend:
Saturday- take all the metal items to recycling, return tables and items borrowed for garage sale.
Sunday-church then clean, paint, clean, clean, mop....etc......
Monday- 830 Local charity to pick up donated items
11:00 Health inspector coming
1:00 Home study with social worker and evaluation
Please pray for us. Specifically that I will not stress so much and just trust in God that He will give me the strength to get through it. Pray that Jerry and I get the sleep we need to be strong and well rested for the busy days ahead.
You all have been so wonderful. I am simply amazed at the generosity and kindness people have shown to us. I truly know that God has His hand in all this and I am so thankful for all of you.
Have a great weekend. Take care and God bless,
Jenny

Garage Sale Day 2

Wow, what a long weekend. We finished up our garage sale about 4pm on Saturday after moving what we had left back into the garage. We have to thank everyone that helped with the weekend, from those who donated items to sell to our parents who came to help work both days. We had a little rain early on Saturday but were blessed with mainly overcast weather, so it never got unbearably hot.

What was really neat about Saturday was meeting 2 different people that adopted through Generations Adoptions. It was great to hear their stories and feed off of their enthusiasm. We can not wait to get to know them more through functions like adoption reunions.

I bet you are wondering what the total amount raised was. Well we had a good day Saturday but not nearly what Friday was. We sold most of our big items on Friday so Saturday was mainly clothes, CDs, books and nick-knacks. Our 2 day total was over $2,800 which brings us very close to the finish line. By my calculations, we should have the remainder needed within 2-3 weeks. I'll update the totals information tomorrow after we get Saturday's earnings in the bank.

So after church today we spent most of the day resting from the garage sale madness. The garage is still just as we left it when we finished up - stuff everywhere. Tomorrow starts the preparation for the Home Study on Monday, May 4th. Most of what needs to be done is cleaning so if we pick one room to do every night then we should be done by the 4th. Our prayer request is not that we "pass" our home study but rather that it doesn't rain on that day. Rain would mean a muddy yard which would mean muddy dog feet which would mean mud all over the house. So all of our cleaning would go down the drain.

I'm going to end by saying thank you again to all that helped with the garage sale, we could not have done it without you. But most importantly, we thank God because none of this would have been possible without is grace. It definitely is a testament to what can happen when you lift up your desires to God and let him be in control.

Peace in Christ,
Jerry

Garage Sale Day 1

This is going ot be short since I have been up since 3:45 this morning. I awaoke to the thought that the tree in our front yard had limbs haning so low that people would not be able to see into our garage sale. So I was in the front yard trimming branches at 4:00am. It is now almost 8pm so I wanted to just write something small before I crash for the night.

It is truly AMAZING HOW GREAT GOD IS! We had so many people donate items for us to sell and also we had many more people show up on a Friday to buy things. We had people bringing breakfast for us (which was unbelievable and I am serious about wanting the recipe) to one lady who came to just see what we had to sell and then went home and brought stuff to donate to our adoption cause. Truly unbelievable since we had never met her before.

I'm sure everyone is waiting for a total of some sort so I will spare the suspense - I went to the bank about 4pm this afternoon and deposited $1536 into our account. We made an additional couple of hundred dollars on top of that for a first day total over $1750. Considering Jenny's goal was $700 and mine was $2000 we should far surpass our wildest dreams by the end of this thing.

Our garage is still packed and we have more people bringing stuff again tonight and in the morning. We both love you all very much and can't believe how blessed we are to be able to call you all our friends. I will most definitely write more tomorrow and a much longer summary on Sunday - we still have to tell you how the training went on Thursday (it was awesome).

May God bless you all,
Jerry

Big Week Ahead....

Hello,
Things are busy, busy. But it feels great! I like progress so I can't complain too much. We completed our profile Sunday night. That entails a full page letter written to the birthmom with a picture of us at the top of the letter. (that is the letter you will see when you read the Generations website under adoptive parents.) On the back of the letter we can have the whole 8 1/2 X 11 sheet to fill with pictures. The adoption profile is the FIRST thing the birth mom will see when she goes into the agency to view potential adoptive parents. That alone is very intimidating. We have to totally convince her that we are fit to be her baby's parents in one page! So, that is complete and we will take all 10 copies of that to the agency Thursday when we do our training.
As stated in the previous blog we have been asked to put our profile out for viewing next week. That is super exciting but we are trying to hold it together and be patient all the while reminding ourselves that this is the 1st viewing. It is all in God's hands and He is in control. That has been our motto this week.
This Weekend: The garage sale/adoption fundraiser Friday and Saturday
Boy it is a lot of work! But it is totally worth it. We still have people donating things. It is AMAZING how generous people are. We are so thankful and appreciative. Many people are praying for us and that is amazing also.
We love you guys so much and I say we have a big party when we get that sweet baby and everyone that is praying for us and keeping up with this journey is invited.

take care and God bless,
Jenny

Excitement - Prayers needed

Today we received an email from Generations Adoption that there could be another Fast Forward in our adoption process. They have a birthmother who has not been able to match with any of the currently approved families and they want to know if we would be interested in showing our profile to her. This could happen as soon as next week, yes just a few days away and before we are even "approved" for adoption. You may be asking - what is a profile. Let me go through the steps really quickly for what a typical adoption should look like if the steps are taken in order.

Step 1 - Application, interview, orientation
Step 2 - 8 hour training class
Step 3 - Home study
Step 4 - Approved by agency, profile can be shown to birthmothers
Step 5 - Birthmother picks family and they meet
Step 6 - Baby born, placement of baby with family

I've combined some of the steps to condense them, there are actually 10 steps but you can easily see that we could be attending our 8 hour training class on the same day that our profile is being shown to this birthmother, skipping the home study and final approval by agency steps. This is HUGE!!!

Now - a profile is a one page information sheet about us. We describe ourselves together, some of our history, each of us individually and why we are pursuing adoption to start our family. The back of the page can be filled with pictures that show some of our hobbies and extended family. It is hard to put our whole lives down into one page of text but it is the only fair way to show several different families at one time to a birthmother. Once she decides which family she wants her baby to go to, a meeting is arranged so that we can meet the birthmother face-to-face.

So, what do we know. She is 19 years old and both she and her mother are wanting the adoption to happen. She is due in July and it is a boy. I don't want to get to excited, but Jenny and I have both been saying several times over the past few weeks that we think we are going to get a boy some time in July. We just continue to give everything up to God and know that he is in control. This is under his timetable and if it is his will for us to get this baby then it will happen.

We can't thank you enough for your continued prayers. We are in Pipe Creek, Texas this weekend picking up items from Jenny's parents that we can sell in our garage sale. I just pray that it doesn't rain next weekend or we are going to have a house full of stuff and legally can't have another garage sale for 30 days.

I'm sure we will write much more over this next week as it appears it will be very eventful.

Gig 'Em,
Jerry

One step closer!

Hello and happy Wednesday!
So we have to get fingerprinted as part of our checklist........ I completed mine today and Jerry will complete his Friday. The fingerprints will be reviewed by the FBI! Pretty scary, huh? I was glad to get it over with. It always feels good to get one more thing checked off the list....hence one step closer to baby.
The garage sale prep is coming along. I have priced a bunch of stuff and several people have donated items. The newspaper ad has been placed and the flyers are ready to hand out. Now we just need to pray for good weather so we can sell the items. We are hoping to make at least the amount needed for our home study...$700. That would be great! But any amount would be more than appreciated.
I have had several offers for a baby shower. That is so exciting! I can't wait to start all that fun stuff. After we are approved........I can go nuts looking at baby stuff.
WE are so BLESSED! Our family and friends are wonderful and I can't thank you enough for all of this. We definitely wouldn' t be this far along in the process without all of you!
love,
Jenny
p.s.... my sweet Baylie girl turned 8 years old today. She got a trip to Petsmart with "momma and daddy" to pick out a toy! :)

Happy Easter

We hope that everyone has a safe and happy Easter. On this great day, I can't help but think how blessed Jenny and I are. The support that we have been given from everyone is amazing. It is so awesome to be able to see God working in us and in our family and friends.

It is hard not to get too excited about having a baby soon, but we know that it will all happen according to God's timetable. He is in control and we have to keep our selfish desires from trying to take over the situation. All we can do is continue to prepare our hearts and our home because we know it will happen some day.

Speaking of preparing our home, you should see the checklists we have for Fire Prevention and Environmental Health. Over 25 items on each checklist, ranging from "Trash is burned in an area away from children" to "Soap and toilet paper are available in the bathroom at all times". You can see that some of these are going to be very easy to pass, in fact most of them are. Espcially since we typically only burn our trash every other week - just kidding, we live in the city. Do you really think we could burn our trash? You better not either - You better be recycling!

There are a few things though that I will need to repair before we pass. Small stuff like a window sill that has broken and is splintered. But for the most part I think we will pass quite easily.

The next few weeks are going to be very busy. Going to Jenny's parents next weekend to pick up items for the garage sale. Then the garage sale the following weekend and the home study the week after that. Not too mention all the time it is going to take to get things ready for the garage sale. Add in work and I'm glad we got rid of our cable last month. Otherwise we would just be wasting it because we won't have time to watch anything.

Enjoy your Easter Sunday. My prayer for you is that you will be able to put your trust in Jesus Christ, for He is Risen!

Jerry

Oh My!

We have had an awesome response to our garage sale contribution requests. We would like to thank everyone who has contributed items and we can't wait to SELL them. :) No really, we sincerely appreciate all of you so much. Your comments, your prayers, your support......all of it. We are diligently preparing for the garage sale and we (I am) are pricing items right and left. Next week we go to Boerne to pick up some more stuff! Now all we need are people to come to the sale and buy buy buy. We will put the announcement in the paper and are planning on handing out flyers to some friends to hand out to their friends..etc... It is all exciting but busy busy.
It has been especially hard to concentrate on anything other than the adoption paperwork etc....much less work a full time job. We decided yesterday that we need to not talk about adoption stuff during "work hours" because we were falling a little behind in our jobs. Oops! :) So, adoption plans are limited to after work hours.
I am having a little trouble not looking for cute baby room stuff. We made room in the future baby room this past weekend by moving the queen size guest bed into the "other room". So now the future baby room is empty (except for garage sale stuff) and it is begging me to fill it with baby stuff. But i must stay focused on the paperwork and upcoming home study. Then once we are approved I can start thinking of decorating. One step at a time, Jen, I know...i know.
That is all for now. Thanks again for keeping up with us. We love you guys and wish you a very Happy Easter!
love,
Jenny

Timeline Update

We have several updates this week. Jenny already wrote about the date for the 8 hour training class, April 23rd. We turned in our application/paperwork on Wednesday and were able to set the date for the Home Study, May 4th. The Home Study is under Step 5 of the 10 Step Process, so we are half way through the process. We are hoping that we will be put into the approved and waiting category by June 1st. See the timeline on the right for future updates.

What prayers do we have besides the obvious? Well, Jenny is not the best at the "hurry up and wait" situations. The adoption process is the epitome of hurry up and wait. You have to get everything paperwork wise done as quickly as possible so you can be approved, then you sit and wait to be chosen by a birthmother. Then you typically have to wait some more until the baby is born. I pray that she can relax, not stress about it and continue to give the controls up to God.

I'm the procrastinator which makes waiting a really easy thing for me (at least that is what I tell myself). I'm also the one that handles the finances on a daily basis so I know that waiting a little bit will help complete our adoption fund. I don't want to wait forever, but waiting until July would be ideal for our funding situation.

Speaking of funding, one of the tasks that we can start on now is applying for adoption grants. There are several organizations that give out small grants to help families with adoption costs. So more applications - Yippee.

I've opened up the opportunity to add comments if you would like. Being that this is our first experience with blogging I was a little nervous about someone who doesn't know us finding our blog and inputting a comment that we would not approve of. But I've researched it and found a way to approve all comments before they are posted to the public blog. So feel free to comment on any of the postings.

In Christ,
Jerry

We have a date!

Hello,
We have a date for the 8 hour training class: Thursday, April 23rd. Wow! That is very exciting and coming up very quickly. Our plan is to have the class Thursday and then have the garage sale that same weekend. Lots to do! Things are moving very quickly in regards to the paperwork part. The home study can be set up that next week if we turn in everything this week. Cross your fingers.........if the home study is completed at the end of April then we could be approved by the middle or end of May. After that we just wait for a birth mom to pick us for an interview.
It is amazing how God is working this all out. He is in total control and I have to keep reminding myself that. Financially we are being very frugile. I cooked beans and rice this weekend. Talk about saving money. Beans are cheap! :) But it is all worth it.

that is all for now. Take care and God bless,
Jenny

First of many updates

First of all, I have to say a big THANK YOU for all the great emails we have received about our blog. It is really awesome to have so much support. And funny story, one of my friends asked if we picked the color of the blog background because it was the option closest to maroon. Of course we did, what do you think it would be - orange? I would hope everyone knows us better than that.

Well, the application is completed. Now we just have to put together all the documents that they need to go along with it - tax returns, insurance info, etc. We should be able to turn it in this week. Then more of the waiting game. We have to keep telling ourselves to be patient and remember that if we were having a baby naturally we would have to wait 9 months so we should not expect anything quicker through adoption.

We should know this week about the training class they are putting together for April. Hopefully this will be easy to schedule amongst the other families that are also in the process. I'm anxious to know how many other families are in the process with us. Not that I'm competitive or anything, but I'd like to get a realistic analysis of what our odds are. Granted, just because we are able to move through the process quicker does not mean that a birth mother will pick us over the other families. It is one of those many things we must give up to God and let him control instead of trying to decide for him.

So what do we do while we are waiting? We are planning a garage sale for the end of April. We have several family members who are donating items for us to sell so hopefully we can raise a lot of money that way. Also, we are supposed to be doing some "required reading" on topics about adoption and raising children. Anyone who knows me just a little bit probably knows how well the reading idea is going to go over. If you take out the required reading from school, I can count on one hand and almost one finger how many books I have read for pleasure. In fact, I can't even tell you the name of the last book I read nor how long ago it was that I read it. I need to ask if books on tape are an acceptable option, although that might put me to sleep while I'm driving which won't be good either.

Next step for the blog is trying to figure out how to use the slideshow option to put a variety of pictures up for viewing.

Gig'Em
Jerry