I haven't been as good about writing and updating the blog this time around. That might have something to do with having a very energetic, medically complex five-year-old this time.  But, I thought this important update deserved a full post! We are matched with the sweetest little 18 month old girl in India. We can't give a lot of information until she's officially ours, but we are all in love! Ruthanne looks at her pictures everyday and talks about all the things they are going to do together.  Some common questions we've gotten... 1. She does also have medical needs, but not the same diagnosis as Ruthanne. So, we will be navigating a new disability, specialists, etc with this little one! 2. Yes, this adoption has gone A LOT faster than Ruthanne's, but we really have no way of knowing how quickly the rest will go. No pandemic should hopefully help this time around though! 3. Why? We have a heart for children who need families. There is a staggering number of kids i...

  We are registered in court! It's been seven weeks since we got our No Objection Certificate. Every day of the last seven weeks, I have checked the Indian courts app for Ruthanne's state to see if our case had appeared yet. Finally, this morning, there we were! Our first court hearing will be next week on December 23 (while we sleep on 12/22 in the US).  Over the last three years of our adoption process, Christmastime has always been the most difficult. Seeing little girls in big red hair bows and hearing stories of kids visiting Santa just made me long for our child even more. This season has been the hardest of them all so far. Now, we know our daughter and wish more than anything she could be here experiencing it all with us.  When we matched in February, we really thought that having her home by Christmas was realistic. And usually it would be, but if you've been following our journey for any amount of time, you know we've encountered a delay at pretty much every s...

 Worry If you know me, you know I'm a professional worrier about pretty much everything. Going through an international adoption during a global pandemic hasn't helped that.  We're at almost nine weeks of waiting for our No Objection Certificate (NOC) from CARA (India's adoption authority). This is the last document we need before we can be registered for court in India. At week 8, we heard that CARA wanted some additional information and documents from us. While it wasn't the news we wanted to hear, at least it was something! Then, I began thinking (re: worrying), "what if what we provide isn't good enough?", "what if they don't think we are fit to be her parents?"  There are also staffing shortages within CARA and changes to the court process happening right now. All things that can affect our process and timeline greatly. That doesn't even begin to mention the awful second wave of COVID that has been going through India the last fe...

Matched! Most of you probably know we have actually been matched for a while, but I'm just now getting around to writing a little bit about it. We are so happy to officially be pursuing the adoption of our daughter. We know her name, her face, and her sassy little personality. It was a day that I honestly wasn't sure would ever come. From the day that we were approved by India to adopt to the day we saw our daughter's face was 1 year and 4 1/2 months, and 2 years 4 months since we had begun the adoption process. There  were several reasons for the delay including changes in the adoption office of the government of India and of course COVID. The longer we waited, the more unsure I was if the day would ever come.  Christmas was really hard for me. This was the third Christmas since we'd started our adoption process and we hadn't had an update in almost a year and a half. I had been praying fervently for months that we would be matched by the end of 2020.  Cody and I a...

 Two Years. Wow. Two years ago, we officially began our adoption journey.  October 5, 2018. The day we mailed our first check to our agency. I feel like the people in that photo are very different than the people we are today, yet I feel like we've been stuck in the same place since that day. When we started our adoption process, most people adopting from India had their child home in 18 months to "two years max". Two years MAX. Those were the words we heard. Now, of course, our agency was great and warned us of all the unknowns of international adoption and how timelines can halt or speed up for apparently no reason at any time, but what we focused on was "two years max". We had all the "what ifs" in the back of our head, but tried to remain positive, and thought that in 2020 (which really seemed like forever away) we'd be parents. Obviously, here we are, two years later, and we don't even know who our child is yet. We've been waiting 13 m...

One year ago, in early October 2018, we "officially" started our adoption journey. By "officially" I mean, we filled out the application and sent the check. It was a big step for us.  Wow. Trying to sum up my feelings about this last year is harder than expected, but here I go... We had dedicated the entire summer before to prayer and research. During that summer, God had led us to a perfect agency that had all the qualities we'd hoped for and our hearts had settled on India. Over the last year, we have mostly waited. Waited for approvals, waited for paperwork, waited for appointments, waited for technical difficulties to resolve. We have learned a lot about ourselves, our marriage, and most importantly, our God in the last year. We have learned that he is faithful even in the waiting, even in the uncertainty. We have also grown to love the Indian culture, tried Indian food, talked about the kind of parents we want to be, and dreamed for our baby/babies to be....

We finally, after 4 months, have an update! We have now been approved by CARA (the adoption authority in India)! Monday night (September 16), as we were going to bed, I checked my phone one last time and had an email from our agency saying that we had CARA approval. This was an email I was unsure would ever come. Cody and I immediately prayed and thanked God for this approval that we and so many others have been praying for over the last four months.  Now, our next step is to be matched with a child/children. This will be our "next stage of waiting," but the fear of someone telling us "no" is now gone. We've been approved by the state of South Carolina, US Department of Homeland Security and Immigration, and now by the Indian government. It also feels amazing just to be able to say that there is movement and have an update to share. We are so so thankful for the people who have specifically prayed for this approval. Now, we are just waiting on our baby....

Contentment. It's been a recurring theme in my life lately.  I listen to podcasts while I drive, and two podcasts in the last week have talked about being content in where you are in life right now. This has been something I've struggled with through this adoption. I love my job. I love being a wife. I love taking care of my dog. I love time with friends. I love being involved in our church. I love traveling, but right now, I'm having trouble loving these things because my desire to be a mom is so great. We have been "in the process" for ten months now and likely have at least that long (if not more) left. I have wanted to be a mom since I can remember. We started praying about starting the adoption process over a year ago, and we truly thought we'd be farther along by now. Sometimes I feel as if I'm missing my calling-- that I'm called to mother a child right now, but I'm not. Not yet. So, my prayer lately has been for contentment. Of course,...

We were given this nice little graphic by someone from our agency and have been using it to track our overall progress. We also have it written on our chalkboard in our kitchen. It's super nice to see what next "big step" is coming/what's left. I showed it to a friend the other day and she said, "What? Only four checkmarks? I feel like y'all have done so much!" It's true. We have done a lot, but each of these check marks comes with LOTS of stuff to get them checked. I'm going to break down each step that we have completed or started and what it means and what we had to do to get there. It's a lot of info for one post, so I'll try to do a "part 2" later to break down the steps we have left. HOME STUDY -    The home study is the first step in starting any adoption process. It consists of paperwork about our marriage, our families, our jobs, our finances, our house, our pet, several back ground checks, and pretty much everyt...

If you're reading this, you probably already know that Cody and I are adopting from India. We are very excited and very ready to be parents and bring our baby home. Also, if you know me, you know words are not exactly my "thing" so bear with me as I try to share a bit of mine and Cody's hearts during this process. We are completely humbled and honored that God has called us to adoption.  We have so many wonderful family members and friends who have prayed for us, donated money, and continually ask us questions about the adoption. We are grateful to have so many people who love us and our baby that they don't even know yet.  "Are there any updates?" is the most common question we have heard in the last eight months and 90+% of the time we have to say, "no, still waiting for..." We were prepared for a long journey, but I thought there would be more "work" along the way. Don't get me wrong, there has been A TON of paperwork, ...