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...

We got NOC! Finally, an update! After four months, we have an update to share. This morning, as I was heading into work, I got an email from our agency saying we had received our No Objection Certificate (NOC) from CARA (India's national government adoption authority). We needed this document from CARA in order to be registered for court. We applied on June 23, so we had been waiting for this one approval for four months.  Honestly, I think this last month has been the hardest of the whole three year adoption process for us. We celebrated our daughter's 3rd birthday 9,000 miles away from her. Ruthanne was sick and we couldn't be there to comfort her or even know if she was ok. Plus, we were still waiting on this approval with no end in sight. We prayed fervently. Our friends and family prayed, but it felt like we were going nowhere. A couple of weeks ago, CARA had asked for an updated document from Ruthanne's orphanage in order to issue the NOC and after that request, w...

 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...

Aside from logistics, “why” questions are what we get asked most often. Why adopt? Why India? Why now? Why aren’t you having biological kids right now? (Which, by the way, is an inappropriate question to ask anyone).  This has been something that has been weighing heavily on me for quite a while now. For the most part, throughout this process, we have been met with love, grace, and support from friends, family, and strangers alike, but there’s always the random off-color comments or instagram posts that I stumble upon that sting. In light of a recent event in the adoption community (I’m not going to go into details about it here), there has been A LOT of talk on the internet about Christians adopting because it’s “trendy” without knowing what they are getting themselves into and without being prepared. It has hurt. It hurts that because of the actions of a few, we are all being accused of not loving our children, or future children.  So, while I can’t speak for every ...

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....