First homestudy meeting complete

I am happy to report we now have our first homestudy meeting finished! :) We met with out social worker for two hours! We now have mounds of more paperwork to fill out and we need to get our physicals and fingerprints. She answered all our questions and actually made us quite excited to see where this journey will take us. She was encouraging with the wait. It seems quite manageable! The whole adoption process is seeming less daunting after meeting with her. The paperwork is a bit overwhelming, but I did it once, I can do it again! :) Funny enough thing the agency here works with an agency in Florida and passes a lot of situations of birthmoms onto the people here. She thought it would be quite neat if we travel to Florida for our child, since I was born in Florida and adopted there as an infant. I have so much to get going on. This will be a busy week for sure! Good kind of busy, though. The kind of busy that leads to exciting future happenings!

Isaiah

When we gave the name Isaiah to the son we lost last year, it was because of a few very special verses in the Bible that spoke to me. The first one is Isaiah 61:3 "to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord that He might be glorified." and also Isaiah 66:9 "I will not cause pain without allowing something new to be born" The year anniversary of us losing our son is coming up. I have been touched by reading thru Isaiah and many times I feel God gave me that name to give him because he was going to use those verses to reach me in my grief. As we moved out of trying to get pregnant and into adopting, I am seeing the verses in Isaiah with new light. Some of my favorite adoption verses from Annelise's adoption I am finding are in Isaiah. Like this one 'Do not be afraid, for I am with you; I will bring your children from the east and gather you from the west.I will say to the north 'give them up'! and the the south, 'Do not hold them back' Bring my sons from afar, and my daughters from the ends of the earth." Isaiah 43:5-6. That spoke to me when my eyes saw that verse this week. I realized that Isaiah is not just a name I gave my son, Isaiah holds special promises for me. Today in church the pastor spoke from the book of Isaiah. It made me teary eyed when I saw on the screen the word Isaiah. The book has not been preached on really since I lost him. One of the things the pastor said today was "Isaiah was in the Lord's presence" It made me think that our baby boy is in the Lord's presence while we remain here on earth. But it gave me peace. I had a hard time not crying through most of the service. It is just all still a sore subject for me. I wish things had gone differently. But it didn't. As we had the Lord's supper I was praying God would hold my son in Heaven today and also that he would give us our rainbow baby. I began the think back as the pastor prayed to how rainbows come after strong storms. As the prayer ended I looked up at the big screen over the pastor and saw a giant rainbow picture had been placed on it. I began to cry a little again. It was not there when I had shut my eyes. I feel like God is constantly reaching out to me in this really hard wait for our next child. I believe we will have a miracle rainbow baby. I believe all this grief and pain will not last forever. One day I will be able to hear the word Isaiah and not cry. Perhaps God has a baby boy out there for us and he will carry the name for his big brother. A rainbow is a sign of God's promise to us. I believe God holds my future and one day all of this will make sense to me. Isaiah 43:19 "For I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it?"

First homestudy meeting set

Our first homestudy meeting is set for this Thursday coming up. Our social worker is so incredibly nice. I was not sure what to expect but I am super relaxed after talking with her on the phone. I cannot wait until Thursday to ask lots of questions! There is still so much about domestic adoption I have to learn. I am pretty sure we will be given a massive amount of paperwork to bring home and fill out, along with our fingerprint forms and dr. physicals. The adoption is moving right along! I have no idea how long to expect this homestudy to take. I am guessing it will be faster than an international adoption homestudy, since we do not have to go through homeland security this go around. We shall see!