Perfect Peace

What is perfect peace? It is what I have now, after years of chasing a dream of giving Annelise a little brother or sister. I cannot explain it, because adoption is hard, expensive, and agonizing to love a little person you have to wait for. The song by Laura Story "Perfect Peace" is playing constantly around me during my days spent wondering about our baby. Yesterday we had our second meeting with our social worker. It is taking us awhile to get thru the homestudy but that is because we are purposefully not borrowing money for this adoption, so we are trying to save like crazy between visits when we owe our fees. It was so wonderful asking her lots and lots of questions. She said some birth mothers love to have the adoptive parents in the room with them when the baby is born, and even cut the cord! Oh my I cannot imagine how exciting that would be for me! After years of dreaming about welcoming a new baby into our family, it would be the ultimate in blessings for me. It brings tears to my eyes just dreaming out it. I love this adoption because it is so different than the last adoption. I loved our wait to adopt Annelise, and I learned so much, but it was so FULL of worry and anxiety on my part, because it was the first time we had adopted. Now I have little Annelise running around telling me how much she loves me all day, giving me hugs, and I realize... my worry was for absolutely nothing. Sure, the adjustment period was hard, but oh my, I would do it again 10 times if I could. She is pure joy and I am amazed I get to be her Mother. Next up is our home visit... bring it! :) I am starting to gather pictures of our family and make our books to present to birthmoms. I think I have to make about 10 of them for different states. I am not sure when we will get that call that our baby is on his or her way... but I have this amazing perfect peace in waiting. I can hear God telling me over and over "I've got this!" And I love this perfect peace.

What I know

Let's talk about domestic adoption, shall we? :) I titled this "what I know", because while I am no expert on domestic adoption I have sure learned a whole lot more over the past few months than I had understood before! Let's dispel some myths about domestic adoption too. First off, domestic adoption does not take years and years and years. Unfortunately, domestic adoption has a bad rap with its wait. But I have talked to many, many agencies and guess what, it is actually SO fast it would make your head spin! Now not every single situation is super fast, but we are talking 5 to 18 months (actually the longest I have been quoted is 12 mos., but I am being overly generous) timelines from presenting to birthmoms to having a baby home. That is fast. That is not years and years and years. Second off, every couple that adopts domestically does not have at least one failed adoption match. That is a huge myth. Yes, there are sad failed adoptions. It does happen and it is a risk. But the percentages of that happening with the agencies I have talked to are quite low. MUCH lower than miscarriage rates 25% per pregnancy. Third, open adoption is not super scary and the birthmom will NOT be allowed to come back for her child after you are home, at least not in any of the states where we will work in. We will be working with an agency that only places in the states where the rights have to be signed over to the adoptive parents within 72 hours of the baby being born. So once those rights are signed, our baby is OURS. We will not ever have to worry he or she will be taken back. Daniel and I have weighed the risks of getting to a hospital and having the birthmom change her mind. If that happens, it will be heartbreaking. But it is not something that would ever detour me from wanting to do this. I will be honest, it is my greatest fear about adopting domestically. But the agency that we are pretty sure we are going to sign on with has this rate of failed adoptions....wait for it.... 7%. That is pretty astoundingly low!!! Given that rate we also know percentages generally do not mean as much to us when we had an 89% rate of successfully carrying our last child to term since we made it to 12 weeks with a heartbeat. After you watch the thing happen to you that you assured yourself you were not unlucky enough to have happen, you generally don't get as excited about numbers being on your side. But I am fully prepared to go through a failed adoption if it means it will bring a baby to us. Of course I pray our first baby we think is ours will truly be ours. So these are a few things I know. I know I am excited. Like over the moon excited. I know I am scared. So scared of getting my hopes up again to see them crushed. And I feel God has a little soul out there that needs me as much as I need that little soul. And that is all I need to know.

Getting closer and closer.....

I have been busily working on getting all the requirements finished up for our homestudy. By Monday afternoon everything will be finished up right before our second meeting with our social worker, including our adoptive online training. It has been ALOT of work. I have been extremely scatter brained over the past three weeks. It will be a relief to have that meeting, get our fees paid up to date and just wait on our home visit. I really don't think there is much else to do after Wednesday except home visit and wait on our homestudy to be written up. This is so different from international adoption. I am kinda seeing now the easy part of domestic. I do not have to deal with USCIS or be fingerprinted by homeland security this go around. We are just waiting on our prints back and also social services checks. We are FB official today. :) It was so fun telling the whole world. :) Everyone is so encouraging and it makes me even MORE excited to wait on baby Read with everyone cheering us on and praying for us. What a great day!

Baby Read's life verse

So I have been shown what baby Read's life verse is to be this morning. It is March 1st. The past two Marches in a row I have miscarried. Last March 15th is when we lost our precious Isaiah. I was dreading flipping the calendar to March this morning. When I did, though, I saw the verse for March on my calendar. Isaiah 60:22 "The smallest of them will become a family. The weakest of them a mighty nation. At the right time, I, the Lord, will make it happen quickly." A little background....I could not sleep last night. I was praying God would give me a sign that this adoption is ordained by Him. I do not want to be making my own path. I asked for wisdom. So seeing this verse as soon as I woke up seems like wisdom from God if I ever saw it. "the smallest a FAMILY" "At the right time it will happen quickly".... it sounds as if God is speaking to me about adoption. (and domestic adoption, at that.no other adoption happens quickly) God hears my grief and knows me so well. Isaiah is only used in one month on my calendar, March. God knew I would wake up this morning without a song in my heart because I am so sad we lost our little boy. But He gave me this verse to encourage me. I fully believe He will grant us a baby when it is in His time. I serve a BIG and MIGHTY God and I am so thankful He met me in my grief and assured me He has promises abundant for our family. Praise Him for His love and comfort.