Hills & Valleys: Our Faith Journey

Today, we received some disappointing news with our adoption. We heard back from Zoe's House (the new agency we were pursuing) earlier this afternoon, and they told us that they have determined they cannot accept any adoptive families with children at this time. The reason behind that decision is that most expectant mama's want to place with a childless family rather than one who already has children. While we understand the position the agency is in, our hearts are hurting. I wish I could tell expectant mamas our story, how hard of a journey it was to even have Selah, how much of a miracle her life is...that adoption was anything but an afterthought for us. Unfortunately, we do not have that option at this point. This journey towards growing our family has been so long and so hard every step of the way. Nine years of waiting, hoping, believing, wrestling, and trying to hold on amidst the tears. It feels like endless years of grief, of sowing without reaping. I am so

Hi friends! It's hard to believe it's been SIX MONTHS since our last update!! Where has the time gone?! We have had many people ask us how our adoption is going over the past few months. Unfortunately, there really hasn't been much progress until recently. From Nov-March, we continued selling bits and pieces around our home to help with our adoption fund. We officially reached our goal of saving $10,000 towards our adoption!! I am amazed and blown away to think that all those $1 and $2 sales added up BIG time! (Side note: approx $2k of these funds were used in paying for our home study.) For the past six weeks or so, we've been prayerfully considering the direction for our adoption to take. Our "agency," COMPACT Family Services, has not had a single case since we signed on with them last March, and we began wondering if we needed to look elsewhere. :( They have sent us a few adoption situations from another agency, but that agency has had some significant

I've been debating on whether I should post this "update," but since I've shared snippets with some, I figured it made the most sense to just share publicly as well. A few weeks ago, I joined several adoption groups on Facebook. On Oct 30, a post popped up by one of the admin about an expectant mama in the south who was looking for an adoptive family. I commented, as did hundreds of other people. I really wasn't sure if anything would come of it, I just figured I would comment and see what God did. Well...o n Saturday, November 2, we received a Facebook message from the group admin telling us that the expectant mama (I'll refer to her as A) had chosen us from all those comments and would connect with us via FB. Around the same time, I received a message from A introducing herself and telling us a little of her story. I was at Homecoming at the college when I received the message, and I must admit that I was 100% distracted for the rest of the afterno

So, you might be wondering--what on earth is induced lactation?! I figured I'd share some info here for those who might be curious. What is induced lactation? Quite simply, it's breastfeeding without pregnancy. How does it work? The process to get there varies from person to person, but usually involves some combination of herbs, medicines, etc. over 3-6 months to help stimulate the body to produce milk. Several months ago, I went on two medications to prepare (under the guidance of my doctor). I now pump throughout the day to encourage my body to make milk. Why induce lactation? It's no secret that breastmilk contains all sorts of beneficial antibodies and provides excellent nutrition. It's also a special bonding experience with your child. I felt like it was a no-brainer for me to induce lactation and give our baby the best I can. (*This is not to say formula is bad in any way, but I wanted to give nursing a shot first!) How did you learn about this? Induc

I've had quite a few people ask lately if there's any progress with our adoption. Truth be told, there isn't much going on at the moment, but here's a little bit of an update and some info about our agency at least. We're currently in the matching phase, which can be the longest part of the adoption process. Our particular agency, CompACT Family Services, sometimes has more extended wait times because they only place a few kiddos every year. (This is partly because they don't operate like a traditional agency and do not have the same number of mamas contacting them for adoptive placements.) CompACT is an organization run by the Assemblies of God. They have three main functions: foster placements in foster homes; a maternity home, where young expectant mothers receive assistance and support throughout their pregnancies; and adoption services for those who are members of Assemblies of God churches. Some expectant mamas in the maternity home choose to place the

Wow, I can't believe it's been FOUR MONTHS since my last blog post. I guess you could say I'm not very consistent with blogging. There always seems to be so much life stuff happening around here! Here's a bit of an update: We've spent the last few months going through our home to find things to sell to help grow our adoption fund. Most of the items have sold, which is very exciting!! We've also had friends donate things to us that they were getting rid of, which has also been a huge blessing. Mid-June, my friend Christina offered to have a yard sale benefiting our adoption. We spread the word to our church family and community, set the date for July 13th, and had  many  people donate items for the sale. It was truly overwhelming to see how generous people were. We set our fundraising goal for the sale as $2750--the remaining amount we needed to pay for our known adoption expenses (adoption lawyer, post-placement visits, etc). This amount felt like such a s