Making Progress Finally!

     Our adoption process has been at a standstill for five weeks.  Did you read that?  Five weeks!  Ridiculous and totally maddening.  I didn't know weather to laugh or cry anymore.  I almost dreaded someone asking about the adoption because I didn't have anything to say:(  Nothing, I knew nothing other than there was someone who wasn't returning our social workers phone calls and that someone held the final piece of the puzzle that would make our homestudy complete!
     Well that phone call was finally answered late last week and we got the call from our social worker this morning that everything is approved and we will have our final copies of our homestudy Thursday morning!  I will be doing lots of driving this week because everything still needs to be apostilled (my understanding is that an apostille is like a state level verifying that the notaries that notarized all of our documents are actually legit!)  And then I am hoping to drive my dossier to a couple who is traveling this weekend to adopt their own little one from the same country as ours!
     So we are celebrating at our house tonight!  It won't be long now and there will be one more little one at our table and one less orphan in this world!

Bibs to Bring home our Baby!

Well she isn't actually a Baby but she will be OUR BABY!

Here is Clara modeling the bibs I am making to help fund our adoption!

They are great; cute cotton print on the front and flannel on the back with bias tape ties instead of velcro!

I bought 2 of these at a craft show last year and I absolutely love them; we use them literally every day and they wash and wear great!

$15 each or 2 for $25 including shipping!

I will be adding lots more prints as I get them made but wanted to give everyone a sneak peek at what we are doing while we WAIT!

Where We Are Right Now

      We bought our house in June and I immediately started trying to figure out how we could start an adoption!  By the end of July I had contacted Dani Funk at Adoption Babylink about starting a homestudy and she came to do our first visit on August 4!  We initially had planned to adopt from Latvia but nothing was falling into place quite right and something just didn't feel right.  So I remembered a facebook conversation I had had with Leah Spring several months earlier.  I emailed the ministry in Serbia in late August.  They were on Holiday so I didn't here back from them until September 9th.
       From then on it went really quickly!  I had no idea just how fast things could go with Serbia so I didn't worry about all the paperwork until a couple weeks later and we have been racing since trying to get medicals done and income verifications etc.  As of today everything is completed and we are just waiting for the final copy of the homestudy!  Our next step is to apply to immagration to get permission to bring our new little girl home!  At the same time we send that in we will be sending our dossier over to Serbia to be translated.  As soon as that is finished we will get more specific information on the little girl we have preliminary approval for and hopefully a picture of her too!
     We have requested a little girl with Down Syndrome so we know she will have our favorite extra chromosome but that is pretty much all we know!  We could possibly travel as soon as early December so we have been doing everything possible to come up with the funds for travel and in country costs.  Just airfare for Bill and I roundtrip and our little one on the way home will be well over $2,500!

      We have added a fundraising thermometer to our sidebar with a donation button.  We would appreciate any donation no matter how big or small!  Please consider being a part of saving our daughter from a life without a family!

The Story Begins

     Once upon a time there was a little girl who loved babies.  She knew that one day when she grew up she wanted to have lots of babies!  Not necessarily "have" but be mommy to lots of babies; she had a special place in her heart for the babies and children that seemed to be forgotten, had special needs, maybe were a little older or a different color.  She knew someday that her house was going to be a wonderful rainbow of happiness!  As she grew up her eyes were opened to so much sadness for so many children in the world and she knew she wanted to make a difference so as soon as she turned 21 she got her foster care license and just 4 months later an 8 year old special needs little girl needed a temporary home.  She said yes to that little girl and 2 years later adopted her;  so she was a Mom now at age 23 to a 10 year old little girl who would need her forever.  She was very happy to be on her way to making her dreams come true!

     That little girl was me!  And I couldn't be happier with how my life turned out;  I have had many ups and downs but they have made me who I am today.  I am a confidant Mom who wants the best for all of her children no matter how they happened to become mine:)  I have been very lucky to have found my husband who is almost as excited as I am to add to our brood!  He came into our relationship knowing I had a ready-made family and I still wanted to adopt more.  He said yes without hesitation and now we are working hard to bring our newest daughter home from Serbia hopefully in the very near future!