Still waiting

Sorry I haven't updated my blog on our adoption but unfortunately there's not a lot to update! We're just waiting to travel for our 1^st trip to meet our girls!!! So here's what's happened since our referral on March 18. We were submitted to court on March 26^th. This is when all paperwork was submitted to court to begin the process of scheduling our preliminary hearing & our court date to travel. We found out on April 5^th that our Preliminary Hearing is scheduled for May 31^st. This is when they will review our children's files & officially deem them orphans so they can be adopted. If they knew who the parent's were they would come to this hearing as well as our in country director for West Sands. Since our girls were abandoned there are no parents to appear & our agency will not appear. We may or may not hear anything for a week or 2 after this hearing. MOWA (who is like our children's services) will review our file & issue their LETTER! This is what we want & we want it fast! This is the part I am nervous about. Due to Jeremy's heart condition I am worried they will have additional questions that will delay the process. I am PRAYING (and asking you too) that they will read it, see the Dr said he is fit to parent, sign off without a second thought & delay. Please pray for this!!! Once this letter is received they can issue OUR court date when we can travel & meet our girls!!! Based on recent timelines we should hopefully travel the end of June/beginning of July if there are no additional delays. That's still 2 months away for us to meet our girls! I CAN'T wait!!! We were originally planning to go the middle of May-middle of June at the latest so this is much longer than we planned. I know God has his perfect plan & I am TRYING to trust & be patient but it's so hard! It's unfortunately only going to get harder once we have met them & have to leave. Imagine giving birth to your child & then leaving them for 3-4 months! I don't think you COULD imagine that! I know they are taking great care of them there & the nannies love them but I am their mother & need to be with them! I will need lots of shoulders to cry on! Please bare with me during this time!!! We should hopefully be bringing them home in October.

As we wait we still have LOTS of money to raise! We have been truly blessed by everyone's generosity of donations & purchasing of fundraising items. I can't say thank you enough to everyone!!! God HAS provided & shown that there is no doubt HE is behind this adoption! We are still selling sheets! If you haven't gotten any of these, they are really amazing! I'm not just saying that so you buy some, they really are so much better than you can get for the price in the store! $35 for 1200-1800 thread count sheets. You won't find that. If you are local I am more than happy to let you see them! If you're not, just trust me!!! Check out our fundraising page for more details on these awesome sheets! As of right now we have raised a total of $29,998 out of $40,337 needed. We need an estimated $2,000 more before our 1^st trip. I have no doubt that God will provide!!! If you think of it in sheets we need to sell 112 more sets to meet this goal. My former co-workers are having a yard sale for us during the Trenton Yard Sale at our house. Praying we raise a lot there! We are taking any donated items to sell!

We have also been blessed by several families in our Facebook group for adoptive families within our agency. I don't know what I would do without this group! I have had several families go over in the last month & send us pictures of our girls. These are PRICELESS for us to see now & also have later to show our girls when they get older. I hate that we have a million pictures of Jack daily for the first several months & am grateful to be getting these pictures of our girls to keep! Until we pass court we are not allowed to post these pictures online but we ARE allowed to show them to anyone so please ask when you see me & I will be more than happy to show them off!!! I can't until we get an update on their weights. I have no idea how big they are. I was told at the beginning of April that they were about the size of a newborn & they were 2 ½ months old at that time. Keep in mind they were 3 ½ lbs at birth so they have some catching up to do. They look very healthy. I have been told they have very good eye contact & are alert.

I think that's enough for today!

Thanks again to everyone for your love & support! Even if you haven't been able to give financially your prayers are much needed & appreciated!!!

Haircut Fundraiser!

I had this posted on Facebook but forgot to post it on here. 

Tomorrow's the LAST Day!!!  Don't miss out on this deal & fundraiser!

Purchase a $40 gift card now for a haircut from Lisa Bentley from Salon Lofts to use in the next 3 months. 1/2 of the profit will go to us for our adoption. Regular price $45. Comment on here so I can keep track & send her a message to purchase or just send me an email if you don't have a way to contact her. She is located at 10002 Montgomery Rd Cincinnati Ohio 45242. You can also visit her Facebook fan page at Salon Bentley at Salon Lofts.

How so quick?

Some may be wondering how we got a referral so quick? Are they legitimately orphans? Are they buying orphans? Those are legitimate questions. Often times if you are with an agency that gives quick referrals that can mean that the agency is doing some immoral things. Many people are waiting years for a referral from Ethiopia... and we waited 3 weeks. The original agency we were with (for like 2 days) we found out some scary things & they pretty much were buying & selling children. Thankfully an amazing women contacted me with some important information on that agency the same day we sent out our application fee & we were able to get it back in time without losing any money or getting in deep with this immoral agency. But then we found our amazing agency West Sands Adoptions who we love! They are a very moral agency & well respected in Ethiopia. They are a smaller agency (though growing very quickly) so still have a shorter wait time than some agencies but again that is growing increasing the wait time. Many people I believe saw that they had a shorter wait time & joined their agency expanding the waiting list very quickly in the last 6 months.

Anyways, back to our referral. Right now I believe our agency has a 12-18 month wait time for a healthy referral. For an HIV referral they are predicting 6-9 months. They had just told us 4-8 months for our referral since we were open to 1 or 2 children with HIV up to 4 years old. So we weren't expecting to hear anything until this summer or fall. So how did we get a referral in 3 weeks? Well we were 104 on the healthy list & 11 on the HIV list. Apparently no one else on the HIV list was open to siblings (except for 1 family requesting 2 boys) so even though we were last on the list we were the only ones that fit this referral so it went to us. It is possible that they contacted others on the list above us to confirm they weren't open to 2 before contacting us but I don't know. Yes our girls were orphans. They didn't traffic them or buy them. They were abandoned at 5 days old. They were taken to the hospital that same day & then taken to our agency's transition home once they were released from the hospital a few weeks later.

This was all a HUGE surprise to us but God knew exactly what he was doing! I believe he was waiting for us to let go of this adoption & what we “wanted” & be open to what he wanted. Remember, we were originally requesting a healthy infant, then an infant with HIV & then opened up to any age up to 4 years old. It was just a week or 2 after we opened up that we got THE CALL. We ended up with TWO infants. He just wanted us to LET GO & allow him to take control. I have NO doubt that this was what he wanted. How else could we raise over $10,000 in 4 days??? If this wasn't God's plan I don't believe that would have been possible.

Here's a sneak peak of our little girls!  We can't show full pictures until we pass court in 2-3 months.

 

Cut & Color Fundraiser

For those local folks, we have a friend offering a great deal on a cut & color at her salon.    

Purchase a $75 gift card now for a cut & color from Lisa Bentley from Salon Lofts to use in the next 3 months. 1/2 of the profit will go to us for our adoption. This is a great deal as it normally costs $115-130. Comment on here, send me a Facebook message or email so I can keep track & you can send her a message on Facebook to purchase.  If you're not on Facebook you can email me at terribeth07@earthlink.net & I will assist in arranging the purchase.  She is located at 10002 Montgomery Rd Cincinnati, Ohio 45242. You can also visit her Facebook fan page at Salon Bentley at Salon Lofts.

This deal is on sale through Wednesday March 27th so don't delay in ordering yours!  It is good for 3 months! 

God is doing AMAZING things this week & IS providing everything we need to bring these precious girls into our family forever!

Thank you to EVERYONE who has assisted by donating, sharing & praying for funds!  We love you all!

It's a Girl!!! (x2)

We are excited to announce that we received & accepted a referral for twin girls that are 2 months old! We received a surprising call on Monday night!!!

So back up a little. Our dossier arrived in Ethiopia on February 25^th & we were officially added to the list at that time. We were #11 on the HIV waiting list. We were originally told 6-9 months for a referral. We were originally requesting a child 0-12 months either gender & open to a sibling of the opposite gender up to 3 years old. Then a week or 2 ago we decided we should open our parameters to 1 or 2 children 0-4 years old of either gender or 1 of each if there were 2. We felt God wanted us to be more open. Our agency then told us the expected 4-8 months for a referral.

Last week we received a $6,000 grant from Show Hope for our adoption. I was so excited about this & had in the back of my mind that maybe we got it because something was coming sooner! I tried to tell my self to stop thinking that because it was so early. It stayed in my mind for several days. Monday all day I kept feeling like something was coming but again tried to talk myself out of getting my hopes up. I had butterflies in my stomach & was nervous for some reason.

Then Monday night at 7:01pm I received a call from a long distance # I didn't recognize. I don't always answer the phone if I don't know the number but I did. I don't fully remember the conversation but I remember our caseworker Koni was on the phone & said it was Koni. I had never actually spoken to her only emailed her so didn't know how her name was pronounced. I thought it was Cone-E but it's pronounced like Connie so it threw me off. She said she was with West Sands. I started getting so nervous because I didn't know any other reason she would call me! She said she had Sheila on the phone who is the director. They started talking to me about our paperwork just being done & our criteria. They asked about how much money we had & when we would be ready for a referral. I told her how much we had but that we would find the money if it came before. She then told me she wanted to tell me about twin girls that were 2 months old. She just told me a little bit of information on them but not much. She said there was no obligation but just wanted to offer us the referral. Well, Jeremy wasn't home at the time. He was guest speaking at a broadcasting school at that time. I told her I would try to get a hold of him & get back with her before she sent any pictures. I didn't want to get my hopes up too much or promise anything without talking to him. I was shaking like crazy. My face was blood red. The whole time we were on the phone Jack was screaming because he wanted his pancake that took 10 seconds in the microwave, then wanted a fruit cup, then wanted another. I was shoving things in his face to keep him quiet so I could hear the phone! As soon as I got off the phone I sent him a text to call me AS SOON as he got done! I waited for what seemed like an eternity but was only like 20-30 minutes. Then he called me. I told him the news & asked what he thought. He said let's go for it. He was going to be home in 15-20 minutes. I wanted to wait to call Sheila back to send us pictures until he got home because otherwise I wouldn't have been able to wait to look at them if they arrived. As soon as we got home I called her & she gave me a little more information on them now that she knew we were interested. Then she sent us their pictures & file. We set up the laptop on the table & set up the video camera to capture the moment. Jack sat on my lap so we could all look together. Jeremy pulled up the email & we saw our precious beautiful baby girls for the 1^st time. I thought I would cry but I was still in such shock & shaking! Jack pointed & we had him blow them kisses. After we put him to bed we made calls to family to let them know the amazing news! Everyone was also in shock & so excited. I wish we could post their pictures but until we pass court we are not allowed to post them publicly on the internet. We can however show them to you individually and are more than happy to show them off! They are beautiful & tiny! They are preemies so they're still small but appear to be doing very well now!

The problem... we needed to raise another $10,450 within 10 days to accept our referral! Seems impossible right??? Well God had other plans! We raised $8849 in 24 hours!!!! This clearly showed this WAS God's plan & he WAS providing the money! I was just blown away by the support from friends, family & strangers! As of this moment we have raised $9354.55!

So what now? Once we complete raising this portion of fees we will be submitted to court. We will travel to meet our daughters for the first time in about 3 months. At that time we will attend court where they will hopefully be pronounced “ours” legally! We will need about another $5,000 before we travel for this trip. Most people find out they are traveling within days or hours of when they need to hop on a plane. Last week several people found out their court date like 3 weeks ahead of time but from what I've seen that is extremely unusual. The norm seems to be 2-3 days! That is from the time we get the call to when we hop on the plane! We will have to contact our travel agent immediately to arrange airfare! We will be there about a week & unfortunately return to the U.S. WITHOUT THEM! According to Ethiopian Government we are their parents but the US Embassy doesn't recognize that & won't allow them in the US yet. They will do their own investigation, medical clearance, etc. This process takes about 2-4 months. Then we will receive another call that they have been cleared & come home! We will then return & bring them home forever! We will need about another $5000 for that trip. So even after we raise this current money we are still in need of $10,000+ but have no doubt that God will provide that as well!

For now we are still requesting donations & lots of prayers! We have a Facebook-a-thon going on requesting people to spread the word to all of their friends & family to give just $5 or $10. We are still selling sheets! (If you haven't checked these out, they really are amazing! I'm not just saying that to get you to buy them) We are trying out a scarf fundraiser. We have someone offering a great deal on a cut & color gift certificate & sharing profit with us. We have had many other ideas from people for fundraisers!

Ok, I think I've made you read enough for now! Thank you all for your love & support for our family! We can never show how truly grateful we are!

Scarf Fundraiser

We are testing out a new fundraiser selling these scarves.  $8 each (plus shipping if not local).  I have a limited amount of these at this time but may be able to get more of certain styles if there is interest. 

GRANT!!!

So excited to announce that we received a $6,000 Grant Award from Show Hope!  I wasn't expecting to hear if we received it or not until at least April 1st so this is a big surprise & BIG award!  This shows me that we ARE doing what GOD has planned & that he is definitely in this adoption!  I knew this already but this proves it!  I have just been so excited all afternoon since I found this out!

I counted up what we have so far for our referral & we have $7,190 (once we get all the money for current sheet sales in) to use towards our referral fee(s) & other fees due at that time. 

So what do we still need?  When we receive THE CALL stating that we have received a referral we have 1-2 weeks to pay these fees.  If we receive a referral of 1 child we will owe $10,450 & if we have 2 siblings we will owe $16,700.  That means that we STILL need $3,260 for 1 child or $9,510 for 2. 

To break that down in sheets sales, we only need to sell 181 more sheets to have enough money for 1 child.  That seems like a lot but it's really not.  We CAN do it but need HELP!  I know that all of you can't buy sheets & we completely understand but you CAN help us sell!

I am just so excited & thankful for God in providing this $6,000 today through Show Hope!