So far our summer has been full and wonderful, as we took a short family vacation with Jamesie’s parents and we’ve been growing our business steadily (so thankful for our new clients).  We look forward to the rest of the year and all that it has to offer professionally and personally.

What this post is really about :: We’re growing our family through adoption and we wanted you to know! From an early part in our marriage we knew adoption was a way we wanted to expand our family.  Well after years of talking about it and waiting on God’s direction, we believe God is telling us to proceed with our adoption plans.

As we’ve been telling people, many similar questions have come up in conversations.  So we thought we’d take the time to answer those most frequently asked.

1)      When is it going to happen?

We are contracted with an adoption attorney.  But, we’re still in the initial stages of completing our profile (a scrapbook-like presentation about who we are, what we do, what our lives are like, that birthmothers can look through to learn about us) and we’re waiting to complete our state-mandated home study.  So it may be a while before we are matched.

2)      What kind of adoption are we doing? 

Domestic Independent – which means we’re trying to adopt within the US through the services of an adoption attorney.  Before matching happens, birthmothers will contact us and after some phone calls, one of them will decide she wants us to raise her baby and if we’re comfortable with the match, then we work towards the birth & placement plan.  We may even get to be present at the baby’s birth!

3)      What kind of child do you want?

Gender is not important to us, but we are requesting that the child have some Asian heritage.  So the baby can be full Asian or part Asian mixed with any ethnicity.  Age-wise we’re hoping for a child under the age of 3.  It is most likely that our child will be a newborn though.

4)      What is Open Adoption? 

Open, on-going relationship between us and our child’s birth family to an agreed upon amount of contact like emails, photos, cards, phone calls and possibly visits.

5)      Aren’t you nervous about Open Adoption?

No, not at all.  We want our child and our child’s birth family to know about each other.  We feel it’s important for everyone, especially our child, to know about their birth family.

6)      How do your parents feel about you adopting?

All of them are excited for us.  We know they will love our children unconditionally, regardless how they come to be part of our family. 

7)      How will Berkeley do with a baby?

Honestly we don’t know.  It will be different for him, since he’s so used to us.  Though when our friends have had their babies over, he just sniffs them and sometimes lays down next to them.  For the most part, he ignores babies.  We doubt he’ll be aggressive, just sulky for a little while. 

      Is there anything we can do to help?

Of course. You can be praying for us!  Pray that we have discernment when we speak to birthmothers and exploring potential situations.

And if you’re feeling generous, we’re gladly accepting donations. J  Adoption is expensive, and while our finances are in order, having to come up with large sums of money right away can be stretching.  Any gift, in any amount, is a tremendous blessing to us.  We are trying to receive a matching grant for our fund, so the more we raise, the more we can have matched!  Also, all donations are tax-deductible.

Make a note that we will be doing a fundraiser in September.  We will be selling Gold Canyon candles for a few weeks to add money to our adoption fund.  More information about the candle fundraiser coming soon…  

Feel free to email us questions, comments, whatever about our adoption process. We’re looking forward to being first-time parents and to introducing our child to our friends and family!

I just added some pics from our trip to Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio.  Our friends Kaitlyn and Landon joined us for the adventure, and I’m pretty sure they thought my family was crazy.  But it looks like they still had fun!  We didn’t take too many pics of us standing in line, since that seemed strange.  But we managed a few shots.  Also, the greatest part of the rides was convincing my mom to go on 3, yep 3, roller coasters.  She’s so brave!  (She did it because she loves Jon.)

The hotel we stayed overnight on Monday is called the Maui Sands Resort.  I thought it was funny for my mom to stay in Maui while on vacation in Ohio. So we booked the room, not knowing much else about the place.  The hotel was still in renovation stages, so our room wasn’t available (they gave us 2 full rooms – king sized bed and 2 sets of bunk beds for the price of 1 family suite), and not all their amenities were ready for public use either (no luau for us).  But still, we had fun because they had an indoor waterpark!  So on Tuesday, after breakfast, the “kids” played at the waterpark for several hours before we had to get on the road.  I guess we looked like we were having a blast, because my father ended up joining us around noon.  Check out the pics from our waterpark fun.