Funding your adoption

Psalm 82:3

Defend the poor and fatherless;

Do justice to the afflicted and needy.

This post is a long time in coming as we actually went through the fundraising portion of our adoption about 3 years ago.  When the Lord placed it on our hearts to adopt, we had to fully trust that He would provide a way to do so financially.  And He did!
In talking with people about adoption, it seems like one of the biggest reasons people do not pursue adoption is that they feel like it is financially impossible.  I'm hear to tell you that with God nothing is impossible! From agency fees, to the cost of covering the placement (hospital, legal fees, etc.), to paying a lawyer to finalize your adoption, the costs do add up.  Below is an outline of how we covered costs associated with our adoption.

Our funding for our adoption basically came in three different forms:

1) Scimp and Save -- Extra hours, overtime, selling jewelry as a second job, tax return money, garage sales, budgeting and putting every extra penny in savings.

2) Gifts -- Friends and family were extremely generous during and after our adoption. 

3) Grants -- We were graciously awarded two grants while in the waiting period of our adoption.  The first was through the organization Kids for Kyla. To read more about this great non-profit from our hometown in Colorado, click here. The second grant was through JSC Foundation. Since receiving the grant through the JSC Foundation, we have known two other couples who are personal friends that have also received this grant.  You can read about our reaction to getting the news from JSC in my post There's nothing my God cannot do.

There are many more grants you can apply for as well.  Our adoption agency has compiled a list of financial resources for adoption here:

 http://www.opendooradoption.org/#!affording-adoption/c1h4r

This is also a great list:

http://www.awaa.org/links/links.aspx?id=5


I really hope this helps and gives you some ideas and some encouragement in your journey!

"Bless the Lord, O my Soul"

I had a few spare minutes this afternoon and was almost giddy to sit down and blog a little bit.  I've had a bit of a rough week for no particular reason.    I keep trying to pinpoint it, but I've come to the conclusion that this season in life has worn me a little thin, and I need to be on my knees a lot more often to recharge my batteries.  My mom used to remind me to "Count your blessings, name them one by one."  On that theme, I stumbled across this week's Encouraging Wednesday print over at French Press Mornings blog, and thought I would pass it on.   I believe I was introduced to French Press Mornings by Laura Beth (my college roommate and now cousin-in-law) who blogs at Pretty Little House.  I think Scripture is beautiful, and I love it when people use their talents in this way to create something beautiful out of Scripture.

  

"Bless the Lord, O my Soul" was on a loop in my head the day we got to pick up Ella for the first time.  Sometimes I need to bring those memories of God's past faithfulness to the forefront when I'm feeling sorry for myself.  I still get overcome when I think about that day.  

This is also my Grandpa RG's favorite passage, and it is one that my cousins and I split up and recited out loud for my grandparents at their 50th wedding anniversary.  When we were kids, my Grandma Phyllis challenged her grandchildren to memorize the whole passage.  Here it is in full.  I hope as you read it, the words resound through your heart and soul and encourage some of those places that feel worn out today.

Praise for the Lord’s Mercies

103 Bless the Lord, O my soul;
And all that is within me, bless His holy name!
² Bless the Lord, O my soul,
And forget not all His benefits:
³ Who forgives all your iniquities,
Who heals all your diseases,
⁴ Who redeems your life from destruction,
Who crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies,
⁵ Who satisfies your mouth with good things,
So that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

⁶ The Lord executes righteousness
And justice for all who are oppressed.
⁷ He made known His ways to Moses,
His acts to the children of Israel.
⁸ The Lord is merciful and gracious,
Slow to anger, and abounding in mercy.
⁹ He will not always strive with us,
Nor will He keep His anger forever.
¹⁰ He has not dealt with us according to our sins,
Nor punished us according to our iniquities.

¹¹ For as the heavens are high above the earth,
So great is His mercy toward those who fear Him;
¹² As far as the east is from the west,
So far has He removed our transgressions from us.
¹³ As a father pities his children,
So the Lord pities those who fear Him.
¹⁴ For He knows our frame;
He remembers that we are dust.

¹⁵ As for man, his days are like grass;
As a flower of the field, so he flourishes.
¹⁶ For the wind passes over it, and it is gone,
And its place remembers it no more.^[a]
17 But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting
On those who fear Him,
And His righteousness to children’s children,
¹⁸ To such as keep His covenant,
And to those who remember His commandments to do them.

¹⁹ The Lord has established His throne in heaven,
And His kingdom rules over all.

²⁰ Bless the Lord, you His angels,
Who excel in strength, who do His word,
Heeding the voice of His word.
²¹ Bless the Lord, all you His hosts,
You ministers of His, who do His pleasure.
²² Bless the Lord, all His works,
In all places of His dominion.

Bless the Lord, O my soul!

♥ Molly

A year later

The blessing of the Lord makes one rich,
And He adds no sorrow with it.  Proverbs 10:22

Wow!  What a year it has been.  I have been looking back through this blog recently and in some ways it is hard to believe sweet Ella Shae is already a year old and in other ways it seems so long ago that we were living out of suitcases in a hotel in South Carolina waiting to bring her home.  So much has happened in this last year.  It occurred to me though that I set out to write this blog as a way to chronicle our journey and be an encouragement to others going through the adoption process, and while we have already brought home our daughter, the adoption journey certainly did not end there.

So, to catch you up.  We brought Ella home in May of last year (2013).  My husband Jonathan actually had to meet me in Atlanta when we went to get her because he was testing for a job with the Houston fire department that week.  A few weeks after we brought Ella home, we found out that Jonathan was being offered a spot in the HFD's July Fire academy...July...as in a few weeks later.  We put our house on the market and started packing.  The week before we moved, I found a pregnancy test under the sink as I was packing and took it on a whim.  Positive.  WHAT?!?!?  So we strolled 10 week old Ella into the ultrasound room at the doctors office and confirmed, yes, we were going to have another baby.  Heads spinning does not even begin to describe how we were feeling.

I would consider myself to be a fairly even keeled person.  Drama is generally not part of my world.  This year was full of extremes for me though, and there were many times I wanted to retreat.  I know many parents can relate.  When you bring a newborn home, you go through a time of what I would call sleepy bliss.  You are so dog-tired, but so in love with this new little person, it is hard to allow both feelings to co-exist.  At least that was true for me.  I felt that way with Ella, and then again with the move to Texas, getting pregnant with Adie, Jonathan's job, and having two babies under 10 months.  To be perfectly honest, I have felt a little bi-polar in how I have processed all of the events of the past year.  I have spent much of my time feeling so overjoyed, and so overwhelmed all at once.

With all of this going on, I have neglected some of the things I had the best of intention of maintaining, including this blog.  In short, I want to get back to focusing on the things the Lord has laid on my heart to write about.  He has given me a testimony through these many experiences, as He has done for all of you.  So, as with everything in my life, this blog may not end up the way I had planned when I started out.  I am now the mama of two sweet little lives.  I have experienced miscarriage, infertility, adoption and an unexpected pregnancy.  I need God's grace every day. Every hour.  I hope I can speak truth, life and encouragement to someone.

As I wrap up this post, would you consider submitting a guest post to be featured on SweetbabyLove?  If you are in the adoption process, have adopted, have any insights into daily life as a family (whether or not you have adopted), have experienced miscarriage or infertility, or just have anything else God is impressing on you to share, I would love to feature your post.   Email me at molly.brumley@yahoo.com if you are interested. 


                                                                                                               ♥ Molly

Story of Love

 It has now been over 4 weeks since we picked up sweet Ella Shae and I am just now getting to the point where I can formulate a few words to express our feelings over these last weeks.  For those who do not know the story, we got a call on Tuesday April 23rd that a baby girl had been born on April 14th (6 lbs. 10 oz. and 19 inches long) and her mother had chosen adoption.  The mother's rights would terminate on Thursday the 25th at midnight.  After getting the call, we scrambled to get all of the logistics in place to leave town and be gone for an undetermined amount of time.  We got to Atlanta on Friday evening and on Friday night had a sweet reunion with our little girl.  I'm sure that the emotions that every parent goes through are similar, but Friday April 26th, our "gotcha day," was a very long awaited, prayed over and emotionally charged day.  We were so grateful to finally have her in our arms. 

We stayed in South Carolina for nearly two weeks before we got to come home and introduce Ella Shae Brumley to friends and family.   The Lord's hand was so evident through all of the details in this process.  One of the sweetest parts was that Jonathan's parents were already scheduled to be in Colorado in May, so they were able to be a part of Ella's homecoming and have been able to spend time with her as we have been back and forth to Colorado. 

For those who know our journey, you know it has been a long one.  We are so grateful for the Lord's provision, His wisdom and His timing.  I kept waiting for that moment when the heartaches of the past 4 years would make sense, and they truly did the moment my daughter was placed in my arms.  Yesterday in church we sang the song "Never Once," and I was overcome by the chorus:

Never once did we ever walk alone
Never once did You leave us on our own
You are faithful, God, You are faithful

Please enjoy some photos of our first few weeks as a family.  The song on the You Tube Video is one that I played over and over again as we waited for the call that we had a baby on the way.  I am so blessed to be able to play this song now along side photos of our sweet blessing.  Did I mention our first Sunday back was Mother's Day?  God is good :)

Grief

There is no easy way to talk about this, or to process what is actually going on, but I know that somehow writing can be therapeutic for me, and I know there are some people who would like to know what's going on in our lives, so I will try to explain.

On December 28, just a few weeks ago, I received one of the happiest phone calls of my life.  A birthmother working with our agency had chosen Jonathan and I to parent her unborn child, and a little baby boy would be born a week and a half later.  We could barely contain our excitement, and were relieved that God was finally answering our prayers.  After the birth mothers c-section was rescheduled twice, we were finally given a birth date of January 18th.  I took the day off of work, and Jonathan and I paced around waiting to hear that we had finally become parents.  We got the phone call and rejoiced over the sweet life that entered this world at 11:13 a.m. weighing 8 lbs and 1 ounce.  We named him Isaiah and we instantly loved him.  We could not take our eyes off every picture we saw.  I found myself waking up in the middle of the night to stare at his little chin and chubby face. 

Knowing the birth mother had 10 days from the 19th of January to reverse her decision, we waited, our arms aching to hold our precious child.  For 7 days, we joyed over every little detail, memorized every little dimple and chatted non-stop about hearing him hiccup on one of our daily phone calls.  The caretaker would call and lay the phone down next to Isaiah, and we would coo his name and tell him we loved him and we were praying for him and that we could not wait to meet him.  We were deliriously happy. 

Last Thursday, I decided to check in with the case worker to see how the birth mother was doing.  The text I got back indicated that the birth mom was having a hard day and asked for prayer.  I felt a familiar ache in my heart for this woman as I thought back over how my joy was so completely woven together with her sadness.  I prayed and as the day went on, I began to become uncomfortably nervous.  The case workers texts began to sound as if the birth mother was not just having  a bad day, she was thinking of changing her mind.   After nearly 5 hours agonizing over the conversation that was happening between the case worker and birth mother, I got the worst call of my life.  The birth mother had changed her mind, and Jonathan and I would no longer be adopting this baby. 

I cannot even begin to describe to you what it feels like to have a son, to name him, to be called his mother, to love him so desperately, and then to be told that he is no longer yours.

Grief is not unfamiliar to me.  Grieving a baby is also not unfamiliar to me.  What is so strange about this time, is that we are not grieving a death, we are grieving the death of a relationship.  We are grieving what could have been. 

I do not even know what he is called now.  Has she renamed him?  More than likely Isaiah will never know that I existed, or that I loved him so deeply.  Is that fair?  Is it worth it?  Although we knew in theory that this could happen, we could not prepare for the emotional turmoil it would cause. 

As is my tendency, I have to find God in everything.  He is there in the good, and He is definitely there in the bad.  I do not know how people survive life, and especially trauma, without Jesus.  After I miscarried our first child, three and a half years ago, my Bible became tear stained in Lamentations 3.  Lament literally means "a cry of sorrow; grief."  This weekend I turned to this ever familiar passage to yet again find comfort and meaning amidst the storm of grief. The prophet talks about the anguish the Lord has caused but he does not forget that there is hope...
                                            
¹⁸ And I said, “My strength and my hope

Have perished from the Lord.”

¹⁹ Remember my affliction and roaming,
The wormwood and the gall.
²⁰ My soul still remembers
And sinks within me.
²¹ This I recall to my mind,
Therefore I have hope.

²² Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed,
Because His compassions fail not.
²³ They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.
²⁴ “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“Therefore I hope in Him!”

²⁵ The Lord is good to those who wait for Him,
To the soul who seeks Him.
²⁶ It is good that one should hope and wait quietly
For the salvation of the Lord.
²⁷ It is good for a man to bear
The yoke in his youth.

²⁸ Let him sit alone and keep silent,
Because God has laid it on him;
²⁹ Let him put his mouth in the dust—
There may yet be hope.
³⁰ Let him give his cheek to the one who strikes him,
And be full of reproach.

³¹ For the Lord will not cast off forever.
³² Though He causes grief,
Yet He will show compassion
According to the multitude of His mercies.
³³ For He does not afflict willingly,
Nor grieve the children of men.

³⁴ To crush under one’s feet
All the prisoners of the earth,
³⁵ To turn aside the justice due a man
Before the face of the Most High,
³⁶ Or subvert a man in his cause—
The Lord does not approve.

³⁷ Who is he who speaks and it comes to pass,
When the Lord has not commanded it?
³⁸ Is it not from the mouth of the Most High
That woe and well-being proceed?

I do not really know where we go from here.  As grief takes it's course, I feel old.  I feel like I have been hit hard in the stomach, and my vision is still blurry.  So I think we do what we have to do.  We press on.  In my heart, I had to give Isaiah back to his birth mother.  He was never truly mine.  I know that the Lord will heal my heart in time.  So, I will return to my knees, because His mercies are new every morning.  

Orphan Sunday 2012

I didn't realize this until this afternoon, but today is the "official" Orphan Sunday 2012.   As we wait for that joyous call that we have been matched, we have not forgotten the command to care for the orphans and fatherless of this world.  Join us today in remembering the condition of the orphans and praising the One who did not leave us as orphans but came to us.

Joy in the journey

This time last year we were contacting home study agencies to start the process of growing our family through adoption.  Now as I sit here on a snowy Saturday morning reading through my posts from the last 12 months, I can't believe we are still waiting.  I think it's okay to admit there is some weariness that has crept up on us as we continue to pray and seek and desperately long to cradle those babies of ours that we have yet to meet. 

As we continue to wait, I cling to what I know to be true.  I know that the Lord is good (Psalms 107:1 "Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; His love endures forever.").  I know he cares about me (1 Peter 5:7 "Casting all your care upon on Him, for He cares for you.").  I know that He is guiding us (Proverbs 16:9 "A man's heart plans his way, But the Lord directs his steps"). 

There are so many tangible and intangible lessons that He has taught me throughout this year.  One of the most obvious is that He is a God who provides.  We are fully funded for the agency fees (if we are still matched through An Open Door Adoption Agency).  There is no other way around it but to know that God is the one who orchestrated that.  The thought hit me recently that a prayer of mine when we started the adoption process was that we would be able to adopt debt free.  In my readiness to accuse the Lord of not answering our prayers to be matched with a birthmom, I had totally neglected to remember He was answering my earlier prayer to adopt debt free.  The adoption fee itself is a larger amount than I make in a year at my job.  Isn't that incredible? 

Another joy that I may not have experienced if things had happened on my timeline is our Adoptive Mom's group.  We have met a couple of times and talked about our personal adoption experiences as well as ways to get the church more involved in supporting adoption and orphan care.  These ladies are such a blessing in my life, and it has been so good for me to talk realistically about adoption in a safe environment. 

In my own time with the Lord, I have learned so much about trusting, waiting and trusting some more.  I have been convicted about my motivations toward adoption, purposefulness in responding to the call to care for the fatherless of the world, and so many other lessons.  He has taken so much of the sting of infertility out of my heart.  He has shown me the silver lining.  The joy in the journey.  "I will sing of your mercy that leads through valleys of sorrow to rivers of joy."

Where are we now in the process?  Still waiting.  And waiting some more.  We have prayed and agonized over whether to submit our profile to a second agency.  After finally deciding to look into it, we have hit wall after wall with every other agency we have talked to.  If it had been this hard to choose an agency the first time around, I don't  know if we would have had the patience to continue looking.  The Lord may be telling us to just sit tight with our current agency.  Or, the perfect second agency may just require a little more looking and a little more patience on our part. 

If you think of us, pray for clarity and patience as we wait.  Pray for joy in the journey. :)