Life Unexpected

I am sure by now that many of you know...mainly because I posted it on Facebook...but WE WERE OFFICIALLY APPROVED WITH OUR HOME STUDY! Some of you might not know what that means. Basically, we were interviewed individually, then together as a couple, by our social worker. Then, she came out to the house and made sure we have a safe house, made sure our dog is nice (which Al was on his best behavior today), talked with one of our references (Thanks a million Bill, who probably praised us more than we deserve), and asked us about our neighborhood and surrounding area. She then approved us, and now we will begin working on our dossier (another name for a big packet that markets us to Ethiopia as perspective parents, with tons of information that will be tons of work that we need to do in the next 6 weeks). Once that is sent in, we wait for that to be approved, and eventually wait for a referral of a child. It looks like the wait time is about a year until a referral, and then approx

Tonight I am sitting in a hotel room in Annapolis with my amazing husband writing this blog! We are here, because this is the week of our home study. Tomorrow we will meet with our social worker, who will interview us all about our lives, our family, our upbringing, and our marriage, and then on Wednesday, she'll come out to check out our house, interview our reference, meet our dog (Big Al), and finish with a few more questions. This is a huge step in our journey of adoption! Nate and I celebrated tonight by going to the Melting Pot, which ironically we went to 8 years ago on our 1 year wedding anniversary. We spent a lot of time tonight talking about the future, and remembering all that we have been able to do as a couple of the past 9 years. We both agreed that God has totally been preparing our hearts for this child. Just this past week I was talking with my mom (because I was having a breakdown on this whole lack of a family thing), and she said, "Ang...I truly bel

A couple of weeks ago, my sister Kristen had another yard sale for us. She made a chunk of change for us again, which we are forever indebted for! But that wasn't the greatest part. I was coming home from a meeting when I saw two missed phone calls, one from my sister and one from my mom. I also had a text from my Mom saying to call my sister as soon as I could. Naturally, the worrier I am, I thought for sure something was wrong. When I got my sister on the phone, she was super excited to tell me this story. She had been collecting things to sell for the yard sale from all of her friends and had an entire basement filled with items. One of her friends, whom we have known for a long time came by the house and brought a bunch of baby clothes to donate. That still wasn't the greatest part. While Kris and her were talking, her husband wrote a check for a large amount of money and gave it to us toward our adoption! When Kristen called and told me that, I couldn't beli

About a year ago this time, Nate and I were going through our first attempts of fertility treatment with our IUI's. I don't know why, but I have kind of been thinking about our journey a lot, and have realized that this process of waiting on God's timing and God's plan, is sometimes painful. The past couple of weeks, I have kind of been a mixed bag of emotions. It seems like the "baby life," is all around me and sometimes I feel like I am just standing still in the waiting...and that can be really hard. I recently found out my sister is pregnant, recently hung out with a friend and a newborn baby, and even just got home from a baby shower (for a friend that is adopting which is super exciting). While I love sharing in all of those things, I still find the pain of not yet having a family of my own so real. At the same time, I have to believe in my heart...I do believe in my heart...that God shapes us through our waiting and pain. One of the books I have