Where do I start?
Well, a few weeks ago, Jenn and I were laying in bed recapping the day and just talking which is our normal routine before going to sleep. She mentions that she'd been talking to a friend and that this friend knew of a girl who was wanting to put her baby up for adoption.
Now, let me interject here. I was not and never have been an opponent of adoption, however, I never thought it would be for me. I had my own plans of how my life would work out. I saw Jenn and I celebrating about 3 years of marriage or so and then getting pregnant with a little boy and then sometime later with a little girl.
But we all know...
So there's that. The day before Jenn and I talked I read an article written by former MLB pitcher Kurt Schilling, which shook me.
He wrote of a story he'd heard before. The story was about a man who was caught at home in a flood. The flood waters were rising and on TV, the man heard messages from the news stations to evacuate now. The man thought in his mind, "I'll be okay, God will take care of me." The waters continued to rise and the man moved out onto the roof of his house, because the water was that high. A man passed by in a boat and stopped to help the other man. He said, "Get in the boat! The water is rising, you're gonna drowned!" To which the focus of our story said, "God will take care of me, you go ahead." The water had now risen to his neck and a helicopter hovered above and dropped a rope. The man hollered up to the helicopter pilot, "God will take care of me, you go ahead!" The water finally rose above the man's head and he drowned. When the man arrived in Heaven, he asked God, "Why didn't you help me?" So God answered,"What else did you need? I sent warnings, a boat, and a helicopter!"
It's a quirky little story, but when Jenn mentioned the adoption, my heart was immediately pierced with the lesson of the story. As I said, I've never seen adoption as being an avenue for me. From day one, Jenn has wanted to adopt even beyond having our own kids. When we started to struggle to get pregnant, Jenn kept mentioning adoption. I would always just say God had a plan and He would work it out. Totally attempting to avoid adoption.
But like I said God had a plan...
In an instant, I knew this was the path God had set out for us at this point in our lives. In had a great peace about it, and was ready to pursue. It's amazing how God works.
My faith tank was full at this point, but I'm human and I would soon run real low, and nearly run out.
When we set out, I knew nothing about the adoption process. I needed very much to familiarize myself with the process. So, I started to research. I began to notice, adoption is costly, very costly!
So I lost a little fuel out of my tank.
We knew we needed a lawyer, at first we had one lined up, but that fell through. We had to find one and I knew lawyers weren't cheap.
So we start researching fundraising ideas. We had already set up a GoFundMe. Then I stumbled upon Booster. The coolest fundraiser idea ever.
On Booster, you design a shirt and then you advertise it and sell it, in an attempt to raise money for whatever cause you may have. So we sit down and design this very simple shirt:
White is the color for adoption. John 14:18 says "I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you." Those are red letter words in the Bible, folks! Jesus said that! So we added the State of Texas, because that's where we are from and we are adopting from Texas, along with the word Love, because that's what we plan to do to this little girl!
Anyway, I knew that these fundraisers would take a couple of weeks or so, and at first we were told the baby would be here the first week of May.
Insert my freak out here.
I immediately start to stress about money, because I knew we needed something to give the lawyer from the beginning. Also, I forgot to mention, every adoption-related loan, you had to have a completed home study and all that good stuff. So I knew two things, we wouldn't have time to do a home study and we didn't have enough money to get this done.
I spent a day at school, stressing and being in a terrible mood and just brooding over this whole thing. I get home and walk in the house and completely breakdown.
I'm not going to lie, I cry. I cried at my wedding, I tear up at emotional points in good movies and TV shows, and when things get completely out of my control I may lose it from time to time. This is a time I did. I sat at our dining room table and could not help myself. I want this to work so bad, not just for me, but for this little girl. One thing in our country that is broken is the way we treat children in the system, but that's another story for another day.
So, I chill out and go over and sit on the couch, when I get a text message saying to "call me." I call the person and we talk for a second and they offer to help us get a loan to be able to pay for the legal fees and all that. God has a plan, I'm telling you!
So, here we are waiting on baby Austyn Grace to make her grand entrance. All our family, friends, and coworkers are on pins and needles waiting for her to come!
We've seen the mighty hand of God outstretched over our journey. We've had an unbelievable amount of love outpoured on us by our extended network. We set a goal with Booster for 100 shirts and we ended up selling 110! Our GoFundMe was successful! We've had a ton of baby clothes and toys and all that given to us by a ton of people. Needless to say, we are so blessed by all of your generosity!
So that's where we are, eagerly awaiting the arrival of our baby girl!
Stay tuned, should be an interesting blog starting when I become a daddy!
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