Today I received an email from Sue our CCI agency contact. She is in Haiti working and took the time to email our agency info to us. I like her already!!!! There is a client page on their website that gives you every piece of information you will need to do this adoption. I just kept scrolling and scrolling and downloading and downloading. I am so overwhelmed at this point I can't even think of what document I should work on first. It all seems very daunting, but I know the end product of piles of paperwork is a sweet child waiting for us to come get them in Ethiopia. I so wish this was a faster process. God is teaching me patience, I know. It just that the other night at dinner reality smacked me in the face. Darren said the blessing before we ate, he asked that if our child was already born-for God to watch over her and keep her safe until we are able to come get her. And if she wasn't born yet, let her mother be healthy and keep her safe for us. I lost it. It hit me that our child may already be waiting for us and I am wading neck deep in a pile of paperwork. I know God will give us our child at the perfect time-not my time. It's just so hard to wait.
I find myself searching blogs for families who have gotten their children already. The stories are so sweet. I cry happy tears for them. I cry happy tears for us, knowing one day that we too will post our "Gotcha Day" . I am such an emotional wreck. Sort of like pregnancy....but this is a pregnancy of my heart. Not sure if this way is any easier or harder...just different. I can't wait to meet my precious child........
Monday, October 26, 2009
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Let me tell you a little bit about our family. Right now the Bodine family consists of Tracy (me), Darren, my wonderful husband, Hannah our 14 year old beautiful daughter, Luke, our handsome 10 year old and Owen our sweet 6 year old. We are hoping to adopt a little girl from Ethiopia.
When we first talked about adoption it was back before Owen was born.....it was just a quick conversation about adopting if we didn't get pregnant. Then we were blessed with Owen and didn't really talk about it again. Until we went to Juarez, Mexico on a mission trip with our church. Again, another conversation.....but it didn't really lead to anything. We have friends that have adopted and fostered and the conversation came up again. Then lately, all around us we keep getting redirected back to the adoption conversation. Darren has given me podcasts about it, I have watched tv shows about it. Then our church decided to do another mission trip to Haiti to an orphanage. I researched it and fell in love. I knew my heart was ready for another baby. Then my friend and business partner, Jennifer, showed up at work one day and said that she was seriously thinking about adopting from Ethiopia. Wow. Again, God was bringing me back around to adopting. I starting doing a TON of research about adoptions. The Haiti government is pretty iffy right now and I steered away from Haiti.....Ethiopia kept coming up. Jennifer has friends who have adopted from ET, friends of friends and so forth. I was so weird how I just kept running into people who are or have adopted from Ethiopia.
While researching a home study program, I came across a blog, clicked on it and low and behold it was friends of ours from college. They have 6 adopted children, 2 domestic and 4 from Ethiopia. I contacted her that night and we talked for hours. The next day there was a huge article about adoption in the paper. God was seriously giving me every sign. I sat down one night, asked Darren if he would want to adopt and he said "Yes". Easy as that. I about fell over. He then proceeds to tell me he has been thinking about it too. Believe it or not..it all just fell into place.
Many friends and family were shocked when we told them. Yes, it seems fast but it is so right. I feel it down to the tips of my toes. We are so sure that this is what God has lead us to do. We now there will be struggles, we know our lives are going to turn upside down, we know this will change everything. But that's ok. We are so excited about bringing a new child into our home.
I'm sure as this blog continues, I will tell you more about the "why's". I'm going to attach some of those reasons (borrowed from another friends blog). The personal "why's" will come later.
We hope you will be along for the ride.....it might be a bit of a roller coaster...but it should be fun.
Check in often and see what's new.
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