Jarred and Abbie have an amazing story of welcoming their son into their family with the help of Christian Adoption Consultants. And Abbie chronicled it over on her blog, Naturalee Homestead throughout the process. Today Abbie is graciously sharing excerpts here to share the story of their son and God's faithfulness as they grew their family through adoption. Today you'll get the first half of their adoption journey!
May 28, 2021, We Are Adopting!
We have been waiting in anticipation to grow our family and it has been more challenging than we expected. After several doctor visits, rounds of lab work, second opinions and lots of prayer, we were told naturally conceiving could continue to be difficult for us.
Instead we will be pursuing domestic infant adoption! Meaning our baby could be born anywhere in the US, most likely not from Washington. Currently, we are in the home study process and creating our profile book. The home study, and the profile book are some of the most important pieces. The home study gives us the OK to go “active” and present to expecting families. The book is how expectant moms will get an idea of who we are.
Adoption is exciting, scary, hard and beautiful. It is a journey that comes from brokenness and we are prepared for a lot of ups and downs. We know that God has led us on this path. Already, He has shown us that he has been intentionally placing people in our lives to prepare us for this journey. We are confident he already knows our baby, and when that baby will be in our arms. Through this whole process the song “Promise Keeper” by Hope Darst has been a wonderful reminder of God’s faithfulness.
You are the promise keeper, your word will never fail. My heart can trust you Jesus. I wont be overwhelmed. My eyes are going to see, miracles and victories. You are a promise keeper, your word will never fail.
I see your goodness in the land of the living, I see your goodness right here right now. ‘Cause you know the ending before the beginning, I know that you have worked all things out.
Promise Keeper, By Hope Darst
We are so excited to share our journey. We know that it very well could be a long road. But we trust that there is something for us in each step, in each high and low, and that it will all lead to our precious baby!
With much gratitude,
Jarred and Abbie
July 20, 2021, Adoption Update
It has been just shy of two months since we announced that we were adopting! And a whirlwind at that! It has been full of paperwork, phone calls, lots of prayer, fundraising and overall excitement! We are so thankful for everyone that has shared their excitement with us, and for those that have generously donated already! We wanted to provide an update of what we have been doing since we announced.
Home Study: As of today we are officially Home Study Ready! This means we are legally ready to adopt when the situation arises! We had a fabulous social worker who was so quick and helpful in this process. We had to gather tons of documents, have a 90 minute interview, home visit, and complete a 15 page document all about us and our past. We got two separate sets of fingerprinting done, one locally and the other in the Seattle area. We are now the proud owners of a 15 page written report about us with the seal of approval!
Profile Book: The talented and lovely Meaghan Bickel, of Joy Photography Ellensburg heard our story and offered to take our photos for our profile book as a donation to us. We are so incredibly thankful for her generous gift of her time and talent. We got our photos back last week and they turned out beautifully!! They truly capture us, our life and personalities. We submitted them to our profile designer and should have our profile book completed soon! Once that is complete we will order copies to be printed. Once we have those printed we will submit the applications to the agencies we have chosen to work with and we will then be an active family waiting for a match!
Fundraising: We have been overwhelmed and humbled with so many people coming together and donating to us to help with our adoption expenses! We have received so many generous direct donations of funds that have been added to our adoption account. We also had so many items donated to us for our fundraising yard sale. The two day yard sale alone brought in over $2,600!! Far exceeding our expectations! We are so excited to announce that we are halfway to our fundraising goal! We still have a long way to go, but being halfway there only two months into our journey is AMAZING!
These sweet cousins hustled at our yard sale to raise funds to bring home their new cousin!
Next Steps: Next step is applying to agencies. We are waiting for our profile book to be completed and then we will mail the application packages. Once received by the agencies they will go through all of our documents and then we will become an active family! When we are active, we will wait to hear from the agencies about “situations.” Situations are when an expectant mother or family has contacted the agency and has decided to move forward with making an adoption plan. When a situation comes up they will present it to us and we get to decide after reading the information if we would like our profile presented. If we choose to present, they will include our profile book with the other families who have said yes to presenting and the expectant mother/family will choose from there. This is where the waiting game truly starts.
Prayer Requests:
- Please pray that we will continue to have peace in our hearts and minds as we wait to be selected and matched.
- That we can raise the remaining funds needed for adoption expenses.
- We ask that you pray for the expectant mother and family who we will match with. That she will be surrounded by supportive people, feel confident and peace in her decision to make an adoption plan. And that she will just “know” we are the family for her child when she sees our profile book.
August 6, 2021, We Are Active, Waiting to Match!
We are so excited to announce that we are an active, waiting family! Our home study is done, our profile book has been printed (it turned out beautifully!) and we are officially in the portion of waiting. We are prepared for this part to take some time (but hope that it won’t). Along with everything else, Covid has impacted the number of US adoptions. So it's likely our wait time will be a bit longer.
It's a bit of a weird shift. For over two months we have been busy with research, paperwork and decisions. Now our only job is to wait, present to situations, and continue to pray for the expectant mama we will eventually match with, and wait some more. We have already started to see situations and got our first “Not yet” as the adoption world likes to call it, even though it feels like a big NO. While we knew the likely hood of being chosen on our first presentation was slim to none, we couldn’t help but think “What if” and look at flights and airbnb’s in the area of the expectant mama. Even though we are disappointed, we are at peace with knowing this isn’t the baby God has planned for us.
Luckily we have many things to keep our hands busy as we wait. Nursery preparations have begun! While many people choose not to start the nursery until they have been matched, its a fun project for me that feels intentional. It's also a place that I can spend time praying for our expectant mama and baby. We have no idea when we will match and in the event it is quick, we want to minimize stress by having things ready. We have the carseat, crib and a few items washed in the event we get a call that baby has already been born and we need to get on a plane. While that is an unlikely scenario, it's nice to know we are prepared. I spent this past weekend organizing clothes by gender and size. We have been blessed with enough hand-me-downs from cousins to clothe boy girl twins up until 2 years old!
Throughout this whole process Jarred and I keep looking at each other and saying “Wow, we have the best community of people!” We are overwhelmed each day by the generosity of so many. Multiple times we have been in tears of gratitude when we think of all the people supporting us. We truly are so thankful for each prayer, congratulations message, interest in the process and donation to help with the significant costs associated with adoption. We truly have the best family and friends!!
Prayer Requests
- Continued prayers for the expectant mama we will be matched with. That she feels supported, peace in her decision and that she just “knows” we are meant to be her baby’s parents.
- For peace and patience in our hearts. That we can push all anxiety and fear away, and go forward in peace knowing our family will come together in His perfect timing.
- That we will feel a strong connection to the right situations to present to. That He will protect us from situations that are not meant to be and guide us on when to and when not to present.
- That He will keep our baby protected from any potential harms.
- That the funds needed will be available as we need them to bring this sweet babe home!
Thank you, thank you, thank you! From the bottom of our hearts for being a part of our tribe and cheering us on. We truly couldn’t do this without you all.
With love and gratitude,
Abbie and Jarred
December 25, 2021, We Are Matched!
We had the most special Christmas this year! Christmas Eve was spent with family going to Christmas service at church, appetizer party at our house after, where the kids made gingerbread houses and opened gifts from Jarred and I. And then we spent the evening playing games and spending time together.
After everyone went home and we were finished cleaning up I checked my phone and saw I had a missed call from our adoption agency along with a voicemail! We had presented to a situation about 3 weeks prior and had assumed we wouldn’t hear back until after Christmas as it had already been a longer wait time than the others we had presented to. My heart began to beat quickly as we had always received an email with an update that we had not been chosen prior… never a phone call!
I listened to the voicemail from our case worker saying “Hi Abbie I am calling on Christmas Eve, and just give me a call back as soon as you can!” I grabbed Jarred and we called her back together. She quickly answered and shared the news that an incredibly brave and selfless woman had chosen us to parent her child! She wanted to make sure that we found out on Christmas Eve or Christmas so that we would get the best present this year! We immediately began to cry out of so much excitement and thankfulness! She went on to say that we had been the first book she looked at out of the stack of books she had received and was drawn to us immediately. But she wanted to give everyone a chance. Which is why her decision took longer. This was such an answer to our prayers! Each situation we have presented to, our prayer was that the expectant mom would feel immediately drawn to the right family and she would feel at peace, even if we weren’t that family.
We are so excited to share and announce that we are officially matched! Baby boy is due March 2022! We can not wait to meet him and his incredible mother who chose us! We already feel so connected to her and love her and that sweet baby boy so much!
Thank you for all of your prayers so far! We have made it through the first step of waiting, and now onto the second wait time until baby is born. We would ask for continued prayer for a healthy mom and baby. That the time between now and birth our relationship with the expectant mama will grow and we can have a good foundation to begin what we hope to be a life long relationship! And lastly please pray that any anxieties in this wait will be pushed aside. While she has chosen us and we have committed to one another, she can change her mind at any time until she signs documents 24 hours after birth making it final.
Thank you for all of your support! We can’t wait to keep you updated and share news of our sons' arrival in just a couple short months!
Stay tuned for part two of Jared and Abbie's story in the coming days! (You can find it here!)
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