Paperwork Complete!

Paperwork is COMPLETE! We just finished up all our paperwork and we plan to mail our packet to LDSFS on Monday. Now we will do our interviews and a home study. We feel like we are so close now. I can't believe we finished all the paperwork in 3 weeks!

Now that the paperwork is done, we are working on raising money for the adoption costs. We will be having a fundraising garage sale in WA on April 10th. So if anyone has anything that they would like to donate to our sale, please contact us and we will come and pick up the stuff - within a reasonable traveling distance, of course :). Then my brother & sister-in-law (Jamie & Amanda) will be having a fundraising garage sale on April 17th in UT - so if you live in Utah and would like to donate, let me know and I will get my brother your information.

Also, we have already made some really great friends during this process. One of those friends just happens to be adopting as well. They just started the process and are trying to sell blankets to help raise money for their costs. If you would like to take a look at what they are selling, check out their website and buy a cute blanket or two!

We wanted to say a special thank you to my Aunt Mary, she helped look over our birth parent letter and I feel so much better now that she helped with corrections and said it was good to go. We love you and thanks for your help!

Dear Birth Parents

We understand it is a difficult decision you are about to make and whether you choose adoption or not, we can’t even begin to understand how you must be feeling, but know that you are in our thoughts and prayers always. We are honored that you are taking the time to read our letter.

About Brandon: I enjoy working in the yard, doing volunteer work, bicycling and anything that involves being outside. I also enjoy doing things around our house, whether it is cleaning the bathroom, organizing the garage or painting our rooms. I especially enjoy all sports, both playing & watching, but my main passion is BYU Football! I love playing with our nephews & nieces and having Nerf gun wars with them – those kids just crack me up and I love making them laugh. I can’t wait to have children of my own to play with and love.

About Hannah: All I have ever wanted is to be a mom. My heart’s desire is to have children and be the best wife and mother I can. I hope to someday be able to be a stay at home mom, but I will have to work for awhile. I do plan to take off work the first 3 months after placement, and when I do return to work, my brother’s wife (who lives a few miles from us) will watch our children. We don’t like the idea of day care and the only option for us would be to have family or close friends help us with child care. My work is a very family oriented environment, and they are all thrilled about us being able to adopt a beautiful little baby.

I LOVE animals! I grew up with rabbits, cats, dogs, fish, hamsters, birds, ducks – pretty much every animal came through our house. Brandon had never had pets growing up, but a few years after we were married we finally got our cute puppy, Maggy. She is a “plus sized” Lhasa-Apso. She loves all people in general, it doesn’t matter how old or young they are, she will just love on anyone.

About Us: Brandon and I met in 2002 while in College. Brandon didn’t like me at first, he thought that I was mean because I would tease him (when in reality, I was actually trying to flirt – I guess I wasn’t very good at it). When I found out he didn’t like me, I went and apologized for whatever I had done. From that moment on, we were always together and were married 6 months later. We started trying to get pregnant after being married for a year; we tried for the next 7 years without any luck. We have felt every emotion over the last 8 years, but after many prayers we know that now is the time for our family to begin.

We feel it is very important to be open about adoption. We want our children to understand where they came from and to know that they are loved by so many people – first by their birth parents for making the most difficult and unselfish decision to place their baby for adoption. We hope to be able to exchange letters and pictures throughout the years. We want you to be able to see your child growing up and know that they are doing well and are loved. Family is so important to us – we are very close with our families, which include a combined total of 5 brothers, 2 sisters, 1 brother-in-law, 4 sister-in-laws, 6 nieces and 7 nephews. When we adopt, this will be the first grandchild in Brandon’s family – his parents are beyond excited and ready to be grandparents!

Our greatest desire is to be together with our family forever. We look forward to being able to raise our children in the Gospel and teach them about the love of our Heavenly Father and the Savior for us. We can’t wait to watch them grow and learn – it will be our greatest joy!

Thank you for taking the time to get to know us,

Brandon & Hannah
oureternaldesire.blogspot.com

Random Thoughts

We have been asked a lot lately about our "preferences" of a child. We don't care what the gender is - we wouldn't have a choice if we were pregnant & we just can't wait to have a baby! The one thing we are asked a lot more about though is the ethnicity. I don't want this to sound bad, but we would really like our first to be a mostly Caucasion baby. We feel that when we adopt our first, there will be a lot of questions about everything. I know it will be different, but it would be harder if it were totally a different race. After we have adopted our first, we have talked about adopting other nationalities. Personally, it would be fun to have a tan baby, than at least someone in our family will be able to look good in a swimsuit, and not like a mass of white!

We also wanted to express our gratitude to those that have shown us their support. I read through the comments that are posted here on our blog and on Facebook and I am filled with such joy. I keep re-reading them because they make me feel so uplifted. We feel like we are reconnecting with those that we love, friends & family. Brandon and I have been talking a lot recently about the overwhelming show of support we have received. We feel so blessed to have all of you in our lives.

It's interesting when we tell people that we are adopting. We have had such an array of responses, mostly all excited. We love talking about our adoption with anyone that will listen and we can't think of any reason why anyone wouldn't want to be supportive of this decision. This is such an emotionally exhausting time for us - then you add on top of that unsupportive people - it makes it difficult. Life doesn't always happen like you thought it would, but isn't that what makes it life? We know that this process will be hard, but we shouldn't shelter ourselves from something just because it can be hard - through all the hurt, we can have so much joy. We never thought we would be at this point, but it is the right decision for us and we couldn't be happier. I have never felt such overwhelming joy. We have been hearing that some aren't happy with our decision and even angry with us because of it - this breaks my heart to know what they are going to be missing out on - we are building our eternal family, we are doing what the Lord wants us to do and no one can take this joy away from us. I am not going to lie though, it is hard to hear what people say & we can't comprehend why anyone wouldn't just be thrilled - but we make the choice on how we are going to react, and we plan to continue to stay strong and love those around us - no matter what they do or say.

Pass-Along Cards

I just finished designing our pass-along cards that we are going to start handing out. I am so excited, I think they turned out really well. Now we just need to get them printed and we're all set!

Baby's Room Pictures

I finally got a cord to upload the pictures from our camera to the computer. We are so excited with how the room has turned out. My Mom did all the painting and with the help of my Dad and brother, Christopher - they did the chair rail. Then my brother and sister-in-law, Jen, gave us the crib to use.

We are trudging away on all the paperwork. We have gotten most of it all done, now we need to do the birth parent letter. I don't know why I am stalling with it - I just don't know what to say yet. Well, enjoy the pictures, and of course I couldn't resist adding a picture of our cute puppy, Maggy!

Paperwork

We met with our LDSFS caseworker on Friday. He gave us a small stack of paperwork and then he gave us our username and password to work on the rest of our "paperwork" online. I thought I could get it all done this past weekend, but when I logged on - there is A LOT of stuff to fill out. Every question you could possibly think of is on there, and some. He said that our references were great and got in all their paperwork very quickly. I thought that once we started working on all the paperwork though, we would just fly threw it, but I am having a hard time. It seems that with every question, I think about it and ponder my answers for a few minutes each if not longer. I want to say the right thing and speak from my heart, but then I start to over think everything and I can't even remember what my original thoughts were. The thing that keeps going through my head is, "what do you say to someone that might give you their baby - how can you convey your deepest desires to this person and reassure them that you will love this baby more than anything?" And I know that whoever this young woman is, she must be scared and nervous as well and asking similar questions and wondering how she is going to find the right people to raise her child. It's a lot to process and take in.

Well, after we get all our paperwork submitted (which will probably be a few weeks, we need to have our tax returns from this year done, background checks with the FBI and WA State), then we will pay our initial fee and start the interview process. This will involve a 2 hour interview with each of us - then a home visit to determine if our house is safe and meets the requirements of the State and LDSFS. Once that all happens and we are approved, then we wait. During the meantime, we have a lot of fundraising to get done. Adoption isn't cheap and we are kind of starting from the bottom.

We plan to have a few fundraisers. The first one will be on April 10th. We will be having a Garage Sale Fundraiser. My good friend, Katie, is helping me with it. She is kind of like our unofficial "PR" manager. Check out her blog, she is doing some fundraising and selling cookies and other goodies for our adoption fund. It's hard for me to ask for money, but we have already received a few donations and thank all those that are willing to help. It's such a different though process, if we were pregnant, our insurance would cover everything - but with adoption, you have to pay for it all.

We will soon have our pass-along cards available and we will be sending those out to everyone we know. Our caseworker told us that 40-50% of adoptions are done through a Designated Adoption. This means that through someone that knows someone that knows someone that is pregnant and wants to put her baby up for adoption - they then contact our caseworker or lawyer and go through them to let us adopt the baby. That is where the pass along cards come in, they can help raise awareness and let people know of our desires.

We just wanted to send out a little update to everyone. We got a lot of our babies room done, I will be posting pictures by the end of the week. Thanks again for everyone's help and we feel your thoughts and prayers for us.