Individual Interviews

We had our individual interviews yesterday. My interview was first and I wasn't really that nervous until I got there, then my heart started to race a bit. I just didn't know what we would talk about for 2 hours. But it turned out okay. Our caseworker just asked questions in regards to what we answered on all our paperwork. He wanted to know what I thought my strengths and weaknesses were as an individual and in our marriage. We talked about our families and practically everything else - I like to talk, so my interview was about 30 minutes longer than Brandon's. Our caseworker gave me some counsel and I think he was really just wanting to understand where we are at physically, emotionally and spiritually. I felt really good after we talked and he answered a few questions I had about the rest of this process. Most importantly, I wanted to know what our next step is. He said next we will do the home evaluation. In 2 weeks he will come to our house and spend about 45 minutes walking through it and talking with us. After that, we wait until he has received our FBI background check. If I have any advice for anyone adopting, it's to turn in your FBI background checks FIRST. Don't even bother working on any paperwork until that is completed and mailed in. I guess it use to take about 3 weeks to get the background checks back, but lately it has been taking 3 months! He told me that the FBI receives over 10,000 applications for adoption background checks each month. Unfortunately though, we can't move forward with our profile going online until that is received - so right now we are in a waiting game.

In the meantime, he told us to work on "publicizing ourselves" and continue to be actively engaged in the efforts of finding our baby. It sounds so strange to be searching to find our baby, but I feel that he/she is trying to find us as well. I feel that they are somewhere watching and waiting for just the right moment to come into our life. I am now a smidgen worried about our home evaluation. Is it sad that we already have a baby's room all set up? It's hard to explain to some people how we are trying to put our Faith in God, and by having our baby's room all set up, it's to show that we KNOW we will be able to have a family and someday our rooms will be full of children. I can't wait for that day. After we got our baby swing, it really hit us how much we wanted this. Adopted or not, we will have a family. A friend of mine sent me this quote by Neal A Maxwell - it states, "Faith In God, Includes Faith In His Timing." We have so much to look forward to, but it's so hard to wait. For now though, we continue to press onward diligently.

Gift Registry

We have officially received our first gift off our baby registry! My brother and sister-in-law (Christopher & Jen) got us our Travel System and Swing. We are beyond excited and grateful. My nephews have been showing us how the swing works - they are like "the baby sits here, you can play music by pushing this button, and you can swing them really high by turning this all the way up!" Our nephews are also trying to figure out what we should name the baby so that its initials would be BYU - it's kind of hard to think of names that start with a Y though. We are very blessed to have such a wonderful family - our baby, wherever it may be, is already very loved - we didn't know we could love something this much and not even have met him/her yet. At times it feels surreal to think about the fact that we could possibly have a baby this time next year - *cross your fingers*. Also keeps your fingers crossed on this Thursday the 25th, we have our individual interviews with our case worker. We don't really know how to feel about it, we are just anxious to get it done and move on to the next step.

We are still working away on our garage sale - we have already had a few people donate items for it. Our church has been so amazing and supportive - we can't thank all of them enough for their kind words and donations. If anyone else has anything they would like to donate to our garage sale; just give us a call or send us an e-mail at brandonandhannah@hotmail.com - we will come and pick up whatever you have. My parents have been awesome and are letting us store our garage sale items in their storage unit, so we have plenty of room left for more stuff!

A Little Update

Well, we didn't quite get our paperwork mailed in last Monday - we had a couple hiccups with some stuff, but we got it all mailed in yesterday with our first "payment". We mailed it exactly 2 months from when we first requested information from the agency. We have our next appointment with our case worker on February 25th for our 2 hour individual interviews. This should be fun - he said that we will be going over our responses to all the questions we answered from our paperwork. Things seem to be moving right along. Besides a few emotional moments and some frustrating ones as well, we are hopeful that everything will work out and the right baby will come to us. We just can't wait!!! :)

We do have a question for whomever wishes to answer - we need some ideas for fundraising. It's easy for me to help others raise money, but when I am doing it for myself - not so easy. But we need help - So, if anyone has any ideas, post a comment and let us know. THANKS!!!

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.