New Tradition and an Update

Thursday night, Alicia and I started a new tradition.

We loved making the adoption profile scrapbook so much, we decided

to take up scrap booking for fun too. We came up with a time

once a month when we can get together, just us without the men

and boys, and scrapbook, talk, vent, and just enjoy each other's company. My mom actually says I won't follow through with this, as I am kind of ADD/ADHD and can't concentrate or finish much that I started, so I told her, I was glad she said that, as that gives me a reason to try to really stick with this. :) Mom is my biggest fan and I know she'll be proud when I am done! :)

This is our "supply table." Never have a fun night with

girls without Sparkling Grape Juice and chocolates (which I am

proud to say, we didn't eat any!) We have bought

so many scrap booking items that we spent a lot of time going

through everything we bought and oohing and awing!

This is Alicia's page. She's doing a few Christmas

pages. We're doing 1-2 pages a night when we are

together and then doing at least one on our own before

our next "meeting." :)

Here is my page. I am working on a vacation

scrapbook. This is one of the New York pages I am

working on from my trip with Allie and Neesa over

fall break. Such GREAT memories!!

The Update: The adoption agency received our

forms, profile and BIG OL' CHECK! So far, so good... no

emails or calls saying we left something out yet! So, when the

background checks come in next week, we're officially really

ELEPHANT PREGNANT! :) I told Allie today there's a song that

says "Let it go, let it roll right off your shoulders, don't you know,

the hardest part is over..." and that describes me for sure. I know

the waiting will be hard, but I feel that the past two years have been

harder than anyone can imagine and this part is going to be great.

I feel that a weight is lifted and my life is actually working the way

God has intended. What a great feeling! It's been so long since I have

felt that way. Thanks to all for listening!

Short Post... Big Day

So, this will be a short blog without pics, but every little step we take toward our dream makes me want to share with my friends!

Tomorrow will be a BIG DAY for us. We are going to the post office in the morning to mail our big check, profile, and all the last of the paperwork to the adoption agency! We are still waiting for the fingerprints/background checks to be sent to the agency, but that is out of our hands. Therefore... as of tomorrow we will be 1 step closer to getting baby Cassady! I know this could take a while, but the fact that we have gotten this far, considering where we started, this is HUGE for us!

Anyway, just wanted to update everyone on what's going on. I am sure just like in the past we'll have a couple more forms to fill out, but the big stuff is in and we'll be able to be considered by a birth family soon!

Profiling Our Lives (and a Neosporin comment too)

Alicia came over last night to help me put together our profile for the adoption agency, since Adam isn't a help in this situation :) We have to show our home, us, and our family. No pressure to look pretty in a picture since the birth families will be looking at this to see if they choose us or not!
OK... the Neosporin comment. When Anne was here, she had to check the expiration date (yes there is one) on our Neosporin. So, if I am at anyone's house soon, I will be checking the expiration dates and reporting you if they are expired! :) LOL

This is the pile of pics and paper we stared with. We had such a good time doing this that when Baby Cassady comes, I think we will start scrapbooking as we need a hobby since we are both on a budget with building our homes!

This is the beginning of the Adam & Emily page. We have lots of pages with our families, all our sweet nieces, in-laws, siblings, etc. I can say we are so blessed with such a great family. Also, thanks to Stephanie who bought a lot of these pics for me (she said it's her first present for our baby) :) as I am not a photographer and needed family pics from her!

This is the "Drew" page. Drew lives in our basement and he is such a great blessing to our home. We love having someone else here as Adam and I get kind of tired of looking at only each other! :) He's good practice for us as we worry about him when he's gone and so I am going through the teenage years with a kid before the infant stages. :)

I'll have to share the whole book when we are finished. We are so excited to be at this point. Anne emailed me today with 4-5 more things we need to finish that she forgot to tell us... so needless to say we have more to do, luckily they aren't extensive, but just another thing to stress me out! We will just patiently wait, as we have for so long now, for Carter Daniel or Ava Kinser (or both) to arrive!

One More Step completed in our "Elephant" Pregnancy

OK, so if you didn't know... elephants are pregnant around 22 months. My cousin said when we decided on an adoption agency and signed the first papers, we were pregnant. So... I decided we are going to be like an elephant's pregnancy, maybe even longer.

So, Anne came today at 11:30 and didn't leave until 4:00! She came and interviewed Adam and I together on our family values, expectations, family history, etc. Next, she had to tour our home and check the safety things, which I am happy to say we passed with flying colors! :) Then she interviewed Adam and I separately. Asking us questions about each other and our relationship and our families. Then she needed a house plan, our fire escape plan (yes we have to have that hanging somewhere in our home), and check where all of the smoke alarms are. She needed our house plan to see if our room sizes would meet standard... can you believe there is a standard on room sizes for the process?!?! I am glad we weren't living in our other house or we might have been in trouble in that department!

Good news though... she did all she needed to do while she was here, so.... we have to pay her a hefty fee, get our criminal background checks done and sent to her, and then finish our profile (a book showing pics of us, our home and families) and send it in and we are on the waiting list! :) This means, hopefully as of the middle of January, we will be officially awaiting the call for the arrival of a new baby Cassady. There is no timeline or anything that can guarantee when we could get the call, but at least we have made it this far! If we do end up waiting a while, we will probably change our profile to say we would take a toddler instead of just a newborn or a baby that is just a few months old.

On a fun note... here are the names we want to use for our baby to be. I have had quite some time to think about this so.... if it is a boy "Carter Daniel Cassady" will be his name. Carter because I like that name and Daniel for Adam's middle name. If it is a girl... "Ava Kinser Cassady" will be her name. Ava cause I like it and Kinser for Mamaw (Adam's grandma's maiden name) We actually went to her house and told her that not too long ago and shared a beautiful teary eyed moment together. :) Yes, even Adam teared up when Mamaw did!

So in closing, thanks for the prayers for us today, as it went so well. Please keep praying for us and we will keep you posted through the blog and I promise to talk about something other than adoption too! When school starts back I will have kid stories to tell too, along with Adam stories too! Love to you all!

Thanks and Thursday :)

First of all, I never believed I would receive such sweet comments on my first post! I told Alicia today that I felt that a weight was lifted off of me when I typed that last night. I felt that I didn't want to be secretive or not have people talk to us because we are not ashamed of our situation and know, however hard it is, there is a reason for this and God will guide us through. I appreciate your comments, which let me know you were all feeling like me, I knew you didn't want to hurt me but you didn't know what to do or say. Please talk away, as this is one of the most important events in my life and I want to share it with all of my friends and family! So thank you for assuring me, this whole blog thing is a good thing for me, even if I don't have a lot of pics or fun kid stories to tell! (Although, I do have Adam, who I know will provide many funny stories for the blog in the future) :)

Now on Thursday, our case worker, Anne, is coming for our first official home visit. We aren't fully sure what that is going to entail. Nice huh, to be guessing at what exactly is going to happen. Most likely she is just going to look at our home and make suggestions on our safety things, but it could be interviews with Adam and I and then us separately. This is just one step closer to our dream, yet it makes my stomach churn to think about someone coming to our home and looking at us under a microscope. So, please pray for Adam and I on Thursday that we will get through this step and move on toward our final goal, a precious child! Love you all!

A long Journey

So I promise not to make this a boring blog, but I thought I would tell a little about the journey we are going through. I feel like people try to avoid talking to me because they are going to upset me by saying something about adoption, babies, etc. I feel though that when people are not saying anything at all is sometimes harder for me to accept. The song "When You Say Nothing At All" doesn't apply to our situation. So, here it all is out in the open and hopefully I will not be hard to approach about this anymore.

We found out last year on Oct. 14 that we were unable to have children. This was extremely hard news to hear and not everyone was very sensitive to it or us, which was hard too. Adam was very hurt by this news as our "issue" stemmed from him. He said a lot of things that would bring a strong man to tears. We struggled through these emotions together, but I wanted to adopt from the get-go, but Adam wouldn't hear of it. This put a huge strain on our relationship. We went for a long time in an emotional funk... words cannot tell you how this felt.

Finally, after several months, we were sitting watching CSI New York of all things and a lady on the show had a baby. This already brought tears to my eyes, as it is hard to see babies period sometimes, but then Adam looked at me and said "it's time... I want to adopt and have a family." This made my heart feel whole again.

We then began searching for adoption agencies. We went to an orientation meeting at one in Mt. Washington. When we went, Adam opened up to the case worker more than he had anyone and at that moment I knew this was the one! We've had to go to CPR training, First Aid training, get physicals, background checks, fingerprints, and even more things I don't want to bore you with. We also have to have 3 home visits in which we have to have childproof things, pictures of cribs, etc., which is heartbreaking to even look at when we do not have any children. Did I mention we have to pay for all of this too? Home visits, all the trainings, plus paying for the final adoption fee... which is EXPENSIVE!!! I know it will be worth it all...

Anyway, we are on our way to having the family we have always dreamed of, but it isn't as easy. Daily, I pray for strength, patience, and understanding of why we are having to go through this, when other people seem to have children so easily.

Please don't get me wrong, God has blessed me more in my life than I have ever deserved. I am so thankful for my salvation, my church, my family, my friends. Yet, there is a missing part and I struggle with this daily.

Thank you for listening and I promise I will not blog something this long again, but I just thought this might help anyone who is wondering what is going on with us, and maybe make us a little more approachable and a little less "fragile." I appreciate all the support and prayers, as we need them daily.

I finally took the Blog Plunge!

After having to put all sorts of child-proof features on our house this weekend for our first official home visit with our adoption agency(yes, child-proof, but no child), I felt the need to vent about what we are having to go through to have a family, something that seems to come so easily to others. So, this blog was how I thought I could do it.

Our "medicine cabinet" we're trying not to overdose!

The baby gate on the deck stairs, we don't want Adam to fall down! :)

Wonder what this is? Doesn't everyone have a manual when you get something new? Well, this is the book (one of many) we have to read in order to adopt our children!