Our adoption timeline
(please know that every adoption has a different timeline, but this was ours.)
June 17, 2006 - Got married in San Antonio, TX
January 2007 - We began trying to start our family. We knew before we married that God was calling us to adopt whether or not we had biological children as well.
February 2010 - Miscarried our first child
Dec. 2, 2011 - After much research and prayer, we made the call to our agency, Christian Homes requesting information to begin the adoption process
December 7, 2011 - Submitted preliminary application to agency
January 13-14, 2012 - Attended adoption orientation
February 2012 - Found out we were pregnant (and had been pregnant at the orientation)
April 2012 - Miscarried our second child, paused adoption process to grieve
Feb 2013 - I was walking through the Beth Moore James Bible study (specifically James 1) and DJ was in a men's study - on the same night, God used our individual Bible studies to clearly speak to both of us telling us it was time to trust Him and step out in faith, He did not want us to wait any longer! (This will require its own blogpost later - I wish I had written it right when it happened while it was fresh on my mind because I am afraid I may have forgotten some of the amazing details.)
June 2013 - We met with a birth mom who was looking for a family to adopt her precious little one - ultimately this birth mom did not choose us but the cool part about this is that from that day forward we commited to faithfully pray daily for our birth mom and our child - little did we know that our daughter would be born later that same month. This is so unbelievable to me!
June 29, 2013 - Taylor was born prematurely weighing 3 lbs - she was in the NICU for a month
July 2013 - working hard to complete all the steps in the application process (you can read about it here)
July - December 2013 - Began faithfully fundraising for the adoption - this was our biggest fear and what kept us from stepping out in faith sooner, but God continued to show us that He had it in complete control.
Some of our fundraisers included:
T-shirt sales
Parents night out fundraiser at Beamer's Gymnastics Center
Garage sales
Spaghetti Dinner
You caring website
And a Money Tree shower given by our church family
I will write a more exstensive post soon about the fundraising process, but I just want to say really quickly if you feel God calling you to adopt and your are fearful of the cost... don't be! He will take care of it! He completely amazed us with His faithfulness!!! Through these fundraisers, we were able to raise over $27,000. That is so hard for me to fathom! Please do not hesitate to email me if you have more questions about ideas to help you fundraise for your adoption. God has called us all to care for the orphans, so He will provide the funds to be able to do this if He is calling you to adopt.
January 7, 2014 - Submited adoption application and all that this entails
February 3, 2014 - fingerprinting and FBI clearance
February 20, 2014 - Home Study Part I - adoption interviews
March 6, 2014 - Home Study Part II - house visit
March 28, 2014 - Received unofficial word that we were approved, but still had a few details to officially finalize
April 1, 2014 - Received officially letter we were approved but our photo album had a few typos so we were working to get it reprinted
April 2, 2014 - Our birth mom had a friend call the agency to inquire about adoption (we found this out later)
April 2, 2014 - our profile went live on the Christian Homes website
April 2, 2014 - (or it might have been April 3) finally got our photo album reprinted typo-free and submitted (I couldn't understand why our case worker was in such a hurry to have it but now I get it!)
April 3, 2014 - Maternity case worker drove to our birth mom's town to go over process and present stack of adoptive family profiles (including photo albums and birth mom letters)
April 7, 2014 - Our incredible birth mom made the most selfless decision to relinquish her parental rights. Taylor went into temporary foster care this day with an incredible family who happen to live 2 blocks away from us!
April 10, 2014 - Paternity registry checked and birth father's rights were terminated
April 11 - 20, 2014 - The agency and lawyer took care of the legal details before notifying us (the court docket in Abilene had over a month wait, but thankfully our agency also has a location in Fort Worth and they were able to get on the court docket there much more quickly.)
April 22, 2014
- {9:30 AM} - Received the phone call that a birth mom had picked us
- {4:00 PM} - Conference call with the agency to hear the family history, health history, and other information - the agency asks you to pray about it for 24 hours before making a decision
- {AM} - notified agency that we felt God calling us to adopt Taylor
- {3:30 PM} - Signed the paperwork to adopt Taylor
- {4:00 PM} - Met our birth mom
- {4:30 PM} - Met our daughter for the first time!
- {5:30 PM} - 1st supervised visit at the home of our amazing temporary foster family
April 24, 2014 -
- {4:30 PM} - 2nd supervised visit (required by the state)
- {5:00 PM} - We brought Taylor home!
It has been an amazing journey so far and we know God has even bigger plans for Taylor's life! If you have not had a chance to read my blogpost "The Gift of Taylor" yet, you definitely want to. I have included all the incredible God-sized details there. Thank you for sharing our joy in this incredible journey of adoption! We are truly HUMBLED and AMAZED by God's provision through the gift of sweet Taylor but also the incredible support we have received. It is so COMPLETELY humbling to be on the receiving end of so much love and support, but that is what the body of Christ is all about. I can't imagine trying to go from 0 - 60 (more like 6,000) in 2 seconds flat without all the amazing support. Thank you EVERYONE SO much! We literally have hundreds (if not more) of thank you notes to write, but I promise we have not forgotten you. We hope to have them in the mail before the end of June (is that wishful thinking?), but this is a wonderful problem to have! We love y'all!
