He Is Risen

From Our Crayon Box to Yours,

HAPPY EASTER!!!!!

Mike & Cana
#FindingOurCrayons

A Stress Like No Other

So I know I haven't been posting as consistently of late.  I've been slacking on the blog mostly because of stress about the adoption.  And there is a lot that has gone into us just trying to adopt (and we haven't even finished yet).

First we decided to adopt, and had to start raising/saving the money.  Talk about hard.  With the average adoption costing $25,000+, it can be a hard pill to swallow when trying to figure where the money will come from.

Then we had the homestudy.  The You-Must-Be-Perfect investigation into your life. Clean the house, pray the cats don't do something stupid, dress nice, pay for tons of background checks and get multiple letters about your character NOTARIZED.  And then you have to wait for everything to be checked with a fine tooth comb and wait to be approved to adopt.

Which, YAY, we are now approved adopt!

Now that we have passed, we have officially reached what I consider the hardest part of the adoption.  Getting the child/children.  We have to wait for the children, we have to then wait to have them placed.  If the parental rights haven't been terminated, then we have to wait for that.  Then we have to wait for us to legally and officially be declared by a court of law that we are parents of whatever children we are given.  I'm sure some of you are thinking that this can't be that stressful.  But for me, it is the fact that we are now waiting on others, not Mike and I, to get us where we need to go.

I actually had someone say that if I'm this stressed about about adoption, then we need to reconsider adoption because children will just make life more stressful. The thing is, adoption is unlike any other form of growing a family.  There is no timeline, there is now due date.  There is the constant waiting, hoping, praying that your children come home as soon as possible.  And some days there is the gnawing ache where you wonder if you will ever get to go and pick up your children, take them home, and just hold them.  

And I ache for that moment.  I stress out that the moment hasn't arrived yet, and that it might be far off in the future.

So, for everyone out there, whatever you are going through, whatever you stress out about, and however you figure out how to deal with it, take hope!  We aren't alone in our burdens, and we only have to reach out to those we love to realize that we are going to make it.

Cana
#FindingOurCrayons

Today is the Day To Partially Celebrate

So today is a day to partially celebrate.  Why partially celebrate? 

Because we got our official home study, completed and approved!  So now we can legal start an adoption process in the state of SC. 

It's awesome! It's amazing!  It lifts a bit of stress off our shoulders, because this means that there is legal proof that we are approved to be parents.

And yet, I still want to cry in exhaustion and discouragement.  We are facing a long journey, one that won't necessarily be finished in the next few months.  I mean, it has been almost a year since we announced our intentions to adopt, and we only just got our homestudy completed.  

I'm tired, and I'm hoping and praying that everything else in this process will go off without a hitch, but in reality, adoption doesn't always work the way our society portrays it. One of my friends, who has been trying to adopt for almost 10 years, compared adoption to be like being pregnant for years straight without a child.  The up and downs, the stress (and this is not normal stress), and the constant what ifs of adoption will drive you crazy if you let it.

So today, we are going to celebrate a little.  And then, later, when we finally reach the finish line, and hold our children in our arms, we will celebrate a lot!

Cana
#FindingOurCrayons