Puzzle Update - Week 1

We're one week into our puzzle fundraiser and we've sold 6 pieces! Only 994 pieces to go! ;)

Big brother "helping".

I love starting the puzzle with these two pieces. :)

6 pieces total!

How To Donate: We are selling the puzzle pieces for $10 each. If you can, please donate money in-person or by mail. If that's not possible, you can click on the "Donate" button on the right sidebar under "Adoption Donations" to send money via PayPal. Please add your name(s) in the special note to sellers. Thank you!

Here We Go Again, Part 2

Now here's the part of adoption that no adoptive parent really likes. It's embarrassing. It's humbling. Let's be honest, for us, it's the f-word.

Fundraising.

Adoption is expensive. Plain and simple. But we can't let the cost stop us from adopting. Every child deserves a home and we will do our part to help with that for as long as we can.

For this adoption we expect all costs (agency fees, government fees, and traveling expenses) to total about $35,000. As you can see, I have my lovely fundraising thermometer back on this blog to the left. We already have a little over $4,000 of this.

The kicker that came with this is that we fall under new adoption tax credit laws. We finalized Ari's (yes, I'm using his real name...I can't keep up with nicknames) adoption in 2012 and things changed like crazy then. The adoption tax credit was paid in one large sum the two previous years. But now the government has up to 5 years to pay you the credit. And they will only pay you each year the amount that you paid in taxes for that year.

Are you still with me...? So for us this means that this year we are getting less than 20% of the credit. That leaves us with $10,000 less than what we were hoping to have to apply for Adoption #2. Ouch.

This was hard to process. It sucks, plain and simple. But we must move forward with faith. We will simply be saving, fundraising, and applying for grants like there's no tomorrow.

So our first fundraiser...the puzzle fundraiser! This is a picture of the puzzle we will be using. It's called African Landscape.

We did this with Ari's adoption and loved it so much. The idea is simple...we have a 1,000 piece puzzle. We are "selling" the pieces for $10 each. When you buy a piece we will write your name on the back of it and add it to the puzzle. Once it is completed, the puzzle will be framed in a double sided frame and hung in our child's room so they can see the names of all the people that helped bring them home.

Now, how to donate: The best way is to give us check or cash in person or mail it to us. However, if that's not possible, there is a "Donate" button on the right side of this blog that allows you to give us money through PayPal. And no, you don't have to have a PayPal account to use it. PayPal does take a percentage of all donations, so that's why it's not the preferred method. But if you're willing to donate, we're willing to accept it anyway that works for you.

Thank you for being a part of our story!

Here We Go Again

First of all, I'm the worst blogger ever. It's very easy to blog all throughout the adoption process. There always seems to be a lot to talk about then. But once the process is over it's not so easy to write a blog post on teething, toddler eating habits, walks around the neighborhood, or other random day-to-day activities. And I don't think that would be too interesting to read either.

But here I am writing another blog post. If our day-to-day life isn't interesting enough to talk about, that can only mean one thing. I'm here to write about adoption. And that adoption topic is...

We're officially adopting again!!

© Jenny White Photography

And yes, that is Africa you see in our picture. We have signed on with an agency to adopt from The Democratic Republic of Congo. We expect this to be a 1-2 year process from start to finish.

So, why Congo? Honestly, we feel like Congo chose us. We have always wanted to adopt from Africa, so when we started looking at this it seemed like every agency had an Ethiopia program. We kinda just thought to ourselves, "Hmm, okay. I guess we'll go with Ethiopia." But the more I looked into I realized that adoptions from Ethiopia are now taking an approximate of three, maybe more, years to complete. We knew we didn't want to wait that long.

All I know that happened after that is that I spent several hours every night for about two weeks researching adoptions from Africa. I truly have no clue how it began, but through a few things adding up and talking to a few connections I made, we discovered Congo. After looking into some of the facts of this country I simply couldn't turn away. I then spent a few more nights simply weeping over this country and the children in it. (And making the hubs stay up very late watching documentaries about this place. You can see some of those here and here.) Congo found us, nestled its way into our hearts, and would not let go. And I'm so happy for that.

So for those that want to know specifics, here are some of the facts that I could not close my eyes to...

• There are 5 million orphans living in Congo alone.
• 20% of children do not live past the age of 5.
• Half the population does not have access to clean drinking water.
• War and conflict have led to the death of 5.4 million people since 1998. It is the deadliest war since World War II.
• Congo has been named as the worst place on earth to be a woman. The sexual violence and rape in Eastern Congo is described as the worst in the world.

So really, the question is, "Why not Congo?"

We have already sent in our contract and first payment to our adoption agency. We are now working on the piles of paperwork to get a home study going. This will be a lengthy process, but we are so excited to get started and take you all on the journey with us!

Officially Ours!

Little Pirate has always been our boy ever since we laid eyes on him. But last Friday, September 21st, a judge made it so in the eyes of the law. I am officially a mommy, the hubs is officially a daddy, and Little Pirate is officially stuck with us forever! ;)

It really was altogether a great experience. Our judge was really relaxed and easy going, cracking jokes the whole time. Little Pirate was way overdue for a nap and super squirmy, but still did well.

I'm just so thankful that after nearly 14 months this process is done and we are forever a family.

Ready in court and listening to the judge.

Could we be any happier??

The moment he was officially declared ours!

With our judge.

Our official family!

With all the grandparents.

With our wonderful attorney and friend.

With his wonderful Aunt Ashlee! September 21st is her birthday and now also Little Pirate's adoption day. Love that they get to share this special day together.

Finalization

Tomorrow we will be at the court house to finalize Little Pirate's adoption. What a wonderfully exciting day! We've been waiting for this for so long. It's something that should have been done when he was 6 months old and now at almost 14 months old we've finally gotten there. Excited doesn't even being to describe my feelings.

But I am, also, having some mixed emotions. Tomorrow Little Pirate will be declared my child. He will be issued a new birth certificate with my name on it stating that I gave birth to him. I know that I'm his mom no matter what, but adoption just isn't as simple as that.

There is another woman in this picture. The woman that gave birth to him and she is so important. It seems like this new birth certificate almost erases her out of the equation.

I am his mom, but she will always be his birth mom and that is so special to me. This all just reminds me so much more that it is my job to keep her memory alive in our family, to speak of her, and to make her known to Little Pirate.

Catching Up

Oh, blogging...what a love/hate relationship we have. I can never make up my mind on if I want to continue this thing or not. Do that many people even blog anymore? Does anyone particular even actually read this blog? Who knows.

All I know is today, I feel like blogging. Next Friday, September 21st, we finally have a court date to finalize Little Pirate's adoption. There's a ton of thoughts swirling around my head about this that I need to write down, so that will be coming. But for now, I'll just play a little catch up.

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Since I was last on here our little family, of course, got to celebrate Mothers Day and Fathers Day. What wonderful firsts for us! The days were simple and blissful. We just enjoyed time set aside to celebrate parenthood and our sweet little boy who made us become parents.

We also took the time on those days to speak to Little Pirate about his birth mom, B. I want her name to be a known thing around our house. She will always be a big part of us and the reason we are a family. We are so thankful for her.

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© Jenny White Photography

On June 2nd we lost this amazing man, my grandfather. He had been sick for awhile. In and out of the hospital for several years with the doctors always saying, "We think this is it this time." But he would shock them, get better, and leave the hospital. This seriously happened over and over again. What a strong man he was. But this time, it really was it. He was ready to go home.

I never want to forget the last time I was with him, so I'm writing it down here.

I got a phone call from my mom around 5:00am saying that he was unconscious, in his last few hours, and if I wanted to say goodbye I needed to come to the hospital. I immediately threw some clothes on and headed out the door. When I got there my parents, grandmother, aunt and uncle, and two cousins were already in the room. We all sat together and cried together in almost complete silence. After a little while I decided I was ready to say goodbye. I walked over to him, held his hand, and gave him a kiss on the forehead. I then whispered to him, "You deserve this. You've waited your whole life for this and you deserve to go home now. I love you."

This is a picture I took of him and his beloved bride (as he still liked to call her) in their last few moments together. He died the day after their 58th wedding anniversary. There's something very special about that to me...I know he held on long enough to honor that. In fact, the day of their anniversary he was still conscious and called my mom to make sure she had some flowers delivered to my grandmother from him. They had a love that truly inspired everyone around them.

I am so thankful that my grandfather was able to be around for the first 10 months of Little Pirate's life. It makes me so happy that they knew each other. My grandfather loved him so much and would ask me almost on a weekly basis if the adoption was finalized yet. I so wish he could be here next week when we got to the court house. But, of course, I know he will be with us no matter what.



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In June the hubs and I participated in The Color Run with my brother and sister-in-law. We had such a great time! It truly is the happiest 5K on the planet.

And then in July we all went on a family vacation together to New Mexico. As always, family vacations are crazy, so much fun, and totally exhausting. haha! We really enjoyed being with everyone for a week and taking Little Pirate on his first vacation.

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© Jenny White Photography

On August 8th my baby boy turned 1!! How is that even possible? What a great year we've had with him. It went by faster than I could have ever imagined and I know it's not slowing down at all. I just have to hold on and savor every moment.

We had a pirate birthday party with all our great friends and family. It was fun and simple. We really appreciated everyone coming out and celebrating this time with us.

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So there's my attempt at catching up a little bit. Our life really isn't that exciting, so I just don't think about blogging much. Maybe there will be more, maybe there won't. I'll just have to try and give it some time when inspiration strikes me.

Thanks for reading, if there's anyone out there! ;)

The Joy and Pain of Mother's Day

What a bittersweet holiday this is for me now. Let's be honest, it used to just be bitter. I spent three years avoiding every thought about this holiday. But now I am a mom. I finally get to be honored and thought of on this holiday. And yet, it's still a little bitter.

You see, I am still an infertile. No matter how many beautiful babies I am blessed to adopt in this life, I will always be infertile. And my heart aches on this holiday for my sisters struggling with the same issue.

I also cannot even give an ounce of thought to myself on this holiday without giving a thousand more to Little Pirate's birth mom, B.

And these thoughts simply lead me to many other mom roles that I just have to address.

To those women who have never been a mom (whether through birth, adopting, fostering...anything), but still fulfill a mother role to some... You bless so many people. I am lucky to have one of these in my life. My sweet second mom. You women are amazing and I promise, people are thankful to have you as a mom in their life.

To those women who have lost a child (in the womb or at any age)... Please don't doubt for a minute that you are a mother. Know that you and your child are remembered, thought of, and loved. I know that your babies are celebrating your name in Heaven.

To those women who are struggling with infertility... My heart aches for you this weekend. I've been there and I know the pain of just trying to make it through another holiday celebrating everything you don't have. Please know that you are a mother. It is in your heart, it is in your dreams, it is who you are.

To those women who are birth mom's... You are the epitome of the love and sacrifice that is required to be a mother. Please know that you are to be honored and remembered this weekend. Please know that you are loved and appreciated. Please, please know that you are never forgotten.

Mother's Day just isn't a simple holiday. It involves too many different roles and emotions. Please remember this as you go through the weekend. Celebrate all women as mothers and let them know that they are honored and loved.