About time!

Well its about time I posted an update! I've been waiting for something big to happen, like our homestudy being done and approved, but its taking a bit longer than expected, so I thought I would go ahead and write a little update anyways. Our homestudy is very close to being done, however (I'm hoping by the end of the week!)

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the adoption process (as I was prior to this experience) our homestudy (I'm sure it varies by agency)was 3 in-depth meetings with our social worker in our home. Each was around 2-3 hours in length and one of them was interviewing Todd and I separately. She asks us all sorts of questions about ourselves, our families, our upbringing, our relationships with others, our friends, our jobs, church, our marriage, our parenting and kids, etc. She also took a tour of our home to make sure that it was safe for a child to live in. :) Overall we had a really good experience with each interview and I would say it gave us a good time to reflect on some things as well.

Our social worker then writes all of this up which takes a couple weeks, and we also have a bunch of paperwork that has to be submitted with the homestudy, in addition to 10 hours of training each. So hopefully by the end of the week this will be complete, and we'll go to move onto the next step (more paperwork!). :)
We did decide on officially preferencing either gender. We debated about preferencing a girl actually, as we did worry a bit about how close in age this child would be to Easton, and that it might be better if they were opposite genders to eliminate some possible competition between the two. That, and b/c Avery continues to say that she is going to get a new sister. :) But ultimately neither Todd nor I felt like it was what we were supposed to do, so we are leaving it at either gender, and we also preferenced 0-12 months at time of referral. This will hopefully keep at least a year of age between Easton and this child, which we really preferred so they won't be in the same class in school and hopefully eliminate some of the issues that may arise. Ultimately we know we need to give it to the Lord and trust Him with the make-up of our family.

For those of you who have tried our coffee, I want to THANK-YOU so much and I hope you have loved it as much as we have! This coffee fundraiser will continue through our entire adoption journey, so please continue to use it if you feel led, and share the link with others! We currently are drinking the "Valentine's Blend" and it is wonderful!
https://justlovecoffee.com/about/beneficiary/rowenhorstfamilyadoption/

We are working on a couple other fundraisers as well, so stay posted on those - I will have more information soon, but want to finalize a few things before I post on them, but I am excited about both!

I have been really amazed at the emotional rollercoaster this journey has been for me already. I didn't honestly think that I would get this way already, but it has been hard for me actually. I already feel an emotional attachment to this child, and even though my life would be completely nuts if we were to get another child this very moment, I want this child home. I know that's hard to understand, I thought the same thing about my dear friend who adopted in the past year - but its like being pregnant. You begin to form an attachment to this child growing inside of you - you dream about what he will look like and you make preparations for him to arrive. There are many days of course when life is obviously busy and I don't spend much time thinking about it, but then there are days when I just think of these children and my heart just hurts so badly and I want him/her home with me so that I can love on them, feed them, hug and kiss them, etc. I can't wait for that time to come!!

The financial aspect of it has been another journey, but God has been good and provided what we needed so far each step of the way. He has brought me to a place where I do trust Him to provide every penny for this adoption and I can say that with complete honesty. Though worldly wisdom continues to tell me that this isn't wise and isn't what we should be doing - certainly we should be investing in our future, getting money saved for retirement, even finishing paying off our student loan debt as quickly as possible. Those were my goals - that is what we had planned to do with our money over the next couple years. So there are days when I have this internal battle going on between my worldly wisdom and what God has called us to do - its very hard when you're a planner and you envisioned everything going a certain way. :) But do I really think that God is going to leave us out in the cold when we're 70 b/c we didn't put this money aside for ourselves right now at the age of 28? It sounds so silly even while I'm writing it - "putting this money aside for ourselves" vs. using it for this adoption.

This past week I read this in Crazy Love - (Ch. 7)

"This place of trust isn't a comfortable place to be; in fact, it flies in the face of everything we've been taught about proper planning. We like finding refuge in what we already have rather than in what we hope God will provide...God wants us to trust Him with abandon. He wants to show us how He works and cares for us. He wants to be our refuge."

"But God doesn't call us to be comfortable. He calls us to trust Him so completely that we are unafraid to put ourselves in situations where we are in trouble if He doesn't come through."

Well, I don't know if I've completely come to the point where I am "unafraid" but this is my prayer - that I will trust Him with abandon.

I am humbled to be on this journey, and I pray that God will use this experience to bring Himself glory, despite me!

Blessings to you all,

Tanya