Life Lately - an adoption update

Ladies, I cannot tell you how crazy hectic my life has been the past few weeks.  Although I am pretty sure you can tell that something has been up with my sporadic posts...(why does the word sporadic always remind me of Clueless? Gah I love that movie).  First I just want to talk about how good God is.  I am sure you have all found yourselves in times of need, struggle, and challenges and I am here to tell you that God is there and He is carrying you through these difficult times and His plan is always for the best.  It's hard often times because we aren't able to see His big picture and get so focused on what we "need" right now, and then in times of reflection we can see Him working it all out for us.  I mentioned a couple weeks ago about how God came through for us, read it here, and His timing and path continue us on this journey with so much Peace.

Anyways, lately Thomas and I have been filling out a ton of paperwork for our agency.  We had to update our profiles and autobiographies since its been a couple of years since we have gone through the process (and to include about life with a toddler now too), we also had to update/create a new portfolio, which our agency requested be done via Shutterfly now - and I posted a request for free photo book codes on a few FB pages, the people went above and beyond and offered more than 15 codes (all I needed were 6) so I was able to let those whose codes I didn't use know that they were still available.  Additionally I ordered the books via Ebates so I was also able to get some cashback!  Creating the portfolios was a lot of work and took some time, but it was so fun to relive some parts of our lives again; like our dating, engagement, early years of marriage, and now life with Ellie.  The hardest part was selecting which photos to use and then also realizing how bad we are at taking family photos or photos of just ourselves.  I am glad that I made the book on Shutterfly because now when we choose to adopt again I will just have to update certain pages and it should make the process much more streamlined!

Additionally our October has just been crazy since we have been out of town for 3 weekends in a row: first Disneyland, then Whidbey Island, and finally we were across the state this last weekend having a meeting with our Agency to finish up our HomeStudy, meet with Ellie's birthmom, and get ourselves into the Waiting Pool!!

Oh my gosh you guys!! We are finally in the Waiting Pool!! We could have a baby anytime now! So what that means to those of you who are not familiar with the Domestic Adoption Process, our Portfolio is now being shown to potential birthmom's when they are ready to choose a couple/family to adopt their child.  Every birthmom's situation is different.  Some of them decide early on in their pregnancy that they are choosing adoption and will select a couple right away, others wait until further along (or even birth-day) to select a couple to be the adoptive family.  Right now our agency has a pretty small Waiting Pool so the odds of us being selected fairly soon are much higher than the first time we adopted when the waiting pool was much larger.  

Since we are in the Waiting Pool we have kicked it into high gear to get our home ready and prepared for Baby #2!  This weekend we are going to be cleaning out our office/playroom and turning it into a nursery...although I still have to find some inspiration as for how to decorate.  It has to be somewhat gender neutral until we learn if we will be adopting a boy or a girl and then once we know I will most likely boy it up or girl it up.  I don't have much idea of the direction I want to go - but I have really been into the arrows and feathers lately so maybe I will include those somehow.   Also we need to figure out what are some of the necessities we need for number two and put together a "registry" of sorts.  I know we are going to need a new car seat and a double stroller - so if you have any suggestions I would love to hear them!

I can't believe how real this is...and we talk to Ellie about it all the time.  She says she wants a sister, but we will have to wait and see what God has planned for us.

We certainly have some exciting times on the farm right now and I am so glad that you are on this journey with us!

♥ Ashley

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