Friday, October 30, 2009

Kim's Letter

Hello,


We cannot imagine how difficult this situation must be for you. You are very courageous to consider making an adoption plan for your child. We admire your love and your courage as you think about what will be best for your baby. Thank you for taking the time to learn about us and our dream of sharing our love and our life with a child.


We are Johnny and Kim from a small town in Middle Tennessee. We love children and we are so excited to become parents! We have been married for nealy 3 years and found out some time ago that God was leading us down a different path to parenthood. There are many ways to build a family, and we are joyfully looking forward to buidling our famly though adoption! As parents, we will surround our child with love and encouragement. We will share our values of religion, family, respect for others, honesty, education, happiness, and love. Our most heartfelt dream is to share our love and life with a child.


We met at the ballfield watching our nieces play softball and have never looked back. We have a strong marriage that is built on love, trust, respect, and support. We are best friends. We are always there for each other. Our marriage is filled with love, laughter, and lots of I love you's.

We are both blessed to have loving and supportive families. Family is so important to us, and we are grateful fo all the love, joy, and support from our families. Our families are so excited about our decision to adopt, and they are all happily waiting to welcome a new little one into the family! The gift of adoption has already blessed our families. Johnny's sister has an adopted daughter and son. Kim has a cousin who has an adopted daughter. Being with family and enjoying family traditions mean so much to us, and we are so excited to share these tradition - and to create new ones - with our child! Kim's family gets together for all holidays and celebrates everyone's birthday.

We are both raised in Christian homes, and our faith is a very important part of our life. It sets the foundation for all our values. Our faith guides us in our life, and brings us joy, comfort, and strength. God has blessed us greatly in our lives, and we dream of sharing this faith with our child.

Johnny is my best friend and is another son to my parents. He is a firefighter for the city we live in and also a volunteer firefighter in our community. He loves going to the schools and talking to the kids about fire safety and showing them the trucks and gear. He also does this for anyone that comes up to the firehall. He loves to be outdoors and enjoys playing the guitar. He is a leader by his humble manner and thinking about others first. He loves spending time with our nieces and nephews and he will be a wonderful father! By the time Johnny was 21 he had lost both his parents and since all the other siblings had already moved out he had guardianship of his younger sister who was 14. He put his life on hold for the next 5 years and worked to make sure she had everything. He truly looks out for everyone and is a very special person!

Adoption is a special gift between birthparents, adoptive parents, and a precious child. Our child will know his or her adoption story. Our child will know that your decision to make an adoption plan was made out of love. Together, we can figure out a level of openness that is comfortable for all of us. Most of all, we want to respect your wishes and your feelings. If we are blessed to be chosen by you, we will be forever grateful to you for giving us the gift of family. You will always hold a special and loving place in our hearts and our lives.

Thank you for reading our letter and learning about us and our dream of sharing our love and our life with a child. We admire your love and your courage as you think about what will be best for your baby. Our thoughts and prayers are with you. We wish you peace and comfort in your decision.

God bless you,

Kim

Johnny's Letter



Hello, our names are Johnny and Kim. First of all, we would like to say it is respect and admiration we have for your decision to consider adoption. It is with the utmost of love and care for your baby that brings you here. Thank you so much for taking the time to learn about us.

We are a loving couple from Middle Tennesee. At this time, we have been married for close to 3 years. We found out some time ago we could not have children of our own. We soon realized that God held much bigger plans for us then that. He led us down the road to adpotion, and we believe that is where He truly wants us to be. Love, respect, encouragement and learning are just a few of the things we would love to share with our child. We each have lots of family that will be there to love and support our child.

My wife and family are pretty big into sports. She grew up playing softball and basketball in school, rec leagues, and church league. There's nothing she likes better then going to the ballpark to watch our nieces play softball. She also coaches and umpires some games now and then, too. It's not just a love of sports. It's her love of being around children, helping them to learn and grow. She has a great sense of humor and a real knack for teaching them, too. She spent many years teaching Sunday school classes in church where we attend. She is very family oriented and holds very close relationships with her sister, brother, parents, nieces, and nephews. She is my best friend and how my life existed before her I'll never know.

Though we are both working parents, we will have lots of time for our baby. As a firefighter, I work 24-hour shifts. But that also means I am always home for the 48-hours I am off. Grandparents are close by to help as well as aunts and uncles, too. I believe our families are as excited as we are to welcome our new baby home. Our next-door neighbor sais she was going to retire from work just so she could babysit anytime we wanted her to.

So, it is with great love and value for family and living in Christ that we bring ourselves into this blessing of adoption. We are honored and thank you for considering us in your adoption plan. Whatever decision you make, we offer up our love, support, and best wishes to you. We would consider it a true blessing if you were to choose us, and we will pray that the Lord will just work His will in all our lives.

Thank you and God bless you,

Johnny

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Home Study

We got an email Tuesday afternoon at about 3:00 pm. and WE ARE HOME STUDY APPROVED. So as of 10/27/09 we are officialy a "waiting" family. That made my whole day and I call Johnny before I told anyone. I am so excited to finally be to this point. I know that it can be a long wait but I am going to make the most of the time to be with Johnny and family and make more memories with them. Two of our nieces have already been agruing over who gets to come over and help.

Friday, October 16, 2009

I emailed our case worker the other day because everyone is asking when she will have our home study written up, approved and when we will be "waiting". She said that it takes about 5-6 hours to write up a home study and that she is working on it along with doing everything else. So it will be finished when it is finished. I am not going to stress over it. I will check with her about every 2 weeks. I know that the waiting game is part of adoption.
On the other hand, I took yesterday off and spent it with Johnny. We had a great day. We sleep late and then went hiking. It was a beautiful, sunny day and we got to marvel in God's wonderful creation. I am so thankful that God blessed me with such a wonderful, caring husband. He is the best!!!
I can tell I am going to have to work at posting but will get the hang of it.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Our journey


Here I am going to try and let everyone know about our adoption journey. Johnny and I started dating June 5, 2006 and got married November 18, 2006. We knew in the first few days of knowing each other that we would get married. We talked about everything including wanting to have children. August 2008 we found out that God had a different plan for us to have children of our own and that is through adoption. We both have family members that are adopted and have friends who have adopted so adoption has been apart of ours lives.
After much praying and talking about adoption, we know that God wants us to grow our family by adoption. A lot of research was also done on finding the agency that we felt lead to us and so in April 2009 we sent our prelimanary paper work in to Bethany Christian Services. June 12, 2009 we went to the 8 hour orientation and got a booklet of paperwork. Tons of information was covered during that time and we left there feeling overwhelmed. We started the paperwork that weekend and on Monday I called and made all the appointments that we would need, physicals, finger printing, psy evaluation, criminal background check. All of our paperwork and appointments were sent in by the end of July. In August, we started our home study interviews as a couple and individually and on Sept 29 our case work come to our house for the homestudy visit. It was not bad at all. We have a wonderful case worker. We are now waiting for the home study to be written up and approved. Then we will officailly we waiting.
This is a quick rundown and I will try to post about how things are going.