Slowly By Slowly-Negrete Adoption

Yes, we chose this.  Yes, we were told starting out how long this process would be. Yes, we knew we would still be a family of 2 for Christmas this year. But, empty arms are still empty arms. I wasn't told how bad I would ache. I wouldn't know looking at our beautiful tree how much would feel missing this year. Two ornaments hang in anticipation of a little to know they were thought about long before we had a face and a name. We don't know him...her...them? but we wait with heavy expectation for the Christmas when they delight in the lights, songs, food, family and friends and ultimately in Jesus. Advent has had a deeper meaning this year. I understand the ache and the anticipation just a little clearer. The excitement of the celebration is fogged a bit with the "not yet." I've found myself prayerfully whispering, "Come, Lord Jesus, Come" and simultaneously "Bring them home, Lord Jesus, Soon." I ache with the groaning world for our s...

Huh? Spring break....yeah we know it's a ways away but we have been planning our spring break since October!! Let me back up a bit, we have an amazing orphan ministry at our church, it's actually the reason we switched churches a little over a year ago. We knew we were going to need support and wanted our child to grow up and be celebrated in their adoption both legally and in Christ.  Project Hope  has become our family, they've rallied arounds us and we've been able to rally around families and individuals who are passionate about caring for orphans both locally and globally. A while back the leadership of Project Hope began dreaming of how to globally care for orphans well other than just through international adoption. One of the venues they began investigating was how to empower local churches abroad to care for their orphans well, to teach on the importance of permanence to families who had taken in children and how the gospel is the center of all of this. Mos...

Another check on the checklist, another task marked off!! We submitted our I-600A less than 3 weeks ago. We were told to expect up to a 2 month wait for our biometrics (fingerprint) appointment. I prayed and prayed we would receive our appointment date by the end of this week. I came home Monday to 4 letters from USCIS with our appointment date set for noon on December 12. It was such a direct answer to prayer, exceeding our request for an already speedy process! Silly government people who assign random times during normal working hours. We both couldn't do it but we've heard from numerous other families that they will often take walk ins. So today, I left school early and we rushed over to the office...we got a little lost on the way, stupid iphone lead us to the completely wrong place! When we arrived we were told we had to speak with the immigration officer to see if he would allow us to walk in. Thankfully we saw the nicest immigration officer there is and he did...

Before we tell you how God provided in amazing financial ways, we first want to give you clarity on all the behind the scene miracles that made this possible. I had a magic number of wanting 100 items for the auction. I almost gave in and thought 50 is enough, I can settle. Then 75 is great God can use that but something kept moving me forward, kept encouraging me to email more and more people. Boy am I glad I did! We were blown away by having over 100 items donated by family, friends and strangers...135 to be exact! If you are an adopting family, we hope the numbers encourage you to press on. It's a long, time-consuming endeavor but the blessing is far greater than just the monetary blessing. We met many amazing people who wanted to walk this road with us and met many amazing adoptive families. Some of our greatest joy came from connecting with other families who were banding together to bring kids home! First: The Numbers (Ironically I'm not a numbers person, I hate ma...

We mailed in our I-600A yesterday!! In short, the I-600 A is a precursor to classify an orphan as an immediate relative. Our form will be sent to the US Embassy in Kampala to allow for Advance Processing once we adopt. While it doesn't mean much now, it does mean that we've finally taken the next step past our unending home study.  We still have not completely resolved the home study issues but the copy we had was able to be submitted!  We will now wait for our petition to be accepted by the USCIS, we will then be given a biometrics appointment. Once those have cleared, we will officially be on the wait list!!

With Christmas right around the corner, we would love to encourage you to support small business while supporting our adoption!! Erin at Meadowbelle Market has offered to give us some of her proceeds for every purchase. She's extended two options for you the buyer!! 1. You can receive 10% off of your purchase and we will receive 40% of the proceeds. Use the coupon code NEGRETEADOPTION or 2. You can purchase at full price and we will receive 50% of the proceeds. Write NEGRETEADOPTION in the comments section. Here are a few of the amazing items in her shop!!

Oh my gosh, it's time!! I'm so excited, nervous and freaking out just a bit! Our auction starts tomorrow and there are so many amazing items. I'm so excited to see what everyone gets! We've changed the auction a bit after talking with other families who have had auctions and extended the time because next week is crazy for me: Join the page to be able to bid:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/1435369746717958/ Leave your name, bid and tag the last person so they know they've been outbid :) Auction begins TOMORROW!! Friday, November 7th at 10 AM PST and closes Sunday, November 16 at 9 PM PST. Once I've posted the winner bidding is officially closed! We will contact you through Facebook to notify you on how to pay. A $3.00 shipping charge will be added per participant, not per item! Happy Bidding!!

So after a few weeks of silence we finally have exciting news to announce!!  Our home study is complete!! Seeing the word "done" on that paper made a wave of peace pass over me. We've strived and longed for this day, this email, this news!!  If you recall, our last visit was August 26th. You see there has been such a long silence because our home study agency made two more mistakes (for a total of 6) on our home study which we had to revise before it would be accepted by our placing agency, the one person who can sign off also took a vacation in the middle of it causing further delay. But finally, the day has arrived and we are so excited to move forward onto the next step which unfortunately involves  A LOT of waiting. But we are one major step closer to our referral!!

We hope you liked what you saw in the sneak peak! There are 43 items on the page now and we will continue posting until the beginning of the auction. If you check out the  Our Ugandan Adoption  Page, you will see we have paid all our home study fee. We now have our final fees to our placing agency, travel fees and after adoption fees to raise. In total we are expecting about another $23,630 in expenses to complete the adoption! So here's how it works! Get on Facebook and head on over our Facebook Auction From there you can request to join the group! You can browse through the items but you CAN'T bid until the auction officially opens on November 7th at 7AM PST and closes November 11, 2014 at 10 AM PST. Please share this link with family and friends, post it on Facebook, Instagram, any kind of social media! (https://www.facebook.com/groups/1435369746717958/) The most important thing you can do in the next 33 days is get as many people into the group as possible. The s...

Many people have rallied around us and gifted us amazing items to auction off!! We are working on the Facebook page and will post the link here sometime this weekend! If you make things, are crafty, artistic...own a business and would be willing to donate your services...have cool items others may love and you're wanting a way to support our adoption we would love to add even more items! It will begin November 7th and end November 11 at 10 AM PST. Here is a sneak peak of just a few items that be in our auction!!

We promise to remain transparent in our adoption including the good the bad and the ugly...today it's the ugly and vulnerable. Please see our struggling hearts as we trust God with all the adoption decisions.  Our current struggle is this sense of guilt over "choosing" a child. I've been struggling with guilt ever since our home visit. For days it consumed me, I hid it, wrestled with it and let it cloud the Truth we've been following since the beginning. I finally crawled out of my hole and asked Chris if he's feeling the same. His guilt isn't as overwhelming and frequent but he has felt it also. At our home visit we were asked what "kind" of child we were willing to adopt. Age and gender and number of kids was easy to answer but we had to go deeper. Would we accept a child with down syndrome? Missing limbs? Missing digits? Developmental or learning issues? Autism? Medical issues both large and small? HIV? We were honest in what we felt lik...

No one who adopts can care too much about destroying the rain forest because there are millions of papers to fill out/submit/copy/sign etc... From application, to Uganda manual to home study and now....GRANTS!! We are committed to a debt/loan free adoption. Our community has rallied around us and donated all but 50 pieces of the puzzle! Check that out, you can actually tell what it is and there is only a tiny pile of un-donated pieces left!! You can still be a "piece of our puzzle" by donating $10/puzzle piece (For more information click here Puzzle Fundraiser ). We are also diligently saving as much as we possibly can! But, while we wait for our home study to be written and approved, we are filling out at least a hundred more papers applying for every possible loan. Thank you Jesus for all the people/foundations/non-profits who have acknowledged the financial burden but huge blessing that adoption is. Another adoptive mama sent me her long list of adoption grants...

I would describe our home visit as uneventful! But the hours leading up to it were stressful! Aside from the craziness of cleaning, organizing, hanging pictures (thanks awesome sister Hayley for helping!) etc. the whole day today was nuts!! I went to work, my kids were unusually horrible and driving me crazy. No one would listen or focus, I thought I was going to loose my mind. Thankfully we had a dance class scheduled at the end of the day at then end of the day....until LOCKDOWN! As I picked my kids up from lunch, I noticed several circling sheriff's helicopters and many more sirens and knew it was coming. Moments later we are rushing kids into the classroom, locking doors, turning off the lights and staying quiet. I watched as the minutes crept by and realized the helicopters were still circling after more than an hour. Just before our normal dismissal time, the police allowed us out of lockdown to get kids home to their parents (all the while not knowing if the situation ...

Well it only took 4 days but all my teaching stuff has been moved to my new classroom!! My amazing master teacher gave me all her books/ materials when she retired after I student taught. We have been storing these for years and praying they would one day be used. 6th Grade just wasn't the place for all those "little kid books." But now there are little kids who are loving those books and we have empty closets!! The baby room is screaming to be filled with kid stuff...and kids!!!! (Don't tell Chris) My first week of teaching is almost over and it's been wonderfully exhausting. Boy oh boy can 8 year olds talk. They don't need any kind of an audience to have a full conversation. Everything is made into a toy. And, maybe I'm ignorant, but do all 8 year old boys put EVERYTHING in their mouth? Paper, tape, erasers, paper clips...literally anything! I bet I said 100 times today "spit out whatever is in your mouth." I don't even ask any...

Remember a few posts back..."What a Difference a Year Makes." Well that's all still great and true but today has blown me away. It is awesome to serve a God who works on long and short schedules...like really short...less than 6 hours short! I've been struggling a lot the last few weeks with being unemployed. I want to trust that I am not defined by my job but when my job is my passion and uses my gifts it's hard to separate. Yesterday and today I couldn't shake the "God what are you doing? Are you going to provide me a job? Are you listening to my pleading, do you hear my desperation?"  I was offered a position earlier this week that only paid $10 an hour and was basically babysitting and I've questioned God, "am I meant to take a low paying, boring (for me) job? Are you asking me to depend on you more and more financially??" Neither Chris or I felt peace accepting this job so I turned it down but I've second guessed whehter it w...

This post may be super boring for you but I searched and searched for information on what social workers ask during the home study process. My hope is this alleviates some fear and stress over "preparing" for the interviews. Today I had my individual interview for our home study. Both Chris and I were supposed to be interrogated interviewed but he had to work instead so we can go to a wedding on Saturday. He will make his up on the 26th or 28th and he'll do it on the same day as our home inspection part!! That means we should be wrapping this whole thing up by the end of the month!! After that, our work is done and our social workers will be writing our home study. So a quick recap of my interview. She asked: About my relationship with all family members and how they feel about our adoption.  About my parent's marriage and how I perceived it.  About my parents/siblings occupations, where they lived, how old they are, where I am in birth order, their temperament...

We got an email yesterday to schedule our initial intake interview. I immediately emailed back and asked if we could do it this afternoon and she said yes!! We met for about half an hour and she asked generic questions...why do you want to adopt? Why Uganda? How do your families feel about the adoption? She asked about our relationship, how we met, our dating period and engagement and general marriage. It was pretty easy and painless. I was nervous going into it but it was way easier than I had expected. Tomorrow we'll schedule our individual interviews that can be up to 2 hours long and then she'll come out to our house and check out the physical environment. After that, she'll write our home study!! This is really happening and now I'll be freaking out about the individual interview and if my knives are high enough, the fire extinguisher is in the right place and all the harmful chemicals are properly contained!

A year ago this weekend  we took a few days and went to a quaint bed and breakfast ( The Keating House ) in San Diego. It was a sweet weekend to be together, explore the city, celebrate my birthday and slow down. Hours were spent walking on the boardwalk, at a Padres game, walking thorough Balboa Park. We spent a lot of our weekend intentionally talking about our future. We spend time praying and reading the Word and talking some more. At the end of the weekend we felt God leading us to begin two major life changing ventures...Chris would apply for Nurse Practitioner programs and we would start an adoption before trying for biological kids. We both felt God pushing us to trust Him in two major changes and trust His plan for our family. I immediately started pursuing adoption agencies and talking with dozens of families who had adopted. I researched Ugandan laws, the current feelings toward international adoption and attachment theories. We switched churches and found on...

We turned in all our paperwork for our home study on our anniversary last Monday!! We are now waiting to hear from our social worker for our interviews!! I'll update when we know more. When we are finished with our interviews, we will have our last payment to our home study agency. We still have 64 more puzzle pieces left...a fully "donated" puzzle= a fully funded home study. We would love to have names fill each piece before that last big check is sent off. I'm praying we can finish our interviews before school starts back up. If you would like to "donate" a puzzle piece, click on the donate button on the left, each piece is $10 and you can donate as many as you would like. In the comments section at checkout you can let us know what names you would like on the back. In other news............ Tuesday we had a call from our placing agency. We talked for about 45 minutes about what the reform may look like and what it means for our adoption. Basically, we...

Happy Anniversary to my best friend! I wouldn't want to do this crazy life or an adoption with anyone else!! Standing beneath that tree 2 years ago we promised to walk hand in hand together. Some days that is easier than others. Some days we're knocked to our knees before God...some days we rest together and other days we dream and run together! Marriage is such a unique blessing. This has been a year of taking risks...I hate risk...Chris love risk. In the past year, Chris applied for NP school meaning 2 years of intense school, we started an adoption that we cannot afford, I chose to stand firm on convictions knowing it may cost me my job, we moved to a bigger/more expensive house without having a new job so we can have room for baby. Some days I freak out not knowing how everything will work out and Chris sweetly reminds me "God brought us this far, I'm confident He has a way to provide"  It's so comforting to have a husband who helps me to trust God i...