We have BIG news.
We're adopting a child!
After several years of infertility and many, many tests, we learned what we had been suspecting for a while: we are unable to have biological children. As we wrestled with this devastating news, we continued to pray and seek the Lord's guidance for our next steps. We feel strongly that the Lord is calling us to grow our family through adoption, and are so excited to be walking through this process.
As part of our adoption process, we started this fundraising page. Adoption costs in the state of Ohio are just under $25,000 for an in-state adoption. Thanks to the generosity of so many friends and family, we have reached our fundraising goal of $20,000. This money goes directly to our agency to cover adoption expenses. We are so thankful to everyone who has prayed for us and supported us in our journey.
We hope that by inviting you into this process, you will see yourself as part of the community we hope to build around our child as he/she grows up. Please pray for us as we continue on this journey, for the child we will eventually be matched with, and for all birth mothers considering adoption.
Thank you so much for your prayers and support.
~Daniel and Kristin
Hello all,
Dan and I just wanted to share a brief update on our adoption process. Since our last update, our home study was approved and our adoptive parent profile (which birthmothers will get to see when choosing adoptive families) has been completed. We are now just waiting to be matched!
This has been a lengthy process, and it is still not over. We have no idea how long it will be before we are matched. It feels like we have already been waiting for so long. However, a friend recently reminded us of an important and hopeful truth. We are now entering into the Advent season. It's a season of hopeful anticipation, celebrating how the world waited for the birth of the Messiah. Joseph and Mary waited hopefully for the birth of their Son. And years after His birth, life, death, and resurrection, we patiently and hopefully wait for the time when He will return and restore us to a world without sin and death.
Our lives are filled with waiting. Waiting is not a bad thing. While we wait, we are praying for our child and their birthmother. We are praying for all birthparents considering adoption. We are praying for those choosing to parent, and those choosing not to. We are praying for the Lord to draw us closer to Him in the waiting. We appreciate your prayers and encouragement while we do so.
Love,
Daniel and Kristin ❤
Daniel and I are shocked and overjoyed--as of this weekend, we have reached our fundraising goal! As all of this has unfolded I (Kristin) have been out of town visiting family, so it still hasn't quite sunk in yet. We're fully funded!!
Our friends, the Watsons, hosted a lemonade stand over the weekend to raise money for our adoption. Due to the generosity of so many people, the lemonade stand raised just over $2,700! Other friends who could not attend the lemonade stand, but wanted to contribute, also gave on this fundraising page--and the combination of the lemonade stand and these donations pushed us over our fundraising goal. We are praising God for the provision!
Friends and family, please know that we are so, so thankful for all of the support we have been given throughout this whole adoption process. We appreciate all of the prayers, kind words, encouragement, and contributions to this page. Please know how much we love and appreciate you, and cannot wait for you to be part of our child's life! We know they will have the most wonderful village surrounding them.
So what happens next?
We are at the end of our paperwork! We have one more home visit with our social worker and then she will write our homestudy, compiling everything that's been gathered throughout this process. This takes a few weeks. Once the homestudy is written and complete, we will be able to apply to birthmother situations. There's no exact time frame for matching--it could take months, or even longer. We are prepared to wait, and thanks to the generosity of our family and friends we are financially prepared to move forward when the time comes.
Please continue to pray for us as we move forward in this process, as well as for birth parents choosing adoption. And of course, for the birth mother and child we will eventually be matched with. We cannot wait to meet them. ❤
Love,
Kristin and Daniel
Hi friends!
Thank you so much for your continued support for our adoption, both through giving and through your prayers. We appreciate it so much. Because of your generosity we are only $6,000 away from our fundraising goal! Here's an update on how things are going so far:
We had our first home visit! We met with our social worker, who is a lovely person who walked us through what the rest of the homestudy process will look like. We still have more paperwork (yes, really) and two more home visits before our homestudy is complete. We are hoping that will be at the end of the summer before the school year starts. Our social worker said that is a very reasonable hope!
Once our homestudy is approved, we will be eligible to apply for grants to cover the remainder of our fees. We will also be eligible to apply for matches! So the approval of our homestudy marks the start of waiting to be matched. In order to be matched, we will need to have all of our funds ready to go. We feel confident that the Lord will provide everything we need to bring future Baby O'Brien home. :)
Today, the day before Father's Day, is Birth Father's Day. Will you take a moment to pray for Birth Fathers, who also make a sacrifice when children are placed for adoption? For men who find Father's Day weekend to be a time of pain? For men who desire to parent their children? For men who desire to support their child's Birth Mother? And men who don't desire to parent at all?
We continue to pray for our child's birth parents and for all parents walking the road of adoption, and ask that you continue to do the same.
Thank you again for all of your love and support! We love you all and are so grateful all of you are walking through this process with us.
~Daniel and Kristin
Thank you so much to everyone who has supported our adoption, through prayers, encouragement, or even donations to our fundraiser. We are so humbled by all of the support we have received so far. We are almost halfway to our goal! Because it's Mother's Day weekend, we thought we'd take the time to give an update on our adoption, answer a few questions we get frequently, and reflect a little on the holiday.
Q: How is it going? Are you still working on paperwork?
A: Yes! We're in the homestudy process right now. It's a LOT of paperwork. We have our first home visit with our social worker in a few weeks, and are working on completing paperwork for our homestudy as well as completing required training.
Q: Are you matched yet?
A: Nope! We aren't eligible to be matched with a birth mother until our homestudy is approved. We are hoping to have our homestudy done by fall--it's dependent on how quickly we can get our training and all our paperwork completed, but we've been told it can take several months.
Q: When do you need to have all of your money raised? Is it too late to donate?
A: When we get matched! So we don't have a firm end date to our fundraising...we don't need to be fully funded until we are matched, but we can't be matched unless we have the funds. It's not too late to donate, and we understand that right now may not be a good time for some to contribute. That's okay! We are so appreciative of everyone who has contributed to our adoption, and so grateful for all of the support and prayers. Please know that we understand that not everyone will feel comfortable donating to our fundraiser, and we are just so happy to receive your prayers and encouragement!
Q: Where are you adopting from?
A: The United States! We are doing a domestic newborn adoption, which means we will be matched with a birth mother making an adoption plan in the United States. However, because out of state adoptions can cost twice as much as in state, we will most likely adopt from Ohio. We are fundraising for the cost of an in state adoption.
A few weeks ago, the last week of April was Infertility Awareness Week. For those that aren't aware, infertility is one of the reasons we are pursuing adoption. We are unable to have biological children. It was around this time last year that reality started to really sink in. We are so grateful for our friends and family that have walked with us in a season of life that has been painful in many ways. 1 in 8 couples will experience infertility. To our friends who may be walking through that right now and feel that loneliness and grief...you are not alone. We see you, and we love you, and we know how you feel.
Today, the day before Mother's Day, is Birth Mother's Day. This day is meant to recognize and appreciate women who choose to place their child for adoption. Until we started our adoption journey, I never realized that there was a day for that. It makes me heartsick to realize how much we lift up families going through the adoption process, but neglect to lift up the women on the other side of it. Today, I am praying for all of the women who choose the difficult path of adoption, and specifically for the birth mother we will eventually be matched with.
Tomorrow is Mother's Day. One of the questions on our homestudy paperwork asks about parenting style and techniques. Honestly, when Daniel and I think about what good parenting looks like, is it too cheesy on Mother's Day to say that our mothers showed us how it's done? We have so many wonderful examples of parenthood in our mothers, grandmothers, aunts, and friends...we are so grateful for the support and example of our parents have shown us. It might be cheesy, but that doesn't make it less true. We love you so, so much. ❤
If you've made it this far, would you please pray?
For our homestudy process and upcoming home visit.
For birth mothers who made or are making adoption plans.
For those who experience grief on Mother's Day.
and for mothers. ❤
