We have some BIG news!
We’re hoping to adopt a sibling group from the Phillipines! We are both excited and nervous for what this process will look like as we know it will involve lots of highs and lows. We are trusting that the Lord will equip us to face whatever lies ahead. Our hope is that we will be able to raise a portion of our adoption fees by utilizing the tax deductible site Adopt Together. We know that each of you have your own financially responsibilities and we recognize and respect that. Our heart is not to make anyone feel obligated or pressured to give in any way. We simply want to invite you to walk alongside us in this journey if it happens to work for you and your family. We believe that it is important for us to be upfront with each of you in regards to how and why we plan to fundraise for our adoption. Our adoption from the Philippines will cost us a minimum of $26,000 for one child and goes up by at least $8,000 for each additional child (not including travel costs). We are personally open to adopting a sibling group of 2-3 kids. Our application has already been approved and our contract has been signed. The next step in our process will involve us paying $7,000 by the end of March. Once we’ve sent the first payment over, we will move into the home study phase of our adoption. We want to reassure you that we as a family are going to be financially invested in this adoption as this is a choice we are making. We want you to know that we will be committing to making sound decisions and finding places in our budget to cut back on in order to cover as much of our adoption as possible. With that said, we also believe it’s important that we are able to find a balance for our three boys to continue living life and make memories with them as we wait to bring our adopted children home. Not only do we appreciate whatever financial gift you are able to give but we greatly welcome your prayers as this will be another transition for our blended family and the kids we welcome into our home. We are so incredibly thankful for the people God has placed in our lives and we hope that by inviting you into this process that you will see yourselves as a part of the community we hope to build around our children as they grow up. Thank you!
Hi Sweet Friends and Family,
It has been MONTHS since our last post and so much has happened since then. We are excited to let you know that things are moving forward :) ...finallyyyyyy.... right??? ;) It feels like it has been so long for us at least. While I was reading over these posts, I realized that while we started writing about our adoption journey in this forum over 2+ years ago, our adoption journey actually began nearly four years ago! We have officially switched gears and started working with Children's Home Society in MN in St. Paul over the past few months. We had started doing trainings with them and pursuing adoption through them, prior to switching to international adoption for a number of reasons during Covid. Thankfully, ALL our training for MN still counted and we are now DONE with our initial trainings through the state. Woohooo!!! We are so happy about this! So what is next? We just got paired up with our social worker and our first meeting will be this coming Monday, August 19th. YAY!!! We are hoping to learn more about the number of meetings/licensure process as we go but wanted to just let you know we are still here, we are still pursuing, we have just been quieter than usual as we work hard to get the "checklist" accomplished. It feels a little surreal to be back at the point of meeting with a social worker. From our international experience, that was probably the most exciting phase we experienced and we are anxiously waiting to see how this avenue unfolds for us with adoption. We have been quieter about the process as it has felt like a very uphill battle and can be very disheartening. This week, however, we are excited and looking forward to what it is to come. Thanks for patiently waiting with us, being with us in the hard and sharing in our joy as we got paired with a social worker. Your check ins, support and encouragement are so appreciated as we continue to DREAM about who this child/children may be that join(s) our family. I hope we will have more updates in the next couple of week...until then...HOLDING ON TO HOPE! Love to all!
Good evening all!
We hope you are having a good start to your weekend!
This wasn't the message we were thinking or hoping we would write when we started this journey nearly 2 years ago. Yesterday, we made the hard decision to exit our adoption agency program. While I won't go in depth of all the details leading up to today's decision, we do believe it is important to be transparent with each of you as you have invested in our adoption one way or another.
One of the first things that lead to this decision is that we applied for this sweet boy back in April of 2023. As of today, January 26, 2024 we still have not been told whether or not we have been matched. We are aware that matching takes some time, but this is coming up on nearly a year. We also know that once we are matched, we would potentially have to wait 10 months to a year to go and pick this child up. With the way the world is, international adoption in general is getting harder. We have heard this from our social worker as well as others who have adopted or tried to adopt internationally. It also is not very safe to travel to certain parts of the Philippines right now. We do not feel it is wise to make another step forward in this direction with adoption as it will cost a minimum of $20,000 without the guarantee that we will be able to bring this sweet boy home. Fred, Jackson and I have all been on the same page and while we are sad, we are all at peace with this decision.
If you have more questions, please by all means send us a text and reach out. We are more than happy to share this journey with you.
All that to say, we are not done with adoption just yet. We are speaking with our social worker and going to be looking into options next week of what we can do in the US for waiting children whether it be foster care or adoption. We are hopeful that there will be another opportunity that comes up and more doors will open. Thanks for being understanding, encouraging and gracious as we choose to continue to walk this journey. Here is to continuing to seek out a child/children that can be part of our forever family. :)
Fred and Ashley
Here we are once again :) We are once again in a season of Advent where we are anticipating all that Christmas has held and all that it has yet to hold. In case you have been wondering where our Christmas cards have been the last TWO years, I can reassure you, that someday, we will send out Christmas cards again. We were hoping that the last two holiday seasons we would be sending an official adoption announcement out along with our Christmas card, but once again, we are still waiting.
To be honest, the past couple of months have been discouraging. It seemed as if we were receiving regular updates from the Philippines and then it has been radio silence since the last video we received a couple months ago. I had two friends reach out this week and ask how we were holding up and I (Ashley) started crying both times, because honestly, I have been so incredibly discouraged. We see and know friends who have had adoption work out, and while they will admit it wasn't easy, they wouldn't trade it for anything. We also know several families who have pursued it for as long or LONGER than us, and ultimately have paused the process or stopped it completely because nothing has come of it yet. My heart aches along side of them as I always pictured my life would have several adopted kiddos in it. Please don't get me wrong, we have a BEAUTIFUL family and no adoption or another bio child would "complete" what we already have. I am beyond thankful for three boys. My point is simply that grief is a part of this process, especially when what we hoped would happen doesn't or at least hasn't yet. So for those of you in your season of Advent and waiting, here is what a dear friend reminded me of this week. Hope does NOT have anything to do with being optimistic that something will turn out the way we would like it. Hope, at least for us, is a person, it is Jesus. Hope is the one we cling to, the one we can can freely express our frustrations, disappointment and anger with. (I for one am thankful He can handle it! ;) Hope is knowing that even though this world is broken and lost, it will one day be restored. He will make all things new.
So where exactly are we today? How much longer will we wait? I reached out to our agency on Sunday night as I was in tears not knowing if/when we will hear about our sweet little boy in the Philippines. We received a response last night and while it wasn't much, it was something :)
The NACC is currently waiting on a few final documents from the home of where this sweet little boy is. Once they have received those final documents they hope to make a decision at the next Child Placement Committee meeting. :) I sent a second message back to our agency and asked them to clarify how often the committee meets. It seems to be at the end of each month but with the holidays they sometimes push it back so it may be in January.
So now, we will wait and cling to Hope. Not just hope that we will adopt this boy or that it will all turn out the way we dreamed, but we will cling to the Lord that walks with us knowing that we will keep fighting for this to be our son, until we are told otherwise. If you are in a season of waiting, maybe it has been weeks, months or years, may you rest in the arms of Hope this season. Merry Christmas sweet friends and family! We love you and thank you for walking this journey with us.
Love,
Fred, Ashley, Hayden, Gavin, Jackson and hopefully soon "R" :)
Good Morning Everyone :)
It has been awhile since we last posted and several of you have reached out over the past few weeks asking about an update. We have been a little hesitant to share "publicly" on here since we did not get matched the last time. However, the last few months have felt a lot more "hope filled" and while we are still waiting, we did receive some exciting updates from our agency and the Philippines the past couple of months.
We have received several different communications regarding the little boy that we are hoping to adopt. His records all needed to be updated over the summer as they only update the medical records every 2 to 3 years or so in the system.
All that to say, after reviewing his updates, we are still continuing to pursue this sweet little boy. :) Our agency has reminded us that they do not want to get our "hopes up" because "anything can still happen" but often when the Philippines is sending this amount of communications over and saying that they have officially started reviewing OUR case file (they used our names) that is usually a very good sign. Our agency mentioned that if there are several families interested in adopting a child/children they will say something like "we will review the interested families profiles" or they will just say something like "we will notify you when a decision has been made".
The sweetest gift that we received this past week was a video of this beautiful boy from his child caring agency. We were in tears as we watched him play basketball, dance (he gets very into it which Jacks just loves), color a picture, say his letters of the alphabet and do a relay race. My goodness hearing that little voice made this entire process far more REAL and worth it. Yes the pictures and his story are real, the medical and psych evaluation records are real, and yes it was ALWAYS worth it, but this video displayed so much of his personality and joy that paper just couldn't fully describe or express. Jackson even said "He is my brother! That is my brother." We are BEYOND excited and thankful for this small glimpse into this precious boy's life. We are hoping and waiting that he is matched with us in the next few months. Our agency said it could take a few months, but then stated that they are very hopeful it will be sooner than that. So here we are not just waiting but filled with HOPE while we wait. :) We hope our next announcement to all of you will be that we were chosen to get to love and raise this boy for the rest of his life. Thanks again for waiting with us! We greatly appreciate all the support and prayers. It means so much to us! Have a wonderful day and hopefully you will hear from us very soon!
What a beautiful HOT start to summer here in Minnesota today :) While we are in need of rain, we are thankful for warm days to be outside in nature again. The last post was back in February when we had announced our decision to keep going a little longer with our agency, (at least we were hoping to try for one more child or sibling group.) Since then, so many things have changed in our personal lives. I am sure many of you are wondering what happened to us and where we are at in the process. Thanks for hanging around long enough to receive this much overdue update! ;)
Many of you know that my sweet Grandma passed away in March while we were on a spontaneous, very last minute trip, which ultimately led to our decision to homeschool and savor every minute of our lives together as a family and with friends this side of heaven. While I never pictured myself to be a homeschooling mama, losing my Grandma made me realize that life is all about adapting, challenging ourselves, growing, and taking leaps of faith into different areas that may feel uncomfortable. I know deep down that the battle in my soul to continue down a path to build my own career could be incredibly rewarding and exciting. However, I also know that there is this longing in me to spend as much time as possible with my children. The realization that the time we get with our kiddos is so incredibly short and important was enough to make this decision. So with that, we have started on this journey and met more homeschool families and specifically, more families that have adopted AND homeschool which is encouraging as well. (Please hear me that every family must do what is BEST for THEIR family and we are excited to be able to travel to the Philippines and not have to worry about missing school WHEN that day arrives.) So, where are we at today, the start of summer....? well, we are happy to share that just over a month ago we submitted our profile for a little boy in the Philippines. While we haven't been chosen to be his forever family yet, we just received news today that our profile has been received and sent on to the boy's child caring agency. What a relief! There has been so much happening in the Philippines in regards to adoption and we have been told the process has drastically slowed down. This has been discouraging this month, but the fact that they let us know his profile is being updated (they only update files every 2 years or so) and then will let us know once they have made a decision is encouraging and a great way to officially kick of our summer as we wait. We needed this today. To know that the everything was still in motion and moving forward (whatever forward might look like for this boy and us). It could take a few months before we know anything (our agency is hopeful it will be sooner). Today however, we are just thankful that the NACC is aware that a family longs to welcome this little one into their home. Jackson looked at me at the park and said "Mom, I just know he is ours, I know it." I hope he is right. But as a wise friend said last time when we went through this process, he is ours right now, even if we can't bring him home. He is growing in our hearts and dreams and we talk about him daily as if he already belongs here. So even if another family is matched with him, today, right now we hope he knows that he already belongs in our hearts and we love him tremendously.
Thanks again to each of you that has prayed over us and these kids. Thanks for the investment of your time, energy and financial resources as we keep moving along in this process. We just started out home study update which has to be done every year to stay current. One thing is for sure, the cost, the paperwork, the updates, the waiting for adoption process is not easy, but often things that are worth it and that matter are not, so thanking God for the community (that is YOU) who has surrounded us and supported us and continues to walk this journey with us. Hopefully, the next update is an exciting one :)
