We have BIG news!
After much prayer and discernment, we have started the application process to adopt a child through Catholic Charities of Dallas' Infant Adoption program. We are excited to welcome a beautiful new life into our home!
As part of our adoption process, we have started this crowdfunding campaign to help fundraise for our adoption. We are estimating that our adoption-related costs will total around $35,000. This is why we have set a goal of $27,500 to help ease the financial burden that comes with adopting a child. (One of the things we like about Catholic Charities is that they also have programs to help mothers in crisis pregnancies. They support the mothers to try to help them keep their child, but also have the adoption program if they still feel that adoption is the best option. The money we will pay to Catholic Charities for the adoption goes to support all of these programs. We pay a flat rate for the adoption that is not tied to a particular mother and child.)
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.
Most importantly, please keep our family and all mothers in crisis pregnancies and their children in your prayers!
We have a daughter!!! We are thrilled to announce the newest addition to our family, Milianna "Millie" Rose Sutherland!
She was born in Dallas on Wednesday morning. We first found out about her on Friday night. Her birth mother did not want to choose the family. So, Catholic Charities chose a family for her, and their policy in situations like this is to choose the longest waiting family, which was us!!! Her birth mother signed paperwork to relinquish her rights on Saturday morning, and we travelled to Dallas yesterday (Sunday) to meet our new daughter! She's currently in the NICU, but the current plan is for her to be discharged tomorrow!
She is named after St. Maximilian Kolbe (she was born on his feast day, 8/14) and St. Rose of Lima. I love St. Maximilian Kolbe (or Maxie Kolbe, as John Paul calls him) and had told Brian that if we had another boy, I wanted to name him after St. Maximilian Kolbe. Brian said he didn't like either Max or Kolbe, so I was disappointed. And then, we have a baby girl born on his feast day! I was thrilled and just knew I had to find a way to name her after him! Look up his story (especially the sacrifice he made at his death) if you don't know it! She will have two powerful intercessors up in heaven!
As you can imagine, we are overjoyed and feel so blessed to bring Millie into our family! Big brother, John Paul, is thrilled and cannot wait to meet her! At the same time, with any adoption, there is a rupture / wound that is created. Please, please pray for healing for Millie's birth mother in the days, weeks, months, and years to come...and for Millie's heart as she grows older! Our most tender and merciful God can heal all wounds!
We want to thank all of you for all the love, prayers, and support you've given us throughout this process! We had such a long wait...and then a whirlwind of a conclusion to that time of waiting! But through it all, we have had such an amazing support system in all of you, and we have felt so very loved! We thank God for each and every one of you, and we will continue to pray for all of your needs and intentions!
Praise God from whom all blessings flow!
Love,
Brian, Christine, and John Paul
p.s. Can you take a moment to send Christine an email at [email protected] to let us know that you received this update? (This should be going out to everyone who donated. We want to compile a list for ourselves of all our benefactors, particularly when we are done using this website!)
Hi everyone!
I just wanted to send out a quick update to everyone who has been supporting us on our adoption journey. Incredibly, we have met our fundraising goal! Praise be to God!!! What seemed like an impossible amount of money to raise before we began turned out, in fact, to be possible! We are humbled and in awe of the love and support we have received from all of you! God is so good!
As for now, we are just waiting on the Lord and the child He has chosen for our family. Since we have been approved as adoptive parents, there have been 4 birth mothers presented to us. We have said "yes" to showing our family profile book to all of them. One (who didn't know she was pregnant and had already had her baby) chose to keep and parent her baby with the support of her parents...a win in my book! The other three mothers chose other waiting families.
So, we continue to trust in the Lord and His plan for our family as we wait! Please continue to keep us in your prayers! We promise to continue to pray for you and all of your needs and intentions!
We got exciting news yesterday! We are now officially approved as potential adoptive parents through Catholic Charities of Dallas!!!
And so, the waiting on God's timing begins! We believe that God already has chosen the child He intends to add to our family. Please pray for us as we patiently wait to meet him or her!
So what happens next?
We are now part of Catholic Charities "Waiting Families" group and must participate in at least four "Waiting Families" support group meetings throughout the year.
When the Social Worker who works with the birth mothers feels pretty confident that the mother is serious about pursuing an adoption plan for her baby (usually around the 7th month of her pregnancy), she gives this information to the Social Worker who works with the Waiting Families. She will then contact all the waiting families and tell us that there is a birth mother who is ready to be matched with a family. She will give us whatever information she has about the birth mother and her situation and then ask us if we want our Family Profile book to be shown to this particular birth mom. At that point, we make the decision "yes" or "no." If we decide "yes," then our Family Profile book gets shown to the birth mother along with the other families who said "yes." The birth mother then selects a family for her child. The two social workers will then coordinate and facilitate a Match Meeting between the birth mother and the parents that she has selected. The first Match Meeting is just for getting to know each other. If that goes well and both parties want to move forward, then a second Match Meeting occurs. At this meeting, more of the details of the adoption are addressed.
But for now, we wait and pray…for our future child and his/her mother and father…and all women who find themselves in crisis pregnancies. We invite you to join us in prayer!
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(Due to some extra expenses we didn’t originally account for and realizing that we still have more matching funds left, we raised our goal a little to help with the final payment and fully utilize the matching donations.)
More exciting news! We had our Home Study visit last Wednesday, and we passed! It was such a relief for both of us to be finished with that (and all that led up to it)!
So, basically we’re done with all the major things that we have to do to be approved as adoptive parents! What happens next? Well, our social worker has 30-60 days to write up our Home Study approval. She said she aims for closer to 30 days. During that time, we will be working on our family profile book, which is a photo album/scrapbook (think Shutterfly photobook) about our family. This is what will be shown to prospective birth mothers to introduce our family once they get to a point of choosing an adoptive family for their child. I enjoy making online photo albums, so this seems like fun compared to everything else we’ve had to do to get to this point! Once we’re approved (sometime in mid-November to mid-December), then the waiting to be chosen (the waiting on God’s timing) begins. We know a family that got chosen the day their Home Study was approved and families that have waited a year or two…and everything in between. They won’t give us a timeline (understandably), but based on things they have said, it does sound like most families working with Catholic Charities of Dallas get chosen within a year or so.
And so, we wait and pray! Thank you for walking this journey with us! Thank you for supporting us financially and, more importantly, with your prayers! As we started this journey, it seemed like an impossible amount to raise. And yet, here we are, so close to our goal! We are genuinely overwhelmed by all the love and support! God is so good!
We continue to place all of this in His merciful and loving hands!
Incredible news! We now have a matching donor! Brian’s company, Webbula, has generously offered to match donations up to $10,000. We are grateful beyond words!
In other news, we are now getting really close to being approved as adoptive parents! We've checked all the boxes on the two page application checklist, and we have attended the two day Training Seminar in Dallas. (Shout out to Nana & Pops for watching John Paul for us!) We’ve completed the first part of the two part Home Study, which was an in-person interview in their Dallas office. AND we have the actual home visit part of our Home Study scheduled for October 12th! Our social worker will come to our house to check to make sure it is safe for a child. You would think that we would be ready for that, as we have a small child, but there are things that we did not already have in place (lock boxes for all medications, liquor up high and locked up, 5lb fire extinguishers on both floors, written out fire evacuation plan, etc). Plus, there's just a lot of re-organization of things that we are working on in preparation for this!
Once the home visit is completed (and we pass!), then we wait for the report to be written up, which could take up to a month. We're hopeful that all this can happen and we can be approved by early November!
In the meantime, we are working on completing the last of the online training sessions that are required and finishing up the pre-home study questionnaire. It is pretty all-encompassing. It includes questions about our childhood/how we were raised/disciplined, parents' relationships, previous relationships, our dating relationship, our marriage, views on parenting/discipline, information about our neighborhood, etc. Basically, they just want to REALLY get to know everything about us!
So many hoops to jump through, but we're jumping away!
Matched by Webbula
Matched by Webbula
Matched by Webbula
Matched by Webbula
Matched by Webbula
Matched by Webbula
Matched by Webbula
Matched by Webbula
Matched by Webbula
