4/27

a year ago today marks the day that will had his decompression surgery.  this day is a day that forever changed our lives.  the night before will's surgery we were both nervous and anxious about where our lives were headed.  we had faith that God would protect us through will's surgery, but we did not know how long the road would be, or where it would lead.  we could never imagine we'd be where we are now.

yesterday we attended the second (final) portion of our informational seminar with Bethany.  this segment of the required classroom time focused on awareness of openness, birthmother medical conditions, birthmother drug exposure, and transracial placements.  we were glad to have the information on some of the possibilities that could be presented to us, so we can be prepared for what to expect.  every meeting with Bethany reconfirms our knowing that we are on God's path to build our family through adoption.  we feel overwhelmingly assured that God will build our family with a transracial placement.  i feel emotionally overwhelmed when i think about how perfect, how wonderful, how right this all feels.

about a half an hour of the seminar was focused on creating a profile book.  everyone was curious about what they should and should not do.  while there are some general guidelines, it really is up to the adoptive parents to choose the print company, how many pages they will include, and what the pages will contain.  creating the profile book has always been something i've been excited for, but something that has generated a great deal of anxiousness.  anyone who knows me knows that i love to take pictures (too many pictures to select from), love to have something to work on (just ask my daddy), and love a creative project.  however, feeling the importance of this task, and having the loose parameters can sometimes seem a little daunting.  however, seeing the books that the agency felt were good representations of the past adoptive families helped to ease some of my worries in knowing that my gut instincts on creating our book were on target.

friday morning we have the first of three home study meetings with our social worker.  we are eager to begin the process and excited to start this chapter of our journey.  the main focus of this meeting is completing our "service plan".  the service plan requires us to confirm our search parameters.  will and i have made copies of the plan so that we can each check off what we feel comfortable saying "yes", "no", or "will consider" to.  after we're done filling out the worksheets on our own, we can then discuss the answers we have, so that we are not swaying each other's heart - so we will know exactly what page each one of us is on.  we've struggled with this throughout the journey, feeling that God is leading us down this path and that he will bring the RIGHT baby to our family - and knowing that we are not controlling this process - which makes it hard for us to fill out this type of worksheet.  however, we know it has to happen and we've prayed to God for his guidance and strength in completing this segment of the journey.

so it is with joyful hearts that we celebrate this one year anniversary after will's surgery.  we know that God's plan for our family included us finding out about will's chiari malformation before children were part of our lives.  we know that God's plan four our family included us experiencing many medical challenges which brought us closer than we've ever been.  we know that God's plan for our family included us growing spiritually, emotionally, and together in our plans for openness throughout this adoption journey.  we know that we are more ready than ever before to become parents.