Merry Christmas, Happy New Year!

We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas day celebrating the birth of our savior. We enjoyed the company of our family, delicious food, and giving gifts.

We find ourselves eagerly awaiting the changes that the next three weeks could bring, and looking forward to having a baby in our home.

May God bless you all and give you peace and joy this holiday season!

~Stephen, Jill, and Grant

Friday

Hi Everyone,

Thanks so much for all your prayers on Friday. We had a really good meeting with the birthparents in the afternoon before the snow hit. They were very open and honest with us, and we felt confident that they understand the adoption process and are making a mature and informed decision. We are moving forward with much prayer. At this point, it looks like the baby will be born sometime between January 10-13, although it could be earlier. They have requested a direct placement, meaning that the baby will come home from the hospital and be with us in the 10 days the birthparents have to legally change their mind. This is opposed to interem care, in which the baby goes home with a foster family until the 10 days are up.

After going through what we did with Carver, we feel a mix of emotions. We are excited and hopeful, but at the same time we do struggle with fears. God is so good to remind us of his faithfulness through his word, friends, and family. Philipians 4: 6-7 says:

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

We continue to trust in God's sovereignty and his goodness.

~Stephen and Jill

Meeting

Hi Friends,

We just wanted to ask you all to please pray for us as we are going to be meeting with the birthparents tomorrow afternoon. We are excited to get to know them a little and talk with them, but we're also just a little nervous...

We know they have some questions for us about our marriage commitment, financial stability, etc. We're glad they are concerned about these things, and will answer them honestly and to the best of our abilities. However, we are also viewing this time as an opportunity for us to ask any questions we have. Since this isn't the first time we've met with a birthmother, we feel a bit more prepared than we were before, and we realize that this is a time for us as well as for them. Please pray that we will have wisdom and "be wise as serpents and innocent as doves."

As before, we want God's will in this situation, but we do hope that this adoption will go through. However, if that is not his plan, we are praying for clarity even as we go meet with the birthparents. Would you join with us in praying for this, as well as for continued financial provision? Thank you, friends! We will update again over the weekend.

~Stephen and Jill

Chosen Again!

Friends,

We really didn't expect to have this news to share again so soon, but our social worker called yesterday and said that our profile has again been chosen. We are excited, but still feel a bit sad after losing Carver and still missing him. However, we feel at peace to move forward with this adoption possibility.

This baby is also a little boy, and he will likely be born at the beginning of January, only a few weeks away! We plan to meet with the birthparents at the end of next week, as both the birthmother and birthfather are involved in this process.

Please continue to pray for us. Specifically, we have applied for a loan to cover the remaining adoption expenses, and it would be wonderful if we could know whether or not it will come through before this baby could potentially be placed with us. Also, if we do proceed with this adoption, there is an additional amount we will need to raise to compensate for some unique circumstances in the life of the birthmother.

Grant is excited about the possibility of having a brother. When we first learned that Carver would be coming home with us, he was quite upset because he said he wanted a sister. However, Grant enjoyed Carver so much that he is now convinced he wants a brother, and he prays often for one. He was infatuated with Carver's curly, soft hair, and the first thing he asked when told of this possibility was, "Will his hair be the same as Carver's was?" We will see if this little boy is the answer to his prayers and hopes :).

Thank you for your prayers and for reading our blog. It is encouraging for us to know that so many care and are lifting us up in prayer. We will update with more news when we receive it.

~Stephen and Jill

Back in the Running

Friends,

First of all, we cannot thank you enough for all the prayers and encouragement we have received over the past week. Although it has been a difficult week, God has been so gracious to us. We have had so much peace and joy in the midst of this trial, and we know that God has good things in store for us, Carver, and for his mom.

At this point, we are back in the "pot", so to speak, of families who want to adopt. Our profile will be shown to birthmothers, and we are working on getting our online profile up on Bethany's website--it should be there in the next few days. We don't know if we will get a call tomorrow, next week, or three months from now. In some ways, it is a comfortable place to be. Although we can't wait for God to bring our little one to us, we are enjoying the time we have with each other, and spending lots of time with our extended families. We also feel more prepared for a baby--all the baby things are washed, set up, and waiting. The only thing is--we don't know if we'll be getting a boy or a girl, and all we have are boy clothes. So if we get a girl, she may be a little tomboy for the first few days :)

Some of you have asked how Grant has done with having to send the baby back. At first he was understandably very sad and shed many tears. Quickly, though, he accepted the fact that the baby was not ours to keep, and he said to me, "So Mommy, we were just babysitting him?" He seemed content with my affirmative answer, and has been amazingly resilient.

We will update when we receive any new information.

~Jill and Stephen

Thanksgiving

Carver went home with his mom this morning. It was a bittersweet day for us--a little more bitter than sweet. We are sadder than we imagined we could be, but at the same time we are so grateful that we were able to take care of Carver for the week we had him, and we are happy for his mom to have him back. We have no regrets over the events of the past week and our involvement in them. He was a joy to have in our home, and we hope and pray that God will use this situation to draw his mom to himself. I'm sure the sadness we feel can't be compared with what she felt when giving him up.

I (Jill) am not usually an overly emotional person and don't cry often. However, I am finding that I can barely stop crying since yesterday. I have found great comfort in Psalm 56:8 which says "You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book?" I know that God sees and cares, and in the midst of my sadness I have great hope and much comfort.

In preparing for adoption, we went through training, read books, and talked about the importance of guarding our hearts until any potential adoption was finalized. We have learned much by actually walking through this process, and God has been so gracious to us. When we first learned that Carver's mom chose us to adopt him, there was much uncertainty as to whether or not she would go through with it. God helped us to guard our hearts, and there was really not much of an emotional struggle. After Carver came home with us, however, we found that we had to open ourselves to him on a deeper level to really care for him. Even though we knew the adoption could still fall through, every day we had him brought us more hope that he would stay, and we loved him like he was our own. We are not sorry that we did this, and though we are experiencing much sadness now, there is much joy and hope in the midst of it.

We know that God does all things well, and we know his plans are perfect. Thank you all so much for praying for us and encouraging us. It means more to us than you can imagine. We hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving tomorrow. We will be spending it with our families and giving thanks to God, "who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?" (Romans 8:32).

~Jill and Stephen

Goodbye

Friends,

We just received a call from our social worker. The birthmom has changed her mind, and Carver will be going back to her tomorrow morning. As you can imagine, we are very sad and disappointed. We were so hoping that that the adoption would go through, and Carver would be staying with us. However, in our sadness, we have hope that God has a plan, and somehow this is all a part of it even if we don't see it right now.

Yesterday, I (Jill) was praying for the birthmom, knowing that she was having a really difficult time. God brought this verse to my mind: "The Lord is near to the brokenhearted, he saves the crushed in spirit." As I prayed this verse for the birthmom, little did I know that I would find such comfort in these same words today. The rest of the passage says,

"The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous
and his ears toward their cry....
When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears
and delivers them out of all their troubles.
The Lord is near to the brokenhearted
and saves the crushed in spirit."

Psalm 34: 15-18

Please pray for us as we take this precious baby back to his birthmom tomorrow. We hope to invite her to church and reach out to her in other ways as God leads. Please also pray for Grant, as he really wanted Carver to be his little brother. Thank you, friends, for your love and encouragement.

Love,

Stephen and Jill

Baby Days

We're sorry for the lack of posts...our days have been pleasantly filled with caring for Carver and catching up on a little sleep. We absolutely love having him here--he has brought such joy to us! Both of our families have had the chance to meet him, and they are in love with him, too.

We took Carver to see our pediatrician several days ago, and we were all watching Grant talk to him. Carver was looking directly at Grant, and all of the sudden he smiled at him! We were all so surprised! Even the doctor saw it, and we asked her if babies could really smile at only two weeks. Her reply was, "Well, he just did!" He is such a happy baby who only really fusses if he's hungry or needs a diaper change. And talk about an eater! Today he ate six ounces in one of his feedings! We think he's going through a growth spurt as babies often do around two weeks.

We will try to post some more pictures soon--he's growing every day!

Brotherly Love

Homecoming

Today we brought Carver home. We are thrilled to have him with us. He seems to be an easy-going fellow who likes a warm bottle and loving arms. That's good, because we just can't put him down!







We love him so much!

Placement Eve

Tomorrow is Placement Day! (That's adoption lingo for "the baby is coming home with us" :) We're so excited, and can't wait to see how much the little guy's grown since we last saw him on the day of his birth. He will be two weeks old tomorrow. We will be meeting with our social workers and the birthmom at 2:30, and then we'll get to take him to his new home.

Let the flurry of newborn care begin! Check back soon for pictures of our new family...

The Big Day is...

We got a call from our social worker today, and everything is going as we had hoped! The birthmom is still planning for us to take the baby, and the day will be next Wednesday, November 18. We are so excited and can't wait to take Carver home! There is a slight possibility the day could be moved to Thursday, but for now the plan is Wednesday. After we bring him home, the birthmom will have one week in which to change her mind. That means that by Thanksgiving we will know one way or another. We continue to pray that God's will would done, and he would make it clear to all. Please continue to pray for us and for the birthmom. God has been so gracious to us in this whole process. We have had so much peace and joy, and we truly want what's best for this baby and his sweet mother.

On another note, we wish again to thank all of you who have contributed to our adoption fund. Amazingly, we have raised almost 3/4 of what we need to bring Carver home. We plan to take out a loan for the remaining $5,000 and repay it with the tax credit we should receive next tax year. In six months when the adoption is finalized, we will need to pay a comparatively small attorney fee. We know that God will continue to provied the funds for this fee and other costs involved with feeding and caring for a baby.

So for now we continue to wait, hope and pray. We will update when any more news is heard.,

~Stephen, Jill and Grant

Baby Pictures

This sweet baby boy was born November 4th at 8:00 PM, weighing 8 pounds, 14 ounces, and 21 inches long. If he is to be ours, we will call him Carver John Taylor.

The Baby

Exciting news: the baby was born at 8 something this evening weighing over 8 pounds! He is doing really well. Jill was able to see him and hold him not long after his birth--such a cutie with a strong pair of lungs and lots of hair! We are still at the hospital hoping that Stephen will be able to see him before we're kicked out. Amazingly, Jill was able to be in with the birth mom for most of her labor until it was close to time for delivery. This was an amazing gift, as the hospital has a very strict new rule that only one person can be with the mother because of the possibility of H1N1 exposure. We are so grateful for a safe delivery for both the baby and birth mom, and we can truly say that we will be happy with whatever happens. The birth mom is still planning on adoption, and she is receiving good support from her roommate and friends. Either way, the baby will be going home with her for the first few days. We have some adorable pictures that we hope to post tonight or tomorrow...stay tuned!

Update

We just got a call from our social worker, and the birthmother is in labor at the hospital! I (Jill) am off to the hospital to wait, and Stephen will meet me there later. We will hopefully get to see the baby soon after he's born. However, if the adoption goes through, we will probably not get to bring him home for several weeks as the birthmother will be caring for him for the first week or so. Please pray for all of us, and check back for updates!

Thank you!

Many of you are wondering how our meeting went on Friday with the birthmother. We had a good visit, but at this point there is not much of an update to give. We are just waiting and trusting that God will make his plans clear to her and to us.

On a different note, we have recently received several very generous gifts from some of you. Thank you so much! We can't express our gratefulness for your kindness. When we felt God leading us to pursue adoption, we had no idea how he would provide. He has been so faithful to provide just what we need at each step in the process, and many of you have been the means he has used. We continue to trust him for provision, and we pray many blessings on you for your generosity.

~Stephen and Jill

Another Meeting

The due date is drawing close, and we have another meeting scheduled with the birthmom this Friday. She has requested to meet Grant, so we will be taking him along and meeting her for ice cream. A side note about Grant...he is so excited about being a big brother! We have been very open with him about the process and also the possibility that the adoption might fall through. He frequently asks us if "the mommy has decided yet if she's going to let us have the baby." One day while explaining to him that we won't know until after the baby is born, he said in a cheerful tone, "well, if she says no we'll just find another one!" This made us smile at the simplicity of the process in his little mind.

In addition to prayer for this meeting, would you please continue to pray for God's provision? We are in the process of applying for a loan and a grant. With the possibility of the adoption tax credit expiring in 2010, we need wisdom to determine how much is wise to borrow if the credit is not renewed. However, we are also aware that we could potentially owe the remainder of our balance any day, as we will need to pay the remainder the day the baby is handed to us. Since the birthmom is due November 3rd, this could be any day if she decides to go through with the adoption.

There are so many unknowns, but we find peace and joy in the fact that God knows all things and has a perfect plan. Thank you for your friendship, prayers, encouragement, and gifts. We are overwhelmed with gratefulness.

Love,

Stephen and Jill

It's a.......

BOY!!!

We just received the call from our social worker, and it was as we (and the birthmother) suspected. We are thrilled and cautiously hopeful that we will be able to adopt this little boy.

There is still a lot of question as to whether or not this mother will choose to parent or place this baby for adoption, as there often is in these situations. Although our meeting with her went very well, some things came up in our discussion that our social worker referred to as "red flags". Because of this, Bethany Christian Services has decided to continue to show our profile to birthparents until either the baby is born and we are able to adopt him, or the mother decides to parent. We are at peace with this decision, and grateful that Bethany will continue to show our profile in the meantime.

Thank you all for your prayers and support. We will keep you updated.

~Stephen and Jill

The Meeting

Today we met with the birthmother who chose our profile. It went very well--she is a sweet, sweet girl who has had a difficult time of it and wants what's best for her baby. We talked about everything from our favorite ice cream flavors to baby names we like.

As I think I mentioned before, she is due November 2. From visiting with her, it seems that she wants to go through with adoption. However, we know that often in these situations once the baby is born the mom then decides to parent. We were able to communicate to her our respect for her and her decision--whatever it finally is. And we were also so impressed with the mature way she is handling this decision. If she does decide to parent, she will do a wonderful job.

So we are trying to prepare for the possibility of having a new baby in our home in a month's time or maybe less, while at the same time guarding ourselves from becoming too attached to this little one. By God's grace, this has not been much of a difficulty so far. However, as the time nears and we make the necessary preparations for the baby, it will probably become a bit more challenging. Please pray for us, that we would continue to please the Lord and trust Him in all things. Please also pray for the birthmother, that she would experience peace and come to trust the Lord if she doesn't already.

Some of you are probably wondering if this is a girl or boy. And the answer is.....
we don't know yet :) She was not able to have the sonogram last week but has another one scheduled for Monday. We will update when we have more news.

Thanks for your prayers.

Love,

Stephen and Jill

Quick Update

We just wanted to let everyone know that a date has been set to meet with the birthmom: October 2. We haven't heard yet if she is having a boy or a girl. There was supposed to be a sonogram today, so maybe we will find out next week. Please continue to pray for her and for us. Thanks, friends!

News

Hi Friends!

Today we received news that the birthmother for whom we put together a quick profile while at the beach chose us! She met with the Bethany counselor yesterday and liked that we already have a son, so her baby will have an older brother. She also liked that we are musical and come from large families. This young lady is still not 100% sure that she will give her baby up for adoption, but she has requested to meet with us in order to help her decide. She is due in early November, and we will likely get to meet with her in the next few weeks.

We are quite surprised and so excited. Our profile was nothing fancy--just some typed pages and pictures with hand-written captions (my handwriting has never won any prizes...in fact, it was once publicly criticized by a college professor in front of the whole class). So, we know that we weren't chosen for our professional-looking profile. We trust that God is working in this young lady's life and He will accomplish His purposes. Please pray for her that she would have wisdom as she seeks to make the best decision for her baby. Although we would love for this to be "our baby", we know that we are not God, and He may have other purposes for this little life. Please also pray that God would reveal Himself to her if she doesn't know Him already. She is very young and has faced many difficulties in her short life.

We do not yet know if the baby is a boy or a girl, but we were told that she would soon have a sonogram to find out. We will keep you posted on the details.

On another note, our church is holding its annual rummage sale, and some dear friends have donated many items that will be sold to benefit our adoption fund. One very kind friend in our caregroup has coordinated this for us. Please pray that it does not rain, and the rummage sale can proceed as planned. Thank you for your prayers!

~Jill and Stephen

Moving Quickly...

Well, we're back from a wonderful time at the beach. Not only was it a week of rest and relaxation, but it also afforded us lots of time to work on all the paperwork we needed to have completed upon our return. The day after our return we had our joint interview with Bethany Christian Services, and our individual interviews and homestudy are planned for next week. Things have definitely moved quicker than we expected, but we continue to have much peace and joy.

We have been overwhelmed with gratefulness for the support we have received over the past several weeks in the form of several sizable donations. You (and you know who you are :) have blown our minds with your generosity. We cannot express how thankful and humbled we are by your kindness, and we know you will receive great reward in heaven.

We continue to trust that "...God will supply every need of (ours) according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus." Some points of prayer: after our homestudy, we will be applying for an interest-free loan that is available to Christian families adopting. We hope to qualify for this loan and to pay it off with the adoption tax credit. However, we were recently reminded that the renewal of the tax credit will depend on whether or not it passes Congress, as it will be voted on again for the next tax year. So we would really appreciate prayer that one, the tax credit is renewed for adopting families, and two, that we would qualify for the interest-free loan. Also, we will be applying for one or more grants that would be of help.

On another note, we are creating profiles for Bethany to show potential birthmothers. The birthmothers will then chose an adoptive family from the profiles they view. We have submitted an early profile because our social worker has a birthmother scheduled to come into the office next week, and she would like to show her our profile. This is exciting for us, and we are praying that God would direct the right birthmother to our profile. We will keep you updated.

~Stephen and Jill

Adopted for Life

We are getting ready to head off to the beach for our annual family vacation. This is what we will be reading.

On another note, God has been so gracious to provide what we need to proceed with our homestudy. Thank you Lord, and thank all of you who have so generously contributed! Excluding the loan and it's possible fees (which should be mostly reimbursed by the adoption tax credit), we now need only about $3,000 more! By partnering with us in support and prayer, you are living out James 1:27 which says, "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."

Exciting Times

Hello, friends! We have had many of you express an interest in what God is doing in our lives right now, particularly in the area of adoption. So, in order to keep everyone updated with the most current information, we are creating a blog. As you are probably aware, God has put it on our hearts to pursue infant adoption. We are partnering with an organization called Bethany Christian Services (www.bethany.org), and our next big step is to complete the homestudy.

We have been prepared for this process to take some time. So you can imagine our surprise when, over the past several days, we received two calls from our social worker asking for our profile information to show potential birthparents. For those of you not familiar with the process, the family profile is a compilation of pictures and family information that is usually presented to the birthparent/s after the homestudy is completed and much of the fees are paid.

God has been faithful to provide the funds we need to move forward at each step, thanks to your generosity. However, as we have recently learned that our information is being shown or will soon be shown to birthparents, we are trusting God will continue to provide. The process seems to be moving faster than we planned or imagined, and we realistically need to raise about $4,500 more in addition to a loan we will apply for after our homestudy is completed, and a subsequent attorney fee. This could all move ahead very quickly if a birthmother were to choose us to adopt her baby.

We continue to trust that God, in his perfect timing, will provide what we need. We are confident that he is leading us, and have experienced great peace and joy throughout this process. Isaiah 26:3 says, "You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you." Would you please join with us in praying for the following areas?

1. God would be glorified in how we walk through this.
2. God would provide the additional finances we need.
3. God would bring the child he has chosen to us.
4. The birthmother (and possibly birthfather) would have peace as they contemplate a very
difficult decision, and they would come to know Christ if they don't already.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, for your prayers!

In closing this first post, there is a program recommended to us that gives a wonderful view of the adoption process through the eyes of a birthmom. Although we don't usually recommend MTV, their show "16 and Pregnant"--episode 6 (Catelynn) is really worth watching. Just go to www.mtv.com and click on "shows", then "16 and Pregnant", and find episode 6. It's also really relevant as the adoption takes place through Bethany Christian Services. Warning--have a box of tissues handy!

Love,

Stephen and Jill