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