a long overdue update...

I have realized I am a terrible blogger! For those of you who have been asking for pictures, I apologize for the delay. Forrest has changed so much in the last few weeks. His little personality, or maybe I should say BIG personality, has really shown up! He loves to laugh, smile, and babble...he really is a happy baby who steals our hearts more and more each day. We recently had our last post-placement visit with our social worker and one of the questions we have been asked each time is, "Is it what you expected?". Our answer has remained the same each time we are asked...it is better than we could have ever imagined! Before we became parents we were flooded with advice, tips, and warnings. The most common being, "you'll never sleep again" and "your life is now over". I can't say those are the most encouraging things to say to new parents-to-be, but somehow it always seems to come out.  I often do wonder when I'll sleep again, but he is worth it, every minute of lost sleep, he is worth it.  And the "your life is over" - I beg to disagree - it only got better.  Yes, there are sacrifices to be made, but again, he is worth it. So many things seem so much less important now. Our priorities are different, and I think we are better people because of it. God has blessed us with this amazing wonderful gift, how could we ever complain? I am sitting here watching him sleep through our video monitor and I almost have to pinch myself to remind myself that he's really ours. We hoped and prayed and waited and prayed and hoped for Forrest for so many years, and he was worth the wait - worth every tear shed, every prayer lifted.

Already and Auburn fan!

  

Our precious pony!

Our Sweet Pea!

 

before we knew you...

Patrick's sisters gave us this sweet painting at a recent shower. It is a perfect picture of our love for little Forrest. Our hearts were full of love for this little boy before we even knew he would be ours. We talk all the time about how we never knew we could love someone so much so quick. He has stolen our hearts! It is amazing how quickly we have forgotten what our lives were like without him. Parenthood has been better than we could have ever imagined. We are so blessed beyond measure!

Thank You!!!

Thank you so much to everyone who purchased a towel through our (Cover)ed fundraiser! We sold a total of 68 towels, which exceeded our goal! Thank you, also, to those of you who chose to generously donate money instead of purchasing a towel. Between towel sales and unexpected donations we were able to raise over $1000 towards Forrest's adoption!  Thank you, thank you, thank you!  We have already allocated this money to post-placement visits and attorney's fees.  We are overwhelmed with gratitude for the outpouring of support we have received from everyone...family, friends, and complete strangers! Our deepest gratitude is extended to the sweet ladies of (Cover)ed...without their ministry, this fundraiser would not have been possible! Due to the large size of the order, the towels will not be ready until the week of September 26th. Once I receive them, I will contact you to arrange delivery or shipment. Thanks again for all of your support!

LAST DAY TO ORDER!!!

Today is the LAST day to order your custom-made hooded towel!

All orders are due by midnight tonight!

All towels are $25.

Thanks to the generous ladies of (Cover)ed, 

we earn 50% of the profit to support Forrest's adoption!

Click here to view my previous post with more design and color options, as well as ordering instructions.  You can email me at callen820@gmail.com with your order and I will respond with my address for you to send a check.  Please place (Cover)ed in the subject line. Feel free to contact me with any questions! Please pass this on to your family, friends, neighbors and co-workers! Thank you so much for your support!  We are truly grateful!

Only 3 days left to order!!

There are only 3 days left to order 
your custom-made hooded towel!

Thank you so much to all of you who have already placed an order! If you haven't ordered yet, you don't want to miss out on these adorable towels!

All towels are $25, with 50% of the profit benefiting Forrest's adoption!

Please click here to view all your color and design options.

You can email me at callen820@gmail.com with your order, 

and I will respond with my address so you can send a check. 

Please place (Cover)ed in the subject line of your email.

The last day to order is Monday, August 22nd!

All towels are custom-made by the ladies of (Cover)ed 

and will be ready approximately 3 weeks after the end of 

my sale, in plenty of time for Christmas!

You can view my original post with more towel options and fundraiser information by clicking here. Thanks again for your support!  

You are truly blessing our family through your purchases!

there's still time to support our adoption fundraiser...

There's only one week left to order one of these 

adorable towels to support our adoption!  

All towels are custom-made and are full size bath towels, 

measuring 30x54 inches.

Thank you so much for your towel orders and encouraging emails thus far! We appreciate your excitement in supporting Forrest's adoption. Our fundraiser ends in one week. You can still order towels up until next Monday, August 22nd. Just email me with your order and contact info. Put "Covered" in the subject line. I'll respond with my address so you can send a check. The ladies of (Cover)ed are generously offering us 50% of the proceeds to go toward our adoption expenses...what a huge blessing to our family!

To browse your design options for your custom-hooded towel, click here.
Each towel is $25.

My realistic goal is to sell 40 towels, and my "dream" goal is 65.  As of today, I have 21 towels ordered. Will you please help me reach my goal by posting the original post (click here) on your blog, facebook or email?  And don't forget, it's never too early to start Christmas shopping! Thank you so much for your support!

With blessings and gratitude,

Carolyn

home again!!!

Thank you all so much for your prayers for our sweet Forrest while he was in the hospital. He was such a trooper, and he was definitely a hit with the hospital staff! We are so grateful for the excellent care he had from his doctor and so many wonderful nurses. We are even more grateful to be home, and I'm happy to say, he has hardly skipped a beat!  Our schedule is a little off, but we are getting back into the swing of things. Thankfully, he is pretty laid back and seems to be adjusting well.

How can you not fall in love with this sweet little face?

Thanks again for all your prayers, and thanks to everyone who called, emailed, texted, and came to visit us while we were in the hospital. We are blessed beyond measure with wonderful family and friends!

t minus one day...

Thanks so much for everyone's prayers and concerns for baby Forrest. We have been so blessed by the love and support of our family and friends! I am happy to report that he is doing great and his doctor is very pleased with his progress. We are set to get out of the hospital tomorrow! We are so ready to take our baby boy home! Thanks again for all your prayers!

only two weeks left to order...

Don't forget to check out our towel fundraiser...only two weeks left to order. You don't want to miss out on these adorable towels. Thanks so much to everyone who has already placed an order! I promise you won't be disappointed!

Click here to view all order options!  Thanks again for your support!

ships passing in the night

This week we entered a whole new realm of parenthood! Our sweet baby developed a high fever late Monday night and had to be admitted to the hospital in the wee hours of Tuesday morning. He was so pitiful, it just broke my heart. Thankfully, his doctor was able to determine what was wrong, and was able to get antibiotics started. He is doing so much better, not quite 100%, but definitely a huge improvement since Monday. We have bought ourselves a ten day stay at the hospital for him to get a complete course of antibiotics. Patrick and I have been swapping nights so that one of us is here with him at all times, so we truly are like ships passing in the night. We are just grateful that his infection can be treated, and that he is already improving. It looks like we will be here until next Friday as long as he continues to improve. We have been blessed with a wonderful doctor and excellent nurses, which we are very thankful for. God has given us lots of "angels" here at the hospital to remind us of His presence! Please keep baby Forrest in your prayers!

(Cover)ed

Do you need a baby gift, birthday gift, or just a fun prize for the little ones in your life? Then get (Cover)ed with these adorable custom hooded towels! And don't forget - it's never too early to start Christmas shopping!

I am thrilled to introduce our first family fundraiser!  We are partnering with (Cover)ed to sell custom hooded towels for children! We had actually scheduled this fundraiser before we were ever matched with Forrest.  Thanks to the generosity of the ladies of (Cover)ed, they are allowing us to participate after his arrival to help offset our adoption expenses.

Each high-quality towel is 54 x 30 inches, with the attached hood measuring 10 1/2 inches long and 15 inches wide. They are large enough for toddlers and big kids, but are also great for snuggling infants. They are perfect for the bath, beach, or pool. The towels come in a variety of colors and personalization options.

Each towel is $25.

Our family will receive over 50% of each towel sold to support our adoption!

If you would like to purchase a towel please email me at callen820@gmail.com and put (Cover)ed in the subject line. You can also leave a comment on this post with your contact information. Cash or check is preferred but Paypal is also accepted. All orders must be placed directly through me in order for our family to benefit from the sale.

To see all the color and design options available for purchase click here.

When placing an order, please include towel color, design color and initial color (if needed). The end date of my sale is Monday, August 22nd. All towels are handmade and will be ready approximately 3 weeks from the end of my sale. If you live in the Columbus area, there will be no shipping expenses. If you live outside of the Columbus area, please include $2 if ordering one towel and $3 if ordering two or more towels for shipping. If ordering 5 or more towels, shipping will be $2 per towel.  If you live in the Columbus area and would like to see a sample please let me know.  I have adorable sample towels available!

Please pass the link to this fundraiser on to everyone you know!  Feel free to post it on your blog, facebook, or via email.  We are hoping and praying to place a huge order on August 22nd!

Lastly, please take a look at the (Cover)ed website. It is a relatively new ministry started by two women in Alabama who have a heart for adoption and the call to care for orphans.  Their ministry helps families like ours to make adoption more attainable.  Thank you so much for your support!  

home sweet home

WE'RE HOME!!!  We got home late Monday night, and I've never been so happy to be on Georgia soil.  Though we enjoyed our time together just the three of us, we were so excited to be able to bring our baby HOME!  We got a call mid-afternoon Monday that we were cleared by ICPC to travel home. You've never seen two people move so fast - within 2 hours we had packed up our hotel and were headed to the airport!  We were definitely nervous about flying with a newborn, but Forrest was a champ and slept the entire flight. We were met at our home at 1:00 am by his two grandmothers and one of his aunts who just couldn't wait to meet him.  It was a wonderful "welcome home" to see their faces!

We have been showered with lots of love by family and friends since we arrived home.  It has been so sweet to introduce Forrest to so many of the people who have been praying for him for so many years. He is one loved baby, and we are so very blessed that God brought him into our family!

introducing sweet baby Forrest...

Our lives were forever changed last Thursday, July 7th when God brought this precious baby boy into the world! Forrest was 8lbs 4oz and 20in long upon his arrival. We were blessed to be able to be here for his birth, something we weren't sure if we would be able to do because of travel. Tears of joy streamed down my face as I saw and held my son for the first time! He has already stolen our hearts and I cannot imagine our lives without him! God has been so faithful and given us so many affirmations throughout this experience that this was and is His perfect plan for our family! Now we are sitting in a hotel room in our home away from home waiting on our ICPC clearance to travel home. Hopefully we will be cleared in the next week. Though we would love to be home, this time together has been so sweet for the three of us!  We are so grateful for all of the prayers that have been lifted up on our behalf, and we ask you to continue to pray for us as we transition home!

"For this child I prayed, and the Lord has granted me my petition I made to Him."  I Samuel 1:27

he has beautiful blue eyes!

already praising the Lord!

the countdown has begun...

I apologize for the lack of posts recently - I had no idea how many people were actually reading it!  The last 2 weeks have been filled with trying to "get ready" to bring our baby home!  I have realized it doesn't matter how long you have, you can never be "ready" for a new baby.  I have made multiple trips to Babies "R" Us, developed a new love of Dreft, and reorganized the baby's room a million times!  I attempted to help my mom make our crib bedding, but really I just watched her do it.  I'm not quite that talented yet! We have been so humbled and blessed by the generosity of both our friends and family. They have showered us with clothes, diapers, and lots of "baby things" that will make our transition home so much easier.

People keep asking us if we are nervous or anxious about the coming weeks. The answer is yes and no. We are anxious to hold our son for the first time and nervous about meeting the brave, courageous woman who is blessing us with a child.  But we are also confident in God's perfect plan and eager to see the days unfold.  We know God called us to adopt and we know that He has ordained the days ahead.  We are just so excited that adoption is part of His plan for our family!  Please continue keep us, the birthmother and our baby boy in your prayers!

and the door was opened...

When you begin the adoption process you are usually asked to put a nursery together for your profile book. They want you to do this so the birth mother can see what kind of room the baby will have. This is fun at first, getting ready for the baby. But then as months go by, the room becomes a reminder of what you don't have. So you close the door. You walk by knowing what is behind the door, but somehow it is a little less painful when you can't see the empty crib.

Last week we finally opened the door! We found out a little over a week ago that a sweet birth mother had chosen us!  It was a very unexpected surprise that has brought many tears of joy!  We are expecting a baby boy who is due July 11th, and we are so excited about being parents.  Our lives have been a whirlwind...we've registered, bought a car seat, selected a pediatrician, and tried to figure out what basic necessities we need to bring our sweet baby home.

We have been overwhelmed by the outpouring of love and encouragement we have received from our family and friends.  This has been a long journey, that still isn't over, but it has been well worth the wait.  God has repeatedly shown us His faithfulness through this process, and we cannot wait to see what He has in store for us!  We are eager to meet our son and are so very blessed that our family of two will soon be a family of three!

"Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory, for the sake of your steadfast love and faithfulness!" Psalm 115:1

a much needed weekend away

After a rollercoaster of a week, we decided to take a last minute trip to the beach this weekend.  We found a great little condo in Santa Rosa beach and spent the weekend being lazy, laying on the beach and participating in a little retail therapy.  A sweet friend recently encouraged us to do something we couldn't do once we had children, and we did just that.  Not that you can't go to the beach with kids, but you can't lay on the beach and read an entire book, go out for a fancy dinner, or simply be selfish with your time.  Now don't get me wrong, we long for the day we will build sandcastles and splash in the waves with our precious children.  But for this weekend we simply enjoyed being together.  We didn't spend our time focusing on the child we didn't get to bring home last week, but we focused on each other.  We laughed a lot, played a lot, and ate a lot of great food!  Cafe Tango is our new favorite...best Lobster Ravioli and Creme Brulee I have ever had!

Our first night at the beach we ate at PF Chang's and below was the fortune I was given after our meal...

   

I am not superstitious, nor do I believe that the fortune I pulled from this cookie means much of anything.  However, I was reminded by this silly little fortune of God's promise in Psalm 37:4, "Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart."  What a beautiful promise from God and a sweet reminder of His love for me!  It was the encouragement I needed at just the right time...He will give us the desire of our hearts just in His timing!

hope restored...

The last few days have been a whirlwind.  Not long after blogging about the silence that we had grown so accustomed to, we learned that our profile was being shown to a birth mother on Wednesday.  And she was going to be induced on Monday...yes, Monday!  We were encouraged by our social worker that we were a good fit, but we also knew that there were other families she would be considering.  We prayed earnestly for God to guard our hearts, but in reality our hearts were already on a plane headed to pick up our baby.  We had a hope that we had not yet experienced in this process.  That hope was taken from us the following day when we were told that she picked another family.  There are not words to describe the disappointment and heartache we felt, and honestly still feel.  We just couldn't understand why God would allow this to happen. This was supposed to be our baby...but it wasn't.

The last few days have been anything but easy, but we have already seen God's faithfulness in the midst of it. I was reminded of that faithfulness Friday morning while reading Beth Moore's Believing God...

"God calls us to surrender our own agendas on the altar of His will, knowing that His will for us is GOOD, PLEASING, and PERFECTLY SUITED.  When all is said and done, the biggest sacrifices of our lives will be the time when we chose our own way and forfeited God's pleasing will for us.  The last thing satan wants, however, is for God to be pleased.  Satan's ultimate gripe is with God.  His chief goal is to get back at God for not putting up with his arrogance and his desire to be "like the Most High" (Is. 14:14).  He cannot touch God, so he does everything he can to get to His heart by getting to His children."

I told some friends earlier that we decided this was like a dress rehearsal.  It helped us to realized just how quickly our lives could change.  If nothing else, this experience has given us hope - hope that God has not forgotten us, hope that there is activity with adoption, and hope for the baby we will one day hold.  It has reminded us that our completion is in Christ, and not in being parents.  We are peaceful knowing that God may have simply used our profile to allow this birth mother to see a glimpse of Him.  And for that, the heartache was well worth it.  I am grateful that I serve a God who never changes and a God who has bigger plans than my own - plans that are GOOD, PLEASING, and PERFECT!  Please pray for this birth mother, her precious baby, and the family who will be blessed to hold their son for the first time on Monday!

Where we are and where we've been...

When I share with people that we are in the process of adding to our family through adoption, they often ask me why we don't have a blog.  I've never blogged about our journey because I've often felt like there wasn't much to say.  So much of our story involves simply waiting, and with that waiting often comes silence.  Well, I've finally decided to venture into the world of blogging despite the silence.  My hope is that through this blog, we are able to share our story with our family, friends, and the occasional passer-by who stumbles upon it.  The ultimate desire of our hearts is that God be glorified through our adoption journey.

So, how did we get here?  After struggling with infertility for several years we began exploring our options for growing our family.  We soon realized that God's plan for our family was much better than our own...His plan had nothing to do with biology, and everything to do with the heart.  Adoption isn't just about two people who want to be parents.  It is about the Gospel.  It is a beautiful and amazing picture of God's love for us.

We began our journey with Lifeline Children's Services in November of 2009.  The past 18 months have been a rollercoaster ride if I've ever been on one.  And for those of you who know me well, you know I don't like rollercoasters.  I had been warned that adoption was not for the faint-hearted,  but I had no idea just how true that was until we began the process.  It has been a season filled with hope and joy, but also disappointment.  It has been a test of our faith, as well as a blessing for our marriage.  Since the new year we have applied to two additional agencies, and we are excited about the new opportunities that these agencies can bring.  We are waiting in eager expectation to meet our precious child and we look forward to what God has in store for our lives!  We would love it if you would join us in praying our baby home!

"This vision-message is a witness pointing to what's coming.  It aches for the coming - it can hardly wait!  And it doesn't lie.  If it seems slow in coming, wait.  It's on its way.  It will come right on time." Habakkuk 2:3 (MSG)

"Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him...Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised." Romans 4:18, 20-21