The past months

I don't feel like I've been keeping this up to date very well. For now I will share a list...

• Fundraising: We are up to about $18,691 including $9,000 in grants!
• Waiting status: We have said "yes" to about 7 situations, though I'm starting to lose track. Maybe about 6 moms saw our profile, some of them have not showed up to meet with the case worker. We have been officially waiting since mid-January 2014.
• We've also decided to expand our criteria to be open to down syndrome, spina bifida, cerebral palsy, HIV+ babies and more. This doesn't mean we WILL adopt a special needs baby, but we'll definitely consider it.
• We're still discussing adopting in Ohio versus expanding to possibly adopt from anywhere in the USA. We've also talked about international adoption and foster-to-adopt, but we're thinking that those things will be happening in the coming years, not now.
• We've contacted an adoption attorney to see if he works to match families, but we didn't really get much info from him.
• I spent some time talking to a few adoptive moms about hiring an adoption consultant and got a couple of "it's not worth it" and a couple of "It's totally worth it", so nothing is happening on that front...

One thing hasn't changed at all: I'm still really really impatient. What has been bothering me in particular is the fact that we are waiting while there are kids overseas and in the foster care system that are waiting. We've asked for info about a special needs child in Armenia as well as a child in foster care here in Ohio. A lot of prayer/discussion later, and we're sticking to the domestic adoption route.

I have been so thankful for friends who listen to me whining about how discouraged I am. I have been thinking "No one is going to pick us because we have so many kids!" lately, but I spoke with a mom who had 5 and then got matched with twins! So there are people out there somewhere who like big families. :)

Now to work on being patient and waiting on God's timing.