big, official announcement

We're expecting! after much prayer and three months of paper chasing, we would like to officially announce that we are paper pregnant and hope to be meeting our child in Korea this time next year.


We are thrilled to be on this adoption journey, and are amazed at the path that led us here. Steve has always had a heart for adoption, but it was never in my plan. My plan was to have three kids, each two years apart, and be done by the time I was thirty. It was clear cut, precise and we were right on schedule.


We were right on schedule, that was, until God began to reveal His plan. in february of 2007, God used the adoption of Lilyana to draw me in and think that an adoption from china was something we could do. But, little did I know, He was just getting started and next opened my heart to the possibility of adopting a special needs boy by leading me to Jude's journey. and from there he drew me into Abree's story, making me wonder if Ethiopia was the place we needed to bring a child home from. With my head spinning and my heart melting I continued to read more adoption stories. I found myself spending countless hours, reading these stories, crying over these stories as i found out more about the over 135 million orphans in the world.


As Steve and I tried to sort through these feelings we kept finding excuses for why adoption wasn't the choice for us. The first of these was that in order to adopt from china you had to be 30 years old, and at the time I was three years shy from that. When you added this to the ever growing wait it seemed so elusive. The second was that we didn't want to have to choose whether we wanted a boy or a girl. One of our favorite things to do when I was pregnant with the boys was to guess what God has chosen for us. What if God intended me to be a mom to all boys? I would love a daughter, and I would love to have another son, but how do you chose that?


So we waited. as we waited for my thirtieth birthday to approach, the wait for china grew even longer. Our minds were rattling with all of these questions, and we still didn't feel like we had a solid answer as to what God was calling us to do. So, as the time came to make the decision to begin paper work for a China adoption or try for another child of our own, we decided on the latter figuring God would make his plan evident. And, evident it became. As we began the process for having a biological child, we received a call from Bethany Christian Services saying that they had an opening in the Korea adoption program and it was ours if we wanted it. With that phone call God made his plan crystal clear. We would not be adopting from China, but would be heading to Korea to meet our child. We would not have to choose whether we would have a son or a daughter, because God would choose for us.

So on this mother's day, I do not know when our paper pregnancy will come to an end. I do not know if i will be the proud mother of three boys or the mother of a little girl.

What I do know is that I am thankful. Thankful for my Gibson Jack. Thankful for my Elliott Drew. And, thankful to be headed on this journey.

Somewhere at this moment, on the other side of the world our baby is in their mother's womb, and at this moment we are praying for this child and the many other orphans in His world.