A Baby is born!

Sorry I have been MIA for so long!

BUT!..

I have a GREAT reason!

We welcomed home a SWEET baby BOY on August 19th!

&  Here is the story!

July 25th:

Today, as I was waiting in line to check out at TJMaxx, I decided to get on facebook to pass the time. When I logged on I had a message from Ashley, a midwife, at the hospital I work at.

She has a patient, a mommy to be, who had decided to place her baby for adoption!

She was having a BOY and was due at the end of August!!!

Did she want our names passed along to her?

I thought about it for all of 3 seconds, and messaged her back with a YES!!!!

Holy Moly the emotions that hit me knowing we were going to be presented to a potential birth mother!! To say I was nervous was an understatement!

We decided to put a rush on our family profile so that Ashley could let her look at it the next time she had an appointment!

August 1st:

Today I got a message from Ashley that she had shown our profile to Sam (Bmom).

She said that after looking at our profile Sam said she didn't need to see anymore. We were exactly what she wanted for her sweet baby BOY!

Ashley passed her phone number along to us and after FREAKING out for about 30 minutes,

I decided to call her.

AND. I. SOUNDED. LIKE. A. TOTAL. FOOL.

or at least I thought so.

It was literally a 30 second conversation, which included me blurting out that it didn't feel right to talk about this over the phone and that Id like to meet up with her face to face.

We agreed to meet the following Friday!

EK!!

August 8th.

Today is the day!

We are meeting the possible birth mother of our child!?

What do you say to someone who might entrust their child to your care?

The person who would so selflessly help to make me a mother! to make my dreams reality?

We planned to meet Sam at her DRs appointment after it was over and to have her follow us to dinner.

We pulled up and Im pretty sure as soon as I saw her vehichle my stomach was in my throat and my heart was POUNDING in my ears!

We pulled up and Jake rolled down his window.

As she rolled her window down I got my first glimpse of an absolutly adorable, petite, blond and PINK haired girl. With almond shaped eyes and a kind smile.

I instantly felt more at ease. Although don't get me wrong, I was still so nervous!

During the next 2 hours at dinner, we got to know Sam and found out some fun things, like she was from the same city that my mom grew up in! And she loved some of the same things Jake and I do, like camping and the outdoors!

We laughed about how nervous we are, and my heart pounded even more everytime she called us mommy and daddy. She had already decided. Without speaking the words I knew she wanted us to be the parents of her baby boy!

I left this meeting feeling so blessed! I wanted nothing more than an open adoption and one where I could truly form a relationship with the birth mom. I left this meeting feeling that God had given me just that!

August 15th

Today we met with Sam again. Duing this meeting we talked about what we wanted delivery day to look like. She told us she wanted us to be there, to witness the birth of OUR baby :-)

She wanted us to stay in the hospital and she wanted the baby to stay with us.

We also talked about the open adoption. We agreed that we wanted her there for the holidays and to celebrate his birthday :-)

We left this meeting knowing that the next time we met, could very well be on the day our son would come into this world!

August 18th

Today when I came into work, I was told that Sam was here last night. Shes contracting!!!

I stayed in touch with her every few hours and contractions were going away! This could be IT!!!

August 19th

I got a call this morning at 5am. Sam was at the hospital. She was being admitted. The charge nurse wanted to know if I wanted to be put on call. uuuhh? YES!!

I got a call from Sam around 7 and she had gotten her epidural! She was 5 centimeters!!

I ran around packing our bags and making mental lists of what all needed to be done.

Jake and I both made it to the hospital around 930.

Sam was sleeping.

Not wanting to wake her up, we walked around receiving so many hugs and congratulations from all of my coworkers. Everyone is soo excited for this baby! He is already so loved!

We went back to Sams room around 1030. We talked, and laughed.

The nurse came in round noon and Sam was complete! Holy Moly! It was time!

This was really about to happen!

Sam started pushing at 1205.

I was in charge of ice chips, cold wash cloths, counting and having encouraging words.

She was a champion!  She was so determined and strong!

After pushing through 4 contractions,

Sirus Emerson

Came into the world at 12:27pm

He was BEAUTIUFL!

He had the same beautiful almond eyes as Sam and he had RED hair!

Of course!

Because God had ordained this whole grand story long before Sam and I were even born!

Same held him and cried. Tears of happiness, relief, and im sure of quite a bit of heartbreak.

I cried. Tears of happiness, relief and sadness as I knew how hard this was for Sam.

We spent the next hour or so, snuggling a sweet baby, passing him back and forth & I even got to give him his first bath :-)

Moments I will never forget. I hope they are forever branded in my mind.

Part 2 (post partum and TPR)


xoxo: Ashley



Yard Sale Success! and onto fundraiser number 3!

YARD SALES ARE HARD WORK YALL!!

Sheesh!

I was NOT expecting that!

We were SO blessed with all the donations!

By Friday morning we could hardly get into our garage from all the stuff!

and of all that stuff only a few items were things that once belonged to us!

Everything else was donations and mostly from people we didn't know!

After staying up until 1 am on Saturday morning trying to seperate and price everything (procrastinator? NAH;-)

we were up at 5:15 bright and early to get tables out and drag out all the big pieces!

between that and 2 lllonnng 10 hour days (including set up and break down)

to say we ere exhausted by Sunday evening is an under statement.

But Alas it was all worth it!

Our total after 2 days was...

$730!

That brings our total to about $6700!

Just one step closer to our babe!

and with that fundraiser done..the next begins!

This one we have seen alll over the internet and I had to try it too!

The puzzle fundraiser!

"Become a piece of our puzzle"

We purchased a puzzle we LOVED (and will go in a gender neutral nursery)

and for ANY AMOUNT donation $1-$100 you get to put your name on the back of the puzzle piece!

We do have a rewards level called the "LOVE more" level.

If you donate $10 or more you will get a photo announcement "signed" by Baby H once he or she gets here:-)

If we can sell all the pieces for $10/each we will have reached our 1/2 goal for the adoption!

How amazing would that be?

Here is our puzzle:

Could you guys please pray for us?

We are in the middle of our home study and to say its overwhelming is an understatement.

The amount of paperwork and in depth questions ( questions we never really thought about until now. Like my mothers and fathers strength and weaknesses...???)

I have ALMOST completed my questions but Jake is really just now starting. He isn't a very verbally expressive person so this is HARD for him!


xoxo,
Ashley



A quick update and answering some questions

Hi Everyone!

So I wanted to update you all on our adoption T-shirt fundraiser!

We raised more than I ever thought we would!

Our goal was to sell 50 shirts in 3 weeks.

Not only did we meet that but we sold a total of 83 shirts!

That's $1262 towards our adoption!

Amazing!

 Thank you to all of those of you who supported us throughout this fundraiser!

And if you wanted a shirt but the deadline slipped by you, don't worry, we will

be doing another t-shirt fundraiser in August or September!

Ive had several people as exactly where we are in the whole process both physically and financially

and also people wanting to know whats next, and how they can help.

Here is an update on all of that!

As far as the actual adoption process, this is where we are.

We have signed on with our adoption Consultants and we have already

submitted all of our questions and most of our photos for our profile.

Our consultant is working on that as we speak and hopefully that will be done in a few weeks!

Our Family profile is what Birth Families will look at when they are considering our family to

parent their sweet baby, so its a VERY important piece of the puzzle!

We have also started on our Home Study questions.

This part is a bit daunting.

Its about 18 pages Each of very in depth questions ranging from Our education and work history, to our Faith and how that plays out in our live to our childhood histories and our parents marriages!

Needless to say its ALOT!

Along with the home study questions, we have to have back ground checks, finger printing done, drug tests, physicals done as well as submit all of our financial information.

After ALLLLL of this is done our social worker will compile everything, and submit it to the state,

once the state approves everything we will "approved for adoption"

At this point we will start sending our information to agencies and birth families can start to view our

profile!! EEEKKK!

From there it can happen very fast (example: a birth mother sees your profile, chooses you and she due in only a few weeks--> it happens!) or it can happen at a more "normal rate" (example: you are chosen by a birth family who is due in 6+ months)

All of this brings us to the financial portion of things. Because we have a possibility of things happening fast we have to keep fundraising and saving.

Once we are choose by a birth mom, we sign on with whatever agency she has chosen.

At that time w have to pay agency fees, which is usually about half of the whole adoption costs.

The rest is due at time of placement.

Basically if things happen fast the full amount of the adoption will be due very very quickly!

Ive had A LOT of people ask me how much adoption costs. Ill admit it makes me a little uncomfortable talking about the finances because I usually get crazy looks, when I talk about numbers.

Adoption isn't cheap yall!

Can we put a price on our children though? How much would you pay to have your children?

The number is infinite isn't it?

A domestic infant adoption can range from $15,000 (rare) to over $40,000

To date we have raised/saved about $6000!

This is amazing!

The number I have in my head for our adoption is about $25,000 so with what we have raised we are a quarter of the way there!

So What's next?

Our next fundraiser is an adoption yard sale June 21st and 22nd.

Everything we have so far are items that we have personally decided to sell or things that

have been donated by some very generous people!

Jake is also brain storming some other ideas.

He is really wanted to do some type of dinner fundraiser or

something sports related.

As well as continuing to fundraiser we will also very soon start to build a nursery (fun for me!!)

Because everything can happen quickly we hope to have a nursery done fairly soon :-)

How can you help?

- Prayers.

Prayers that God would give us financial provision, prayers for us as this process can be quite overwhelming and prayers for our birth mother. She is already out there, and she may already be expecting! Pray for her heart as she starts to make the most difficult decision of her life.

I also ask that you all pray that whomever our birth family would be that we would be able to really

form a great relationship with them. We want our child to know their birth family from the beginning and I pray that we can truly bond with them.

Pray for us as God starts to mold our hearts into the hearts of a Mommy and Daddy.

-Financial

Even if you feel God isn't calling you personally to adopt, perhaps he is calling you to support someone who is adopting.

God calls us all to love the orphans and widows, and that means different things for each of us!

Even $5 helps!

seriously! no amount Is too small!

-Share our story!

33% of all adoption happen through word of mouth!

Tell your friends and families!

Ladies, tell your GYN!

The cost of a private adoption is also much less that going through an agency so if we could find

a family privately that would be amazing!

I also want you all to know I am VERY open about our infertility, and our adoption story so far!

If you have questions, please ask! Id be more than happy to answer!

xoxo,

Ash

Our Adoption Tshirts! & a little blessing

Ive known all along that I wanted to do adoption T-shirts

I may or may not have a dream of seeing our adoption supporting t-shirts all over town:-)

Ive been playing with designs for months, I just wanted something GOOD on the shirts

and I couldn't come up with ANYTHING Good!

THEN, I was at home,working on home study paper work and it came to me!

For years God kept placing the word "more" on my heart

and for years I almost drove myself crazy trying to figure out what that "more" meant.

More WHAT?!!!

Through this process I think God is revealing what the "more" is.

Do More. Be More. LOVE MORE!

and then an adoption support shirt was born!

https://www.bonfirefunds.com/be-more-do-more-love-more-hall-adoption

and in 24 hours we've sold 10 shirts!

Go GOD Go!!!

xoxo-

Ashley

Oh yea! My blessing story!

So just as I was leaving work the other day a woman came in in Labor, completely dilated and ready to push. AND she brought with her the adoptive parents of her baby boy!

Even though it was time to leave, I clocked out and stayed for the delivery.

It was amazing! Amazing to watch a family be born,

and amazing to watch the interaction between birth momma and adoptive family!

It was such a blessing to be able to watch that!

I had been in a funk for the last few days and being there just got me soo excited again!

God is good isn't he?

Fundraiser #2! YARDSALE!

Spring Cleaning?

Donate to a great cause!

We are collecting gently loved items for our

ADOPTION YARDSALE!

June 21st and 22nd

9am-5pm

Drop off donations:

Friday June 20th 1-9pm

208 Lauren Lane Canton, Ga 30115

Visit our website!

www.notshowingstillglowing.blogspot.com

And so it begins!

We have finally signed on with our adoption consultants!

We decided to join with Christian Adoption Consultants

 after my chance run in with Malcolm (owner) at Starbucks :-)

I may have already written about that but basically I was

talking to a girl friend about what an adoption consultant was and

how we had looked into another company in the area.

Malcolm over heard, came over, gave us his card and I just really felt

like God just plopped him down right in front of us!

It just felt right in going with them :-)

Our Consultant is Susan and after talking to her on the phone back in November,

and just hearing such good things about her I am so excited we get to partner with her specifically!

She also is very knowledgeable in adoptive breast feeding

 (did you even know there was such a thing?)

That's a WHOLE OTHER POST;-)

anywho

I can not explain the emotions once finally hit send on our payment to CAC.

Excitement was the first one!

I cant believe this is finally starting!!

eEEEEK!

and then after the day went on, and I started receiving information on

the home study,

fundraising ideas,

back ground checks,

talking to birth mothers,

Packing lists for Birth day

etc

NERVOUS!!!!!!

HOLY MOLY!

this is REALLY happening!

and it could be soon!

It was nuts!

I couldn't even sleep that night!

I just started thinking about all that we needed to do!

With all of that said, yes we are super nervous but we are OH SO EXCITED!!!

I also called and spoke to the person who will be doing our home study,

and she really calmed my nerves about the whole thing!

We have already started the personal study questionnaire and

will hopefully be having our first meeting in just a few weeks! :-)

One step closer!!

Ashley

You guys are AWESOME!-Adoption auction totals

Wow!

I'm completely blown away by how blessed we have been!

Our adoption auction ran for 7 days and it raise $1078!

And we received an amazing $3000 from someone from our church!

We now have enough to REALLY start the adoption process!

EEEKKK! so excited!

Now to make some decisions!!!!

XOXO,

Ashley

Our 1st fundraiser is LIVE!:)

above are the 3 links to our adoption auction sites. If you feel lead to help us by bidding or even sharing please know that we will be forever grateful!

Thank you thank you!!

HAPPY EASTER!

HE IS ALIVE!!!!

www.32auctions.com/halladoption

www.32.auctions.com/halladoption2

www.32auctions.com/halladoption3

Adoption Auction

I am SO excited!

This Sunday, Easter Sunday we will launch our Adoption Auction!

The Amount of amazing people that stepped forward and donated is nothing short of amazing!

I had people contacting me through Facebook that I had never even met before!

I am so excited to see how God is glorified through all of this!

His hand no doubt is all over our auction!

Here is the "flyer" we will be passing out and posted EVERYWHERE next week!

And here are some of the amazing things donated!

-several photography session

-one month online fitness training

-Origami Owl

-31

-Tastefully Simple Gift Basket

-Hand Lettered Prints and Cards

-Hand Knitted scarves and even an Afghan

-Car detailing

-1 Organic Spray Tan

-Earring and Necklace from Bumbers Bumblings

and so much more!

Things are starting to get so real now! 

Our first step was to get into a home and now that that is done 

its FULL STEAM AHEAD with fundraising!

HERE WE COME BABY HALL!!

-xoxo

Ash

We are homeowners!

SHEESH! FINALLY!

That's pretty much all I could say after left the attorneys office with the key to our new home!

The process of buying a house was NOT easy and was super duper frustrating at times!

Of course the house we fell in love with was a short-sale (not to be mistaken for a home that takes a short amount of time to sell LOL)

From the day we put in a bid to having the keys in our hands was 4 1/2 months. 4 1/2 LOOOONNNNG months!

And there were AT LEAST 3 times where we thought everything was going to fall through and I had myself almost convinced that God was saying this house just wasn't for us.

Turns out he was giving me a good ol' dose of PATIENCE!

When all is said and done we are LOVING our new home and I cant WAIT to bring baby Hall home to it one day!

(I may or may not be designing a nursery in my head already ;-)

Isn't she beautiful! :)

God is GOOD!



Fundraiser #1

Let me start this by saying that I hate asking for things. Especially someone Else's money!

However, after talking to a dear friend, I decided to go ahead and start our first fundraiser.

I opened an account on youcaring.com

and within days I had several people donating!

We are about a fourth of the way to or home study cost!

https://www.youcaring.com/2hallsbecome3

Jake and I have some other great fundraisers up our sleeves after we get things underway a bit more! :)

xoxo:

Ash

Ive had my ups and downs..

I want to be as honest as I can on this blog.

If for no other reason than to a) keep a true and honest record of this journey and b) to be able to help someone else who might be feeling this way, and wondering if they're the only ones.

I am SO excited to adopt. But for me to say that my desire to conceive, carry and deliver a biological child is gone, would be a lie.

I think about my inability to have a biological child almost daily. And some days it doesn't seem like a really big deal because a mother is a mother no matter how she became one right?

And on other days I just feel so incredibly heavy hearted and sad for myself.

How is it that the ONE thing I've always wanted, more than anything else, cant be?

Sometimes when I think about all of this, it seriously almost seems like I'm having an out of body experience. This can't be me. I NEVER imagined I would be on this side of the fence.

It seems almost unreal. Like a dream. One I'm just waiting to wake up from.

On the days that I'm feeling sorry for myself. I sometimes start to worry If we are rushing the adoption thing. Have I truly healed from my "loss"?

And then those thoughts make me even more sad.

Am I destined to spend the next several years yearning for a baby, yet not being ready for adoption. All while watching all the women around me have what I want?

I had one of these moments yesterday. But through this sad moment I was able to discover something about the situation that has helped me to know that I am ready for the adoption process.

I was having dinner with some friends, one of whom is 20 weeks pregnant.

Seeing her cute little swelling belly, and hearing her stories of him kicking and her pregnancy symptoms, well...it's hard.

But its not hard in a break down, wanna cry way.

It just makes me heart clench a little.

I came home from that dinner.. just sad.

And as I went to bed I prayed. I prayed that God would just help me through these tough times. And again for the millionth time I asked "WHY?" why have you taken this from me?

And before I fell asleep last night I realized...

I don't get sad when I'm around my friends who have children. Even newborns.

When I'm around that it makes me excited! I know one day I will get the joy of holding MY babe in my arms, rocking them to sleep, even being up all night with them etc.

The part that's hard for me is the pregnancy.

The part of motherhood that I will never get to experience.

I will never be able to chime in with my experience when other moms are talking about the struggles during their pregnancies or did or didn't they experience morning sickness. Or how their "favorite part" of pregnancy was those sweet little kicks that eventually turned into quick jabs, taking their breath away.

Its sounds silly, but its almost like an exclusive club that I will never be a part of.

I know reading this, if you're a mom and you might be thinking that I'm lucky that I don't have to experience morning sickness, gaining weight, stretch marks, sleepless nights etc. But I would almost give anything to experience those things.

The fact that my body did something amazing. I was carrying life!

After all is said and done, I woke up this morning and I'm feeling good. I know that in the life of a mother the pregnancy although so incredibly memorable and special is also just a blink of an eye. And that the most rewarding part is when you are able to love, teach and care for your sweet babe. That part of the journey I WILL get to experience. One day! And for that my heart leaps!!

My body may not be pregnant, but heart is expanding with love for a babe I have yet to meet.

Not showing but still glowing!

xoxo: Momma A

A new year

I've said it once, and I'll say it again.

I LOVE when the new year rolls around!

This year I believe I have an extra special reason to be excited!

I REALLY feel that Jake and I will welcome our baby home this year!

I know some would tell me to be prepared to wait a while, and I am,

but I just FEEL 2014 will be the year of FAMILY for Jake and I!

I have a couple of things to update you on.

1) we are THIS CLOSE to getting our house!

We put an offer in at the end of November and we've just been waiting!

Our house is a short sale so things can sometimes take a while.

Our realtor has been in contact with the attorney and they are feeling that things should be closing around end of Jan., end of Feb!

SOOO excited!

2) as soon as we get settled into our house we hope to start our home study process and I think we are pretty settled on going with an adoption consultant!

3) we have started our FIRST official Adoption Fundraiser.

Ill be honest, I felt a little weird fundraising this early in the process. But I had to be honest with myself. Jake and I simply don't have the extra money to even do the home study.

I really feel that this whole thing is God's plan, so I'm rolling with in! I know that he will pull us through this!

Ill be doing a whole separate post on our first fundraiser!:)

If you want to participate in our first fundraiser make sure you follow this blog to be first to get all the updates!!! :)

xoxo: Ash