Navigating another stage
Melissa Fischer
Life feels really crazy around here. It’s one of those seasons where you feel like you’re drowning in a never ending to do list and during every minute of every day you are working to make progress on that list, yet when the day ends you’re still drowning. So much to accomplish. And how do you accomplish it all with two as cute as these constantly calling your name?
Because most of our to do list tasks are a result of our adoption, there is this sort of weird dimension to our current state that leaves me feeling like the fact that we are overwhelmed is in some way self-imposed. We chose to pursue adoption for our family right now. We are choosing to try to get all of these steps of the process done as fast as we can. If we wanted to, we could choose to say “we will get to it when we get to it” and take our sweet time completing each step whenever it felt like we had time. Some would probably choose to do this, and their lives would probably be less stressful because of it. However, since we feel such a heavy and clear call to pursue our adoption right now and our hearts are ready to welcome a new child and birth parent(s) into our lives, we feel this sense of urgency to be diligent and work hard to take steps forward in a timely manner in obedience to what we believe our Lord is asking of us. Therefore, we are in this position of feeling like we are going nonstop. Thankfully, I know God will sustain us and it is WAY more than worth it, but at the moment it feels a bit overwhelming.
So where are we in our journey? We are in what I think of as the “practical stage.” We have finished the “legal stage” where we completed all of the state regulated steps to be matched and have a baby placed with us. Now we are working on all of the "need to have these things in place in order to actually expand our family from four to five" things.
One of the biggest steps in this stage is to find and purchase a bigger vehicle that will accommodate at least five people and {more importantly} three bulky car seats. Neither of the two little cars we own now can fit three car seats on the back bench. So we have spent countless hours researching vehicles looking for something that is not only big enough but that is also reliable and will be a good long-term investment for our growing family both now and for many years to come. It’s been a very time consuming process, but I’m finally starting to feel like we are making significant progress as we have narrowed in on a few used models we like and are now just searching for the best deal.
My brother, Cameron, was sweet enough to come up and spend the weekend with us last weekend so that Travis and I could spend some time looking at and test driving vehicles. We all absolutely love any time we get with family, and the kids were thrilled to spend time with uncle Cam.
Another practical step I’ve been working on is researching car seats. It is time that we move our Raena girl up to our bigger sized car seat and free up our infant seat for whenever the Lord blesses us with a baby. That means we were in the market for a toddler booster seat for our big boy. I spent several hours researching all of the various brands and types of booster seats available. I was looking for seats highest rated in safety, reliability, affordability and longevity. After much deliberation, I landed on this seat. I’m super excited about it, and with a coupon code I found for Amazon, I ended up getting a really good deal on it! It’s supposed to arrive today. I wonder if Kingston will be as excited as I am…
More practical, finances. My sweet husband has been spending most of his free evening hours working on a freelance job in order to earn some extra income to save for our adoption. I am so blessed by his heart and willingness to come home from a full day at the office only to put in more hours at home. He does it all without complaining, and I am so grateful for his commitment and work ethic. Nevertheless, it means very long, tiring days for both of us as he is working more and I am handling more of the home-life tasks in the evenings. We are so unbelievably grateful for the opportunity Travis has been given. This job is an answer to our prayers for some financial provision. We are trusting the Lord for energy and endurance to complete it.
Lastly, Monday morning, we finally received the OFFICIAL copy of our approved home study! This means it is officially official that we are ready to go. Even though our social worker had told us we were approved, it is still such a relief to actually have the signed legal document in hand. Now that we have a copy of that we are able to move forward in many ways, one of which is applying for adoption grants/loans. Please be praying for clear direction as to which organizations we should pursue applying to. There are many organizations and we hope to be wise and intentional with our time by determining which organizations we actually qualify for and then pursuing those. We know God will provide for our financial needs and we are excited to see which avenues HE uses to do so.
So, we keep plugging away. We are tired but oh so very excited to continue to see our journey unfold. We are honored, blessed and so thankful to be on this journey. We have grown and learned so much already, and we know we have only scratched the surface.
And as we wait for our third, we will keep adventuring with the two we have been blessed with. Baking fake cookies, collecting rocks, learning to use a spoon, and coloring all sound like fun to me.