The waiting game and updates

Sorry it's been so long since our last post. As you can imagine, things are pretty busy here. Since we've been matched it's been an interesting couple of months. First I'll fill you in on what's been happening with us over the last few months. 

In October, we bought a house!! God blessed us by selling our house and we stayed with Scotty's brother Chris for what we thought would be a few months. We were only there for about a month before we closed on our perfect house. It's awesome :) Here is a picture on our first day in the house, Halloween. 

 Mom, Gramma, and I were able to sneak in a trip to visit Taylor in Savannah for a big game. She didn't know we were coming and was really surprised! Taylor is home now for Christmas break and we all love having her home!

In November I threw a shower for Sarah, along with two other of her best friends. She and her husband Jon are our very best friends and are expecting a little girl to be born today or tomorrow!

 For Thanksgiving Scotty and I planned a trip away to Sky Valley, Georgia. We met up with one of my best friends from Anderson and her husband. We had an awesome time and enjoyed cooler weather :)

In December we celebrated Scotty's 30th birthday. One of our close friends from college Eric and I worked on getting him here from California as a surprise. He hid in a bag that Scotty thought was a gift...it was quite the surprise! The video is on my facebook page if you would like a laugh at Scotty's expense ;) Here is a picture of us at the Cox Fire Christmas party. We loved having Eric here, can't wait for him to come back and visit! 

Our friends Emily and Freddy had their son Leland, this picture brought a lot of confusion on facebook...some thought we had brought our baby home! This is THEIR son Leland :)

We've been working on the baby's room slowly but surely. We picked a neutral color since we didn't know if it was a boy or girl. This picture was taken a few weeks ago, we've done quite a bit since then. The 'T' was because we had decided on a name, but have since changed our minds. So we have no name as of yet, a couple options though. We're open to suggestions!

 

This picture is of our gender reveal cake made my best friend, Tia. It was beautiful!!

  

The inside showed us.....it's a boy!!!! We were thinking Tucker for a name but that's out the window now! 

 

This is a facetime screenshot of our nephew Brody in New York when he found out it was a boy cousin coming! So sweet!

We have been blessed by our friends and family throwing us multiple showers. I don't have pictures of the others but this one was last weekend at our new house. We have been so grateful for all of the love and support we've been given.

I don't have a picture on my computer to post but my two college best friends came down for the shower this past weekend. Whitney and Jess both flew in from Indiana to throw the shower along with Tia. It was such a special day and they all worked so hard to make it perfect! 

 

As for the adoption, we are waiting for the phone call that either our baby has been born and is ready to be picked up or that our birth mom is in labor and to head to the hospital! His due date is Christmas day so we are hoping he will make his arrival early and we can have the best Christmas present ever! The birthmom said she went late with her other children so she thinks he'll come between Christmas and New Years Day. Whenever he comes we will be thrilled!! 

Please pray for the continued effort with the birth father to serve papers. Also, please pray for our birth mom. She is doing what she knows is best but also hardest for her. She doesn't have a support system currently so we're really worried about her after everything is said and done. Our adoption is a unique case, but still pray that everything works they way it should. I am so anxious now and worried that something will happen and we won't be able to bring him home. I know it's just fear but I have to try and focus on the end result, our baby. 

Love Always, 

T & S

It's a match!

Here are the events that led up to our happy news...

On Friday, August 24 we heard from our caseworker that she was bringing our book and four others to a mother on Monday. Since this has happened many times, we didn't get our hopes up. On about Wednesday we realized that we had not heard an update so I emailed our caseworker. She replied to me on Wednesday that the birth mom had kept two books (we sent in a photo book so the birth mom can learn and see more about us) and ours was one. Now, our hopes were up! She thought that she should have an answer by Monday.
That weekend we were camping with Scotty's family and were on pins and needles. Scotty and I decided not to say anything since we had been in this situation before and had been let down. I kept my phone on me the entire weekend...we received small updates. Still deciding, hasn't returned my call, still deciding, etc. Fast forward through many, many emails to Thursday. We were told by a friend of the birth mom (couldn't reach the mom) that she was leaning heavily toward Scotty and I. WHAT???!?!?!?!?!
So as calmly as possible we tried to keep our cool. Our caseworker thought that she would have an answer for us by Friday. Friday comes and I can't help it and email asking for a status update. NOTHING. Saturday morning comes and goes, nothing. Finally, while Scotty and I are sitting at my sister Taylor's soccer game in Savannah on Saturday evening I HAVE to send an email and get an update.

"Hi S*****, Hate to bother you but I am just DYING to know over here. Have you heard anything?"
5.....hours......later.
(Not really, it felt like five hours but was more like 5 minutes)
"Hi Tera,
The mom said yes. She loves you and Scotty and chose you."

I don't think I can really describe the feeling I had when I read that. One thing I thought was, is this really happening??? I read the email and then very casually handed it to Scotty. (I was wearing sunglasses so he couldn't see that my eyes were filled with tears.) He never fails to surprise me...he reads it and says, "Cool, that's pretty exciting". I said, "do you know what this means??" Of course he did but was being Mr. Cool-we were in front of a ton of people!

So there you have it. Our "match" story.

Here is what we know so far, the baby is due January 13. We don't know if it's a boy or girl, and we don't know if we will be able to find out although we both REALLY want to know :) We won't be able to meet the birth Mom, but we have already been in contact through letters. She is a sweet lady making an extremely difficult and selfless decision. She seems confident that adoption is the right choice, but it's apparent in her letters that she's heartbroken. Please pray for her and the baby through this. It is a Florida adoption but not local so we aren't sure if we will be able to be at the hospital.

As of today, our baby...that feels funny to say...is 26 weeks along. He or she is the size of an eggplant ;)

Be on the lookout for shower information...we're already registered at Babies-R-Us. I was in Anderson, Indiana this weekend for homecoming at our college AU. While I was there my sweet college roomates made me (us) a cake and gave us our first baby gifts! It was another moment where it starts to sink in that this is happening!

A mish mosh of posts-IRONY

I was looking back at older posts and realized, I suck at blogging. I hardly ever post more than once a month, and usually it's not even that often. I guess I just never feel like there is anything exciting enough to be worth posting.

So here is the update for all of the


June 9 update** I thought I would post this unfinished blog because it's too funny not to. I was blogging about how bad I suck at blogging....and never finished the blog post. :) 

Blessed & Humbled

Hi Everyone, 

Tera here. Scotty and I thought it was important to write a blog post with how floored we are at the amount of support during our auction. It has left us speechless at how many of you have bid on items, shared our site, donated items, committed to praying for us, sending us donations, etc. We have such gratitude to all of you, in each way that you have helped. The auction has been a huge success! And it's not over yet....

In adoption news, we FINALLY received our home study! It took Scotty sending an email "being a bulldog" (which is normally my nickname since I am the one to take care of those sorts of things) and asking politely but firmly to get the show on the road...it worked! We have not gotten any updates because we have been assigned to a new caseworker. She is supposed to be contacting us in June to talk more and hopefully get us caught up. 

We leave in one week for vacation with my sister Taylor to celebrate her graduating high school. She graduated on Friday with honors. She will be attending college to play soccer in the fall. It has been a super fun week because we have family in from out of state. After that we will be spending a week with Scotty's family on the beach-much to Scotty and his brother Chris's dismay-they hate the beach. The fishing is good though, as well as the boating which is what I am sure he and his Dad and brother will be doing while Linda, Jan, and I are lounging in the sun :) Two weeks of beach sounds AWESOME to me!!

Here is a picture of Taylor and I at graduation....

Thanks again for your help with raising money for our baby. www.holdingourhearts.com

xoxo

Tera

Update time!

Hi Everyone,

I spoke with our case worker this morning and got a small update. Here's a review in case you haven't been kept up to speed.

Before this morning there were 4 birth moms (BM) that met OUR criteria. (Race of the baby is our only criteria, we've said Caucasian or bi-racial.) They are all due around the end of the summer.

This morning I was told that two of the BMs had a change of heart and have backed out. While this makes my heart sink, I couldn't help but think of their own hearts in making such a difficult decision. I'm going to pray that they made the right decision for their family and will love their little one the right way.

So now we have two BMs left that we qualify for. Our caseworker can't tell us very much but I do know that both BMs are due around the end of summer/beginning of fall. In both situations, BF (birth father) and families are supportive of the adoption.

With that small sad news, we found out both BMs have looked at our book already! PLEASE pray that their hearts would lead them to us. It is still too early to make a decision, they're receiving counseling to prepare them for that day. Maybe it's selfish of me, but even though there are families that have been waiting over two years, I want it to be our time! We started our process officially in December of 2010, so this December marks 2 years.

I think that the pending adoption has made me take a step back to look at our lives. I feel very blessed to have a husband that rocks, family that loves and supports us, and friends that I consider family. I know a lot of our lives will change when we do finally have our baby, but I'm excited for those changes :)

Thanks for reading and praying fervently!
T