here's the story...

About 2 years ago, I heard a radio broadcast that mentioned "snowflakes." I then googled this and found it to be only available in California. 

God called us to adoption during a sermon series on obedience (the BRICKS series, if you are familiar with our church). Ryan and I started informally looking at options. Financially, we decided that international and newborn domestic just seemed out of reach for us, so we called our DSS branch - Department of Social Services - and put our names on a list to be invited to an information session. At our session, we met a couple that used to attend our church and had moved north of our town and were also interested in adoption. We talked and exchanged contact info and said hopefully, we would see them at the training next month.  OUR plan was to complete the process in OUR timing, but lets face it, we are not in control and even the best laid plans fail. We had received God's call, but not necessarily His direction and heart.  When we received the packett of paperwork and the letter with the training dates - we realized it conflicted with our oldest son's first soccer game. We chose to attend the soccer game and try to go to the next month's training.

The next letter arrived and the dates conflicted with a mandatory work day, the next; a trip to Kentucky. I was starting to get frustrated and question what we were doing, but we trudged ahead. The next training invite, we immediatley signed up for and the day before, we were all ready to go - child care set up, meals prepared, etc, the phone rings and the training is cancelled...at first I was angry, then just plain mad. We were truing to do this OUR way, not stepping out on faith, not completely trusting God to lead and provide for us along the way.  I knew that God was in control, but let me thoughts and feelings get away from me. A dear friend, said, "Tori, why are you angry about this, it just may be that God has a child for you that just isn't ready yet, wait, and be patient." It was a relief to recieve wise counsel and to rest in His grace.

Our paperwork was half-way complete, but I wasn't satisfied. My heart still yearned to do international adoption, while Ryan felt that there were children here that needed homes too. We just weren't clicking, and God wasn't ready to reveal to us His plan, yet.  We had a strong "WAIT" from God, so obediently, we waited, didn't think about it for a while.  In the meantime, our church began and 10 year 10 goal plan for impacting our community and region, come to find out one of the goals was to eliminate orphans in our area.  OK, God, we'll get back on the ball...

I began researching adoption agencies, international adoptions, and just anything that I had missed before. I was still burdened by confusion, not being on the same page as Ryan and just wanting to do something, but not knowing what and not being able to force it in our own time.  I stumbled across Nightlight, a national adopption agency that does international, newborn domestic, and "snowflakes." This time, unlike two years ago, there were two branch offices, Southern California and GREENVILLE, SOUTH CAROLINA. OK, now, I have lived in a few places throughout the south and never do you see a state like ours team up with California. I felt my heart jump and clarity fill my thoughts.  I tucked it into the back of my head and metioned it to Ryan. Ususally, when I tell Ryan one of my crazy ideas, he is the voice of reason, saying hold on, let's think about this...but he just stopped thought and said, ok, lets look into it.  I was jumping out of my shoes!

A few days later, we left for a trip to visit family and friends, we planned to visit our old church and reconnect with old friends. We have lots of friends there who have done international adoption and I was excited to re-connect with them and ask questions. We have a friend who runs and non-profit to help fund international adoptions, and I wanted to ask her what the wait list would be. We ran into her before church, but I planned to aske her after in sunday school.  During worship, God clearly gave me a number, "3." 3 kids, God?!?!?! really, I can barely handle my own three, I realized that I was responding in fear, and God had given me 2 Timothy 1:17 just that week "For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind."  I leaned over to ryan and said, "3, God has 3 kids out there for us." Amazingly, he said, "OK"  It was just too much, my sensible, running-the-numbers kind of husband was saying, "ok"

When we went to sunday school, our friend was not there, I was bummed, to not be able to ask, to feel that route stopped, once again. A woman got up to speak, and she used that verse, I was so confused, God was working, and I just needed to be patient. We went to lunch after church with our dear friends and mentors from when we first met Jesus. they adopted from Ethiopia a year ago, and we were so excited to finally meet their newest addition.  Out of the blue, she asked, "have you ever heard of embryo adoption?"  i just about fell out of my chair, I asked her repeatedly, if I had mentioned it to her before. When I finally believed her that I had not, I told her what I had been researching the past week, snowflakes or embryo adoption.

In the US, it is estimated that there are 400,000-500,000 embryos in frozen storage. When a couple goes through IVF, doctors generally create 10-12 embryos, the couples use a few and then have to decide if they want to donate the remaining to research, incinerate them, or leave them indefinetly in frozen storage which can be costly. Finding out these things begins a whole issue for Christians, purely the challenge to my beliefs and thinking was worth God's call. It is a deep issue which society and the Bible disagree. 
Nightlight, has started asking for couples who do not plan to use their babies/embryos to donate them, so that other couples can give them a chance at life, a chance to fulfill God's plan for their tiny, but nonetheless life. With embryo adoption, the doctors usually attempt to implant - wait for it - *3* embryos.

We left that lunch on a high, focused, clear, and finally, praise God, on the same page! on the ride home, we heard the song our church used for the 10 year plan and jokingly looked at each other and Ryan said, "ah, that is just a coincidence" he winked. We talked about it, and for the first time in a year and a half had a place to start, a goal and knew God's will and were thankful that He chose us to be a part of it.

the courage to be obedient

I was reading just now. I have a daily email devotional from Proverbs 31 ministries. They simply come to my inbox and whenever I get a chance (God of course knows exactly when), I open the next one. During this process, I have known that my call is to follow Him, to be obedient and do as He leads. So today, the devotional was about how God calls people who aren't extra talented, extra gifted, with lots of money, fame or beauty, but who are plain, imperfect people that will choose to be obedient. Remember, what He has planned is for His glory alone, not ours.

That makes me laugh, because I know that of all the moms I know, I am far (or perhaps last) from the best. It can only be for his glory, so that is the reason He chose me to do this crazy thing that the world will not understand.

I am so afraid to do this...

OK, so here goes...I am neither a typist nor a writer, but in order to document what God has been doing in our family, I have decided to do a blog. gulp.  I have really loved reading others' blogs on their adoption processes, and since people have started to ask to hear our story, here it is..