I had an odd thought this week as to becoming a father one of these days (sidenote:we’re still in a holding pattern for the clinics to talk to one another to arrange shipment) – what kind of legacy will I leave to my children? Well, not a legacy per se, but what traits of mine are going to be passed on? I got some of my parents finer (and not so finer depending on who you ask ) qualities. I always have said I got my book smarts from Mom and my street smarts from Dad – which both have done me well. However, I also got the good old streak of German stubbornness in there as well.

So, what of my finer/not-so-finer qualities would I like to pass down? I would hope they pick up on my work ethic as it was passed to me by my Dad. I take great pride in my work and make sure things get taken care of. To quote Dad, “Anything worth doing is worth doing right.” I’m sort of handy around the house, so I’d hope the kids would want to hang out with Dad and help with house projects and learn a little something so they could continue passing down that knowledge as it was passed to me by Dad.

Humor is another quality I’d hope to pass on. I love being a ham – and enjoy making people laugh. Just ask Rebekah and I’m the first one to act like a goofball just to get a laugh. Yet another quality I got from Dad.

I hope they pick up on some of my interests as well and want to share in those with me. I enjoyed helping Dad around the house, learning to cook from Mom (which has served me well – thanks Mom!!) as well as sharing in other activities with Mom and Dad such as bowling.

Anyway, no real point to this post other than I was just thinking over what qualities and interests of mine would my kids pick up and want to share in with me one day. Sometimes my wide ranging list of interests would probably over load the kids. Oh well, as long as one of them is a drummer it’ll all be good!

It’s been a while since an update – but that’s only because I’ve been slacking off and not diligent on these updates. We’ve had lots going on lately!

First – we’ve got embryos! I believe in my last update we were still waiting for the adoption agency to open back up from the Christmas holiday. We were selected by a very nice couple to adopt their embryos. Our doctor looked over the report on the embryos and said that things looked good for us to move forward, so we accepted the match as soon as we heard that news. Nightlight sent over the contract for our signatures and that’s been sent back along with the necessary payment and we’re moving forward!

A couple weeks ago we were able to speak with the genetic parents over the phone – honestly I thought it might be weird, but quite the contrary – they are wonderful! Like most things when getting to know new people, there were pauses in the conversation – but that was to be expected. Rebekah and I, as well as the genetic family, feel the Lord’s hand in this whole process and we just know He’s orchestrating everything that needs to be in place – and in His time, not ours. He’s teaching us patience (which is harder for Rebekah than me).

Last week Rebekah had a mock transfer with her doctor so they can make sure everything will go smoothly when the time comes to transfer embryos. Essentially they do everything they would for a real transfer except they use a saline solution instead of a solution with the embryos. Sometime this month Rebekah will begin a course of meds that will help prepare for the actual transfer – and that should put us on course for a transfer in the late March/early April timeframe. If everything works out, it looks like we could be parents around Christmas of 2010!

We certainly appreciate all the prayers so far, and would continue to ask that you pray for the Lord’s guidance during this process. We’re still moving forward and not quite to the goal yet, but we’re certainly making progress!

Just as both Rebekah and I were preparing ourselves for the possibility of our journey entering a long waiting stage during our matching, we get news we’d not expected!

First, I’ll recap what’s happened in the last few weeks. We had to wait for our Home Study report to be completed so we could send that off to Nightlight. We recieved the report in early December and sent that off to Nightlight. We also got confirmation that Rebekah’s doctor sent over her letter in the format that Nightlight needed. Once those things were completed, we only had to have one more conversation with Nightlight to finalize our preferences for our adoption.

Rebekah completed the final conversation with Nightlight on Friday, December 18. During this conversation, Rebekah was told that matching could take as long as 4 months – so we were prepared to wait a while for a match. Now, on to the good news – we got an email late on Monday, December 21 that a family had chosen us a potential match to adopt their embryos. This took us both by surprise as it took about 3 days to be matched when we were expecting it to take up to 4 months. This was definitely an answered prayer!

So, what’s next? Our adoption agency is closed until tomorrow (Jan. 4) for the Christmas holiday, so we weren’t able to do much other than review the genetic family’s profile and return the confidentiality agreement. Once the Nightlight staff is back in the office, we’ll hope to continue moving forward with this potential match. Rebekah’s doctor has some information to review and begin working with Rebekah to possibly schedule a mock transfer as a test run for a possible embryo transfer.

We’d ask for your prayers in the upcoming weeks as we seek the Lord’s guidance and His Will in this decision. We’re very excited at the possibilities of being parents in 2010 and to quote my mother-in-law, “we’re praying for a blizzard” (since the program with Nightlight is called the “Snowflakes” program).

Additionally, if you would feel so led to donate to our adoption fund to help cover some of our agency or medical expenses, please visit the “Donate” page of the blog. The link is on the upper right of the homepage. Thank you so much for your support and prayer – the way this process has unfolded could only have done so by the Lord’s hands, and through the prayers of our friends and family.

After hitting the ground running at full speed with our adoption prep work, the last few weeks have felt as if we’re doing absolutely nothing. We were playing the waiting game – waiting for Rebekah’s doctor to send the letter to Nightlight, waiting for our home study report to be finished and arrive. The waiting will certainly try one’s patience. I know during the course of waiting that our nerves certainly were shot. However, now things feel like they are moving once again.

We received our home study report on Saturday afternoon, which was the final piece we were waiting for. We sent that out to Nightlight on Monday via UPS – so it should arrive on Wednesday morning. So, what’s next from here? More waiting…

We have one more interview with Nightlight on the phone to go over any changes in preferenes for donor parents, etc. and then they will start the matching process. During the matching process, Nightlight will send our family profile to genetic parents that fall within the criteria that we’ve specfied in our preferences. Once a family selects us to be adoptive parents then we’ll start moving toward the transfer of the embryos (which includes the transportation, thawing and implantation).

In the upcoming months our patience will certainly be tried. The matching process could take 2 weeks, a month or even 4 months or more. The biggest unknown for us at this point is knowing when our match will occur. We know the matching will happen in the Lord’s timing – we just have to be patient and let things happen in His timing. What we would certainly appreciate from all our friends and family out there are your prayers. Please pray for patience as we wait to be matched – that is the toughest part for us. Many of our friends and family are new parents or will soon be parents and sometimes it feels like we’re being left behind.

Thank you all for your prayers and we hope to join the league of parents soon!

Recently it feels as though all the progress we were making has slowed and we’re back to the waiting period. We’re currently waiting on the delivery of our final home study report from the agency so that we can forward it on to Nightlight to continue moving forward. We had a heck of a time getting Rebekah’s doctor’s letter completed. It got lost in the mail or something the first time, and the second time it was missing the exact wording that Nightlight needed to move forward. Thankfully, Megan worked with the Doctor’s office to get the letter appended and that should be sorted out soon.

In the meantime we’re slowing starting to put together our nursery. I know that some folks may say we’re jumping the gun a little bit, and we might be slightly, but doing little things like picking up diaper bags and nursery furniture when we can catch it on sale (or have a coupon) helps us feel like the process is still moving forward. Rebekah picked up a bag for me because she knew I would not carry a frilly one – mine says Jeep on it so it’s awesome…nuff said! Some of the other little things we’re picking up can be put to use right away with our little niece, Hannah. With them in the house, she’ll have stuff to play with when she’s visiting Aunt Beka and her goofy Uncle Eric.

So, with the waiting game started again – what’s our next move? Once the homes study report is delivered, we’ll send it off to Nightlight in California and then they will have to conduct about a 20 minute phone interview with either Rebekah or myself (or both if we’re both available). Then they will start sending our family profile out to families with embryos to donate. We know that the Lord has the perfect family out there for us and will match us up in His time. We just have to be patient and know that His hand is continuing to work as it has been throughout the whole process.

Here’s some quick photos of the nursery with the couple of items we’ve picked up on sale (except for the hope chest – Rebekah has had that for several years). Enjoy!

We’ve hit a major milestone in our adoption process – the completion of our  home study! We had our final meeting with our social worker, Jennifer, on Friday evening during which we gave her the remaining few documents she needed including our reference letters. The folks who wrote letters for us – you are wonderful! They were such thoughtful letters and we can’t say “Thank you!” enough for them.

Now, the fun part begins! We still have to get a copy of the homestudy report to Nightlight, as well as a required letter from Rebekah’s doctor. We might just have to release the wolves (i.e. Eric) to sniff out that letter to make sure it gets sent. Once all the paperwork is received by Nightlight, we’ll have a short interview and then the matching process starts. This is a little bit of a wild card in the process as we don’t know for sure exactly how long the matching process will take. We’re just praying for the Lord’s hand in this and know that he has the perfect Snowflake picked out for us and the dots will connect exactly when they are supposed to.

We continue to be amazed at just how well things have fallen into place for us in regards to the adoption process overall. Once we established that we would be adopting, it took us little to no time to pick the agencies that would be helping us. We’ve had great experiences with both of them and Rebekah and I are both sure that this is the path the Lord had picked for us the whole time (though I would have never admitted that 2 years ago). It’s just amazing to watch the Lord at work…

First off, let me apologize for the delay between my posts. I had every intention of keeping a weekly update going, but as things started moving I didn’t take the time to stop and post in the midst of all the paperwork. So this will be a multi-purpose post in that I’ll share some of what’s been going on as well as what our next steps are.

~Taking a moment to breathe~
With all that’s been going on with work, the adoption process and our extended family, we just needed a breather. We spent last weekend in Hilton Head Island with some of the best friends in the world, Mandy and Jason. There is certainly no shortage of laughter when the four of us get together. Jason works in IT as well, so it’s nice to have a buddy to “geek out” with and talk about all the silly stuff we deal with at work. Rebekah and Mandy get to talk about girl stuff…who knows what that will entail, but they seem to enjoy it. We certainly needed the weekend away to recharge the batteries, eat a bunch of great food and laugh until we cried. It was a great weekend away!

We’ve also been spending a good amount of time visiting our precious niece, Hannah! I’m actually ashamed to admit it, but she’s got Uncle Eric wrapped around her little finger. About the time she was born was around the time we found out that we would not be able to have our own biological children, and that was harder on me that I thought it would be; however it’s turned out to be quite fantastic to be an Uncle! There for a while it seemed like Aunt Beka got all the quality time with Hannah and passed her off to me just about the time she was ready to be fed, so she’d get fussy with me (thanks, dear ). The last few visits though, I’ve been fortunate enough to spend time with her before she got fussy. She’s very strong and quite a little wiggle worm, and really likes facial hair…I can only imagine what’s going to happen when she’s old enough to grab it and pull on it (might be time to shave the goatee). She’s been an awesome addition to the family, and I think it’s been very therapeutic for me to spend time with her. We can’t wait for her to have a little cousin to play with!

~Status Updates~
As of our last update we had selected our home study agency and sent in the application. Our application with Nathanson has been accepted and we’ve started our meetings with our social worker, Jennifer. Our first meeting was this past Sunday and it went really well. This first meeting was to go over the house and get some general information about it, as well as do our individual interviews that talk about how we were raised, our parents, and our views on parenting.

We’ve also been very proactive on our documentation and almost have all of it complete, which will hopefully help move things along smoothly. Right now we’re just missing medical clearance for Rebekah that was filled out incorrectly by the doctor and our reference letters. We’re very excited that everything seems to be falling into place pretty well.

~Next Steps~
Our next few steps include a couple more meetings with Jennifer to finish up our home study and then we’ll be ready to send that off to Nightlight to start our matching process. I’ve been busy working on all our documentation for Nightlight which includes our family letter and autobiography so that when the home study is complete we’ll be set to pack it up and send it to Nightlight. We’re both very excited as to how well this process has been going so far – everyone we’ve worked with at both agencies has been just wonderful.

We continue to appreciate your prayers as we progress along in this journey. The Lord has been so good and answered so many prayers for our family on so many levels, and we’ll keep going through the doors He opens!

Until next time,
-E

This past week has been full of excitement! We’ve had a lot going on – and not just in our own little world. Where to start…

~A New Arrival!~
Our beautiful little niece, Hannah Faith, made her grand entrance into the world on 9/12/2009 at 10:01 PM! The family is all doing well after her arrival – thankfully my mother-in-law (who had been recovering from surgery) was well enough to be in the room when she was delivered, along with Rebekah. Congratulations to Jeremy and Heather, and welcome little Hannah Faith!!

Hannah’s arrival is certainly bittersweet. I am ecstatic to be and proud to be an uncle, but at the same time, it’s tough considering the situation Rebekah and I are facing. I know we face a pretty long road ahead to become parents and no one said it’ll be easy, but the Lord has a plan for us and we just have to continue down the path that he’s laid for us. Until the day we have our own “Peanut” to spoil, we’ll just spoil our precious little niece rotten!

~Status Updates~
We’ve selected the agency who’ll be handling our home study, Nathanson Adpotion Services,  and have started the application process with them and hope to send that in this week. We’ve had some developments in the last week or so that could only be the Lord’s doing to help open doors and guide us in directions to go. I can’t really explain these in detail just yet as nothing is set in concrete with these yet, but they are starting to solidify.

Our next steps are to finish our application for Nathanson, write yet another check and put it in the mail. Then will start the process of doctor visits, background checks, reference letters, etc. to complete our home study. We just keep plugging along and the Lord will open the doors that need opened and shut the ones that need shut. We’ll just keep walking through the ones He opens as He opens them

Today was a big day for our journey – we took our first “baby step” (please pardon the pun) towards being parents. Rebekah and I selected the agency that we’re going to work with to facilitate our Embryo Adoption – Nightlight Christian Adoptions. This was a big decision for us – one that took a good bit of prayer and numerous phone calls by Rebekah to gather all the information we needed to make a proper decision.

Rebekah could not stop raving about the level of service she’d received from Nightlight. They genuinely cared about us and our situation and took the time to answer all of our questions, as well as went the extra mile to send us additional information that we could use in moving forward with our adoption. Overall, I have been very impressed with them and look forward to working with them in the coming months to take the steps start our family.

Making this decision was huge in getting the ball rolling and Rebekah and I were both ecstatic to get the application completed, write our check, include our photo from this past Christmas and drop the package in the mail. We just can’t wait to see what the Lord has in store for us in the coming weeks.

This week has actually been full of very big decisions. As some readers may know – I have been pursuing my MBA at UNCC since January. Over the last few weeks as our lives have been changing, and I’ve seen the amount of work needed to start our family, I’ve come to the realization that I just can’t be “Superman” and do everything. I certainly don’t want to sacrifice one thing for another – especially when it comes to family. For that reason, I’ve decided to put school on pause for the time being. I’m not putting it on hold indefinitely but at least until we’ve had time to properly pursue our family. For me starting our family and taking the time to do that properly and not sacrificing my relationship with Rebekah is more important than a degree. It really boils down to what’s important in life, and I will always put my family first with no question, no compromise and certainly no regrets.

School can wait – I have a great wife, a great job, a loving and supporting family and great friends. That’s a pretty awesome place to be and I can’t wait to add “great kids” to that list too. That’ll be better than a degree in my book!!

Application to Nightlight

As of right now there is not a lot of movement in a particular direction for us. We’re still gathering information about different agencies and their associated costs, affiliations, etc. Rebekah and I are currently leaning towards exploring the route of Embryo Adoption for start our family. This option would allow us to experience being pregnant and caring for the baby as it’s growing and developing just as we would having our own biological kids.

We are hopeful to have an agency selected and our application submitted by the end of September. There is a lot to go into this as some of what is needed to transfer the embryos to Rebekah would be medical costs and we have to see if any of it would be covered by insurance, and if so which part of our insurance it would fall under, etc.

Rebekah has taken it upon herself to do a lot of the initial research and is then sharing what she finds out with me. I am helping out as much as possible, but with my school schedule and “moonlighting” work, it makes it tough for me to dedicate a time to sit and read tons and tons of material. She has done a great job so far, and I have really appreciated the level of dedication she’s put in to getting this ball rolling.

~ACTION ITEMS~

• Finish our research on agencies and requirements, costs, insurance, etc.
• Choose an agency
• Complete our application and send in all required documents