Why we are here...

Think back to where you were in December 1977.  I'll tell you where I was.  I was in a womb inside my birth mother when I decided to join the world on December 11th.  My birth mother had a plan.  Her plan included terminating her parental rights to give custody of me to my parents.  If it had not been for her following God's plan, I would not be here today writing this blog entry.  I am so very thankful that I was given to such a loving, supportive, Christian family as the one I was to join.  I could never ask for a better family to grow up in.  My mother and father have been my strength and my support for my entire life.  I owe every part of my life to them.  However, I know and you know that our heavenly Father is the one we owe everything to.  His plan was for my birth mother to give me over to my parents.  His plan was for me to be a part of the Freeland/Forrester family.  It was also in His plan for my daddy to be in an accident on February 12, 1987 and for him to live 20 years in the state he was in.  Why??  Well, it's God's plan.  I don't know why, and I don't suspect I will find out why until I see the Lord up in heaven.


I'm sure you're asking yourself what does this have to do with Chad and Lorissa adopting???  You see, it's in God's plan.  We have been married for 9 years and 8 months.  I'll just go ahead and tell you....we've been off birth control for probably 8 years.  Yes, we've done the infertility tests.  Yes, we've done the infertility drugs.  Nothing seemed to work.  I remember having the conversation with Chad during our first few months of marriage that I wanted to adopt an infant and how he shared the same interest as I did about adoption.  I had such a wonderful experience growing up and knowing I was adopted, therefore, I wanted to give back a little of what I had received from my own parents.  Fast-forward to May 2009.  We had completed all infertility tests and about 4 rounds of infertility drugs.  I had just graduated from UGA with my master's degree.  There was nothing holding us back now from adopting.  As most of you know, from the time Chad and I were married in 2000, at least one of us has been in school doing some kind of graduate work.  Now, it's God's time.  So, we prayed and prayed and prayed for the Lord's will to be done in our lives.  We have wanted nothing more than to share our lives and our love of the Lord with a child.

In December, we got our answer.  I had contacted Bethany Christian Services back in September.  Someone from there had sent us the preliminary application packet but when we received it, I left it on the edge of the desk for months.  I kept looking at it thinking...I'll fill that out this weekend or I'll talk to Chad more about it this weekend.  Well, this weekend never came until my birthday in December.  I think we both knew what the Lord wanted us to do, but neither of us had said anything about it to one another.  On December 28, 2009, we began filling out the preliminary application and the statements of our faith that Bethany requires us to fill out.  It took us until January 3rd to get it all completed.  Our preliminary packet was mailed on that day.  It seems like an eternity ago already.  The statements of faith we had to complete were the ones that took so long to do because we had to do some soul searching to find our answers.  You see, Bethany Christian Services requires any couple wishing to adopt an infant to be Christians.  By completing the statements of faith, we answered questions regarding our faith and belief in Jesus, how we came to know the Lord, how the Lord is evident in our lives, and how we serve Him each day.

Now, here we are today.  Since January 3rd, we have completed 10 hours of educational classes regarding adoption, completed our formal application, each of us completed a 12-page self-study, and we attended a Discover Adoption informational meeting.  It's time now to wait until the final word of approval of our formal application and to make certain our references letters are sent to the agency.  We will also begin creating our profile book and an online profile where birth mothers can view a letter from us and our profile (a birth mother will choose us to be a forever family to her child).  Once we have final approval, we go into the home study where our adoption specialist will visit our home and speak with us individually.  Once our home study is approved, it's the hurry up and wait game.  Most likely our wait time will be at least a year because we are requesting a Caucasian infant from here in the U.S.

Please keep us in your prayers.  We need guidance, strength, and patience daily.  All of this comes from the Lord and the Lord only.  On Him do we wait....

"For this child I prayed; and the Lord hath given me my petition which I asked of Him." 
I Samuel 1:27

The Wailing Wall...

So, here I am.  I thought it would be a wonderful thing to create a blog about our adoption process.  I knew I wanted to keep a journal of the emotional journey we are about to embark upon, so I thought I would share our story here with all of you.

Why is it when you think things are just trucking along great, then someone or something tries to tear you down?  Is it the devil?  Probably.  But, the way I look at it is that I must be doing what the Lord wants me to do or else I wouldn't be getting this criticism.  That sounds like the better answer, so I'm sticking with that.  I know the Lord is in control of every situation.  Nothing happens in life that He is not in control over.  This past weekend, I found out just how in control God is in my life.

On Saturday, I found out some troubling information that almost rocked me to my core.  Someone had been talking "smack" about Chad and I going through with the adoption process.  Now, normally things don't get to me.....but I'll just tell you now, I must be getting into that "mommy mode" thing already because I was livid!  Not only was the person speaking about me, they were speaking about my child (or at least my prospective child).  It hurt me first because I am adopted.  It made me think that this person must not like adoption!  Then, I realized.....jealousy!  That green-eyed monster! Secondly, it hurt me that there are actually people out there who don't want others to be happy.....gasp!  After that horrifying revelation...the Lord showed me how He is still in control.

Sunday morning rolls around and we are sitting in church service.  I knew our pastor, Ricky Stone, was about to leave for a trip to the Holy Land on Monday.  Well, he starts to talk about going over to see where the Lord walked and about the other places he will be visiting.  I knew what was coming before he said it.  The mysterious thing is that Chad knew about it also but neither of us had said anything to each other about it.  Ricky begins with talking about going to visit the Wailing Wall and how he knows that God can hear our prayers wherever we are no matter if we are in the Holy Land or if we are in Disneyland (he didn't say Disneyland, I added that myself).  But, the Wailing Wall is believed to be a place where people visit to say special prayers and leave messages tucked in the wall for God. At that point....my heart began to pound and I could feel a lump coming up in my throat.  God is in control and He knew that at that moment I needed to hear from Him that we are doing the right thing in our lives by adopting.  Ricky continued with letting the church know that if any of us wanted to write down a prayer, he would make certain that it made its way to the Wailing Wall for the Lord to hear.  I felt like someone had just covered me with a warm blanket......I knew it was the Lord telling me that everything will be alright and that I should rely on Him and look to Him for strength and no one else.  So, Sunday afternoon Chad and I wrote a prayer on a little piece of paper.  We took it back to church Sunday night to give to Ricky.  He promised us he would say a special prayer over the paper as he placed it in the Wailing Wall.