Well, as some of you may know, we have submitted our application for adoption and have had our first meeting for our homestudy. We sent our application on September 26th and it was received and processed by the beginning of October. We had our first meeting on October 11th in Memphis at the Life Choices office. We had lots of questions and were able to meet the birthparents coordinator and get reacquainted with our adoption coordinator. They were a wealth of information and we left with LOTS of excitement and LOTS of work on the to do list. Our next meeting will be #2 and #3 lumped together so we can be done. That meeting is November 1st. It's go time people!! We left with the feeling that this process may not take as long as we thought. Let's pray for that!! Here are some requests, praises, and TO DO's on our agenda in the next few weeks.
--The birthparent coordinator shared with us that there is a "deficit" in adoptive families and they are in "need" of more families. That's good news for us!! They have placed so many babies and have had an influx of birthmothers they need more families to place babies with...the Cone's are happy to oblige! One praise is they have placed 4 babies in the last month, that is very exciting!!
--The birthparent coordinator also shared with us the process of what happens at the hospital and what to expect. We were able to ask questions and understand the process. One thing she shared was that when the regular social worker for the hospital is there the adoption paperwork goes much more smooth than during off times. So the first prayer request would be that our baby would be born from 8am-5pm M-F so that things go smooth, seems like a silly request, but anything that helps our experience is worth prayer!
--The adoption coordinator has decided to lump our 2nd and 3rd meeting together since we are not right there in Memphis, so our next meeting is November 1st!! She will be coming to our home and doing individual meetings and looking at our home. We have about 3 weeks to get things ready!! We have LOTS to do, but it's good to have a goal and some fire under our tushes to be ready. Please pray we will have everything done and ready by time she comes.
--She also looked at our profile book and said it looked good, so I need to finish a few pages and get it printed for our meeting. Pray that I get over my writers block and finish it up.
--I mentioned to her about having a fundraiser in Februray and she gave me a look and said that is pretty far out, that comment freaked me out since it's not that far away, but although she can't promise anything she emphasized that we need to be ready with the funds when the baby comes so we may need to have that fundraiser sooner than I thought!!
--So we have a goal...$13,252. I share this with you just so you know our need. Please pray we can get grants, successful fundraisers, and earning all the funds so we can bring that baby home. No money, no baby....so the amount is a little overwhelming but we are trusting God to take care of the need.
Thank you for your prayers and encouragement and excitement you have for us, we appreciate it!! We have felt the prayers everyone has been giving us, keep them up!! We wouldn't be able to sustain without them.
