Showers of blessings

I've been meaning to write about our baby showers for awhile now, and I finally have the time to sit down and do it. Thanks for your patience--I know some of you have been asking for these!

My first shower was on April 12 in Gainesville. It was planned by my good friend Melissa Teten, along with the help of many of our Nav students and friends from our family group at church. After years of attending baby showers, it was a little hard to believe that this was actually for me and our son! I got to spend some time sharing our adoption journey story and a few pictures from our first trip to Russia. Then several women spent time praying for our family (pictured below). It was a treasured memory.
They used a clothesline to hang up the adorable clothes Sam received at the shower. Some of them are pictured behind me. He is a blessed kid already!


The next weekend, I flew to Fort Collins for two more showers. Ben's dad had an extra plane ticket for me to use, which made the trip possible. On Saturday morning, there was a shower hosted by my amazing girlfriends from our small group at church. They are all moms of two or three, and I have much to learn from their wisdom about godly parenting. I am so thankful for their friendship. They are pictured below. Back row: Jenn, Nicole, Shelley. Front row: Becca, Kelly, me. Love you girls!


These are the amazing table decorations, from the creative mind of my friend Jenn. (Don't you think she should start a party planning business?!) She used the colors from the Russian flag, but did a great job of making it feel like a little boy shower, and not like the Fourth of July. :-) The favor bags had cute S's (for Sam!) on them, and were filled with candy bars that had prayer requests regarding our adoption on them. We could never have made it through this journey without so many prayers surrounding us. The food was delicious, and Sam got many more wonderful gifts.
The next afternoon, I had a shower with women who were (or still are) connected with the CSU Navs while we were there. It was so fun to celebrate with our former students and staff friends! One of them commented that this group of women never really gets together anymore, so I was glad we had an excuse to come together and catch up. There were moms and expectant moms in the room, and it's fun to be sharing this journey to motherhood with them. We also did a clothesline of Sam's outfits at this shower, which is pictured below. This kid is going to be so well dressed!

I'm grateful to each friend that took the time to come celebrate Sam's arrival into our family with me, and for all of the women that spent time planning, preparing, and pulling together these amazing events. Ben and I are blessed by your love, encouragement, generosity, and faithful prayers for our family. Thank you for already loving our son so much!

I Got to Stand

I've been wanting to post since Mother's Day, but my mom was visiting. It was a wonderful blessing to have her here to celebrate Mother's Day, and she was so great in helping me run errands and prepare for our upcoming travel to Russia. Thanks Mom!

We went to church on Mother's Day this year for the first time in a few years. It had gotten too hard during the years of infertility. The hardest part was the time during the service when moms were asked to stand and be recognized. While I was always excited to recognize the moms in our circle of family and friends, it was hard to be one of the women in church who had to remain seated.

This year, we went to church with my mom. When they asked the moms and moms-to-be (I'm a little of both!) to stand and receive a carnation, I proudly stood next to my mom. It was a blessing to be able to think about my son in Russia while I waited for a child to bring me a flower, and to realize he'll be home and in my arms in just a little over a month.

But as I stood there, I also looked around and noticed the women who were still seated. I don't know their stories. I have no idea which women were single, which women aren't even trying to start a family yet, and whose hearts were broken by not being able to stand. But I said a quick prayer for them, and also asked God to keep my heart soft toward the women around me.

I am grateful for the churches around the country like my dad's church, who chose to give a flower to every woman as she exited the service--mom or not. I love the concept of celebrating all women on such an important day. On behalf of the hurting women in your congregations, I thank you.

Sam, I can't wait to celebrate Mother's Day with you next year! Thanks for making me a mom!

*Still no update on our wait for a visa invitation letter. Hoping to hear something soon!

Visa update/prayer request

We just got an email from our family coordinator. We have updated prayer requests regarding our visa situation, and would definitely appreciate your prayers.

As you may remember, we were hoping to travel on a business visa for this second trip. We actually purchased double-entry visas the last time, which would've allowed us to use them for both trips. However, our region is no longer allowing adoption travel on business visas. So, the visas we have won't work.

Our facilitator in Russia is working with the Ministry of Education in our region, asking them to write a letter which would allow us to obtain an adoption visa. Apparently they haven't been willing to write this letter in the past, but we think they might be willing now that there is no other way for families to travel. Would you please pray for favor in the eyes of the person who needs to write this letter for us?

We will then need to find a consulate that will accept this letter in order to issue our adoption visas. I'm not sure how many consulates there are, honestly. But would you please pray that once we have the letter (I'm trusting there will be one!) that we can find a consulate willing to issue us the visas we'll need?

Of course, all of this stalls our travel plans, as we can't purchase our airplane tickets unless we are sure we will be able to get visas. For those of you who don't get our email ministry prayer updates (just ask if you'd like to be added), we sent out a request last night asking for people with Delta miles who would be willing to donate them to our account. We have enough for one ticket, but needed 100,000 more for the second one. In less than an hour, we had more miles offered to us than we even need! Praise the Lord for His amazing provision.

I am confident that if God is able to get us a court date in time to see Sam on his birthday, and if He can provide more airline miles than we need, He can certainly work out this visa situation with no problem! The problem is me--wanting to book our tickets, and wanting a sense of certainty. But God is faithful and able to do immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine. (Eph. 3:20) Would you please ask and imagine on our behalf?

We have a court date!

The phone call we'd been waiting for finally came yesterday morning! After so much waiting, we were both starting to feel like we might never hear anything from Russia. Our paperwork arrived in NN on April 7, and we knew that it had to be translated and submitted to the court by the end of April because our judge is on vacation for the month of May. As the end of April approached, we both started to prepare for the possibility that we might not hear anything until after the judge's vacation.

We were in Tampa this week for some regional staff meetings (which, on a side note, were very refreshing for our souls). On Tuesday afternoon, I was walking near the water with a staff friend when my cell phone rang. I looked at the caller ID, and it was from Virginia (where America World is located). My heart skipped a beat, and I told my friend it was our agency. We both got super excited, but it ended up being a call from the financial department. It was definitely an encouraging call about our fundraising, but not the call I'd been hoping for.

On Wednesday night, Ben and I realized that the end of April had arrived with no word from Russia. We talked it over, and realized that even though it would be hard to perhaps wait another month to hear anything, we were confident that God's timing would be perfect for our family.

The next morning (yesterday), as we were getting ready to head to the beach, my cell phone rang. I checked the caller ID. Virginia again. Could it be? I answered, and heard the voice of our family coordinator. I almost screamed, because I knew this was the call! She told me we had a court date, which I quickly told Ben. I'm sure our faces were priceless--how great is our God!

We will leave the US on June 2. Our court date is June 5, and after taking care of various legal paperwork and documents, we'll return to Gainesville as a family of three on June 17. Praise the Lord! We'll be able to be in Russia with Sam on his birthday, which was one of our specific requests. It's amazing to think that we're leaving one month from today. We appreciate your prayers as we prepare for this trip of a lifetime.

Second Post in One Day!

If you haven't read the post below this one, you definitely should. I wrote it this morning, and then realized I needed to post another update. So, it's two-for-one day, I guess. :-)

Because it's the prerogative of women (and mommies) to change their minds, I have completely re-done our nursery theme. I know I was really excited about it when I posted pictures before, but the longer it sat in the closet, the less I liked it. Maybe I just got caught up in the Ikea excitement while I was there, but it looked much cuter in the store than in my house. And then a couple of weeks ago, I found some stuff at Target that I totally fell in love with. For a few weeks, I went back and forth. I'd look at the new stuff online and in the store, and then look at my Ikea stuff. This week, I finally admitted to myself that I just needed to return the old bedding. (Ben, in his wisdom, said he knew this would happen from the moment I found the new bedding!)

So, now our nursery will be decorated in light blue, tan, and white instead of bright colors. (Much like the rest of my house. Guess I should stick with what I like.) I still like the zoo animals, and my friend has some great painting ideas. I know I'll like this better in the long run, and it will be easier to transition him into a "big boy" room someday if the walls are blue, as opposed to lime green. :-) So, sorry if I messed up any potential gifts out there. But I thought I'd post a picture of the new and improved nursery bedding:
It's called DwellStudio Zoo if you want to check out more pictures on the Target website. Thanks for putting up with my ever-changing mind as I wait for our son to come home!

Three updates

First, a praise: our documents arrived in Nizhny on Tuesday! Now they are in the process of being translated and eventually submitted to the court. Please pray that this process is efficient and smooth. We are specifically praying that everything will be submitted by the end of April, so that we can schedule a court date for sometime in June.

Second, a minor update: While in Russia, we decided to change the spelling of Sam's Russian middle name to better represent how it's pronounced. So now it's Yevgeniy with a "y" on the front of it. Just thought those of you interested in details would appreciate knowing that!

The third update is more serious and a big call for prayer. Beginning on May 1, Nizhny Novgord will no longer be allowing adoptive families to travel on business visas (I posted earlier today that it was all of Russia--I was mistaken!). You may remember that earlier this winter, the office processing adoption visas closed, which halted travel plans for families until an alternative was found. That alternative was business visas, which will also no longer work in a few weeks. Some regions are accepting tourist visas, so we are praying that the decision-makers in Nizhny would see this as an acceptable way for adoptive families to travel.

While this seems like a huge hurdle to me, it is a comfort to know that God is not at all surprised or worried. I am sure that an alternative will be found at some point in the future; it's just unclear how long it could take for a decision to be made. This will affect many families waiting to get their children in Nizhny. Of course, it's clearly within their rights to do this, and I'm sure there are reasons behind their actions that we are unaware of. I know they have these kids' best interests in mind. Please join us in praying that our contact in Russia will be successful in speaking to the right people to help solve this problem in a quick and easy way. And please pray that it will not delay our travel plans to bring Sam home!

The waiting is still not over

Even though we have been so blessed to meet our son, the waiting portion of our journey to become a family of three is still not over. Hopefully, it will only last for a couple more months!

Right now, we are waiting for our final documents to arrive in Russia. Last Monday, we were able to schedule an appointment with our doctor. He is excited about our adoption, and was willing to take care of our paperwork very quickly. He walked across the street with us to get everything notarized by his secretary, and she said she'd be willing to help with any other paperwork we might need. It was a huge blessing! Our state police clearances arrived in the mail last Wednesday. We were so glad to see that envelope arrive.

On Thursday morning, I decided to make one final trek to Tallahassee for more apostilles. We had six documents that needed to be certified. Because we are under a time crunch to get everything turned in to the judge before her vacation, we knew that every day might be precious. So I got it all processed and on the way to Russia by Thursday afternoon. We're hoping our facilitator there will receive it by the middle of this week and be able to get started translating and preparing to turn it in to the judge. Then we should be able to get scheduled for a court date. Can't wait to receive that news!

Yesterday some dear sisters threw me a beautiful baby shower. After years of not knowing if I would ever get to have one of these, I was so honored to be celebrated in this way. I should have pictures back soon, and will post more about the day when I have them. I am thankful for so many friends that already love Sam before they've even met him!