One thing close to our hearts in this whole adoption process is the high rate of abortions around the world. We feel that one thing we can do is be willing to take in a baby that might otherwise be aborted. We picked our adoption agency with that in mind. We have decided to work with Christian Family Care Agency for our adoption. One of the main reasons we picked them is because the Crisis Pregnancy Center refers to them. We really appreciate the work that both of these organizations do!

Today we had our first meeting with our adoption agent! It was a little overwhelming because there was so much info to take in, but at the same time, it was amazing to feel like the process is really starting! We will meet with our agent, Carol, about 4 times over the next couple months. During that time we will have lots of paperwork, a home study, and adoption classes to complete. We are hoping to be certified to adopt by this summer. At that point the waiting game begins. We will write a letter to prospective birth parents and then they look through a book of these letters and pick the family they want to place thier baby with. Carol reminded us today that God already has the child picked out for us and His timing will be perfect.

We would appreciate prayers for protection for our child no matter what it is exposed to in the womb. We are also in prayer for the birth family as we are beginning to understand what a selfless thing it is to give a child up for adoption.

It was a normal Sunday afternoon in early November 2008. Kurtis and I were laying around relaxing and reading. I take that back, maybe it wasn't such a normal Sunday afternoon... :O)

Kurtis looked over at me while I was flipping through the pages of my REAL SIMPLE magazine and he said "So, I have been thinking about adoption lately". It took a minute for those words to process in my mind. I had to go back over them a few times... Were those words actually coming out of my husband's mouth? Adoption had never really been a topic of conversation for us.

Kurtis has never felt super excited about bringing a child into this world, and me having some medical issues had made the probability of having children of our own a little less likely. We had decided together a while ago that if God wanted us to have children, it would happen, and if not that would be alright. We were satisfied with the life God had given us and children would just be an extra blessing some day.

When Kurtis brought up adoption that day, I felt the tears immediately welling up in my eyes. What Kurtis didn't know was that for about 2 weeks I had been thinking about how I would like to adopt, but had not brought it up to Kurtis. Turns out, he had been thinking about it also for a couple weeks, but was hoping that I might bring it up if it was the right thing. We sat there and cried and thanked God for this journey He was taking us on. We spent the next few hours discussing our hopes, dreams, and fears about adoption.

I don't remember the events of the rest of the evening, but I do remember leaving that afternoon so excited to begin this adventure that God had born in our hearts...

-Emily