A special request...

Many of you have asked for specific ways to help with the adoption of Baby LeMoine #3 and up until now we haven't had a very detailed list of things to ask for.  We have been so thankful to all of you who have joined with us in prayer over the situation and everyone involved!  We do feel like now is the time to start asking for your help in a fairly tangible way, so here is what we have come up with:

-Airline tickets.  Although the destination is still unknown, it is likely that we will need to travel across the country with little notice to get to the place our baby is born.  Do you have airline miles you would be willing to let us use for a ticket?  Or would you like to donate specifically to help us fund that cost?  We would so appreciate it!

-Gift cards for food.  Again, the situation is unknown, but it will be likely that we will spend a couple of weeks away from home as we wait for our baby to be released from the hospital and then as we wait for interstate paperwork to be processed.  Money or gift cards for food would be much appreciated!

-Preemie clothes.  We have no way of knowing whether our baby will be born premature, but many situations that we have opened ourselves up to could result in a premature birth.  Do you have any preemie clothes you would be willing to let us borrow if we needed them?  Or would you be willing to buy an outfit or two for us to have, just in case?  We want to be prepared to leave on a moment's notice and are trying to check things off of our list.  

-Money.  This is the kicker!  At the time of placement, we will owe our agency anywhere between $25,000-$30,000.  Would you prayerfully consider donating towards this amount?  Our friends and founders of a non-profit organization called The Moses Movement have offered to collect donationss specifically to be used towards funding our adoption.  These would be considered a tax-free donation and they would provide a receipt for your end of the year taxes.  If you feel lead to donate in this way, please ask for details!  In addition to that, we have our PayPal donation link on the right hand side of the blog that will come straight to us to use for this purpose.  

Thank you for reading through this list of requests.  Please get in touch with us if you would like to help!  Feel free to share with others who might be interested in helping as well!  Would you please pray with us that these needs are met and any anxiety over these needs will be replaced with peace and comfort that the Lord has already worked out the details?  Thank you friends!

Dear Birthmom...

Kirby and I wrote our letter to the birthparents last week.  How do you encompass everything you are thinking and feeling into a simple letter?!  It is definitely not possible.  But we pray that we portrayed enough of ourselves that a birthmom will fall in love with us, over time we will build that relationship, and eventually she will see the part of our hearts that couldn't be put into that letter.  

Dear Birthparent, 

Right now, you are probably making about a million tough decisions every day and there is no easy way to just make them go away.  So, first off, we want to thank you for even considering adoption for your child. We recognize the weight that comes with that decision.  We pray for you often. 

Secondly, we want you to know that we plan on welcoming birth parents as an extention of our family as long as that relationship is healthy and loving.  We want you to know that staying in touch is important to us.  There is great potential for an adopted child to have questions of a birth parent years down the road and we hope those conversations can even happen with you if that is your desire too.  Along the way we want to use letters and emails with pictures as baby steps that hopefully lead to Skype or Facetime interaction if that is a possibility for you.  We are not only open to, but hopeful of, future visits as well. 

Now let us tell you a bit about ourselves and our family.  We have been married for 5 1/2 years and have two sons, Jaxon (4) and Hudson (1).  We are all excited for a new baby in the family!  Jaxon is a GREAT big brother and Hudson even met a 4 month old friend recently and has become very excited about little babies.  Our boys love to play with each other, sneak each other food at the dinner table, and watch movies together.  They can't wait to add a new baby brother or sister to the mix! 

(From Kirby): Cara is a wonderful mom and very patient.  She is gifted with children and that is one of the qualities I noticed first about her.  She wants children to be heard and loved.  She is also passionate about education and has a knack for making learning a lot of fun.  She enjoys cozying up in a blanket with a book and a coffee, while I prefer playing basketball or waching football with a dozen friends, and I like how we balance each other out in ways like that. 

(From Cara): Kirby is such a great guy!  He is a very fun dad-always wrestling, playing ball, riding bikes, or whatever other fun things might be up his sleeve!  He loves people and has never met a stranger.  While we are so different in who we are, God knew what He was doing when He put us together!  I couldn't imagine what my life would be like without him. 

We plan to be very open about how our family will be put together through adoption.  We want our child to know that their birthparents love them and made brave decisions for their sake. 

We have prayed for whoever our baby is, not knowing when or where or from who this baby's journey would start.  We know that choosing who will raise, love, protect, and guide your baby will be a hard choice, so we are seeking to join in this journey with you for your baby.   

Love, 

Kirby and Cara (Jaxon and Hudson, too!)

The same weekend we wrote this letter, we watched a beautiful documentary on a woman's journey to find her birthparents.  Watch it.  It is free on Hulu and WELL worth your time.  Here is the trailer to help pique your interest...

Things are moving FAST!

Things have definitely started moving fast since my last post! Sorry for the delay. Here is a quick recap of the past couple of weeks (er, month) since I last wrote... 

-Our homestudy went GREAT! We definitely would not have been ready without the help of my mom and dad, so huge shout out to them! We had always heard that they really don't care as much about the HOUSE part of it as they do about the FAMILY part of it, and that was definitely true in our situation too. Our social worker arrived and immediately put us at ease! She was friendly, sweet, and we actually know her brother (small town for ya)! She chatted with the boys for a few minutes, and if you know our Little Guy at all, then you know without me saying that he was bouncing off the wall and very excited to meet someone new and tell her everything she needed to know about him! The cutest part about it was when he introduced his "little buddy, his little brother, Hudson." My parents took the boys and she proceeded to interview both of us together for about 2 hours. Then she did individual interviews with each of us for about 20-30 minutes. Lots of questions about our relationship, our relationships with our extended families, our intentions for adopting, how we plan to talk to our child about his/her adoption, etc. Someday I hope to blog in more detail about that part of it all. At the very end she took a 3 minute tour of the house and asked to see our fire extinguisher. Easy-peasy! 

-Our next step was to fill out an Adoption Profile Questionnaire that went into great detail about what and what-not we would be willing to accept in our baby and the situation he/she comes from. This was HARD! We spent a long time one night researching the long term effects of different substance abuse on a baby. There was a long list of substances, ranging from alcohol to cocaine to heroin (and everything in between), and we had to list whether we would be open to the birthmom using those things daily, weekly, or monthly. The next part entailed making decisions on the baby's medical history. Things like depression, schizophrenia, Hepatitis, HIV/AIDS were listed and we had to detail whether we would be open to that from the birthmom and/or birthdad and their extended family. PHEW, lots of emotional toll that night! 

-Next up, we had a call with our Adoption Family Specialist who is our go-to-girl from this point out! She just basically needed to make sure she understood what we filled out on the APQ that I just talked about and understood where we had some flexibility. She is the one who will be trying to help us match with a birthmom, so it was very important that she understood us and what we are hoping for with this adoption. At the end of the call she said we wouldn't wait long... 

-And then, the NEXT DAY we got an email about a potential match! It really took us by surprise! So now, we wait. We wait to see if this particular birthmom chooses our family to raise her baby. How crazy is that?! Will you pray for her? What a big decision to make! 

-In the midst of waiting, we are still working on putting together a family profile which consists of pictures and letters to show to other potential birth families. It is kind of a weird thing to wrestle with. We want to show who we really are and pray that who we are strikes a chord with the perfect birthmom out there. And ultimately, we trust that God knows the exact details of this story, so we rest in the truth of that! 

Thanks for catching up with us! Continue to pray that the paperwork falls into place, that the perfect birth family sees our profile, and that the money needed to continue the process comes in at exactly the right time!