I just have to say that those of you who have babies the regular way; I don't know how you wait 9 months to see that precious baby!!! I am only having to wait 2 months, max, and it's killing me!!!
I talked with the birth mother this past Monday. I did not find out anything earth shattering but we just talked. We ended up talking 30-45 minutes about Spring break plans, life in general and missions. Who talks to their birth mother about missions?!?!?!
We also talked the director of the adoption center who is handling our case and she told us that the birth mother has signed up for Medicaid and that there would be a 7 day wait period before they would call her back but she is certain she will get it. Keep praying the birth mother will go to the doctor so that we can have a better idea of when we will actually being going to California.
Once again I just have to share how God's hand is in this. First of all I want to thank all of you who have donated because we needed to mail a check to the lawyers office tomorrow for $8,600 and guess what? We have $8,500 and we are adding the extra $100 and so we have officially met our first deadline!!! Today alone we were given $460 at church!!!
One of our big concerns was lodging in California. For those of you that don't know we have to stay a minimum of 10 days with the possibility of up to 14 days in California while we wait for interstate paperwork to go through. We had a friend whose college roommate's family lives in...you guessed it, San Diego!!!! One of her roommates family members has offered to let us stay in their house and have told us not to worry about a car while we are there, yet another concern of ours. God is so good!!
During Spring break, Chris and I were supposed to go to Providence, Rhode Island with our church on a mission trip. We had already paid our deposit when we found out that we were matched with a birth mother. We decided that since we didn't know when exactly the baby was due it would probably be best that we not go, just in case, but our plane tickets had already been bought. Our missions pastor found out for us that we can still use our plane tickets we just have to pay $150 to have them changed to go to San Diego and whatever the difference in the price is. Again another huge answer to prayer.
Over the past 4 years my faith in God has wavered. When we went through failed IVF I thought, why would you do this to us?? I thought the same thing when we had our miscarriage. I was in such a dark place at that time, I couldn't sing songs of praise to God because I didn't really believe he was so wonderful. I remember one Sunday we were singing, How Great is Our God, and had to sit back down in the pew because I was crying to much because I didn't believe He was so great.
As I am on this side of 4 years I can see that God answered a prayer that I prayed probably about 5 years ago. I knew that Chris and I were getting close to wanting to start a family and I began praying that God would transform us. You see we weren't bad people at the time. We had both been Christians for quite some time but I felt as though our lives were on auto-pilot when it came to God. We went to church, we were as involved as two people could be but there was no depth. I knew that when we had children I didn't want to be that way. I wanted our children to see a passion for God that would transfer into their lives. I knew that I wanted our children to be 100% sold out for Christ and not be ordinary Christians who just went through the motions from week to week.
Little did I know that God begin to transform my life, our lives, from that little prayer but I am so grateful for it. I have always been self sufficient. I haven't ever had to FULLY rely on God for anything. I could always make things work out on MY own. God has taught me through this painful journey that I have to give EVERYTHING to Him. He never intended for me to take everything on myself. My relationship with Him has grown so much while I have been on the threshing floor of life. While I may not have wanted to endure the last 4 years I am thankful for it. I would never be where I am right now had I not.
My prayer through this entire journey is that God will be glorified and lifted up. I pray that through each blog entry you will see what I mighty God He is.
We still need 403 people to donate $30 or more to make it to our total of $20,700. We are having a yard sale this Saturday. This will be our second one. At the first one we raised $2400. Please be in prayer that God will again multiply our profits and provide beyond our expectations.
If you would like to mail a check you can mail it to:
Hope Poteat
253 Mystic Ct
Chesnee,SC 29323
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Sunday, March 11, 2012
The Journey Begins
We have finally been matched with a birth mother!!!!! We don't know whether the baby is a boy or girl yet (since the mother has not had prenatal care, which is common in an adoption scenario) but he/she is due sometime in April. She is supposed to be going to the doctor soon so that we can narrow that down and make sure the baby is healthy. We will be traveling to San Diego, California to bring our baby home in less than 2 months!!! I can not contain my excitement!!
For anyone reading this that doesn't know our story let me fill you in:
When you decide to have a family you never think, oh that might be hard to do, you just think you'll be like everyone else and be able to get pregnant very easily. Well, that wasn't (isn't) the case for us. This March marks 4 years of trying to begin a family for us. A road that has been filled with surprise, tears, heartache, and now joy.
After we had tried for a year unsuccessfully we went to the doctor to find out why we weren't getting pregnant. She sent us to an infertility doctor who said the only way to get pregnant was through in vitro,a process that costs $15,000. Who has that much money just laying around for a rainy day? When I called my insurance company to find out how much they covered and found out is was nothing, I was devastated!! I cried my heart out because for me having a family full of children was not just some whim I had come up with one day, it was a dream I had dreamed ever since I was a little girl. I had found my prince charming but there were no children in my sight.
Through a God ordained turn of events, the infertility doctor called to say that if I would change my insurance I would get 70% coverage for the in vitro so that's what we did. That was in October of 2009. We began the in vitro process in March of 2010. God began to open so many doors that I just knew that we were going to get pregnant and have a baby through in vitro, but I was wrong. We ended up with 5 embryos and in our first transfer we transferred 2 but neither implanted and nothing happened. A few weeks later we transferred the last 3 and got a positive pregnancy test only to loose the baby 3 days later.
Devastated was not even the word to describe our emotions. I was so hurt I took a week out of school and really didn't want to go back and work with children but I knew I didn't have a choice, which was a good thing.
I mourned for a good 9 months for the loss of the baby I thought would be in our home right now. Some dear, dear friends of mine encouraged me to attend a bible study on Ruth that our church was offering, I reluctantly did. You see I attended church during this time of mourning, but that was it. My heart was not there because I was still so infuriated at God for what He had taken away. He used that bible study and the teacher to break down that very tall wall I had built and began to gently talk to my heart about adoption.
I heard Him remind me that He did not want our baby to die but because we live in a fallen, sinful world it happened. He told me that He missed His fellowship with me and that He had a plan bigger and better than I could have ever dreamed up. So in the summer of 2011 Chris and I began to talk about adoption. He showed me that to a mommy doesn't mean that the baby has to come from my womb, lets face it there are plenty of people who are MOTHERS and not mommies. It's about the times you spend with your child, reading stories before bed, building forts in the den, pushing them in the swing, and kissing their boo boos when they get hurt. I can do all those things with MY child whether I give birth or not.
We figured that the only way we could afford to do that was through DSS because we had taken out a rather large loan for in vitro (let's just say in the end they didn't really cover 70%) and I couldn't imagine going into debt for adoption too. So we went to the DSS adoption meeting in September and we realized that that was not where God was leading us to adopt from. He was leading us to a private adoption but we had no idea how that was going to work.
In October 2011 we got a phone call from the lawyers office that we had called to get some information about asked us if we wanted to send a portfolio to a birth mom in Texas. I told them we didn't have a portfolio or money but we could send pictures so we did. We didn't get chosen and that was TOTALLY OK, because I didn't have a peace about it. God used that to get us going on the adoption road because you see OUR baby had already been conceived to a mother who knew she couldn't keep him/her and didn't know what to do.
We attended a couple of adoption seminars where our attorney that we are using spoke and it just confirmed our desire to use him. In November of 2011 we went public with the fact that we were going to adopt and began a Christmas gift wrapping fundraiser. Our goal was to raise the $1,000 it took to retain our lawyer. Through donations and that fundraiser we were able to schedule a meeting with our lawyer January 26, 2012. We had our home study on the following Sunday January 29.
After that we began fundraising galore. We had a fundraiser at Pizza Inn were we raised $1400, the biggest they had ever had. We had a yard sale where 95% of the items were donated to us and we raise almost $2400. We sold jewelry where we raised $350. All together we have raised $5,000 in just a matter of 1 short month.
In the meantime we had been getting phone calls asked if we wanted to send our portfolio to birth mothers. For one reason or another we said no to the first 4 birth mothers our attorney had called us about and then we got a phone call on Saturday, March 3, 2012.
This birth mother was in California and wanted an evangelical Christian family to adopt her baby and this baby was $8,000 less than the other babies we had been called about putting it in our range. They were going to mail portfolios Saturday evening but there were some questions we needed answered before we were OK to send ours. It just so happened that they weren't able to mail any portfolios Saturday night and were able to call the California lawyer and ask the questions we needed answered so we said go ahead and mail our portfolio Monday.
We got the phone call Wednesday, March 7 that we had been chosen and we set up our three way call with the birth mother for the next day at 8:00. Our phone call lasted an hour which was unheard of and it could not have gone any better. We felt like she was a kindred spirit. God orchestrated the whole thing. Even though the facilitator wanted us to both pray about the birth mother said, "I know I want them, they are perfect." We got the phone call March 9th that we did want to move forward and now we are expecting our sweet, precious baby in April.
Since things happened so fast we have not been able to raise all of our money yet. We still need to get $15,000 by the time the baby is born in April and we do not qualify to get that large of a loan due to our in vitro loan. We have been praying that God would lay it on people's heart to donate to help us bring our little miracle home in April. IF we can get 500 people to donate at least $30 we will be able to do it.
For anyone reading this that doesn't know our story let me fill you in:
When you decide to have a family you never think, oh that might be hard to do, you just think you'll be like everyone else and be able to get pregnant very easily. Well, that wasn't (isn't) the case for us. This March marks 4 years of trying to begin a family for us. A road that has been filled with surprise, tears, heartache, and now joy.
After we had tried for a year unsuccessfully we went to the doctor to find out why we weren't getting pregnant. She sent us to an infertility doctor who said the only way to get pregnant was through in vitro,a process that costs $15,000. Who has that much money just laying around for a rainy day? When I called my insurance company to find out how much they covered and found out is was nothing, I was devastated!! I cried my heart out because for me having a family full of children was not just some whim I had come up with one day, it was a dream I had dreamed ever since I was a little girl. I had found my prince charming but there were no children in my sight.
Through a God ordained turn of events, the infertility doctor called to say that if I would change my insurance I would get 70% coverage for the in vitro so that's what we did. That was in October of 2009. We began the in vitro process in March of 2010. God began to open so many doors that I just knew that we were going to get pregnant and have a baby through in vitro, but I was wrong. We ended up with 5 embryos and in our first transfer we transferred 2 but neither implanted and nothing happened. A few weeks later we transferred the last 3 and got a positive pregnancy test only to loose the baby 3 days later.
Devastated was not even the word to describe our emotions. I was so hurt I took a week out of school and really didn't want to go back and work with children but I knew I didn't have a choice, which was a good thing.
I mourned for a good 9 months for the loss of the baby I thought would be in our home right now. Some dear, dear friends of mine encouraged me to attend a bible study on Ruth that our church was offering, I reluctantly did. You see I attended church during this time of mourning, but that was it. My heart was not there because I was still so infuriated at God for what He had taken away. He used that bible study and the teacher to break down that very tall wall I had built and began to gently talk to my heart about adoption.
I heard Him remind me that He did not want our baby to die but because we live in a fallen, sinful world it happened. He told me that He missed His fellowship with me and that He had a plan bigger and better than I could have ever dreamed up. So in the summer of 2011 Chris and I began to talk about adoption. He showed me that to a mommy doesn't mean that the baby has to come from my womb, lets face it there are plenty of people who are MOTHERS and not mommies. It's about the times you spend with your child, reading stories before bed, building forts in the den, pushing them in the swing, and kissing their boo boos when they get hurt. I can do all those things with MY child whether I give birth or not.
We figured that the only way we could afford to do that was through DSS because we had taken out a rather large loan for in vitro (let's just say in the end they didn't really cover 70%) and I couldn't imagine going into debt for adoption too. So we went to the DSS adoption meeting in September and we realized that that was not where God was leading us to adopt from. He was leading us to a private adoption but we had no idea how that was going to work.
In October 2011 we got a phone call from the lawyers office that we had called to get some information about asked us if we wanted to send a portfolio to a birth mom in Texas. I told them we didn't have a portfolio or money but we could send pictures so we did. We didn't get chosen and that was TOTALLY OK, because I didn't have a peace about it. God used that to get us going on the adoption road because you see OUR baby had already been conceived to a mother who knew she couldn't keep him/her and didn't know what to do.
We attended a couple of adoption seminars where our attorney that we are using spoke and it just confirmed our desire to use him. In November of 2011 we went public with the fact that we were going to adopt and began a Christmas gift wrapping fundraiser. Our goal was to raise the $1,000 it took to retain our lawyer. Through donations and that fundraiser we were able to schedule a meeting with our lawyer January 26, 2012. We had our home study on the following Sunday January 29.
After that we began fundraising galore. We had a fundraiser at Pizza Inn were we raised $1400, the biggest they had ever had. We had a yard sale where 95% of the items were donated to us and we raise almost $2400. We sold jewelry where we raised $350. All together we have raised $5,000 in just a matter of 1 short month.
In the meantime we had been getting phone calls asked if we wanted to send our portfolio to birth mothers. For one reason or another we said no to the first 4 birth mothers our attorney had called us about and then we got a phone call on Saturday, March 3, 2012.
This birth mother was in California and wanted an evangelical Christian family to adopt her baby and this baby was $8,000 less than the other babies we had been called about putting it in our range. They were going to mail portfolios Saturday evening but there were some questions we needed answered before we were OK to send ours. It just so happened that they weren't able to mail any portfolios Saturday night and were able to call the California lawyer and ask the questions we needed answered so we said go ahead and mail our portfolio Monday.
We got the phone call Wednesday, March 7 that we had been chosen and we set up our three way call with the birth mother for the next day at 8:00. Our phone call lasted an hour which was unheard of and it could not have gone any better. We felt like she was a kindred spirit. God orchestrated the whole thing. Even though the facilitator wanted us to both pray about the birth mother said, "I know I want them, they are perfect." We got the phone call March 9th that we did want to move forward and now we are expecting our sweet, precious baby in April.
Since things happened so fast we have not been able to raise all of our money yet. We still need to get $15,000 by the time the baby is born in April and we do not qualify to get that large of a loan due to our in vitro loan. We have been praying that God would lay it on people's heart to donate to help us bring our little miracle home in April. IF we can get 500 people to donate at least $30 we will be able to do it.
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