Our Journey Begins

So as some of you know and others of you don't know, Josh and I are starting the adoption process. We decided to start this blog so that our friends and family could keep up with us throughout the journey. Our prayer as we go through this journey is that first and foremost we see God working more and more each day and that the people in our lives see God. To catch everyone up, this decision did not come instantly nor did it come without some struggle and pain. We have been trying to have a family for five years now. We thought that we would have a family as soon as Josh graduated from seminary and then after we had a few biological children we would adopt a child. But little did we know those were our plans not God's plan.

Through the past five years we have struggled, prayed, cried, tried some fertility treatments, and in the end no baby Hornbaker. Over the past year, through much prayer the Lord has guided us toward adoption. That in of itself was quite a process. One minute I would be excited and ready to start the adoption process and then I wouldn't and then Josh would be. Now we are both on the same page and have decided to move forward knowing this is what God wants. So as we have been moving forward we have been praying for clarity and direction throughout this process and for the agency that we should work with during this journey. Little side note, unless you have done research on adoption you wouldn't know this but when you start looking to adopt the amount of information that you can find is overwhelming and confusing and so difficult to navigate your way through. It's like a whole other world that people are not aware of until they are in it for some reason. Anyways that's for another post.

So in our quest to find the best agency we have talked with and researched various places. One thing that we have learned is there is three general ways to adopt. One way is to know someone who wants to give their baby up for adoption and then finding an agency to handle all the legal matters. The another way is go through the foster system (DCS), which is a great way however it is extremely difficult to get an infant due to the nature of the system. The other way is to go through a private agency, in which there are crazy fees that takes place. Each one of these ways has their pros and cons, but if anyone wants to know about that, we need to grab a cup of coffee. Back to our journey, after much prayer Josh and I decided that we wanted to go with a private agency as our desire is to have an infant for the first adoption. So we prepared by looking at several agencies and ruled out many for various reasons. Then we finally came around to ONE that we thought for sure was the place.

We had to wait around for a couple of months to be able to go the informational meeting. First, we had to wait around because as many of you guys know the last couple of months have been crazy for Josh and me as we have moved and settled into a new area. Second, we had to wait because the place canceled a meeting, which was frustrating, but we FINALLY got to go. We were so excited to go. I know for me I could barely sleep the night before. Then 4:00pm came and we could go and learn about the agency and we thought for sure we would walk out of the place ready to sign the application and begin. Little did we know God has another plan. During the informational meeting, we learned an important aspect that this agency requires. They require your debt to income ratio to be very low. When Josh and I heard this we knew instantly that God was talking to us.

We left the meeting kinda in shock because we were not thinking we would walk away clear about what we were clear about. We knew instantly the Lord was talking and wanted us to pay off some debt before we could really begin the process. We both have never been clearer and knew the direction we should go then this moment right now. Even though we were clear, I had to go through some humps and bumps of sadness because now this meant the wait would be even longer. But now with our path clear of our first steps, we continue to pray for God to continue to show if that place is THE place or if there is another place we should consider. Everyone that we have talked about adoption with always says that "this is what they did, but you have to figure out what is right for you." So for now we ask that all of you pray for what agency we should use and whether or not we should go through the foster system (understanding that an infant may not be possible). Thank you for sharing our journey with us. Look for more things to pop up on our post as we have also learned that starting the adoption process due to infertility is an emotional rollercoaster.

Cindy & Josh