Final Week

I know I've said it, but I'll say it again!  We're incredibly surprised and humbled by everyone's generosity towards our Adoption Fundraiser for sweet Josephine!

As of this weekend, we are just barely short of our goal and have under 10 puzzle pieces left!  A few people have mentioned still wanting to give, so now's your chance!

On Friday, June 3, we'll officially close our GoFundMe account and finish writing all names on our puzzle.  We cannot wait to display this beautiful piece of Josephine's Adoption story in our home!  After Friday, if anyone does have a desire to give us a check or cash, we certainly won't turn it down and we'll still make room on the puzzle for you :-).  But we'll officially end the fundraiser at that point!

I am also working on the Spiritual Bouquet to honor our kids' birthmothers.  If you have any prayers to add to that, please email me at headadoption@gmail.com.

I cannot say enough thanks to everyone.  I hope to get hand-written thank yous to everyone who so graciously gave of their time, treasure and prayers.  I will also say that with 5 kiddos and a busy summer of pool time, park time and library visits, my time is in high demand.  It'll be slow but I will personally thank each and every one!

I cannot believe that in just under a month, we went from stressing about how we were going to afford Josie's adoption to having our fundraiser launched and goal reached!  The love and support for our family and our children literally brings me to tears.  They are so loved and cherished by so many and for that we are forever grateful!


If anyone would like to give $25 for a puzzle piece to complete our fundraiser, you can do so by: 

1) Contacting us at headadoption@gmail.com for our address to send a check

2) Send us money via Paypal, using this link: Head Adoption PayPal

3) Donate via GoFundMe: Head Adoption GoFundMe


For more details, visit our original post here: Puzzle Piece Fundraiser

FIVE

First of all, let me say how incredibly humbled and thankful we are for the outpouring of support we've had for our fundraiser!  We're about 40% towards our goal in just two days!  Seriously, thank you, from the bottoms of our hearts.  Your prayers and support mean the world to us!


People are constantly asking us "How are you doing?"  "How are you handling 5 kids?"  My response, "It's still chaotic, but it's wonderful!"

Yes, 5 kids is a lot.  So was 4 if I'm being honest!  We bring the chaos with us everywhere we go, and that certainly hasn't changed!  We're pretty much late everywhere we go.  Anyone who knows me knows how unusual this is for me.  But adding in another person to get ready and feed just adds time and we haven't ironed that out yet.  Other than that, not a whole lot has changed.

Josephine is sweet as can be.  She's a calm baby and as long as you feed her regularly and snuggle her often, she's content doing just about anything.  So for now, while she's portable and quiet, the chaos is just our normal chaos!

The reality is that the joy sweet Josie has brought to our home is what really stands out.  The kids absolutely adore her.  They love being big brother and sisters to her.  They're helpful and are always asking to hold her and love on her.  They've been gentle and kind to her and we haven't seen any jealousy or acting out at this point.  They're old enough to understand their roles and to really be excited about another person joining our family!  The truth is that they've been asking for a baby for a long time!  They love taking care of babies and I'm amazed at how quickly they fell into their new roles. 

It was a super fast adjustment and a pretty chaotic time in our house.  But really, we have four kids within 22 months of each other and we've added in a newborn.  With four preschoolers, it's pretty much crazy all the time!  It's loud at our house.  Constantly.  Someone is always talking and someone is always making a mess.  Someone is usually crying and someone is usually doing something they shouldn't.  There's also usually someone saying sweet things to another sibling.  Or helping me out.  Or asking what they can do to be helpful.  There's always someone to play with and there's always someone doing something naughtier than you to take the spotlight off of you :-). 

Our kids love having a big family.  They'll regularly say "When I grow up, I want 5 kids, just like in our family."  And my heart swells.  Our children were just as excited when surrenders were signed and we were.  They love her so very much and they're excited to tell everyone about their new baby sister. 

I never envisioned my life like this.  Yes, we wanted a big family.  No, we didn't expect to adopt 5 children in a 5 year time span.  No, we wouldn't change it for the world.  Our family comes with it's share of challenges.  We've got a kiddo that loves to hear her voice every waking minute of the day, we've got a kiddo that is behind in some motor skills, we've got a kiddo that has challenges with sitting still and paying attention, we've got a kiddo that's overly emotional, we've got a kiddo with behavior challenges, we've got a newborn, we've got some kids that aren't that great at sleeping at night.  We've got all kinds of crazy around here. 

But when I look around, I don't see the crazy.  I see five precious souls entrusted to our care that God asked us to raise and help get to Heaven.  I see 3 birth families who lovingly gave their kids life and hand-picked us to be their parents.  I see selfless children that love each other and truly want to build each other up.  I see a family that only God could have created.  No sane human could've ever built a family like ours!  And I see obstacles that will teach us valuable lessons about parenting and loving unconditionally.  I see smiles and hugs and laughter.

Puzzle Piece Fundraiser

As most people probably know, Josephine's adoption came as a complete surprise to us.  We are absolutely delighted and thrilled to welcome her into our family.  And it has done Anna so much good to have that connection to her birth family in our home!

The one challenge with Josephine's adoption has been financial.  Since purchasing Africa Sleeps, we've been working hard to pay off the business debt so that the business can become a second source of income for us.  Our plan was to begin saving for another adoption hopefully sometime in 2017.  Currently, we're still working to pay off that business debt and we are beginning our children's full-time Catholic School journey in August.

I'm going to be completely honest here.  Private adoptions are expensive.  Anna and Anthony's adoptions cost roughly $15,000 and that number has gone up since.  As you can imagine, coming up with that kind of money with no notice and no pre-planning is a challenge for our single income family of 7.

So here's what we've done.  Jeremy passed his CPCU exams and as a result, he received a trip to Hawaii.  We have been saving to extend that trip.  However, with the new addition to our family, we will be deferring that trip and taking next year's trip with State Farm instead.  All of the money we've saved for that is going towards Josephine's adoption.  Additionally, State Farm offers a $5,000 adoption assistance program that we will use to help us out.

Even with all of that, we come up about $5,000 and some change short for Josie's adoption.  In order to finalize her adoption, we have to have all of those funds paid.

Many people have expressed the desire to help us.  And that is so very humbling.  Asking for help is hard for us, but in this case, we have to do it!  We've decided to do a puzzle fundraiser to help us raise the last $5,000 to cover Josie's surprise adoption costs.


The way this works is:

- We've created a custom 200 piece puzzle with a photo of our 5 beautiful children on it and the Bible verse from 1 Samuel 1:27 ("For this child we have prayed.  And the Lord has granted the desires of our heart)

- Each puzzle piece is a $25 minimum donation to sweet Josephine's adoption fund

- Puzzle pieces can be paid for via PayPal, check, or cash

- We've set up a PayPal account to route all funds through so that it's easy to track.  Any checks/cash will be deposited into that account as well

- you can also do ate directly through GoFundMe here https://www.gofundme.com/2324e8s

- Each donor will get their name written on the backside of a puzzle piece.  We will frame the puzzle with glass on both sides so that we can see all of the people who have supported our family during this exciting time.

- In addition to a donation, we are putting together a Spiritual Bouquet for our kids' birthfamilies from each donor.  So if you would pleaser offer a specific prayer for R, B, and J (our kids' birthmothers) and let us know what that prayer is (adoration hour, Mass, rosary, Hail Mary, Our Father, fasting, etc...) we will write that on the puzzle pieces as well.  Our children's birthfamilies are never out of our minds.  Their selfless gifts of love have created our beautiful family.  Without them, we wouldn't be parents.  We are forever grateful for them and we'd absolutely love to honor them with our prayers.  Please pray for them.

- With 200 pieces at $25/piece, we will be able to raise the necessary $5,000 to fund the rest of Josie's adoption.  

If there's one thing that we've learned on our journey to build our family, it's that we are abundantly blessed with the most wonderful, supportive community and family that we could ever ask for.  So many people have prayed for our family, brought meals, helped clean, watched children, given hugs, supported us financially and emotionally, and gifted us with so very much.  It truly takes a village and we are humbled by the very kind and generous village that we're surrounded with.  

Thank you for your consideration and thank you for your prayers. Please consider purchasing a puzzle piece and help us lift up our children's birth families in prayer!

Surprise!

It's has been a full year since I've written here.  Mostly that time has been busy with family time and just the necessary tasks that go with raising four kids.  We definitely took time to grieve last year's adoption loss and we looked forward to pursuing another infant adoption sometime in the future.

God, as always, had other plans.

On Thursday, April 14, Anna's birthmom had a baby.  We had no idea that she was pregnant and/or making an adoption plan and neither did the agency.

On Friday, April 15, our case worker called us out of the blue.  We had just spoken to an adoption orientation group on Tuesday about our adoption story, so I assumed it was a follow up phone call for that. However, she used the words "Are you sitting down?"  Those words mean that there's a baby/child for us.  We weren't in an adoption program or waiting in any way shape or form so this came as a complete shock.  As she explained that it was Anna's birth sibling, a little girl, we fell in love immediately.  We said yes, with no hesitation and our lives changed immediately.

We began preparing for a baby.  We picked a name, we cleaned the house. did laundry, pulled out baby clothes and cloth diapers, and we excitedly fielded a zillion question from our kids.  We moved into overdrive as we thought we'd be picking her up from the hospital on Sunday.

Again, God had other plans.  Sweet Josephine Katharine was discharged on Saturday at noon.  We found out at 10am and rushed to secure childcare and head to the hospital.

We picked our sweet daughter up and went shopping.  We were low on baby supplies... It had been a while!

That's the short version of how Josie came to be a member of our family.  Many of the details are part of her story and are hers to share someday.  We are actually still waiting on surrenders at this point.  It's primarily a logistics issue and we're not concerned about birthmom changing her mind.  She was very firm in her decision.  Please pray for her, this cannot be easy.

We are totally in love with our Josephine.  She is a delight to have in our home and has brought so much joy to our family.  The kids love her, Anna in particular and it has been truly wonderful to see them be big brother and sisters to her.

We did get to name our sweet girl.  It was a quick decision, as was her entire journey to our home.  We named her Josephine after St. Josephine Bakhita.  Look her up, she is a truly awesome Saint and such a wonderful example to live by.  Her middle name is from St. Katharine Drexel.  We have a relic of hers in our home from a friend who prayed for us at her tomb.  St. Katharine Drexel spent her life working for education and rights for African-American and Native American children.  She's been a great intercessor for our family and we wanted to honor her for that!