Happy Faithful Day, Phoenix!

Yesterday was Phoenix's developmental birthday ... and what we have chosen to call her "Faithful Day."

God doesn't take remembrance lightly ... the word "remember" is thread so frequently throughout scripture that it seems vital to our spirituality. God established the Passover feast as a vehicle for remembrance, Joshua built an altar of twelve stones to remind generations of how God brought them
over the Jordan, Jesus instituted Communion to aid us in remembering his sacrifice, and Paul was constantly urging the church to remember what God had done and said.

The best part of our call to Remember? We remember God because he first remembered us. He has been faithful to his covenant with us, has engraved us on the palms of His hands, has delivered us from slavery, and remembered us on the cross.

Deuteronomy 6:10-12 warns, "When the Lord your God brings you into the land he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you—a land with large, flourishing cities you did not build, houses filled with all kinds of good things you did not provide, wells you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant—then when you eat and are satisfied,  be careful that you do not forget the Lord, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery."

We have chosen to be very intentional in remembering the ways that God has brought us in to our own little promised land.  One way we do this?

Set reminders in the center of our home! This is our mantle ... complete with the art piece Josh and I gave each other as a wedding present (Sundara Art), a picture from our wedding and our 'remember' jar. It holds trinkets that remind us of they way that God has built metaphorical cities, houses, wells and vineyards in our life. For example, we have a little house charm to remind us of God's providence in finding our house and Phoenix's NICU bill as a reminder of God's provision.
As our kids get older, not only will we make a habit of looking through these trinkets and speaking about what God has done, but they will get to contribute to the jar!

We want to make a big deal of celebrating the work of God in our family ... which brings me back around to Phoenix's faithful day.
I am so grateful for the unique ways that God is adding to our family -- especially because it means that each of our children will have a day to celebrate God's timing in their life! For Phoenix, it's her due date. We obviously expected a certain timeline and experience for her birth, but the Lord had something so different in store. We believe that her early days have set the trajectory for her life ... that she will forever stand in the victory of Christ, sustained by His power and set aflame for Him. And that is worth celebrating. For our next child, his/her faithful day will be the date the adoption is finalized, because we believe that his/her early days will set a trajectory as well!

So what will we practically do on these "faithful days?" Make our child feel special and celebrated, remember the work of God and proclaim big dreams for the future!

Yesterday, we celebrated as a family by mixing up our routine and going out to dinner.
First we stopped a sweet little bookstore in Decatur to get a little present for Phoenix:

Multicultural, indestructible book? Yes please!
 

After dinner, Phoenix got her very own piece of cake (which she almost finished by herself). We tried to take a picture with the cake, but sister couldn't wait ...

It was fun to eat out, explore and celebrate together!
How does your family "remember"?

Our Last Adoption Class

Josh and I are officially done with our adoption classes -- woohoo for milestones!

On 8/20, our last class was about infant care. Admittedly, I was annoyed that we had to go to this class ... seeing as we are not strangers to caring for an infant. It was actually helpful, though; Phoenix isn't a little baby anymore, so it was nice to have a little refresher on the things that lie ahead for us. And I forgot how much Phoenix's NICU stayed changed our newborn parenting experience. I never had to take care of an umbilical cord, for example. And she was already on schedule of sorts when she came home. So there is new and exciting territory for us to explore ... and it gave me the new-mommy-scared-to-death feelings that I described HERE. And I can't wait to be in over my head with another baby!

I have had lots of questions about our timeline, so I will let you know our best guess.
This Friday (8/31), Josh and I start the homestudy process with our first joint interview. After that, we each have individual interviews and then a home visit. The timing of that totally depends on our timeliness in filling out paperwork and the availability of our social worker. Most likely, it will be around mid-October when we are done with all of that. After all our documents are submitted, our social worker has 45 days to write up our official home study. During that 45 days, my free time will be devoted to making our profile book. After our homestudy is officially complete, our profile can be shown to birthmoms (probably early December)! And the waiting officially begins ... though my heart would argue the waiting began years ago.

The average wait? 9 months. So if everything about our adoption is perfectly average, we are looking at a placement about a year from now. Though it could be much sooner (at the VERY EXTREME earliest, December), or much later.

So here's how you can pray for us in the coming weeks:
1. We have a LOT of paperwork to fill out. Every detail of our lives (childhood, mental and physical health, finances, marriage, etc) gets put down on paper. Pray diligence and endurance for us, and that we would find the right words to describe ourselves, our family, what we believe, what we want to pursue, and how we parent.
2. When we have our homevisit, we owe Bethany $1,500 for the homestudy and $2,000 for "networking fees" (meaning we pay them in advance to find a birthmother for us). We are saving for the homestudy cost, but will be asking for help with the networking fees. More on that in the future. But just pray God's provision for us!

Love you all!

Sorry for the Absence ...

Gosh, it's been a little while since I've written anything. I have no viable excuses -- discipline has been lacking a bit in my life lately, and my unintentional writing sabbatical is the sour fruit of my unmotivated spirit.

But here I am again.

There are two adoption classes (the last two) that you haven't heard about.

On 8/6, Bethany's lawyer came to talk us through the legal facet of adoption. Honestly, I haven't posted about it because (a) I largely didn't understand it and (b) because there isn't much worth sharing. We just got a window into the typical process, and we left with a packet to help us wade through adoption terminology (like the difference between a legal father and biological father).
Long story short, you can just pray for the most uncomplicated process possible -- ideally, both the birthmother and father (or fatherS, depending on the situation) surrender their rights by the time the baby ends up in our home, streamlining both the termination of rights and the legal adoption itself.

That night, we also talked about our profile books. We have to make a book that essentially markets our family to potential birthmothers -- illustrating who we are, what we like to do, what is important to us, etc. This is exciting, terrifying and overwhelming to me. Exciting because I love our little family, and I think it will be fun to get to share who we are. Terrifying because it will play a vital role in getting chosen by a birthmother. Overwhelming because I know it will take a considerable amount of time and effort, and I can already feel my inner perfectionist rearing her ugly head. I am starting to compare album-making websites (Mixbook, blurb, mpix, etc), and making mental notes of things to include in our book. Let me know if you have had good experiences with a specific company!
Here is a very tangible way you can help us ... send us any pictures that you have of our family (even if it's not all three of us)! Birthmommies love pictures ... understandably. It would be tedious to wade through several books that were primarily text, so the more pictures we have, the better! Just email them to me at emily.cash@live.com. And, if you think something about our family is especially worth mentioning, let me know. I don't want to miss out on something that other people appreciate about us. You are welcome to send me things you don't like about us too ... just to even the scales (just know that it probably won't make an appearance in the book).
As inconsequential as it seems, please pray over the process of making this book. We want to accurately and authentically represent our family, while simultaneously showcasing the gifts that God has given us in parenting and life. And pray that I don't throw my computer at the wall -- most of the experimenting I have done with formatting has left me inordinately frustrated.

And last week's class? Well, nothing to tell. We showed up, and no one else was there. The class was cancelled and moved to this coming Monday, and I just hadn't seen the email. Story of my life. So expect to hear more after our make-up class!

Thanks for walking with us!

Our Adoption Class (Last Week)

Sorry that I am just now getting around to writing about our adoption class from last Monday (7/30) – we were gone in Indiana for several days. We were focused on surviving the two 10-hour drives, a high fever from Phoenix, lack of sleep and some shared sickness. Hence, no blog.

Our latest class was about openness and interracial adoptions; heavy topics, to say the least.

For those unfamiliar with (domestic infant) adoption terminology, openness refers to the degree of contact that the adoptive family has with the birthmother. As I understand it, closed adoptions, which used to be fairly standard, involve no contact between birthmother and child. Once the child is placed, there is no flow of information/communication. Semi-open adoptions usually involve the adoptive family regularly updating the birthmother on the status of the child, but no identifying information is exchanged. Communication, and potentially some visits, go through the agency, and the birthmother wouldn’t have the adoptive family’s address or phone number (or vice versa). In an open adoption, however, that identifying information is on the table, the two families see each other a predetermined number of times per year, and the child has a working knowledge of her/his birthmother. It’s not so much that there are three distinct options, but rather a spectrum of situations.

In our class, we talked about how openness benefits all parties in the adoption triad (adoptive family, child, birthmother), and, as a result, adoptions are trending toward increasing amounts of openness. It didn’t take a lot of convincing for us to get onboard with the idea of an open adoption – it would provide us with ongoing access to medical information, provide our child with life-giving information about his/her heritage, and provide the birthmother with both closure and reassurance about her choice.

The degree of openness is really up to the birthmother – they will only show our profile to birthmothers whose wishes correspond to our willingness.

Ideally, our birthmother will be interested in an open adoption, and will be a healthy presence in our ‘extended’ family. Please pray this for us!

Interracial adoption was also a no-brainer for us. In fact, when adopting through Bethany, you have to be open to interracial adoption if you have a biological child. We are not ignorant to the challenges this poses, for both us and our potential child. But I know that God is committed to racial reconciliation, and scripture suggests that families are a favorite choice for His work in the world. We would be thrilled if that was part of our adoption story, and we are more than willing to do the work it requires. I could ramble for days about this – it’s a personal soapbox. But I will spare you … for now.

How can you pray for us in this arena?

The circles we run in are, frankly, extremely WHITE. This reality weighs heavy on my heart – in fact, one of the reasons we go grocery shopping where we do (Dekalb Farmers Market) is so that Phoenix will be exposed to different colors and cultures. But I crave so much more than superficial contact with people of other races/cultures. And I believe that it is crucial for our children to see us in authentic relationship with people who look different than us – especially if we end up doing an interracial adoption. So pray that God would lead us into interracial relationships NOW, for our own sake and so our future child can have role models with the same skin color.

Thank you for your continued prayer and support!

Coupon Virgin?

I am a couponer. There ... I admitted it.

And it has been a really good thing for our family. We really don't save a ton on food, because there aren't many coupons for produce or organic food. But it is worth every minute of my time because of all the money we save on personal care products (soap, makeup, deoderant, toothpaste, etc).

If you want to try your hand at saving big dollars, head to RiteAid this week!

See in the top right corner where it says those toothbrushes/toothpaste/mouthwash cost $3? Well, it also says that you get $3 in +UP rewards for every purchase. Translation? Free stuff.

Just sign up for a free +UP card and amaze your family. No coupons required for this trial run.
I usually do multiple transactions, so that I don't end up with a bunch of rewards to a particular store. Buy some toothpaste, then use those rewards for a toothbrush. You walk out with two items, having only spent $3, and you have $3 in rewards to use next week (when there are new awesome deals).

Find out what it it's like to get free stuff! If you have a coupon for those things, even better! Then you MAKE money off the transaction!

Someday I make post more about how I coupon for our household ... but, for now, this is an easy in!

New Job

Guess it's time to update my small blog following on something new in my life ... a job! Well, it's really not all that new anymore ... I accepted the job about 6 weeks ago.

I am working for 12Stone® again, but this time at our Flowery Branch campus. The existing administrative assistant at the campus didn't have the margin in her schedule for all that was being asked of her, so I am taking some stuff off her plate (about 15 hours/week). In other words, I am doing data entry, check requests, corporate card reconciliations, errands, etc. Thrilling? Well, no. Not really.
But I have several reasons to be thankful for this job:

• No matter how menial the task, it is extremely life-giving for me to contribute to the world outside our home. I love being at home with Phoenix and all that entails, but it is good for my spirit to have tasks and accomplishments not related to her. Plus, I get to have adult conversations more often ... thank the Lord!
• I can do most of my work from home ... which means we don't have to put Phoenix in daycare. Translation: I can continue to fight for no TV, lots of quality time, snuggles, healthy food, and all the other things that matter to us at this stage in her development (and working mostly from home means I can go on looking like a hot mess 80% of the time). However, this does mean I have to find around 10 baby-free hours in my week ... which means waking up a couple hours before Phoenix. Maybe when it's all said and done, I will have turned into a morning person.
• It pays money. This may seem like an obvious one, but having this extra income is a game-changer for us. We were pretty much just making it month-to-month, and now we will actually be able to save! This has lifted a lot of financial pressure from our little family, and Josh and I are both breathing much easier.
• I love the people I work with. Obviously, I love being around 12Stone®, but I especially love the Flowery Branch team. Several of them are friends that I see regularly, and everyone that I have more recently met seems awesome! Being on the bottom of the totem pole isn't so bad when you get to serve amazing leaders/ministers.

To check out my HEINOUS staff picture and profile, check out http://12stone.com/staff-member/emily-cash/. And no, I don't have a snaggle tooth ... it just looks like it.

Birth Mother Panel

I would like to begin this post with a public service announcement: I LOVE BETHANY CHRISTIAN SERVICES. That is all. (No, they didn't pay me to say that. I wish ...)

The reason we love Bethany so much? The adoption classes that we're taking are mind-blowingly awesome. When we left on Monday night, Josh and I agreed that everyone should attend theseclasses. I am conscious of how my world view is expanding and deepening, and we are growing in compassion, empathy, passion, excitement, and awareness.

This week the class was a panel of birthmothers ... four women who had made adoption plans and trusted their child with another family. I have never sat in the company of more courageous people in my life. For whatever reason, birthmothers are stereotyped as teenage drug-addicts who give their children up for adoption out of selfish motivation. But, while I'm sure the occasional birthmom fits that bill, these women blew up any of those preconceived notions. Each of them made an adoption plan precisely because of their parental love, knowing that they couldn't provide appropriately for their child (because of lacking finances, maturity, father figure, etc).

Three of the four ladies had their moms sitting beside them, and that was hands-down the coolest part of the experience. Obviously, none of those mothers were thrilled to find out that their daughters were pregnant -- one admitted to feeling angry and ashamed. But each of them had such a profound respect for their daughter's courageous decision to make an adoption plan ... you could hear it in their words and see it in their eyes. One of the girls hid her pregnancy from her mom until 9 days before the birth, because she knew her mom would encourage an abortion. That mother, with tears in her eyes, said "Noah is alive because of my daughter." I pray that Phoenix will surpass me in faithfulness, courage and obedience ... that she will continue to teach me about God like these women inspired their moms (though, admittedly, I hope there is no teenage pregnancy involved).

We also peeked into the window of their grief, and it was overwhelming. As a mother, I can't imagine the immense hurt and healing involved in making an adoption plan. Interestingly, though, our journey with Phoenix gives me an ounce of understanding and empathy that I would otherwise have missed. For example, one of the girls was talking about being in birthing room at the hospital without a baby. I do know what that feels like. I teared up when while she spoke, because I vividly remember laying in my bed (when I first came home from the hospital) and realizing that I left without my baby. She also mentioned being surrounded by other women receiving balloons and congratulations, when she was in the midst of grief. Yup, I've been there too. It was days after Phoenix's birth before anyone said congratulations to us (I don't blame anyone, because it would have been inappropriate to congratulate me on the trauma we were navigating), and it was unbearably hard to see happy mothers and babies. And, let's be honest, I know what it feels like to get pregnant when that's the last thing you want. Like I said, I still can't imagine what it's like to live where these women do -- but I have at least set foot on the property of their pain. Hopefully, the suffering that Josh and I experience will translate into an appropriate compassion for our child's birthmother.

Apparently it is typical for this particular class to be moving ...  our social worker told us to intentionally remember everything we were feeling. Because, at some point, it is easy to see the birthmother as a "threat" of sorts when she wants information/communication.
Pray that God burns this class on our hearts and minds, so that we can be sensitive, confident and excited about whatever level of openness our birthmother desires.
We are both so thankful that God is taking us on this journey, and for the many ways he has already begun to prepare us!