Drumroll Please...

Our Home Study is Finally Done!

DONE!

A process that was meant to take two months ended up taking four, but it's finally over! Because of a lot of needless delays, this part of the process has been extremely frustrating. We're glad to have it behind us!

The most frustrating part about our home study taking so long is that it means we're now trying to get agency and grant applications together at the same time I'm heading back to work to start the new school year. Ugh. Over the summer I would've had lots of time to get them out the door quickly, but at this point it's probably going to take a few weeks. At least we were able to get our profile books printed, so those will be ready to go out with the agency applications just as soon as they're ready!

Fundraising Progress

We had two fundraisers this summer: the Adoption Yard Sale and the Paintball Fundraiser at Echo Field in Scappoose. 

Yard Sale

Only about a third of the stuff that was donated.

The adoption yard sale was crazy and overwhelming and happened on a ridiculously hot day, but it was also amazingly successful! We raised about $2,100 on the day of the sale, and have sold and additional $785 worth of left-over items since then. That brings the current total to $2,885 raised through this fundraiser, and we still have a few more things to sell! Sweet! (I can't wait to get all that stuff out of our garage!)

Paintball Fundraiser

Our dear friends Jennie and Trigg happen to have a really awesome paintball field on their property, and they graciously offered to host a paintball fundraiser for us! It was a super fun event, and we raised over $400! I told Jason that this is probably the most violent adoption fundraiser ever!

Total

We've had other donations trickle in through our puzzle fundraiser and the adoption fund at our church. That brings our current total of funds raised to.... I'm not quite sure yet! Jason is off hunting right now and I'm not much of an accountant, so I'll save the official tally for later! Since it's been so long since I've posted an update, the total has definitely jumped up quite a bit though!

What's Next

Cider Press 

As we're preparing our agency and grant applications, we're also busily preparing for our church's annual cider press fundraiser for adoption. I helped out with the pressing last year, and it was a lot of fun! The cider is delicious, and there's a craft and bake sale as well, along with other fun activities. Since this event is officially put on by our church, there's actually a website for it where you can get more details and even pre-order your cider or sign up to volunteer! We need lots of volunteers to help with making the cider on October 1st & 2nd, and even more people to come buy it on October 3rd, from 10am-2pm! I'll have more specific details later, but those are the highlights!

Home Study Progress & Fundraising

Home Study

On Wednesday of last week, we got a phone call from our social worker asking if we could do our home visit on Sunday. We were a little caught off guard by the short notice, but we agreed. Our frantic preparations kept us quite busy for the days leading up to the visit, so we were a little stressed by Sunday afternoon. Thankfully, the social worker's visit went very smoothly.  

With that done, we still need to get fingerprinted, do 10 hours of adoption education classes, get physicals, and fill out some last paperwork. After that, our social worker will compile all of the information into a written document (the home study), and that will go on to be approved. After that, our profile book can go out to birth families!

Yard Sale

Thank you to everyone who has donated to our garage sale! We're still collecting items to sell, so if you have any gently used, saleable items that you'd like to get rid of, contact us to arrange a drop-off or pick-up. We're also still looking for volunteers to help with the day before (Friday, June 26th) and day of the sale (Saturday, June 27th), so let us know if you'd be willing to donate your time!

Cutting Boards

Jason had a great stroke of luck a few weeks ago when he was visiting a construction site for work. The site he was visiting was removing a deck made of the most beautiful mahogany. The wood was in decent shape and was just going to be tossed, so Jason got permission to take it off their hands. After looking the wood over, we suspect that it's Cuban mahogany, which is rather rare and valuable, Jason's brother Shawn helped him figure out how to turn the wood into some absolutely gorgeous cutting boards that we're going to sell as another fundraiser for the adoption. 

The boards are made from the reclaimed mahogany, along with maple and a little walnut. Based on comparable items that we've seen on Etsy, we're selling the end-grain cutting board for $80, and the edge-grain boards for $50. Contact us if you're interested in buying one of the boards we have left for sale, or if you'd like to pre-order one. Jason will be making more of the edge-grain ones in the coming weeks.

Fundraising Total

We've raised a total of $4,256 and are at 85% of our initial fundraising goal ($5,000) and 14% of our overall goal ($30,000). Thank you to everyone who's contributed! 

Click below to donate directly to our adoption fund and get your name on our adoption puzzle:

 

Adoption: Entering the Paperwork Phase

Profile Book

Our profile book is finished! We just received the digital version of it today, and will be able to order prints to mail out to different adoption agencies as soon as our home study is complete. Our adoption consultant, Renee, did an amazing job putting the profile together for us! Here's a sneak peek of one page from our book:

Home Study

We just received the initial paperwork for our background checks! This is the first of many steps (with tons of forms to fill out) that will result in a completed home study (basically a document that certifies that we are fit to be parents to an adopted child). I haven't been this excited about filling out paperwork since we signed our marriage license!  

Adoption Yard Sale

Thank you to all of you for setting items aside for our adoption yard sale (June 27th)! We've already gotten some really nice (and a few rather interesting...) items to sell to raise funds to bring our baby home. We're happy to accept donations at any time leading up to the sale, but have limited space to store larger items at this time. If it's at all possible for you to store some of the bigger items for the time being, that would be greatly appreciated!

Funds Raised

We've raised a total of $4,056 and are at 81% of our initial fundraising goal ($5,000) and 13% of our overall goal ($30,000). Thank you to everyone who's contributed! 

Right now we're about $1,000 short of what we need to pay for our home study and the remaining application fees required before our profile book will even be seen by any expecting parents. If you've been thinking about donating and just haven't had a chance yet, now would be a great time! A donation of any size would really help us to continue moving forward in this process. 

Click below to donate directly to our adoption fund and get your name on our adoption puzzle:

Infertility Awareness Week: Choosing Words that Heal

April 19th-25th is National Infertility Awareness Week. In honor of that, I wanted to take a moment to share a little about our experiences with infertility, adoption, and how the words of others have impacted our journey. 

There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.

Proverbs 12:18

Words that Hurt

As most of you are probably aware, our decision to adopt at this time in our lives was partly prompted by fertility problems. Although adoption has been a part of our vision for our family since we were dating, our initial plan to have biological children before adopting wasn't feasible. That became apparent not long after we began trying to get pregnant back in September 2012. 

Infertility is heartbreaking in a lot of ways, but none more so than in the ways that the careless words of others can pierce the heart. The little comments, questions, and jokes are always innocent enough: 

• "You should think about giving your parents some grandchildren to enjoy."
• "When are you guys going to have kids?"
• "There must be something in the water at this church: the women are always getting pregnant!"

So many people said things like this to us, not realizing that we were having trouble conceiving. There was no way for them to realize the hurtful impact of their words: the grief they were piling onto my aching heart. It's already hard watching our friends become parents (or continue adding to their families) without us, but the pain is magnified by poorly chosen words from others.  This is why infertility awareness is so important.

1 in 8 couples (or 12% of married women) have trouble getting pregnant or sustaining a pregnancy, and most of them choose to keep their struggles private. That means that you probably know several couples who have infertility, or have dealt with it in the past, even if they've never told you about it. You probably also have friends who've lost pregnancies who may be similarly sensitive to the subject. You could easily make an "innocent" comments, deeply wounding someone without realizing it. 

Even though we've chosen adoption, the subject of pregnancy is still very difficult for us.

The responses we’ve received about our plans to adopt have been overwhelmingly positive, and that’s been very encouraging to us. Sadly, some people inadvertently open up old wounds with their words, particularly with a certain comment we hear frequently:

“As soon as you adopt, you’ll get pregnant.”

Honestly, when I hear this, I try really hard to take it the way it was intended. I think they’re trying to say that they’re happy for us, and that they share in our excitement over adding children to our family. Whether we adopt again later or are able to have biological children, we will rejoice in seeing our family grow. Do I want to be able to get pregnant? Absolutely. Have I totally given up hope that I ever will? Not at all.

Still, there’s another side to that statement: a side that, intentionally or not, is hurtful, because it perpetuates negative perceptions of adoption and infertility.

It suggests that adoption is a means to an end

Adopted children are not fertility charms. We are not adopting to become pregnant; we are adopting to become parents. Even if we wanted it to work that way, there isn’t any scientific evidence to suggest that adoption increases pregnancy rates at all. For couples experiencing infertility,the “spontaneous cure rate” (getting pregnant without further treatment) is only about 5%. Every case of infertility is different, and there’s still a possibility that we could get pregnant later, but adopting will not impact our fertility one way or the other.

Certainly we would be thrilled if we became pregnant, but we aren’t counting on it. You’re welcome to pray for that kind of miracle! If it’s God’s will, it will happen.

It suggests that infertility is an attitude problem, not a biological one

This is a mindset that’s been hurtful to us since we started having trouble conceiving. Often, when we chose to confide in  people about our infertility, their response would be something along the lines of:

“Just relax! It’ll happen!”

I think this is supposed to be reassuring, but for someone struggling with all of the stress and heartbreak of infertility, it often feels like an accusation: “Your anxious mindset is preventing you from becoming pregnant. It's all your fault.”

What was meant to be encouraging feels more like rubbing salt in a wound.

We are thrilled to be adopting, but that doesn’t mean the pain of infertility is gone. It is still a very real part of our lives. Every time our friends announce their pregnancies, or post pictures of their babies, there is a part of me that aches for the dreams we had for our family. The reality is, we may never have biological children. God is reshaping our dream for our family, and it will be better and more beautiful than the dreams we had for ourselves, regardless of whether we have biological children or not.

It suggests that adoption is second best

Adoption is not just a “Plan B” for us, or some kind of “consolation prize.” It may be happening sooner than we expected, but we are not at all disappointed to be adopting. In fact, the choice to move from fertility treatments to pursuing adoption was a joyful one to make. Feel free to share in our joy!

Words that Heal

I realize that no one intentionally tries to hurt us with their words, and I would hate to pile a bunch of guilt on to anyone who inadvertently made such comments to us. My hope is simply to share our experiences and raise awareness so that others will be more thoughtful about their conversations with us and anyone who might be struggling to conceive.

I can't speak for couples facing secondary infertility (infertility after having one or more previous successful pregnancies) but I do have one one suggestion that may help you navigate this subject with couples who don't have children and may be dealing with fertility issues: tell them they will make great parents.

This is a thoughtful compliment and a gentle way to broach the subject without being intrusive or insensitive. The listener has the option to respond with a simple "thank you", or to delve further as they feel comfortable. It's also very reassuring. I can't tell you how many times I've wondered whether our troubles conceiving are a sign that we aren't meant to be parents because we'd be bad at it, and I believe other infertile couples may feel this way as well. A sincere encouragement in this area is always welcome. 

Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.

Ephesians 4:29

For more thoughts on National Infertility Awareness Week, check out #niaw on Facebook and Twitter.

Yard Sale Details & Other Updates

Yard Sale

Our adoption yard sale will be from 8am-5pm on Saturday, June 27th. This is going to be a great opportunity for us to raise funds for our adoption, while also raising awareness about adoption in the community. If you'd like to help out with this fundraising opportunity, there are two main ways to participate:

Donate Items
We're incredibly thankful to those of you who have already set aside items for our sale so far. We'll officially begin accepting donations on May 1st, but if you can store your items until closer to the sale that would be great too. The event will be hosted in the parking lot of the school where Lynsey works, and they won't be able to store items for us before the day of the sale. We'll be able to store some items in our home, but we also need to be reasonable about the amount of stuff we need to transport to the school on the day of the sale. :)

Donate Your Time

We are going to need a bunch of volunteers to help with setting up, tearing down, and running the event. If you can help that day, even for a few hours, we'd appreciate it! Contact Jason or Lynsey if you're willing to volunteer.

Puzzle Fundraiser

4/6/15

Puzzle Pieces Claimed: 31 32
Puzzle Fundraiser Total: $3,768  $3,888
Overall Fundraising Total: $3,911 $4,031
Percent of Initial Goal Fundraised: 80%
Percent of Total Goal Fundraised: 13%

Thank you to everyone for your kind words and generosity. We are blessed to have so many friends praying for us through this process, and supporting us in our desire to become parents. 

Recent Progress

We finished our portion of the profile book. The wording and images have been submitted to our adoption consultant, and she's now in the process of assembling them into a book for us. We should get a rough draft of the wording and layout soon, which we will get a chance to preview and edit before the design is finalized and printed. It'll be nice to have this portion of the process all ready to go so that once our home study is completed, we'll be ready to roll! After the home study process is finished, our profile will go out and could be selected by a birth family at any time! It's really exciting and also totally overwhelming. We have a lot of funds we need to raise before we'll be able to accept a placement, so your prayers for God's provision are appreciated, as always. 

If you'd like to help bring our baby home, click here:

Yard Sale Fundraiser and Another Update

Yard Sale

Planning to do some spring cleaning? We're looking for items to sell at our adoption yard sale, which will take place this summer (exact date coming soon)! If you can hold on to your items for a little bit (at least until we find some room to store it at our place), we'd love to take it off your hands! By donating to our fundraiser you can get rid of unwanted clutter in your home, and help us bring our baby home at the same time! Please consider what items you might be willing to part with to help our cause.

Puzzle Fundraiser

3/21/15

Our 252-piece puzzle has 26 pieces claimed. We've raised $3,563 with the puzzle fundraiser. That makes a grand total of $3,706 including our t-shirt fundraiser! We've raised close to 75% of our goal of $5,000 for the first phase of our adoption, and are at about 12% of our overall goal of $30,000. Thank you for your generosity! 

Recent Progress

We got our adoptive parent information packet this week and it's over 50 pages long! It's a lot to take in, but we're thankful for the detailed information included that will help us make wise decisions throughout this process. We've also started work on our adoption profile book. We have close to 200 pictures collected, and are nearly done with the written portion of the book, where we describe ourselves, our home, and our community. We've already filled up more than 8 pages answering the questions! The profile is very important, because it's the first introduction expectant parents will get to our family. They will look through several profiles and select a family for their baby based on which profile best meets their hopes and desires for their child's future. Please pray for us as we complete this phase of the adoption process. It's a little intimidating to work on the profile because we know how much is riding on it. We want to make our profile appealing, but we know we need to realistically honest about who we are--we don't want to be fake!

Another Puzzle Update and Other Support Opportunities

Slowly but surely our adoption puzzle is coming together! 

3/10/15

Of the 252 pieces in our puzzle, 24 have now been claimed, and we've raised $3,463 with this fundraiser. That makes a grand total of $3,606 including our t-shirt fundraiser! We've now raised more than 10% of our overall goal of $30,000. We are more than blessed by your generosity. Just this week we were able to submit paperwork to our agency to get started on our adoption profile book and get prepared to initiate our home study in the coming months. Progress!

Are you looking for other, smaller ways you can support our adoption? Here are a few ideas:

Drink Coffee! If you love starting your morning with a cup of good coffee, consider buying from our Just Love Coffee online shop. The coffee is gourmet quality, and a portion of the funds from every bag of coffee you buy will be donated to our adoption.

Give Yourself a Manicure! If you hadn't heard, Lynsey is an independent consultant for Jamberry Nails. You can give yourself a fun, durable manicure at home and know that 100% of the commission from any sale will go to support the cost of our adoption.

Pray! As always, we appreciate our prayers for guidance as we make our way through this complicated process. Our journey to parenthood has already been long and difficult in many ways. We are constantly being reminded of our need to rely on God's perfect timing and provision to meet our every need.

T-shirt Fundraiser Final Count

Our Chrome Buffalo t-shirt fundraiser is over and we sold 13 shirts to raise a total of $143! We didn't meet our original goal, but we are still so grateful to everyone who participated. Every little bit helps us get closer to becoming parents through adoption.

2/26/15

With the money we raised through Chrome Buffalo, as well as the additional puzzle pieces that were claimed in the last couple weeks, we've raised a total of $2,938! That puts us just $62 away from reaching 10% of our total goal of $30,000! It's amazing that we've come this far in such a short amount of time. We are blessed by the generosity of friends and family who've stepped forward to help us give a child the gift of a family. 

T-shirt Fundraiser & Puzzle Update

Chrome Buffalo T-shirt Fundraiser

As you may have heard, we're currently doing a t-shirt fundraiser for our adoption through Chrome Buffalo. This organization designs and produces awesome t-shirts, and then sells their products to benefit charitable causes. 

Awesome t-shirts from Chrome Buffalo!

For every shirt we sell for Chrome Buffalo, they'll give $11 to our adoption fund. Our goal for this fundraiser is to raise $500, which works out to selling about 46 shirts total. So far, we've sold 4 shirts and raised $44!

If you enjoy a good t-shirt and have a desire to care for orphans in the community, you can click here to help fund our adoption with fashion! Chrome Buffalo sets a limit on the number of days our fundraiser can go, however, so make sure to get yours before the sale ends on Tuesday, February 24th!

Puzzle Fundraiser Update

We're one month into our puzzle fundraiser, and 19 of the 252 pieces have been claimed. We've raised $2,745 of our initial goal of $5,000, which puts us more than 50% of the way there! We are so grateful to everyone who has donated; thank you for your generosity!

2/18/15

If you'd like to help us grow our family adoption, you can claim your own piece of our adoption puzzle by clicking the "Donate" button below:

Fundraising Update

Our first adoption fundraiser is off to a great start!

In just one week we've sold 10 of the 252 pieces from our puzzle. Because several people have donated more than the $20 minimum suggested donation, we've raised $2,280! 

1/27/15

Update: It's now been two weeks since we first announced our plans to adopt and 16 of the 252 pieces from our puzzle have been funded! Thanks to your generosity, we've raised $2,425! We are so close to raising 50% of our first fundraising goal. I wonder if we can get there by the end of this week?!?

2/2/15

That's nearly half of our initial goal of $5,000 for the first phase of our adoption process. These funds will help cover our application and homestudy fees. It also puts us close to 10% of our total goal of $30,000.

A big THANK YOU to those who have contributed so far. We are overwhelmed and humbled by your outpouring of support.

If you have a desire to help bring our baby home, you can buy your own piece(s) of the puzzle by clicking the donate button below:

Financing Adoption: Our First Fundraiser!

"Learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause." Isaiah 1:17

Because of the overwhelming costs associated with domestic adoption (usually around $25,000-$40,000), fundraising will need to play a large role in bringing home our baby in order for us to meet our goal of fundraising without incurring any debt. Our first goal is to raise $5,000 to cover application fees and our homestudy (the extensive background check process used to determine whether families can provide a safe an loving home for an adopted child). We hope that you'll considering supporting our adoption in one (or more!) of the following ways: 

With Your Time & Talents

We have a number of ideas for different fundraisers we'd like to do in the coming months, and we'll need lots of volunteers to pull them off. Stay tuned for more information about opportunities to donate your time. Also, if you'd like to donate some of your talents to help bring our baby home, we'd love to hear about it! 

With Your Finances

We trust that God will provide the funds needed to complete this adoption. One way may be through people like you: our friends and family. With that in mind, we ask you to consider if God is leading you to contribute financially and be a part of giving our child the gift of a family. If you're willing to make a donation now, there's information below on our first official fundraiser. 

With Your Prayers

We are so excited to grow our family through adoption, but we're also overwhelmed by what seems like an impossibly complicated and expensive process. We know we won't make it without God's provision. Regardless of your ability to donate your time and finances, we ask that you would cover us and our future child in prayer. Please pray that God would move mountains to bring our baby home.

By contributing to our adoption with your time, money, or prayers, you're becoming a part of our story; a piece of our puzzle. We want to celebrate that with our first fundraiser: for every person (or family) who donates, we'll honor you on our adoption puzzle.

Every year we take a trip to Swan Island Dahlias in Canby to take pictures of the flowers. Our puzzle will feature this picture, which was taken during our visit in 2014.

Here's how it works:

• We've selected a 250 piece puzzle. Each piece will represent one person or family who helped bring our baby home, and your name will be written on the back of your piece.
• The minimum suggested donation to get your name on the back of a puzzle piece is $20, but any amount is appreciated!
• As puzzle pieces are claimed, we'll post pictures of our progress.

If all 250 pieces are sponsored for at at least $20 per piece, we'll have raised $5,000 toward our adoption! Wow! Once every piece is claimed, we'll put the puzzle in a floating frame so the image on the front and the names on the back will be visible. What a blessing it will be for our future child to be able to see all of the people who helped to bring them home!

There are a few ways to participate in this fundraiser:

1. Online: You can donate to our fund securely through our YouCaring donation page, or directly via PayPal.

2. Cash or Check: This can be delivered in-person or by mail (e-mail lynsey.n.bock@gmail.com for our address) 

Any funds we raise above and beyond our final adoption costs (which could vary significantly) will be donated to our church's adoption fund.

Our Family is Growing!

"God places the lonely in families..." Psalm 68:6

As a couple, we've always wanted children. Even while we were still dating, we discussed our mutual desire to adopt in the future, although we assumed it would happen after we'd had a few biological children. As of right now, that doesn't seem to be the case. After a heartbreaking few years filled with doctor visits, diagnostic tests, and even a surgery, we have no conclusive answers about why we've been unable to conceive. If nothing else, what we've gained is the realization that becoming parents is more important to us than becoming pregnant. We hope that our friends and family will share in our excitement at the prospect of adding to our family in this way.

There are many different routes to adoption, and we've prayerfully considered all of them. After much deliberation, we've decided to work with Christian Adoption Consultants to pursue a domestic infant adoption. We selected this option for a number of reasons, but most of all because we have a desire to care for the children of parents with unplanned pregnancies who have courageously chosen life for their babies.

At this point, we are financially preparing for the overwhelming costs associated with domestic adoption, which are usually around $25,000-$40,000. We are working hard to streamline our budget, but we know that fundraising will need to play a large role in bringing home our baby. Click here to learn more about how you can be a part of giving a child the gift of a family. 

Please contact us if you have any questions, if you would like to contribute, or even if you would just like to chat. We'd absolutely love to hear from you!

Thank you for taking the time to let us share our adventure with you!

Sincerely,

Jason & Lynsey