UPDATES & MEET OUR DAUGHTER!!!!

Okay....so, I am officially the worst blogger on the face of the earth....I promise to catch you up on everything that has happened with the adoption....but first, the most important thing....we are officially the parents of the most beautiful baby girl in the world....meet Mia Rahel Flowers.....

Okay....#1....I know that the pictures are in a funny spot....I am lucky that I got them to upload at all...if it weren't for one of my dearest friends, Leslie, they still wouldn't be here =) And if it weren't for prompting from my best friend from high school, I would probably still be avoiding trying to figure it out (thanks, Hannah!). So, with that said.....let me try to catch you up! We heard about our court date on November 10...I got a phone call from our coordinator telling us that we had a court date of December 9th! Not only did we hear about our court date sooner than we had anticipated....but it was also only 5 weeks away. Now, 5 weeks has never felt like such an eternity...but in the adoption world, it is definitely something to be grateful for! So....fast forward thru 5 weeks of me trying to stay busy and come up with other things to think about....and on December 9th....well, at 9:30am we got a phone call from our coordinator saying that they were pretty sure none of our cases were heard and that we were waiting to hear about being rescheduled.....enter 2 of the worst hours we have been thru....it felt like we had been punched in the stomach and had the rug pulled out from under us.....I am so grateful that that feeling only lasted for 2 hours for us and have the utmost empathy for those who have to overcome that feeling on their own and get thru weeks waiting for their next courtdate.....really, my heart goes out to those families in a way that it never could if I hadn't had the tiniest taste of it myself. So...after 2 hours curled in a ball on the couch....we got a call and Allison's exact words were..."I have good news....I have no idea how it happened....but YOU PASSED". And that was it....enter total shock and elation (and some heartsick at the same time for the families that went to court with us and got rescheduled....luckily, we have all passed at this point....which is great!). We spent the rest of the day in a bit of a fog and the next couple of days celebrating. After that I buckled down and got serious about trying to get all of our paperwork, etc. together and start packing. We have been confirmed for the January 27th embassy date (which is 7 weeks from passing court) and we leave from Denver on Friday, January 22nd. We arrive late on the 23rd in Ethiopia and go get our baby on Sunday morning! At this point we are feeling very excited and very blessed.....and to be perfectly honest, alot overwhelmed. We have been trying to sort clothes and clean closets and paint the baby's room and get her added to insurance and all of the stuff you always do with the arrival of a baby......and on top of it, I am doing immigration paperwork, tracking down more paperwork, trying to buy and pack everything we might need and make sure that Nate's parents (who we are so thankful for) have everything they need to watch our magoos while we are gone. AHHHHHH!!!! Like all journeys that are a little overwhelming, this one will be so worth it....but it is still a little overwhelming =)

OUR BABY!!!

That's right.....we have seen our daughter!! Let me start by saying that I know I have been very absent from the blogosphere and doing a truly terrible job of keeping everyone informed. We moved up to #1 on the list on October 2nd. Now, while I have been counting the seconds for 7 months to get to that point.....it was different than I thought it would be when we got there and I just didn't have the right words for the blog. Don't get me wrong....we were elated to finally be waiting to see OUR daughter. We have loved every second of seeing other parents and children find each other and have truly rejoiced along the way with them....it has really been the only thing that has kept me sane thru the waiting thus far....and we really were over the moon to be waiting for our daughter. But the elation also came with anxiety and exhaustion and a little bit of the depression that you fight the entire wait as you check your phone to make sure it is working approximately a million times a day. So....I just didn't have the words and was trying to remain centered in the life that I am in with my husband and my amazing children and avoid going wacko (although I think that it is too late for that!)
But....enough of that.....especially since you probably don't even care that you didn't know we were #1 and just want to hear about our baby!!! Let's see......she is GORGEOUS....and I mean that! She has a perky little mouth and HUGE eyes and long skinny fingers and tons of soft looking hair! I would love, love, love nothing more than to post a picture right away but we aren't allowed to until after she is home with us. Ethiopia has set guidelines to protect our children and so we certainly want to honor that.....as much as we would love to show her off in all her adorableness!! I'm also not supposed to mention her name on here until we pass court....but it is also beautiful!! From now until then I will probably just call her "the baby"....so don't think that we are horrible people who don't call their baby by her name =) I don't know what else I am allowed to post on here.....she is TINY and healthy and we are so, so thankful for how we have been blessed. We actually received "the call" on Friday late afternoon. Nate & I were both working. I had heard my phone ring a couple of times but wasn't really at a place where I could look at it. Finally, at 1:45 I picked it up and noticed the missed calls from a 303 # (our agency is in Denver)....and my heart almost stopped. Our coordinator had left the most calm message in the world asking me to call her....and then yelled at me when I called her back!! Just kidding.....she didn't yell at us.....but she did ask why the heck neither of us had answered our phones for over an hour while she tried to call us with the most exciting news in the world (my excuse was work....my wonderful husband, however, had dropped his cell phone in an irrigation ditch 2 days before and it could not be resuscitated and had yet to be replaced). Then she told us what she knew and I cried and half listened as I tried to figure out how to get out of work quickly =) I finally got out of work and met Nate & the boys at his parents' house....we were on our way to Denver to meet Nate's family and because we had an adoption training Saturday. We had planned on leaving straight from work but obviously we needed to get to a computer!!! And then we hugged and were stunned for a while.....this is the way we always react to big events in our lives....we didn't speak the day we got engaged or the day we found out we were pregnant with Eli....we had to talk when we found out we were pregnant with Abel because we were packing the U-Haul to move back to CO....I know....stellar timing, right??? Okay...I don't even remember where I am in this story you probably don't even really care about because I think I got a little side-tracked=) We are just so, so excited. We are so blessed by God's mercy and unfailing love and are sure that she will feel like she has always been here=)
So....what comes next???? WAITING....that's right.....more waiting!! We now have to pass court in Ethiopia. Hopefully we will here about a court date in the next 4-6 weeks and hopefully that date will only be 4-6 weeks after we hear about it. The courts just re-opened after their annual closing for the rainy season so nobody has a very good idea of how long court dates are taking at this point. At that point we pray, pray, pray like crazy that we pass court the 1st time....and then we have to wait some more....for our US embassy date. Our embassy date will probably be 8 weeks after we pass court...that's right....we have to wait 2 more months after we pass court to go get our daughter. No idea how we are going to survive the next few months of waiting now that we have seen her face....but at least we are one step closer.
So, prayer requests....please pray for a swift court date and for a positive outcome. I would also love to request prayers for some families with our agency who have court dates tomorrow (I believe there are 4 of them).....I know 2 of the women personally thru our trainings (hello Anne & Anne....thinking about you!) and all of them thru the IAN forum I am on with other mothers. They have been waiting for a very long time to be told they are officially the parents of the children they have been longing for....please pray for favorable outcomes for them!!!
Thank you all so much for your love and support.....I assure you that no part of this journey would have been possible without them!!

On My Heart

On my heart.....basically, my baby.....and her mother. Her mother has actually REALLY been on my heart since July 18. I mean, through this process I have obviously thought about the existence of my baby and of her birth mother. However, July 18th it really hit me.....my daughter....who will be loved for, bathed, fed, played with, cared for & adored in my home.....has a different mother at this point.....and her heart is broken. My eyes filled up with tears multiple times a day for days in a row as I thought about her and prayed for her and hoped that she will be able to find some peace. I cannot possibly imagine her side of things. I have 2 beautiful children who I am able to care for well (I mean...they don't always brush their teeth or have on underwear....but you know what I mean) and am so looking forward to having my wished-for daughter home. I have never been anywhere close to having to even fathom for a second not being able to spend my life with my child. Our daughter feels like she is already a part of me.....and at the same time she is a part of her birth mother.....I can only imagine that she feels (or felt if she has passed) as though a part of herself is being ripped away. It is so hard to connect my joy to so much pain....and yet they are connected.....and always will be.....and I pray that my knowledge of the gift she sacrificed will make me appreciate our daughter (and our sons) even more every second.
I have also thought about my daughter constantly lately....I know that she is alive at this point and that seems to have changed my perspective to think about her constantly. I think about her....and all of the other orphans around the world.....when I tuck my sons in at night.....when their stomachs hurt and I give them a bath and a tums......when they are scared in the night and we run to comfort them.....when Abel scrapes his knee and needs a kiss and a bandaid.....when Eli is so excited he got the ball thru the hoop and we celebrate........I think of the kids without mothers or fathers. I literally ache with the knowledge that there are so many children who do not have someone to bathe them when they don't feel well or treat their cuts & scrapes with love and attention. I am coming for my daughter.....but what about the others???
Kind of a heavy post but there has been alot on my heart lately.....the wait is getting hard....the burden I feel for the plight of orphans is heavy.....and I haven't had the words for my feelings for the last few weeks. I still don't really have the words but I had to try!
As far as our personal journey, we are #2 on the waiting list!! There is only one family ahead of us on the list for a baby girl at this point, so "the call" could literally come any day. I have officially taken to stalking my phone and the computer....I am afraid I am becoming obnoxious!

Movin' On Up

Hello anybody who still follows us even though I am the worst blogger in the world =) Seriously.....I don't know where the summer is going! Let's get right to it.....because we have VERY exciting new....the Flowers' are officially #6 on the baby girl list!!! YAY! After about 4 weeks of not moving (not that I was counting or anything) we moved twice last week and then once again on Monday....taking us swiftly from #9 to #6. It feels so close! It is finally really feeling like we can start to let ourselves get excited about the baby because we are getting so much closer.....she feels like more of a reality in our lives every second and we are so excited. In other news, we also received our I-171H in the mail last Friday. This is the document that we had to apply to immigration for that says we have the US government's permission to bring our baby into the country......obviously a very important step in her becoming a part of our family! It got here in record time.....we thought that it would take several more weeks and were psyched that it didn't!
Let's see....in other adoption news, our garage sale was an AMAZING success and we were so blessed by the support of our friends and families and just the community here in general. We have felt God's presence thru every step of this process and many times it has been thru the faces of other people. We are honored and blessed and so thankful.
What's next????? Just more waiting! In theory we have to move up to #1 on our list and then we get a referral....although sometimes it can happen faster if somebody above you is only approved for above 12 mos. and the baby is 6 mos, etc.....you get the idea. So, anyway, we are hoping that within the next couple of months we will see our baby's face for the first time (a moment I cannot wait for).....and then we wait for a court date in Ethiopia.....and then we pray that we pass court the first time......and if we pass.....we go get our daughter a month later! There you have it. Looks like we are down to 4 steps which is very exciting......feels like we have conquered 20 to get where we are!
As far as the boys go.....I know that I always say they are crazy and growing and hysterical....but it is true! They never stop.....they continue to amaze us.....and we are lucky to not have any broken bones thus far this summer (knock on wood).
Thank you for reading about us and caring for us and praying for us!

The fun kind of move

Hello! I have been absent from the blogging world for 3 reasons lately......#1, our life has been chaos with the move, the new job, and the start of the summer in Young Life camping, #2, we have had one internet issue after another (frustrating, but part of life I guess....anyway, they are resolved now....for the moment), and #3, we had nothing to report.....UNTIL NOW!!! We are moving again.....up the waiting list that is........and we are SOOOOO EXCITED. We were on "the list" for exactly 3 weeks with zero movement in the baby girl department and then on Monday we moved 2 spots. We were so excited! And then, I just got on the computer to update our blog and let people know that we had moved up and saw that we had moved AGAIN! YAY!! We are officially #9 on the baby girl waiting list at our agency and are so excited! We are also #8 on the sibling list.....so we will see what happens =) It is always so great to find out that other families have received their referrals.....we have had the pleasure of seeing that happen 4 times this week and it is so much fun. Several families have also passed court this week and it has been fun to celebrate along with them in our house.......it is so amazing to be a part of the adoption world and to see children find their families. It is amazing and awe-inspiring and makes me so glad that we were called to this journey in this way.....we feel so blessed. I am excited about forever tying ourselves to Ethiopia and to the plight of orphans around the world and seeing how that continues to play out in our lives.....we are already forever changed and I am sure we will only be even more so by the end of this leg of our journey.
We also received the sealed copy of our homestudy in the mail this week which allowed us to send our I-600A application (the application will lead to biometric fingerprints and processing) to USCIS (US Customs & Immigration) for a piece of paper called the I-171H. The I-171H is the "golden ticket" of sorts in the adoption world.....it is the piece of paper that says we are allowed to bring a child/children into the country from Ethiopia. When they get our application (and our check clears, of course) they will contact us to set up an appointment for our biometric fingerprinting (not really sure what all that entails.....we have already been cleared by the CBI & the FBI so I am thinking that God must be checking our fingerprints himself this time) and then we will just wait for our I-171H and hopefully watch more children be matched with waiting families as we move (swiftly, we hope!) up the waiting list! WHEW! The waiting is hard but it is made soooooo much easier by being able to watch the joy of others when they receive their referrals and in holding the knowledge that our God is soooooo BIG and children who were once motherless and fatherless on earth are being pursued and loved and brought home. Really.....what better way is there to wait than by being able to celebrate and pray and see the world changing a little with every match????
As for life at the ranch.......we are doing well and adjusting a little bit more every day to our new lives. I have to say that I think we are doing pretty well!! Nathan loves his new position and is doing a great job (if I do say so myself). The boys DEFINITELY love living our here where there are horses and sprinklers and dogs and mud. They are totally in their element and growing like weeds. Seriously......they surprise us every day with all they are learning and saying and doing. I am so blessed to get to be their mother.
Thank you all once again for caring enough to read about our journey and to pray for us and with us and support us. We could not do this without all of your love and support. OH!! We have scheduled what we are hoping is a huge garage sale to help us with costs for June 27th. If anybody in BV is reading this and would like to donate things or help or come shop.....let me know! Continued prayers would also be appreciated on behalf of a couple of families at our agency who have not passed court on their dates in the last couple of weeks......please pray for peace for the families and for swiftness in Ethiopia and that God will continue to be mighty. We love you! Hope you all have a great week!

WAITING LIST!!!!

Whoo Hoo!!! We made it....to the waiting list, at least =) We are proud to announce that we received the call from our coordinator today and we are officially #12 on the baby girl waiting list at IAN. YAY!! We are so excited! The social worker doing our homestudy came to visit last week and then wrote the new section and had it signed today! What a process! We did receive the down-side news that there is paperwork in our dossier that we have to update since our address is now different on some dossier forms from the one that is now on our homestudy. Sigh.....the paperwork never ends. On the plus side, it doesn't really make a difference....things will still move at the same pace and there are only 3 forms I have to get re-signed and notarized. A funny side note.....one of the forms we have to redo is our "criminal clearance report".....when we did this form originally, my sweet husband saw the forms sitting by the computer and decided to surprise me by having them signed and notarized for us so I didn't have to do it.....what he didn't know was that they had to be on letterhead.....when I told him, he was disappointed and decided to do it again.......without the knowledge that the notary stamp had to have an expiration date of at least a year out......when I saw the forms and realized her stamp expired in 2 weeks I had to break the news that they still weren't ok to my very disheartened husband.......so, I went back to the police station for the 3rd time with a different notary and had the chief of police sign the forms for the 3rd time. We will now be returning for the 4th time to have the same form signed!!! Seriously.....of all the forms to be re-done....this one???? At least they are nice =)

We are over the moon about being on the waiting list although I am sure that they long months of waiting will become over-bearing at moments. We have been excitedly making phone calls since we heard this afternoon and then came straight to the computer to share our news. For the most part, everyone has been soooooo supportive and you have no idea how much your support means to us. Speaking of supportive.....I wanted to let the IAN moms who have blogs and post sweet comments on my blog know that our new internet security seems to be blocking me when I try to comment on your blogs. No idea what the deal is.....but this seems like a good place to let you know how much we appreciate your sweet encouragement. I also want you guys to know that we are watching your journeys closely and are excited with you every step of the way!

Life is good (especially with our great news today) but crazy. The first week of camp for Young Life starts next week.....between moving and gearing up for summer Nathan has been stretched pretty thin but he is hanging in there and almost to the point he can relax a little (just a little =) ) . Work is getting busy for me, too, as the summer is beginning and the tourists are moving in for rafting and camping. The boys are crazy as usual. Turns out Abel is mischievious.....so that will make for an interesting life! And Eli is funnier every day.....he has also developed an affinity for baby chickens so we will see how that plays out!

We will post more soon and keep you updated as we move forward! Thanks for loving us!

Our Absence and Our Crazy Life

Hello to everybody! We don't know if you have noticed our absence...but it has been a long time since we posted! The truth is that we have been in the midst of some big changes and I hate it when people say "we can't really talk about anything yet....but lots of things are changing in our lives so pray for us"....while this is obviously totally fine to say, I just wanted to wait until we could tell you specifics....especially since the specifics affect our adoption and it is hard to post about where you are in the adoption process if you can't talk about it! Anybody follow that confusingness?? I am pretty sure I just made that word up.....

So, here is the dl on the Flowers family....Nathan is changing jobs and we are moving! Weren't expecting that were you??? That's right....about a month ago (probably shortly after my last post), Nathan's dad decided that after 30 years of service it was time for him to step down from the department head position at Rancho Caballo (Frontier's horse program) and move into a job where he can take it a little slower. Nathan will be moving into the position he is vacating which will mean some changes and adjustments for us.....we are excited and probably a little nervous, too! Along with the change in position comes a move to the "ranch house" located at the horse ranch where Nathan's parents have lived for 30 years. Needless to say, this is a huge change for everybody! The official switch of houses has just been decided for sure TODAY and I finally have clearance as of today to talk about all of this! Please pray for Nathan's parents & our family as we all transition to our new roles in ministry/life.....as they seem to be very interwined for us! I think that we are all confident that these changes will be good.....but they are still changes and growing pains are inevitable. For me personally, this means our 4th move in 5 years....hopefully this one will last quite a while but it is still a little hard to move again. I should have known better....we moved when I was pregnant with Eli.....moved when I was pregnant with Abel.....and now are moving during the "pregnancy" with this baby! No more babies! I can't handle all the moving!

Now, onto our adoption.....our homestudy was supposed to be sent off to be approved by the state at the beginning of next week. However, a move requires a visit from our social worker and an update to the homestudy. We are very lucky in that we have been able to make a definite moving plan and figure out that we are moving before our homestudy is sent to the state. The timing will make things soooooo much easier to deal with. The downside is some extra money for the update and a few weeks' delay in going on the waiting list.....the HUGE upside, however, is that it is WAY less money and complication than if we had moved anytime between our homestudy being sent to the state and traveling to pick up our daughter! I have struggled a little bit with the waiting list delay (I know in my head that it is all in God's timing....but the truth is that the heart of a mother is to have her baby HERE...NOW....and any delay is just going to be hard. Period. And that is okay.....it just requires constant "giving up"....and that is ok too!) but am so glad that we aren't moving in 6 months and risking mix-ups in international paperwork exchanges! So, with that said, we are hoping our social worker can come see our new house in the next 2 weeks and then our homestudy will officially go to the state. It usually takes 1 to 2 weeks to get approval...and our part of the dossier has already been certified by the state and is just sitting at our agency waiting. That means as soon as they receive our approved homestudy we will officially be on the waiting list! YEA!!

So....prayer requests. Let's see......did I mention we are moving in 6 days???!!!?!? Well, we are....so we need big prayer there since I had no idea we were moving until 2 weeks ago and no official decision until this afternoon! AHHHHH!!! Also, this is a big one........we need to sell our house! Anybody interested in a 3-bedroom, 2-bath, ranch style home in the heart of the Rocky Mountains?? Let me know.....I promise we'll give you a great deal! Pray for things to go smoothly with the adoption from this point. Pray for the 3 families from our agency who are traveling this weekend to Ethiopia to pick up their children! They are so excited and I pray their travels are so blessed! Pray for those on the waiting lists.....that they would move swiftly. Pray for those waiting for court dates......that they would be shown favor. And pray for the children who are orphans around the world....that they would know the Father's love and that we would step-up as followers of Christ and try to do something about their plight.

Again, and I cannot reiterate this enough, thank each and every one of you reading this for caring enough about this to read this! We appreciate all of your love and support!

Oh! And we just got back from the best vacation EVER with my family and I will post pics of the 2 cutest boys in the world playing in the sand sometime soon!

Much love