Author Archives: admin One thing I have overheard in the past year from lots of people as they watched our family adopt say is, “We would love to adopt ONE day, BUT we want to have our ‘own’ kids first.” The funny thing about our family is that Richard and I actually started our marriage wanting to adopt […]  (turn music off up top before watching – click bottom right play button to watch the slideshow…) I love that there are 4 sides to the kids table…but they only use one I love playing with my little man’s hair…here is a new line of fun that I found at Whole Foods… We have been […] sweet, sweet, slideshow! and the kinky-curly worked GREAT in his hair! i can tell a huge difference and that’s just in pictures! thanks for trying it out for us! Awesome slideshow…thanks for sharing! And good work mama on educating yourself with the haircare…its looking GREAT! =) it looks like everyone had a great time, especially isaac temesgen! :)) Love the b-day pics! His hair looks great…I’m sold! We’ve tried a zillion things and there’s still some frizz…plus the chemicals are starting to scare me! Thanks for being our tester/reviewer. 🙂 Cute slideshow! Looks like it was a very happy birthday! happy birthday isaac T!! can’t wait to meet you sweet boy! he is a doll! love his beautiful skin. I used to doubt anyone could fall in love on-line. I have a confession to make. You know me and my honest confessions. I was on my way home from the doctor with Isaac Temesgen (not a great appointment…double ear infections…antibiotics didn’t work…add an ENT to our list of people to see…retested for UTI…more meds) and as I headed to the physcial therapist to pick […] Thanks Andrea! I have the sponsorship requirements for Project 61 if anyone is interested. Korah is one my heart and I can’t wait to go and visit via P61 staff. We have been thinking about this exact topic so much!!! Also wanted to share a link to the pics of where ‘our’ kids are going to be going to school in Shashamane http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=1114560&id=1626696378#!/album.php?aid=189608&id=653659334&ref=mf I also heard that the school in Shashamane is ALMOST full and they are going to have to look for another school to send the kids too – which means almost 200 kids have been sponsored!!! Praise the Lord!!! I stumbled upon Project 61 a few weeks ago and couldn’t help but immediately sign up to sponsor a child. Funnily enough I’d been looking for a way to help an orphan and was mentally thinking about giving $350 for the year, but when I saw what amazing things were happening in these children’s lives spending twice that much just seemed right. Giving away more than I planned opened the flood gates. I found myself a week later donating to a different organization that feeds and educates the poor and orphans. Instead of feeling like I’ve sacrificed, I just feel like I actually did something worthwhile with my money. We sponsored a child through P61 a couple of weeks ago also!!! Woohoo! I feel so stinkin’ lucky that I get to be a part of this. It is AMAZING! I wrote about it on my blog over here. http://whenwebelong.blogspot.com/2010/08/lucky-enough-to-get-messed-up.html This is such a touching video… for whatever reason it hits home to me a bit more than others. The thought of children eating out of a trash dump is hard for me to comprehend. Thank you for sharing this with us. What a wonderful organization. I struggle with that same thing all the time! Glad to know we’re not alone.  I took about 300 pictures during the party…which I think I can narrow it down to half that many for a slideshow of fun–but I thought these told a fun story and gave another sneak peak into Isaac’s FIRST birthday so I just have to share! The yummy cake (made by the Cake Shoppe)…Isaac’s invitation […] LOVE these birthday pics!! And I am so glad you got a pic of Jett! Haven’t seen her in years…she looks great!! And you and your sis look so much alike! How fun to have a sister so close in age…and proximity! 🙂 love all the pix of that sweet, smiley ONE YEAR OLD boy! so glad that frank is feelin’ the love. LOVE the bday pics! But the brotherly bond and learning more about you and your sis is priceless! Andrea these pictures are BEAUTIFUL! Happy Birthday ITY what a FUN birthday!!! i am SO excited to see Frank LOVING on ITY! oh my word..what adorable pics of his bday party! he looked SO happy and i LOVE the cake. so adorable! Our 10 month old baby girl has kindey reflux, she just got diagnosed last month with it after going through some tests. As of now the doctor wants her to be on meds for a year and than they will retest her again. The best of luck with your little man, I hope that you get good news!!! oh!! i would LOVE for you to homeschool…I can’t imagine all the great ideas you would come up with!! =) we are on day #2 of homeschooling and it is going really well. next year i hope to be adding a new student to the class;) These pictures are adorable. Funny story…I had Caleb with me at our school’s new families pool party the other day and Harris and April’s kids were there too. The cute thing was that April’s littlest looked at Caleb and called him Isaac. 🙂  Ok…may take me a bit to put our birthday fun into a slideshow for your viewing pleasure—if you want a sneak peak though…go look at my previous post to see our family birthday party. SO SWEET! Of course the Dentons and Aunt Nisia’s crew are always here—they ARE family to us! Aunt Nisia has not […] Thanks for the great hair advice. I was at Sephora looking yesterday and came home a little dissapointed. The product I was looking for wasn’t available. I’ll have to look at my local stores for Taliah Waajid products. Love this photo of you, Frank and Aunt Nisia! God is so good with His provisions! Yay! So excited to know about really good hair products for Caroline Faith…these sound great! oh yay…thanks for telling us about these products! i will definitely check them out. Has she told you anything about what age you start doing anything product wise for boys hair? Our isaac is 7 weeks old and his hair is still silky soft wave curls but I notice the day after his bath it seems drier and flakier and didnt know if I need to do anything even at this age? |
|
by admin
Love this post! We are becoming parents by adopting FIRST! I wouldn’t have it any other way 🙂
it’s always encouraging to me to see other families adopting first as well! we’re one of those families 🙂 http://aheritagefromthelord.blogspot.com
Andrea – thank you so much for sharing and for encouraging others! My hubby and I are also on this road of adopting first and couldn’t be more excited! We also thought we’d adopt ‘one day’ but the Lord had different plans for our lives! That’s what I love about God – His ways are higher than our own and are PERFECT!
It’s incredible to be able to tell people that this is God’s plan A for our family! Follow our journey at http://godetchedyourname.blogspot.com/.
Love this post Andrea…I also cringe when people say “our own”! We origionally were going to adopt first…but were too young (by 5 years:) to be homestudy approved in our state. So thankful for the 3 bio kiddos the Lord has blessed us with thus far, and so, so thankful for the little one He is leading us to!
My husband and I have been married just a year and a half, and we are thankfully on the waitlist for our adoption from Ethiopia! We agree with the points this couple made- adopting first has many great practical reasons!
Follow along on our journey, yestoadoption.blogspot.com
That’s US!! We came home with our first from Taiwan last Fall and we’re headed to Ethiopia for siblings this time! Maybe one day we’ll really put our efforts into getting pregnant, but for now, the Lord’s calling on our family and the way we should build it is perfectly clear!
We are adopting first! We needed a little nudge by fertility struggles, but now that we are here, I feel so amazingly lucky, I can’t even express it! It is like striking gold! It is like winning the lottery! Adoption is like a direct line to God’s heart, and you won’t regret it! We don’t have our baby/babies yet, but we already know that we are forever changed, and LOVE adoption! LOVE LOVE LOVE IT!!! http://whenwebelong.blogspot.com
Thank you so much for posting this! So beautiful! We are first time adopting parent’s and feel so incredibly blessed to be on this journey. God is teaching and showing us some beautiful things! http://richardandbrantley.blogspot.com
Enjoyed this post! I always knew I wanted to adopt – and like others, “assumed” we would choose to have bio kids first…then felt less and less like going the bio route, and ended up realizing there wasn’t really a good reason NOT to adopt first…so that’s what we’re doing!
Thanks for sharing this story! Brandon and I are also called to adopt FIRST. When people ask us if we had trouble getting pregnant, we just smile and say “Don’t know!” They always look a little perplexed! Just part of our story. Africa is where our children are!
Blessings to others on this journey, whether first, second, or even third choices- you are right where God wants you!
As you know, Andrea, this is the route Aaron and I took even though our plan was to “make” kids first and then adopt. It never felt right to us though. Adopting first, I believe, truly was God’s calling for our family–I’d love to say that we jumped right in, but it honestly took us so long to listen and obey. Even after we started our adoption, God worked on our hearts soooo much! THANK YOU for posting about this; it’s so exciting to see this happening with couples…I feel like I’m hearing it all of the time lately! 🙂 There is no PLAN B is God’s leading. http://www.one27james.blogspot.com
Thanks so much for this post! I wanted to adopt since I was in middle school, and am so thrilled to be able to realize this dream. There are so many ways to create a family, and I hope that soon, our choice of adoption FIRST will not be such a novel thing or a surprise. Feel free to stop by and share our story at: http://curdsandkimchi.blogspot.com
Hi Andrea! I love your blog and I really enjoyed this post because we have decided to be one of those families as well! My husband and I are adopting our first from Ethiopia. It took us a year of trying to get pregnant to realize that God had a better plan for us! Please feel free to check out our new blog!! grafted-branches.blogspot.com
What a great post and how encouraging to read all the comments from young couples choosing adoption FIRST!
Love & Blessings from Hong Kong,
Kim
What an encouraging post! My husband and I have also chosen adoption as the first way to build our family, and to many of our friends and family it doesn’t make sense. Although Satan has tried to fill my mind with doubts about our less than “normal” method of building our family, I know without a doubt that God placed the desire in both of our hearts. I have not had contact with very many other families who have chose adoption first, so your bog and all of the comments are so exciting to read!
We too are adopting FIRST- ah, how nice to hear of other called to the same as us. We believe that God wants us to build a family and our first will be a sweet babe from Ethiopia! We’re so blessed by where God has placed us in life right now with the resources, time, energy and heart to do this.
Oh, you have no idea what this post means to me!! We are adopting first and at 24 years old, we find it hard to find other families that are also doing the same and around the same age. This is so sweet of you to post this, and I can see/read other stories similar to ours! You’re the best!
Thank you for this post! We were called to adopt first and a year after bringing our son home from Vietnam, we felt God calling us to adopt from Ethiopia. Now, we’re waiting to bring our daughter home some time this fall! It is such an encouragement to me to read the stories of other families doing the same.
Yes, please do your next post on older families starting again by adopting! I have been trying to convince my parents to adopt, or atleast look into it and see what God has planned. Even though I am 19 and my brother 15, I just have always longed for more siblings to fill my house! Thanks for all your wonderful blog posts! God bless your family.
We are adopting first as well! What an encouragement it is to read about all these other couples doing the same. I believe it shows a clear picture to the world the spiritual aspect of adoption. My husband and I have received many strange looks, but we couldn’t be more excited about adopting first!
We are an adopt first family!! We wanted to adopt first before we wanted to try for bio kids. After a few years of infertility, we decided to start the adoption process from Ethiopia. We are waiting for our referral for 2 little ones. Any day!!!
Our blog is PlanAEthiopia.blogspot.com.
Much love!
April
I am so encouraged to see more and more families feeling God’s prompting and following His will for their lives.
My husband and I started dating 9 years ago and one of the first things we talked about was our desire to adopt. We couldn’t pinpoint how and when this would happen, but we knew that’s what we wanted and what God wanted for our family. After the birth of our son, we found out some of our best friends were adopting their first child from Ethiopia. We were so excited to know that we were going to have other families like ours and begin researching more on how to make it happen. A short few months later God just smacked me over the head with the desire to start the journey NOW. Although it took some convincing in the financial area with my husband (fixer-upper house + debt + new baby = not a lot of money)…God changed his heart to see HIS plan for our lives. NEVER have for a MOMENT regretted this decision and are EAGERLY and (not so) patiently waiting to be matched with our Lil Miss.
thisdomesticateddiva.blogspot.com
My husband and I are also adopting first. This is our first choice because of God’s plan. It is amazing to look back during our process and see God’s hand opening doors for us and guiding us through this time. He has used this time as we are waiting to grow our faith and love for Him. He is showing us how to be better parents. We are hopeful to be bringing our son home soon. He is a year old and we are longing for him.
After nearly 10 years of marriage, and thinking we would have bio kids first and then adopt, we now know that it was God’s plan all along to enlarge our family through the miracle of adoption. We are one month old now as a family of Four and we are madly in love with OUR kids. http://www.nystrandfamily.blogspot.com
Thanks for bringing this to the forefront. So often, I think our culture views adoption as God’s Plan B and unnatural. However, I believe in the life of a believer, adopted as God’s child, it is a very natural lifestyle and God’s Plan A, just as growing a family through biological children is God’s Plan A. We are so thankful God saw fit to bless us with twins through adoption and we are excited to watch how He continues to grow our family! Blessings as you transition!
http://www.jonandamyg.blogspot.com
Well, I wouldn’t say we adopted “first,” as we have no plans to have bio children. 🙂 However, the day we decided to adopt was the most peaceful day of my life, and now I have two beautiful Ethiopian princesses I am so thankful to be able to call my daughters. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
THANKYOU so much for sharing this! I have had so many conversations with people lately about wanting “their own” first (cringe!) and have been able to ask why. I posted this link on my website as you have explained it so well and hope & pray that they will consider it! WE just brought home our son from South Africa and have LOVED every moment with him!! http://www.rileycandra.blogspot.com
Me and my hubby are adopting first too. We went to Uganda last summer and fell in love and couldn’t think of NOT adopting first. We were just matched with a baby last week and are still waiting on a picture of our little guy but we couldn’t be more thrilled!!
That is us!!! (www.aebrunk.blogspot.com) We chose to adopt years ago, and to say YES to the first referral. We were on the path to adopt a sibling group in Ethiopia (dossier almost sent) when our agency called to say 2 1/2 year old twins needed a home in 24 hours (in March). It was God Who led us down the path so we would trust Him and say YES. Like someone else said, if someone asks if we’ve had trouble getting pregnant – we just say, “We don’t know!” 🙂 God does. And He led us to the perfect little ones for us. Round 2 adoption may be another sibling group, or a single child, or back to Ethiopia where our heart is or domestic again, but we want to adopt again! What a privilege.
I am SO VERY PROUD of my big sister Britney Cannon and her husband Jason Cannon for their incredible relationship with Christ. I long for the kind of faith, dependence and love they have for God. They have opened their hearts to hear His cry for them…they are taking a gigantic leap of faith and saying, “Yes, God, I hear you! I am following Your lead. Take my dreams, my hopes, my fears…take my life Lord, a living sacrifice.” How awesome is that?!? Y’all are my hereos. And I know that with the amazing faith and trust you have….God is going to see you and your baby through everything. I am SO stinkin’ excited to meet my new baby nephew/neice!!! And I promise, I won’t call him Bookie, haha. Besides, that’s Landen’s nickname. lol. LOVE YOU GUYS!!! Don’t forget to buy an adoption tee from them if you can!!!