Adoption Auction!

 

 

It's finally here!!!! The long awaited Instagram adoption auction that I have been working on tirelessly for the last 6 weeks. The auction is being held on Instagram at @babysorrilladoptionauction and I ended up with a total of 131 items! My hopes were to get 100 items and then I was totally blown away by the generosity of people who wanted to donate and help us! Almost all of the items are handmade by special people who care about adoption and sell their items on Etsy. Please check the auction out and bid, bid, bid to help us reach our fundraising goal to bring our baby home in January!!!

 

@babysorrilladoptionauction on instagram. Here are some sneak peeks to get you excited!

 

 

Meeting our expectant mom

I've been taking a while to write this post because I've just been mulling over all of the feelings and keeping them close to my heart. If you missed the story about our being matched with an expectant mother who is pregnant with a baby boy click here.  

We found out about "K" choosing us to be the parents to her baby boy on September 13th and the agency case worker said that K was very anxious to meet us. We were able to fly out to meet her just 3 weeks later on October 3rd. To our surprise, K re-scheduled her doctor appointment so that we could go to it with her. We were SO excited. We met for lunch and it was just a really wonderful time getting to know each other. We all cried a little bit and talked about how incredible this all was and how it felt so meant to be. K was amazing. The flood of love that we both instantly felt for her was really unexpected and profound. We told her how much we wanted to have a relationship with her and how we hoped so much that we could become close and stay close even after the baby is here. We really wanted her to know that we care about HER and not just getting her baby. I used to be so scared of feeling like we were "sharing" someone's baby, but after getting to know her it's like...how could it possibly be any other way? We WANT her to be part of this with us. We WANT her to know that she can always be there for him and love him as much as she wants. She loves this baby so much already and it was so clear how much she cared about him. We feel so honored that she would want us to parent him and our hearts have nothing but gratitude and love for her. After all, it is because of her that we are going to become parents.   At the doctor appointment we were so excited to find out that they were going to do an ultrasound for us and we would get to be there. I've never seen an ultrasound done on a baby before (only my ovaries lol) so it was really mind blowingly cool!! We saw and heard the heartbeat and we saw that he was definitely a boy! It all went really fast and we didn't really get to have a "moment" like I had hoped, but it was still an incredible experience. We got some pictures that are really difficult to read but we don't even care that we don't know what they are pictures of. We love them. We love this baby. We love this mom. We are overflowing with love.

  So now we are just waiting and trying to build our relationship with K as we wait. She is about 29 weeks pregnant now so we still have quite a few weeks left. This waiting has been much more difficult than I expected it to be. When we are busy the time passes by quicker, but on days when we aren't out doing things I can feel anxiety and fear creep in. We fully realize that she can change her mind and parent this baby herself and she has the right to do that. But as time goes on I'm feeling attachment and love for this baby creeping up more than I expected. I'm NOT going to think about how much my heart will hurt if this falls through. I know that God has His hand in this and I'm trying to trust Him more than ever.   

  So in the mean time we are getting ready!! Two of my best friends threw us the most amazing baby shower ever last weekend. It was seriously a dream come true to have a baby shower. For ME! How is this possible? I still can't believe it, that I, Charlotte, am going to be a mother! We are so thankful for everyone who came to celebrate with us and for everything that we got. I think we are totally ready for baby now!    Please continue to pray for us and for K and baby boy. Specifically, pray that we feel peace and can keep trusting and loving to the fullest. For K that she continues to have a healthy pregnancy with as few discomforts as possible and that she continues to feel flooded with peace and love. And for baby boy that he continues to grow strong and healthy.  

 

   

Baby Sorrill has been FOUND!!!!

Baby Sorrill has been FOUND!!!!

WE ARE MATCHED!!!!! We got the call first thing Tuesday morning (September 13th) that an expectant mother who had seen our profile book the day before had selected us to be the parents to her baby BOY!!! And he is due January 16th!! Be still my heart, we are going to have a SON!!! We are both in shock and over the moon excited! When the girl at the agency was telling me about how excited this expectant mother was about us I just kept saying "what? What? US??? Are you SERIOUS??" Lol she probably thought I was crazy, and deaf. 

Not the best picture, but who has time for pictures at a time like this!

We can't believe that this happened so fast. We matched in just THREE SHORT WEEKS!!! Guys, this is unheard of! I didn't think we would wait very long, but I am in total shock that it happened so fast! All I can say is that God is SO GOOD!! Having four months to prepare for baby boy is really perfect for us with Wes having to schedule residency interviews in the next few months. I don't think the timing could be any better and I really feel like God had our backs on this one.

So I want to just marvel at the timing for a minute longer. April was the month when we were really hardcore talking about adoption and if it was the right thing to do. My heart was being pulled SO HARD to adopt. I felt so strongly that we had to adopt and I remember feeling desperate. And it was urgent! We couldn't wait, we had to start now! April is the month that our baby boy was conceived. Right as our baby was being created I felt God telling us that now was the time. Fast forward 4ish months to when we went active with our agencies...and three short weeks later our baby has found us, and we have found him. 

I still can't believe it....   We have gotten a lot of questions the last few days. So here are some answers!  

Where will the baby be born? Baby will be born in Florida!     

Will we meet the expectant mother? Yes!! We are hoping to have a conference call with her and her agency case worker soon. She also asked if we could come out to Florida to meet her in a month or two so she can get to know us better!  

What information do we have on the birth family? This information is really private. It's hard to not spill all the details to everyone, especially for me as an over-sharer, but we are respecting the future privacy of our child. This is HIS story and HIS story alone to tell. We do not want people knowing about his first family and all the gossip about whatever and whoever before he even knows this information himself. When he grows up, if he wants to tell people about his birth family he can. But for now, all that's important is that a strong, courageous, and incredibly loving and selfless woman is making the hard choice that she wants her son to have a better life than what she can give him, and she wants US to give him that life.   

What's next? Now we have to prepare and nest! We also have a lot of fundraising left to do. The majority of our adoption fee was due up front but we still have a large amount to raise before placement, and we will be staying in Florida for about 2 weeks after the birth so we will have a lot of travel expenses as well. If any of you feel in your heart that you want to help us, whether monetary or in prayer, we would be forever grateful!!  

How can we pray? PLEASE pray for the precious mother carrying baby boy. Pray that she feels overwhelmed with peace in her decision with us. Pray that baby boy continues to grow and thrive and is healthy. And please pray for us as we prepare to become parents!!   

Thank you all so much for following along on this exciting journey to parenthood with us! Stay tuned for more details as things happen!!

Our cats are confused and think that they are our babies lol

 

I always wondered what this would be like

 

Adoption Process

We have finally entered the waiting phase of the adoption process. The phase where our book is actually being shown to expectant mothers and we are waiting to hear if they picked us or not. And I mean like right now, this afternoon/evening. A pregnant mother took our book home today and could be looking at it this very minute as I type this. I always wondered what this would feel like. And I think it's different than I expected, at least so far. I expected to be over the top with anxiety and nerves. I'm definitely anxious, but I feel calm and peaceful. I feel EXCITED!! I think I just really know that this is where God lead us and I know that he has OUR baby lined up for us, and we just have to patiently wait.  So what do we do while we wait? We go for tandem bike rides of course!!

 

In the meantime...we got another situation emailed to us today and they need to know right away if we want to show our book, but we have to wait until we hear back from this mom who has our book right now. I'm more anxious about not hearing back in time and missing this other situation. I really don't want to miss our baby. And every time I see an email from our consultant I literally get so excited I have to pull my car over to read about it. This excitement guys, it's insane! I'm not looking forward to the feeling of rejection, and we very well could get rejected a lot of times before we get our match. We know it's nothing personal, but it's still not a nice feeling, especially when we are being so vulnerable in putting ourselves out there.  

Fundraising Update

Our puzzle fundraiser is so close to being done!! We only need 43 more pieces to be sponsored!! I am so grateful and thankful for everyone that has helped us!! Fundraising is HARD. It's not our thing. We (especially Wes) hate having to admit that we need help with this. But with Wes still being in medical school and me being the only one supporting us right now, it's just not possible for this to happen on our own. It's been humbling and it's really been an amazing blessing to see so many people pool together to help us. I've cried so many heartfelt tears of gratitude over the help we have received so far! I never realized how precious and meaningful this puzzle would be, and how much I would cherish it. So if anyone else is willing to help us sponsor our last 43 pieces (of a 252 piece puzzle) we would be forever grateful! If you can't help monetarily then please share this with someone who might be interested, and most of all, PLEASE PRAY FOR US AND OUR BABY!! And most of all, thank you for all of your continued prayers, support and encouragement!

To sponsor a piece: Click on my YouCaring or Paypal link to the right of my blog. $25 sponsors 1 puzzle piece. I will put the names of people down for any donations we get! If you would like to send a check then email me and I will send you our address

 

 

 

Licensed to parent

This was actually written on 8/19/2016 but my blogger app didn't publish it like I thought.  Our home study is finally complete!! After our last meeting with our social worker in mid July, we waited for 5 weeks to have the home study typed up and finalized. This means that now we are officially official. We are licensed to be parents, literally licensed lol. 

I was so excited when our home study copy came in the mail. It's different than I expected. I'm not even sure what I expected actually, I think I just didn't know. But it's 13 pages and it's basically a detailed story of our lives. It's like a college essay that covers everything from our childhood, how we were raised, our family members, our education, how we met, our dating/marriage, how we plan to discipline our kids (did I mention that we had to sign a paper saying that we will not spank our kids?), what we plan to do for childcare, how much training we had, how much money we make....literally everything. 

 

 

We first applied for our home study on May 3rd. And we got our completed copy on August 20th, so it took about 3.5 months from start to finish. That's not bad. I was hoping we could do it faster just because I'm so anxious to have a baby in my arms, but I think we did pretty good.

 

So now we are officially signed up with four different agencies in Florida. These are all agencies that our CAC consultant works with and recommended. So now that we are officially a waiting family, I guess we just wait. I've never been so excited to wait before. And I've been trying to figure out how this waiting will compare to the two week wait. The two week wait is the two weeks after ovulation that you wait before you know if you will get your period or your positive pregnancy test. I think the difference is, I know I will get my (metaphorically) positive test at the end of this wait, I just don't know how long the wait will be. And THAT is thrilling!! I feel like I'm pregnant but I don't have a due date, or any other information. It's a feeling that

 

Do you want to know a realization that hit me the other day? I was thinking about my journey with God through all of this. All the anger that I felt last year, and all the feelings of "how can He be a good God when he is holding something so Good back from me" etc. It was a HARD time going through those fertility treatments and getting negative after negative. I felt like God hated me. I felt broken and like I must have done something to not be good enough to be a mother. My last crazy medicated cycle was February and March, I obviously didn't conceive and I was devastated. But, then I had this thought. Maybe our baby was conceived, or was about to be, but just not conceived by me. And I bet God was up there, smiling at my tear smeared face, saying "just trust me. You don't know this yet, but your baby WAS conceived, and you ARE a mother, you just don't know it yet". But I was too focused on ME not getting pregnant. I had no idea this was going to happen so fast. I'm still not sure how it happened so fast. We went from planning on doing months more of fertility treatments to WE NEED TO ADOPT RIGHT NOW. And here we are, only a few months later and waiting for the call that a selfless, wonderful expectant mother has chosen us and we get to be the new parents to a precious babe. 

Fundraiser Updates

First, thank you all so much for the love and kind words you sent our way about our adoption profile book. It was really exciting sharing it with all of you! AND, I just have to keep saying how blown away we are by everyone who is helping us meet our fundraising goals. It has been so humbling and heart warming and I just can't thank everyone enough.  

Puzzle Fundraiser Update

We have had 190 pieces of our puzzle sponsored so far!!! I can't believe we are actually almost done with this 252 piece puzzle! There are still 62 pieces left if anyone else is interested in helping us complete the puzzle. It is $25 to sponsor 1 puzzle piece. (You can donate via our YouCaring page here or Paypal, or if you aren't comfortable with YouCaring or Paypal, you can send us a check or use Chase Quickpay too, just email me at Charlotte.sorrill@gmail.com and I'll send you info).  It is so much fun to write names down on the puzzle and watch it come together. I can't wait to hang it in the nursery:) If you want to go back to our original puzzle post for more details on how you can be a part of this click here

190 pieces claimed so far, only 62 pieces left!!

Do you see these 7 names across the top? My nephews and nieces have pooled together their babysitting money to sponsor a piece for each kid in their family. I CRIED when my sister in law told me they were doing this for us.

 

Jewelry Fundraiser Update

Etsy.com/shop/findingbabysorrill

I am still making jewelry to sell in my Etsy shop. Slowly but surely I'm adding new pieces here and there. BY FAR the love knot bracelet has been the most popular item, so much so that I've even calling it our adoption bracelet. I can make these bracelets in lots of color combinations and I might go get more bead colors so there is more variation. So far the white and gold has been everyone's favorite. I am selling these for $15 and 100% goes towards our adoption! So if you are interested in having one of our adoption bracelets then check it out here

This is our love knot "adoption bracelet"

Our adoption bracelet being modeled from across the country!

  Some of the other items that people have loved are my tassel necklaces and beaded hoop earrings. I've been trying to come up with some unique pieces that are trendy and stylish. Most of these I only have beads to make one necklace so they are totally one of a kind and once gone I can't make another. So if you like something, don't wait because there won't be another one later. Here are some of my favorites that are in my Etsy shop right now. 

Thank you again everyone for all of your support whether financially, in prayer, or in encouragement. It all means so much to us. This is a time we are never going to forget. Have a great week!!

Our Adoption Profile Book

I've been promising to show details of our adoption profile book. It's a vulnerable thing, to post this on the Internet for the world to see. I didn't really think about it because I was so excited about getting the books, but I actually feel slightly nervous and embarrassed putting so much of ourselves out there for everyone to see. But I think it's good. I think it's great to share what it's like and what we have to do to make this adoption happen. When I was researching how to make a good profile book I was SO thankful when other adoptive families shared theirs, so I want to share ours too. I spent hours upon hours making this book, like probably over 24 hours collectively. I typed and retyped, and then retyped again. How do you explain to someone who you are and how great of a family you will provide for their child? It's impossible I think. And we wanted to be real and honest but not too braggy, but not too humble and plain either. And to find the right balance between photos and text, not enough information and too much unimportant information. So I would erase and retype again, and find a new picture. We really bared our hearts in this book, and I am SO proud of it. I love our life together and I love our families. I love how the book turned out. It is so..."US".  So here it is. Our adoption profile book. Leave me a comment letting me know what you think to help ease some of this embarrassment of baring my soul to the world:) PS. If anyone is wondering why we have so many copies of our book, it is because we are working with consultants and signing up wth 5 agencies and each agency requires 2-5 books.