Thanks to those of you who have followed our adoption journey as I've shared it here this past month. For our friends in Florida who haven't been with us from the beginning of the process, I hope reading about it has helped you to feel more a part of things by knowing how we got... Continue Reading →

Adoption can be expensive. It costs about $25,000 for domestic infant adoption. After our first information gathering meeting at Bethany, we were overwhelmed with the cost and discouraged knowing we certainly didn't have that kind of money. 33% of Americans consider adoption. 79% of those are concerned about the costs, the biggest deterrent. Less than... Continue Reading →

This series has been heavy at times, so I thought as I wind it down, I'd mix it up a bit and throw in a little fun!Since moving to Florida, I will admit I have become an avid Walmart shopper. We have one literally 2 minutes from our house (and Target is about 20 minutes... Continue Reading →

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In yesterday's post, I wrote about the concept of missional living to answer the question of why we're adopting transracially. In today's post, to answer the how question, I'll use the term incarnational.During our transracial adoption training at Bethany, we were required to watch a lengthy video of several adoptees evaluating their experience being raised... Continue Reading →

This is a hard post to write in the aftermath of the Ferguson verdict yesterday. As a family approaching transracial adoption, specifically African American placement, I feel my heart pulled in two different directions. One is the world of white privilege I've always known and taken for granted, and the other is the world our... Continue Reading →

(This post originally appeared here in June 2013. As I wrote yesterday, it is the outpouring of what God was helping me think through as we attended adoption training to help our child with the grief of a lost birth parent relationship.)I held it like it was you, that red crochet heart. It hung on... Continue Reading →

In a post last week, I shared the joyous theological truths that resonated with us and motivated us to pursue adopting a child. Physical adoption, on so many levels, is indeed a beautiful picture of those spiritual truths.Our parents, Adam and Eve, were God's children but sin separated them, and thereby us, from him and... Continue Reading →

One of the harder things for us to work through in the adoption process was our openness preferences. What does that mean? It means the type of birth scenario we were open to stepping into...involving everything from expectant parent's IQ, mental health history, and potential drug and alcohol use during pregnancy, to the child's medical... Continue Reading →

As a way for expectant parents to get to know the different families seeking adoption, each adoptive family has to put together a profile book, introducing themselves. The expectant parents are given several profile books to look through and study to see which family seems like a good fit to parent their child. Then a... Continue Reading →

Talk with a pregnancy counselor at Bethany if you have a savior complex about adopting and you will be set straight pretty quickly. The pregnancy counselors are unashamedly pro-expectant parent, feeling their grief and conflict through it all and advocating for them every step of the way.The pregnancy counselors were part of almost every training... Continue Reading →

 In March 2013, we filled out the initial online application for Domestic Infant Adoption through Bethany Christian Services. By May 2013, we had completed the formal written application and received approval from them that we were ready to proceed to the Home Study phase!A few things here regarding why we chose Bethany. Choosing an agency... Continue Reading →