In the Search for Baby McDowell: Hello Fall!

In the Search for Baby McDowell: Hello Fall!: Fall is finally here! Our favorite season, the cool crisp air, and warm sunrays, cool mornings and mild afternoons! Fall brings a lot of me...

Hello Fall!

Fall is finally here! Our favorite season, the cool crisp air, and warm sunrays, cool mornings and mild afternoons! Fall brings a lot of memories to us, especially our wedding day! A perfect fall day the happiest day of our life to this day. 

We have no enter the waiting room again, as we wait to be matched with a birth mom! this is very exciting and nerve wracking at the same time. So in the mean time we will pray everyday for our baby!

This time has given us the opportunity to come up with different ideas to help our fundraiser.. 

1. We had friends and family donate "stuff" that they no longer used for a yard sale!! we started out by just thinking a few things here and there, to a complete garage full of "stuff" OUT OF NOWHERE.. We are so thankful with our friends and family for contributing in such way! our garage sale was a hit and were able to raise almost $600 YAY

2. Laura started an easy shop where she's selling charmed bracelets, this will be a slow process but we hope it will be a hit too with Gods help!

the name of the shop is :Glimpse of Hope Bracelets.. go to Etsy and check it out! or simple order one from us directly .. they are personalized .

3. SHARE SHARE INVITE FRIENDS AND COME 

 WE'RE HAVING A BAKE SALE!!! This Saturday October 12, from 2pm-5pm on our drive way :)  if you want to come send us an email and we'll give you our address! the more the merrier

Some amazing friends have stepped out to donate some sweet treats for the sale. So thankful for them 

We started a new life group that now meets at our house on wednesdays, and with it three new couples that are now part of lives, Forest Hill Church not only has given a stronger faith foundation, but many many people that we now call friends :)

Jason just had a birthday and we went to see his parents in WV and celebrated with them

Our good friends and neighbors got married!! more celebrations this month 

and our soon 3rd Anniversary is just around the corner * days and counting :) God likes to surprise us some how during this time of our life.. lets see what surprise He has for us this time!

Adoption is so different than we envisioned it, but we are so glad to be in this journey together! We both have hopeful hearts that we will look back at

this time and it would all seem so worth it.

We 

I stumble across this picture. It sums up what an adoption is! 

it reads: "In adoption a child is not GIVEN UP,.

A birth mom GIVES life, a child a family, unconditional love. 

she GIVES a part of her heart that will never feel whole. 

she GIVES another mother a part of her heart that was always missing

An adoptive mother GIVES a life and family to this child and 

she GIVES unconditional love

she GIVES a part of her heart to another mother

"For He chose us in Him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in His sight. In love He predestined us to be adopted through Jesus Christ for Himself, according to His favor and will"- Ephesians 1:4-5

This verse speaks to us so much, it tells us how adopted us through Jesus, how He chose us!! Just like that we also want to chose and adopt a little human into our life, to love as our own! How Blessed we are for been able to do so

HOME STUDY HAS BEEN APPROVED!!!

Approval paragraph :) 

A lot has been going on the past few weeks since our last post. For those who don't understand adoption lingo that much this is why this week has been so important for the two of us. Any couple or anybody considering adoption has to complete a Home Study where a Social Worker meets with both adoptive parents separately to interview them, interviews them together, and lastly does a home visit, (not mentioning the countless amount of legal documents, background checks, FBI checks,etc) and this can be a very lengthy process it takes up to 11 weeks at times. But God is truly doing some work with our process because our home visit was done less then two weeks ago and yesterday as we were heading to a LifeGroup Connect to our Church we checked the mail, and there it was YAY GOD! our approved Home assessment, that states that Jason and Laura are approved by the law to become adoptive parents of one or two children fem ages newborn to 6 months. This is SO BIG I can't put in words, we are so grateful that it went by so quickly and smoothly, the answer to how this h

It says WE ARE APPROVED!!!!

appened so quickly is very simple, GOD! We sometimes forget how powerful and amazing He is, He is constantly reminding me to Trust in Him in everything with all of my heart and all of my mind and to not rely on my own understanding.
THIS MEANS WE CAN START LOOKING AT BIRTH-MOMS and actively start looking for OUR BABY :). this is so surreal.
On the other side of things, we were asked to put together a photo book (the shutterfly type), this book will be our profile book, the one that birth-moms will look at. Well after waiting for weeks for them, they arrived today! Once again, very promptly :).
We are so excited with everything that has happened and even more about our hope, our dream, of our baby. Every day that goes by we feel closer to meeting our angel, we don't know when, how soon, or anything. What we do know is that we are entirely in the will of God, and that He's timing is better than our, and we trust in Him.

Please continue to pray for our adoption, for our baby, and for wisdom to know who to chose when the moment comes down to it. We also want to ask you to continue to pray
for our fundraising that we would find the way to found this dream of ours somehow.
We are so grateful for everyone who has donated so far, and has gotten us to this point in our adoption, to access our fundraising account, copy and paste the link below :) we will be eternally grateful
http://www.youcaring.com/adoption-fundraiser/bring-home-baby-mcdowell-we-re-adopting/214735

Thank you for your prayers and support! We truly cannot do this alone
but as of now,
We will continue to trust in the Lord, for He is good, and His love endures forever!!
Jason & Laura

BIG WEEK!!! CONSULTANT + HOME STUDY = US GRATEFUL

After just a few weeks Jason and I are getting more excited as the weeks go by, we both have days where we get a little discouraged when we see in the news about scamming adoptive parents, or failed adoptions, or the many fears that come with the process. But we trust that we have picked to very known and trusted companies to be our biggest foundation in the process.

1. A Step Ahead Consultant: YAY for them who will be the ones helping put our profile and book (scrapbooking, pictures about us, "my specialty") together, along with finding many cases throughout many agencies in the nation to find our little baby. our amazing consultant's name is Teri and she will be doing a lot of handwork and will make us work jut as hard, there's classes to take (online), page after page to read about adoption, but at the end it will all be worth it.
2. Nathanson HOME Study: we have a social worker now YAY!! (Sarah) , and already have a meeting set up in just a couple of days, 1st- of 3 meetings.
SO FOREVER GRATEFUL WITH OUR CHURCH Forest Hill and our family and friends who have made this big steps possible with your contributions. our amazing Church gave us a grant to get us started.  We don't know where we would be if it wasn't for the Forest Hill Church Family and our family and friends who are supporting us every step of the way.
It has been such an amazing journey so far, everyday that goes by I find and Jason does do a new strength in us that we did not know we had, we meet couples everywhere that are also in the process of growing their family through adoption, HOW AMAZING IS THAT? giving little ones the chance of a loving home that they would not have other wise. God is doing some work around here!

When we get a little discouraged God reminds us that He is in control of it all, after all He created the heavens and the earth in just 6 days, how can we doubt Him with something so little in His grey might and Power?

These two verses gave my heart some ease the past couple of weeks:
" God is my strength and power, and He makes my way perfect" 2 Samuel 22:23
"The Lords is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and he helps me" Psalm 28:7a

Please continue to be in prayer for us as we begin to take yet the biggest steps of our journey thus far!

love,
L & J

http://www.youcaring.com/adoption-fundraiser/bring-home-baby-mcdowell-we-re-adopting/214735

Baby Steps-

Today was a great day!!!!
Jason and I met with one of the pastors from our church, Forest Hill, whom has adopted two children also, and we were given a grant (YAY GOD) and along with some other funding that we have gotten from friends and family we will be able to start the fun part, Home Study, and signing contract with Steps Ahead Adoption Consultants, whom we have heard amazing testimonies on baby placements.
This means we are one step closer to meeting our baby, and this is so overwhelming and exciting that I cannot put it in words. The thought that we may be a family sooner that later fills my heart with so much joy that it may burst.
Today the Lord reminded me not to worry about tomorrow because each day has a worry of its own, I am trying not to worry and not think about the large sum of money that we have to come up with, but I know God will provide a way, he will show Himself to us through others, who ever that may be. lastly pastor Mike reminded us today what a bumpy road this may be but oh how worthy is, when you get to hold your baby in your arms and look at him/her in the eyes and know that God chose that little human being for us, and he left us with this verse that I will carry in my heart:
"God sets the lonely in families"- Psalm 68:6

NEW FUNDRAISING PAGE!!

https://www.youcaring.com/adoption-fundraiser/bring-home-baby-mcdowell-we-re-adopting/214735

Praying for our Little Miracle as we Begin our Journey of Adoption

And the work begins,  the past couple of weeks have been busy work, trying to determine what agency we are going to chose if any, what company to do our home study. But God has found a way to put someone in our path that went through the same, and was able to give me advice in some of the different avenues that we can take that we never thought of. So here's the plan "at least our plan"- Jason and I are choosing a consultant that is able to work with many many genies throughout the nation that will facilitate the placement of a baby sooner, and an separate agency to do our home study, Please pray for us to be making the right decision. 

In other news, we have our FUNDRAISING page up and running as of today, and hope and pray that our family and friends can become part of us becoming parents, and would be willing to help us in any way possible. 

I once heard that god will not put you through something unless He can get you through it, well this is true now more than ever, He surely has His hands all over adoption, and we know and believe that if he made us take this big step, he has paved the way for it and will get us through it. He is our guide, our stronghold, that cannot be shaken, and in Him we trust alone to make something beautiful out of our circumstances.

Below is our fundraising page:

https://www.youcaring.com/adoption-fundraiser/bring-home-baby-mcdowell-we-re-adopting/214735

WE'RE ADOPTING!!!!!

This is by far the most exciting news we have to share!! after some years of infertility we have decided and hope that it is the will of God for us to adopt our “missing piece.” This will be a long journey that awaits ahead of us, but this is the main reason we started this blog to share our every step of the way with friends, family, and anyone out there who is going through something similar. We want to have all of the prayers and support we can get from everyone in our lives, since we know it will be a long difficult bumpy road. 

Never in our life did we imagine taking this step, I never thought I would adopt a baby since I always dreamt of carrying a baby in me, and neither did Jason, but God can surely do it all, including changing both of our hearts in such way that we are so overfilled with Joy with this new season that’s ahead.

The Journey to finding our “missing piece” and making this family of 2, a family of 3 (or more). 

Next step.. finding the agency… and start the fundraising for our family and baby McDowell

In case you did not know or where wondering Adopting is extremely expensive Domestic and international and after many phone calls, emails, and extensive research we found that domestic adoption is the best fit for our marriage, because of our ages and length of marriage. 

We hope we can count on your prayers, and support since without those around us we can’t do it. We are tired of doing it alone, and trust that God will provide a way for that little one to be in our family and arms soon! 

EXCITING PICTURES TO COME!!!!