We've been keeping a secret.....

I've said from the beginning, that we've been conflicted on how much to share about the adoption process and what to keep to ourselves. It's not like finding out your pregnant and telling everyone to expect a baby in nine months. A lot of times, adoption comes with some heartbreak and though we know we could handle it, we wanted to shield our family from that possible heartbreak.

That being said, we've been keeping a secret.......

We got a call from our case worker about two weeks ago and....

They've found kids for us!!!!

We wanted to not tell anyone because it's NOT a done deal yet, but slowly things keep coming up (i.e. awkward conversations) and we've ended up telling a few people Also, we finally got a little more information, so we feel better about telling people now. Plus, if it ends up not working out, we'll still have it documented on the blog along with the rest of our adoption story.

About two weeks ago, our caseworker sent an email saying that she needed a copy of David's new license ASAP!!!! Well, nothing with DFACS is ASAP unless they have kids, so I immediately called David to tell him and he happened to be out, so he stopped by the DFACS office to get a copy to our caseworker. While there she told him that she had indeed found a sibling group for us and that she needed to get our homestudy sent off for approval. A week and a day went by and we didn't hear anything from her. We had called and emailed, but never got any response. Finally on Tuesday, she replied to my email saying that she was working on getting our homestudy approved and to "be patient. this is a process." She told David that she had already called and talked to the children's caseworker and told her about us, now she was just waiting on our homestudy to be approved, so she could "officially" pursue the kids. So, that made us feel better about it because it sounds as though we're not waiting to hear from their caseworker to approve us, we're just waiting on ours. She sent an email yesterday saying that in "the first approval" they were missing two items, but I told her we had sent them in and ten minutes later, she called back saying she had found them. So, that way we know it's at least getting somewhere. How many "levels" does it have to be approved at??? No clue. They have not given us no time line what so ever.

So, the part that I'm sure everyone is dying to know....

It's a sibling group of 3, ages 7, 5, & 3!

Before everyone freaks out, we knew this was a big possibility. We told them we were open to taking three. No one usually will take a sibling group over two, so there is a great demand for families that will take a group over two. I've said before, we've ALWAYS wanted a big family, so this seemed natural to us. It might make everyone else freak, but we're okay with it. We knew that since the demand is so high, that they would most likely call with a sibling group of three.

About the ages....yes, we said that we wanted four and under. Once again, we told them that for a reason. We knew that whatever you tell them...add a few years to it. We knew that if we told them 8 and under, they would call with 12 and older. Thankfully, we have several friends with experience with DFACS, so we knew how it all works. One of my besties Amy has a son who is six and will turn seven at the beginning of next year, so we know generally know what to expect with that age. Yes, obviously this kid will come with some issues since they have lived a rough life already, but it's nothing we feel we cannot deal with. There will be issues with any kid, at any age, that we bring into our home.

The crazy part is that we don't know the sex of the children yet. I've asked a few times, but I'm not sure if it's being ignored since they maybe can't tell us too much until we're officially able to "pursue" them. I think she went ahead and told David the ages, thinking that would be biggest factor for us. We do know that it's either a mix of boy/girl or all boy. We did tell them that we would not take all girls. David said he wanted at least a little more testosterone in the house besides his. I promised him we wouldn't take all girls. I tried to stress to the case worker that we wanted two boys and one girl since it would work better with the room situation.

So, that's where we stand now. Like I said earlier, it's not a done deal yet. We could very well get the children's file and decide it's something that we don't want to pursue or who knows what else could happen and it not go through with it. We figured we would share with everyone since more awkward conversations keep occurring and we've ended up telling people. This way, it's out on the table now. Also, we're in need of prayers that this all works out if it is to be and I'm a firm believer of the more prayer, the better.

In a strange way, I feel that this is it because we're both really at peace with it all and excited. I've mentioned before that we have been approached to do private adoptions. With both of those, after a little thinking about it, things just didn't seem to be right and we could come up with reasons why it wouldn't work out. So far, there's been none of that with this. I told someone the other day that oddly, this feels like it's going to work to me because of how non worried and excited David is about it all. I usually use his reactions as an indicator of things and his reaction has shockingly been okay with it all.

I'll update as we know more. And yep, just like I guessed it would, our family is doubling in size!!!

Crazy....in a good way!!!