These weeks are flying! I had all intentions of writing an update last week, but not much happened. So I figured combining the past two weeks would be sufficient!

Week 12 had very little action on the adoption front. I email our social worker weekly for updates, and we still hadn’t heard a thing.

This past week, week 13, was also a quiet but busy week. Can returns opened in Michigan and I went crazy returning all the cans we had collected throughout the quarantine….26,540 cans to be exact. It was an intense few days waking up early, standing in lines, making trips back and forth to load up with more. It took four days and 32 hours, but we were able to raise $2654 which is a huge blessing! THANK YOU to everyone who donated their pop cans to us! The best part- having our garage back! 🙂 It felt good to have a big ‘adoption’ related project this week- it felt like we were doing SOMETHING to help move us forward!

We got a call on Tuesday that our clearances were still not done. There seemed to be some miscommunication between our social worker and the state and rather than get frustrated, we realized all delays are a part of His plan. I have to laugh though- 6 weeks ago we were a month ahead of schedule, and as of now, we’re about a month ‘behind’ (my) schedule. You just never know how things will change! When we started this journey I really thought everything would go super smoothly and extremely fast (because, hey- if I’m in control I can do everything on time and organized and we’ll avoid all delays). So many people told me to expect delays and surprise ‘issues’ but I was convinced that wouldn’t be the case. Who’s laughing now!?

The delays and waiting have been good. They have reminded us that patience is important. We’ve been reminded that this isn’t about our plans- it never was! It reminds us (cough-me), we’re NOT in control. It’s helped give us perspective and deepen the longing within us. Selfishly I’ve been okay with the delays because I ‘d prefer not to have our baby born in August or September with school starting. I’d love to get into the groove of school before having to take maternity leave. However, we will take our baby WHENEVER! If it does end up being August/September, it will be a lovely early surprise!

So, as of Tuesday our social worker re-sent our clearances to the state and we should HOPEFULLY have them within 2 weeks. They also realized they never did South Dakota clearances for me, so we had to quickly get that done. (It helps when your grandpa is a notary!) As soon as we have both clearances, we’ll go ‘active’.

In the meantime, we pray. We dream. We carry on with normal life but with an extra dose of anticipation and excitement.

This coming weekend we are holding another fundraiser- my dear sister, Rachie Cakes Bakery, is doing a pop-up shop at our house. We’ll have Father’s Day Cookie packs, mini-cakes, cupcakes, and macarons for sale with all proceeds going towards our adoption! She is the BEST. She has such a heart for helping others and such amazing skills in the kitchen. We are blessed to have her sharing her talents in this way!

I’m guessing it will be another week of waiting ahead, but we’ll be sure to fill you in if things change. As always, thank you for your love, prayers, and support! And, if you’re not busy this weekend, come on out and see us for some yummy goodies!