It's adoption week here on the blog! I'm so excited to be diving into a topic near and dear to my heart and to my family. Adoption has radically changed our lives, flipped them upside down, and totally rocked us in the best ways. I pray that this week you'll learn a few things about adoption and walk away with a deeper understanding of the process and some encouragement on what you can do to be active in the adoption community, no matter if you're in a place to bring a baby into your home right now or not.
Today I want to jump in by sharing the timeline of our own adoption process and what it's looked like for us! Ideally I would have kept up with every tiny thing and recorded as I went, but that didn't happen. I've filled in the gaps as best I could and I think it'll give you a overview of what the process has looked like for us!
2/25/16 - initial phone consultation with FAC
3/7/16 - FAC application submitted
3/8/16- announcement!
3/9/16- first fundraiser launched (sold t-shirts!)
3/18/16- We received the email that we were accepted with FAC!
3/23/16- first fundraiser finished
3/28/16- Sent our signed contract and first payment
4/4/16- First contact with agency for homestudy
4/9/16- Adoption Auction on Instagram
4/19/16- Homestudy application approved
4/28/16- Profile book ordered
5/11/16- we had our first homestudy visit
5/18/16- we found out... we're also pregnant!!!!
*sometime in the month of June we had our second and final homestudy visit... we were approved!
7/23/16- we sent in ALL our FAC paperwork so that we could become an active/waiting family
8/16/16 - we were presented our first case
9/2/16- WE WERE MATCHED!!
9/6/16- We found out the baby we were matched with is a... BOY! Crosby Ellis Cole.
9/18/16- BABY BOY WAS BORN! We made travel arrangements to fly to Florida the next morning
9/19/16- My birthday and the day our match failed, our birth mom decided to parent her son.
9/20/16- We drove the 16 hours home from Florida
9/27/16 - we were matched again! This time, we were incredibly scared and hesitant. We told only our immediate family and very close friends.
10/18/16- We found out the baby we were matched with is a... BOY! At this point, we were undecided on a name.
10/23/16 - OUR BABY BOY WAS BORN! We made plans to drive to Texas early the next morning.
10/24/16- We met our son for the very first time. Campbell Elias Cole.
10/26/16- Around midnight I got the text that Campbell's first mama had signed the paperwork and he was officially in our guardianship. We were released from the hospital this afternoon!
10/31/16- We drove a few hours north to spend the rest of our ICPC (this is the time where you wait on all the paperwork to be filed between states so we can cross state lines and go home to MS and be his legal guardians) with our friends the Straders!
10/2/16- we got the all clear to HEAD HOME!
10/3/16- we drove home with our son and we were greeted by our family and friends!
11/11/16- Our amazing adoption worker, Jody, came for his first post placement visit
1/5/17- Campbell's sister was born! Sweet Crawford Elaine Cole joined our family
4/23/17- Campbell was 6 months old- we could officially adopt him! All our post placement visits had been done and now it was a matter of getting the paperwork filed so we could go to court and have it finalized.
8/28/17- the long awaited day... THE DAY WE ADOPT CAMPBELL ELIAS COLE!
Today is the day. In just a few hours we will go before a judge and Campbell will be our son, legally. This is a big day for our family and one we're excited to celebrate! Looking back on our "timeline" and all that's happened... I'm blown away by what the Lord has done. He is good, He is sovereign.
If reading through this sparked any questions, drop them in the comment section below! I'll have a big Q + A on Friday and I'd love to answer any questions you have!