An Open Adoption

Adoption is not about us.

Yes, its true that we get children out of it.

Its true that adoption blesses our socks off.

Adoption so much bigger than our desire to parent orphans.

 

Adoption is about God!

It is God designed and God driven.

It would not be possible without God.

 

When we were presented with the option of having an open adoption,

we said yes.

Sure in our small little minds, adoption seems easier when it is closed.

It seems easier when the child only has one mother and one father.

It seems easier to not have to work on multiple complicated relationships at one time.

 

We have faith that God can turn this awkward, strange situation into something more beautiful than we can ever imagine.

He can not only use us to show our baby Jesus but also to show our babies biological parents Jesus.
He makes beautiful things out of dust!

 

The reason we are on this earth is to tell people about Jesus and His saving grace.

An open adoption means that "K" and "W" will spend a good amount of time with us every year.

This allows a lot of time for them to see Jesus in us.

Having an open adoption will also grow and bless us.

We will be choosing to love people with the love of Christ.

 

These are two people who are choosing to give their baby a great life.

They are choosing to put their feelings aside and do what is right for their child.

No matter what they have done or ever will do, their sacrifice makes them worth respecting.

The fact that they are made in the image of God makes them worth loving.

Having a relationship with our child's birth parents is not going to be a burden.

It will be a blessing.



Christmas Surprise!

You are probably wondering why I just posted something labeled Christmas surprise.

Well...our agency had the children do little crafts for us in November.

The crafts were sent to us before Christmas but got lost in the mail and we just got them!

O how sweet their little hands and feet are!

 

And here are a couple of pictures of their cuteness....

 

 

There are 193 puzzle pieces left.
If you want to give a tax deductable donation to help bring our little ones home, visit the link below.
https://www.adopttogether.org/pehl

 

Match Story - Part 4

"B" was at the hospital when she called to make sure we still wanted our profile to be shown to "K".

She was with a birth mom who was in labor.

She told me she would try to get someone over to show "K" our profile.

That evening at 6, "B" shot me a text saying that we would have an answer that night.

Well 6 turned into 10 and still no word.

 

I was not frustrated that night.

Just peaceful knowing that God had this.
I have also spent enough time around adoption agencies to know that this is completely normal.
They have crazy, around the clock jobs.

 

The next morning I had a bible study at church.  I brought my phone just in case we got a call from "B"

Gavin's truck is in the shop so he dropped me off in my car that morning.

Well wouldn't you know that I left my phone in the car!

To say the least, I was a little bit distracted that morning thinking about if "B" had called.

 

At the very end of the small group meeting, Gavin showed up.

Our small group leader let me know that "there was a bearded man looking for me".

I stepped into the hall where Gavin told me that we had been picked!

 

I let out a very loud squeal and then started bawling like a baby.

I am not an emotional woman but these two years of adopting is enough to make me crazy.

The idea of someone just saying "sure you can have a baby in three months" was completely overwhelming.
So I cried for a bit and then fixed my makeup and went back into my bible study.

I then got to tell all of my "sisters" who were very excited to hear the good news. 
I love having such a supportive church family!

On our way home, we got to work calling all of the grandparents, great grandparents, aunts and uncles.
Honestly the day went by in a blur...it was like a dream.

A few days later, we traveled down to Phoenix to meet with the agency. 
We are working with Building Arizona Families and so far we LOVE them.
They are very personable and we feel they will really be there for us during this journey.
We are praising God for His provision and encouraged by the journey ahead of us.

A Little Bit About Our Baby.
We do not know if it is a boy or girl yet. 
We are not sure if we are going to find out. 
We will see if "K" makes it in for an ultrasound.  Even if she does get an ultrasound, we go back and forth on whether or not we want to know.
We are not sure about the due date.  "K" has guessed May but without an ultrasound, its hard to tell.  Because of certain circumstances within the pregancy, there is a good chance the baby will come early.  So we are guessing April.
The babies birth mom is Spanish and the Birth father is African American...is that going to make a pretty baby or what?!?!
"K" is VERY petite and adorable.
The birth father who we will call "W" is a huge son of a gun!
I wonder who the baby will take after.

So until April(or May) I will spend much of my time dreaming about what this little one will look like, smell like, and act like.
I will spend a large amount of time praying for ALL of our children and a good amount of time praying for "K" and "W".
I will be rejoicing at how gracious my God is!
Thank you friends for celebrating this precious gift with us!



The Match Story - Part 3

By morning, my stomach was sick.

I spent the night agonizing over our decision and knowing that I just needed to be still and KNOW the God is God!

 

I had a play date with a friend at the park on Thursday so I was about to leave when "B" called me.

I let it go voicemail and decided I would call her back when I had better cell service.

I was sure that she was just calling to "talk me into showing to K".

I am a bit weary of agencies since we have had such difficult experiences with a few.

When I listened to her message, I felt my stomach squirm into even deeper knots than were already there.

 

She told me that they were already on their way to "K"s house.

"K" had been shown two other profiles a few weeks earlier and was not happy with either of them.

If we did not show our profile, she could not see any profiles because the agency really likes to give choices.

I felt horrible!

How could I be the reason that "K" does not get to pick a family for her child?

After consulting Gavin, I told "B" to show to her...then we waited some more.

 

By the time afternoon came rolling around, I was getting pretty antsy.

I figured that because we had not received a phone call yet, "K" had not picked us.

When "B" did finally call me, she told me that their meeting with "K" had been interrupted by not one but two mamas going into labor!

 

She also told me that the other family who they had been planning to show to "K" had backed out.

They decided that this situation was not right for them.

"B" told me that since "K" had been waiting so long and still wants to see our profile, that they would like to show it to her.

She really seemed to feel like "K" would love us and it would be a perfect match.

She knew that for us to show to "K", we would have to make the decision not to show to "C".

After LOTS of thought and prayer, we decided to show our profile to "K".

 

 

**Part 4 comes tomorrow!

You can help bring our little one home by buying a piece of our puzzle.  Just click the link below!

https://www.adopttogether.org/pehl

The Match Story - Part 2

I can not tell you how many times someone had said that they had the perfect birth mom for us.

So I took the agencies statement with a grain of salt.

Our agency rep, lets call her "B", then began to tell us a little about this sweet birth mother who we will call "K".

 

Every situation I heard about seemed like a good situation because I wanted a baby so badly!

While this situations sounded really good, there were a few things that we had not planned on.

First of all, "K" wants an open adoption.  We had decided early on in the process that we would say Yes to an open adoption as long as we knew it was what God had for us.

She is also not due until "sometime around May".

We were honestly hoping for a sooner due date(or even a firm due date) because lets face it, no one LIKES to wait.

 

"B" told us that they would show our profile to her the next day along with one other families.

If you are not familiar with domestic adoption, an agency only showing two profiles is pretty rare.

It means we had a 50% chance of being picked.

 

There is a rule that we can only show to one birth mom at a time.  Otherwise, we could end up with two birth moms that pick us and we would have to tell one no.  That is just not fair at all to these mothers who are slaving over the decision of who they want to parents their child.

 

Since we were not supposed to show to the first mom we agreed to show to(Lets call her "C") until the end of the week, we decided we had time to show to both mothers.

So we told "B" to go ahead and show our profile.

We spent the next day praying and waiting for an answer.

That night "B" called us and informed us that they had not had a chance to bring "K" the profiles.

They planned to do it the next day.

 

Now we had a decision to make.

It was Wednesday night and they were planning to show to "K" on Thursday. 

We had said that we would show to "C" at the end of the week which could technically be Thursday.

So I seriously spent the entire evening trying to decide what to do.

I had no idea which mom was carrying our child!

 

In the end, Gavin and I decided that since we had committed to showing to "C" first, we would call "B" and let her know that we could no longer show to "K".  So I sent an e-mail and went to sleep trying to feel peaceful.

 

**The story continues tomorrow!



Match Story - Part 1

As you all know, we found out about a certain birth mom a couple weeks ago and had planned on showing to her.  We found out about her on a Thursday and were told that our profile would get shown to her mid-week the next week.  Well at the beginning of that week, we got news that they were going to push the showing back to the end of the week because they wanted to get more profiles to show her.  So we waited. 

 

Rewind a few weeks and I had talked to an agency here in Arizona who I really liked but their registration fee was 2k.  That is not a crazy amount of money for a registration fee but we are networking with multiple agencies so we can not pay that much to one agency.  So we did not register with that agency and kept waiting.  Well last week I got word that the agency was waiving its registration fee for the new year.  I called them but only let the phone ring once before realizing that their announcement said the deal was only valid through January 2013.  So I hung up and kept waiting.  I went to take a nap but was woken up by the phone ringing.  It was the Arizona agency calling be back.  I had not even left a message and still they were still calling me back.  I answered and said I had made a mistake and read the dates on their website wrong.  She then told me that they had made a mistake and wrote the dates wrong! 

 

So I asked what they needed for us to register.  When you register with an agency, it just means that you are placed in a pool of adoptive parents for birth mom to pick from and the agency has all of the necessary documents to match you.  I jotted down a couple of things to send and then she asked us what our preferences were.  We literally had no preferences...we just wanted a child!  She told me she had the PERFECT birth mom for us!

 

**More to come tomorrow!

Pehl Family of 6!!!

After a few very unpredictable and crazy days,

We are officially matched with a sweet momma due in about 3-4 months.

We are feeling excited and encouraged as we enter into this news season of waiting.

We are also hoping its a special time to get to know the biological mother of our child.

In the next few days, I will tell the whole story about how the Lord brought our two families together.

I just wanted to let you all know so that you can be praising God with us!

Backtrack

So here is the deal....

There have been a lot of people who have been a very important part of bringing our kiddos home.

These are the people who gave gifts before we started the puzzle piece fundraiser.

We think its only fair that you special people get your own puzzle pieces.

So in the next few days I will be posting pictures of your very own puzzle pieces!

 

If I forget one of you, please let me know.

We have been at this for a couple of years and while I do have a list of people who donated from lifesong, I have not written down all the names of everyone who has given(trust me I am kicking myself for that).

You are all very special for us and I want to include you all in this special puzzle!

 

If you have not had a chance to buy a puzzle piece  yet, the link is below!

https://www.adopttogether.org/pehl

We are showing our profile for the first time!

We have had our profile made for about a month now.

It is beyond beautiful thanks to our amazing adoption consultants, Dawn and Jason Wright.

The Lords timing is perfect and we have not had the chance to share our profile with any potential birth mother matches yet.

 

Well...on January 8th, a birth mom will finally get to see our profile.

This particular mama happens to be in AZ which would make our journey to our baby a piece of cake!
We are going to code name all of the situations we pursue so that it won't get too confusing.
We may be picked by the first mom we show our profile to or we may have to show our profile to 15 moms before we are picked.
This situation will be nick-named "Brownie"

We have been told that in about two weeks we will know if we have been matched or not.

 

Pray, Pray, Pray!



We still need the Lord to provide 5-10k depending on which situation we get matched with.

If you feel led, you can give a tax deductable donation below.

https://www.adopttogether.org/pehl