The Wait…Month Four

We’re a little over four months in our wait for a match.  I feel like time has been flying, but that’s probably because we’ve been trying to keep busy this summer.  We’ve been traveling for fun, and I’ve also been traveling for work, plus we’ve been working on the house continuously.  The basement is nearly completed, and we’ll soon start working on the nursery furniture!

I still struggle with the wait a lot.  I know nothing will make it go faster, that this is just the process, but it’s hard at times.  I just try to keep things in perspective, that everything will happen in the time it’s supposed to, and while we wait J and I can focus on our marriage and getting everything ready for the little one!

Much love,
K.

Quilting Along

In my last post, I talked about how I was planning on making a few baby quilts for when we’re finally matched and bring home our baby.  I decided to make a “girl” and a “boy” quilt, and then I can donate whichever one we don’t end up needing.  Since this was my first quilt, I really wanted something simple and easy to do, and I found a really neat pattern from Fat Quarter Shop, called Jelly Roll Jam.  There’s even a YouTube tutorial!

So, over the past 10 days, I’ve been frantically waiting for my second jelly roll of fabric to arrive (I wanted to mix and match from two different rolls, but didn’t realize this until after getting my first jelly roll in the mail).  Once it showed up, it was time to get quilting!  All in all, I probably put in around 10 hours, from start to finish, and I am really happy with how this first quilt turned out!  I machine quilted it and used my sewing machine to bind it as well (who has time for hand sewing?!), and I can’t wait to throw it in the wash a few times to really soften it up!

The “Boy” quilt is next…I’m excited to see how it turns out as well!

Much love,
K.

More Nursery Schenanigans

Ok…not really schenanigans, more so that it’s just another opportunity for me to take on another hobby that I will inevitably spend too much money buying supplies on.

A month or so ago, I decided that I wanted to make another blanket for the nursery.  Crochet will always be my first love, but I didn’t want everything to be crocheted in the room, and I’ve been wanting to do more sewing for quite some time, so I thought now was a good time to get started.  So…I started YouTubing for some easy quilt tutorials and came across one from Fat Quarter Shop called Jelly Roll Jam.  It looked fairly easy (because, well, everything on YouTube looks easy!), and I really liked the finished product, plus all the fabric was precut, so I was hoping this was a safe bet for a first quilt.  I asked a few of my quilting friends and they all told me it was a good starter quilt, so I felt better about my plan.  I stalked some fabric websites, picked out some fabric, bought the “necessary” supplies, and am now getting ready to go!

My fabric came in last night.  I ended up buying two Jelly Rolls so that I could mix and match the fabric lines.  I plan on making TWO quilts, a “boy” quilt and a “girl” quilt.  We have no idea what sex we’ll end up being matched with, so I figure I can put them both up in the closet and then pull out the right quilt when the time comes.  I can either just put up the other quilt (in the hopes that we adopt a second child), or I can pass it on to a friend with a child…or the cats will just “liberate” it for their use.  We’ll see…or maybe we’ll adopt twins!  If I sew it, they will come, right??

I plan on getting started later today, and I’ll do another post on my progress.  Of course, the lady on YouTube sews the entire top of the quilt in 20 minutes, but I have a feeling it’ll take quite a bit longer for me.  I’ll post photos once it’s something more than a pile of fabric strips though!  Wish me luck on my newest hobby!

Much love,
K.

Agency Update

After the home visit was completed, our social worker told us to check up with the agency in a few months to see how things were going.  She had a few comments on our book during the home study, and said it might be something that was brought up with the expecting mothers, and if it was mentioned by them the agency would let us know and we could make changes to the book.  They were all super easy things, such as some expecting moms like to see full pages and tons of photos of our family and extended families, photos of us with our multicultural friends, etc.  All very easy to update, and all things I had considered, but didn’t add into the book because I didn’t want it to be 100 pages long.

I sent off an email to the social worker and the Director at the agency earlier this week.  I know they’re a small agency and the response time probably wouldn’t be immediate, but I was curious to see how things were going.  The Director responded back yesterday with an update on the situation and how things are going.

It was an update/not an update.  I mean, it was the best she could provide, and I appreciate the time she took to write it, but anything less than “we’ve just matched you” probably wasn’t going to wow me.  They’ve shown our book several times in the last month, and no one has suggested anything they’d like to see differently, so no recommendations for changes.  She said that she’ll continue to get our profile out there as much as possible, but that was about it.  And, I understand that…there isn’t anything she can really do about the number of mothers coming in wanting to put together an adoption plan for their child, or who they pick to parent their child.  We just have to sit back, be patient, and pray that God has a plan for us and that we’re open to it.  It’s hard, and very frustrating at times, but J and I are still confident that this is the right path for us and that it’ll happen.

And, that’s about it.  Still waiting, still hanging out, but making more progress on the nursery!  I’ll post photos once all the artwork is hung on the walls!

Much love,
K.