The Beginning...

This is just a little bit of our story about how we were led to adoption. It answers some questions that people have a lot. :)

Before we married, we always talked about having kids one day. It was always in our plans. We talked about the possibility of maybe adopting one day, but that would probably be later on after we had our own kids. We knew we wanted to wait and have kids after Chris finished seminary and was in a full time ministry position. So after three years of marriage and seminary, we moved back to Alabama with the hopes of starting a family that year. Well God had other plans. Without going into a lot of detail, we knew something wasn't right. It only took one doctor's visit to hear the word I had feared- infertility. This wasn't suppose to happen to me! We had our plans, I was suppose to get pregnant that year! We began some local treatments, none successful. Next, we decided to see a specialist in Birmingham. After one surgery and a few treatments later, no progress had been made. The weekly trips back and forth to Birmingham, only to find out, the treatments weren't working were wearing on me. At this point, I was exhausted- mentally, emotionally, physically- exhausted. It was also all I could do, after each trip, returning to my job as a 5th grade teacher, to make it through the day. We decided to take a break from the treatments and continue to pray for the child we had always wanted. At the end of the school year, I lost my job along with the health insurance that was helping to pay for the doctor's visits.

At this point we weren't sure what to do. We figured I would get another job and then start the treatments up again. Again things didn't exactly fall into place the way we wanted. I didn't get a teaching job right away, so our health insurance was pretty basic. This gave us LOTS of time to pray and discern the direction God was leading us in. Of course we knew adoption was an option. For the next several months, we continued praying and we started becoming more comfortable and excited with the thought of adoption. Then in January I was hired as an Instructional Assistant at one of the schools in the same district where I previously worked. With the position came the same health benefits as before. We began thoughts of starting the treatments up again. I began remembering the heartache from before and the cost that went into each visit. After lots and lots of time praying and reading God's Word, we decided that this was not the path God was leading us down. Our verbiage began to change from "we're thinking about adopting..." to "when we adopt..." We began talking to couples we know who adopted to hear their stories and get advice from them. The one overwhelming thing I heard from everyone we encountered was DO IT! This past August we took our first step in the process by attending an informational meeting for an agency in Birmingham we were interested in using. Before the meeting, we were primarily thinking of just domestic adoption. After the meeting, we both felt completely confident that adoption was the route God wanted us on, but we also both felt compelled to go in the international direction. Since August, we have been doing lots of reading about adoption, particularly the various countries that we might choose to adopt from. After lots of research and prayer, we have chosen to begin our adoption process in Colombia!


In an upcoming post, we will share a little more about international adoption, specifically within the country of Colombia!

Announcement Pictures

Just about everybody announces they are expecting with some sort of cute picture. As a Pinterest addict (hey, at least I admit it!), I found several ideas for announcing our adoption! I saved them to one of my boards and shared it with a woman from our new church who does photography and we did a lot of different shots! Chris doesn't exactly love taking pictures, but he was a good sport and knew that it was something I wanted to do. She also took just some "couple" pictures since we haven't had any good pictures since our wedding almost 7 years ago (wow, time is flying by!) There were too many to use in the blog layout, but I just wanted to share a few of them with y'all.

Blessings,
~Sallie

We were getting tired by this time and were acting pretty goofy! Poor Jamie for having to put up with us!

This one is my favorite of the couple pictures!

We were definitely tired by this point. I was trying to think of what to put on this board and this is all I could think of. Chris did not like it! He thought it sounded super country to say "just don't know when." We were all so tired that we couldn't think of another way to say it! I still think it's cute though!

We have officially started our first adoption fundraiser(s)!

We are selling handmade pottery jewelry (necklaces and bracelets) made by a woman in Birmingham. They are $24 each and all the proceeds go to bringing baby Thomas home! If you would like to purchase one, you can click on the button at the bottom and it will take you to Paypal to pay. In the special instructions box, please specify which necklace you would like (they are numbered on the side). If you are local, also put that in the box and I can take off the shipping costs. OR you can just let me know you want one and we can meet up (you don't have to use the Paypal link to pay, it's mostly for people who don't live near here).

We have also set up a Just Love Coffee store. If you are interested in purchasing organic, Fair Trade coffee, just click on the link on the right hand side. They have lots of varieties available!

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Cross Necklace - $24.00