New fundraiser/ Puzzle update

Over the last few weeks we have been working on ideas for our second fundraiser. I got the idea from Pinterest, gotta love that site! ;-) You can read about the idea here.

We will be hosting an Adoption Dinner/Auction at our house the first Friday in April. Daniel's sister and brother in law will be donating the dinner for us. My friend Rebecca will be making cupcakes. I've been contacting lots of local businesses, friends and family for donations. So far we have over 20 donations! Ranging from consultants, hair dressers, photographers to different restaurants. I'm still waiting to hear back from more people. I will keep you updated along the way. If you are interested in donating an item or coming to the event you can email me at senteldawn@yahoo.com or message me on facebook. Anyone is welcome to attend!

Puzzle update week 2

We didn't sell any puzzle pieces this week. If you don't know about our puzzle fundraiser you can read about it at puzzle fundraiser. So far we've sold 18 pieces. Please continue to share our story and pray with us. Only 982 to go! :-)


To Donate: You can click the "Donate" button that is on the right sidebar under Wilks Adoption Fund or at the end of this blog. It will send your donation securely through PayPal. Please be sure to include your name so that we can add it to the puzzle piece! You can also donate cash in person if you wish.

Praying and waiting



Andie, waiting to be a big sister ;-)

 

Puzzle Fundraiser Update- Week 1

It has been one week since we started our first fundraiser to help cover some of the cost of our adoption. We have put 18 pieces together over the last week! Thank you so much for your support and prayers! Please continue to pray for us and share our story. I will continue to keep you updated.

Starting with the edge pieces.

My mom requested to have a corner! :-)

Setup in the nursery.

If you don't know what our puzzle fundraiser is you can click here to read more.


To Donate: You can click the "Donate" button that is on the right sidebar under Wilks Adoption Fund. It will send your donation securely through PayPal. Please be sure to include your name so that we can add it to the puzzle piece! You can also donate cash in person if you wish.

Puzzle Fundraiser

Our first fundraiser will be a Puzzle Fundraiser. I got this idea from a girl I've mentioned in past blogs who has gone through the adoption process. I've also seen lot's of them on Pinterest (you can find anything on Pinterest)! As many of you know from reading my blogs adoption is not cheap! Different agencies range from around 22K and up towards 30K depending on things that come up during the process. All of these must be paid for upfront. We will be saving throughout this whole process and doing fundraisers to help raise money.

This is how this fundraiser works... We have purchased a 1000 piece puzzle. We are asking friends and family to buy a piece for $10 each. We will then write your name on the back of the puzzle piece and add it to the puzzle. Daniel and I have bought the first two pieces so they will start the puzzle process. We cannot complete the puzzle until all pieces have been purchased.

 

We plan to put the puzzle in a double-sided frame once it has been completed. We will then hang it in our child's room. They will be able to see everyone's name on the back who helped bring them home to us!

The puzzle we bought for the fundraiser, "Color of Love".

 

To Donate: You can click the "Donate" button below and it will send your donation securely through PayPal. Please be sure to include your name so that we can add it to the puzzle piece! You can also donate money in person if you wish.

 

I will post updates frequently on how the puzzle fundraiser is coming along. Please continue to pray for my husband and I as we make this journey to adopt and become a family of three.

One Step Closer...

I cannot believe it has been almost a year since I've written a blog! But I am so happy to announce that we are one step closer to adopting!! A couple weeks ago Daniel and I bought our first home!

This is a big step for us. Previously we were living in Daniel's great grandma's one bedroom house. We had no intension of buying a home until next Spring or early Summer. We had been going to open houses for a few months just getting ideas of what was out there, what type of home we would want and what we could afford. When we looked at this house we immediately fell in love with it! We made an offer and closed within three weeks, with a holiday thrown into the mix. God sure has perfect timing!


After lots of praying we have decided that we want to start the adoption process sooner than we had originally anticipated. This time next year or sooner we plan to officially start filling out all the paper work, doing home inspection, etc. In the mean time we will SAVE and do some fundraisers to help with the costs of adoption.

Tomorrow we are opening an adoption savings account with what we have saved so far. Daniel's dad will be on the account with us. This coming spring we plan to have a garage sale and bake sale with all proceeds going to the savings account. We will be starting our first fundraiser January 1st, look for another blog with details January 1st!

Five months later...

It’s been about five months since my last blog! Last semester was definitely my busiest since starting school but it was well worth it!

I did it! Two Bachelor's Degrees!!!

 

I spent my professional semester student teaching in a Pre-Kindergarten and third grade classroom. Both classes were totally different from each other. I’m glad I had the opportunity to teach in both classes because it allowed me to see which grade level I was more comfortable with. I was able to work with a great staff and build relationships. After student teaching I had planned to sub for different schools in the spring semester so that I could get a feel for what school or grade level I would like to work with but the lord had other plans for me! About two weeks before student teaching was over I had been encouraged to apply for an upcoming position. I interviewed the Friday before graduation. I interviewed for two different positions, Pre-Kindergarten and a second grade position. Going into the interview I knew they would ask which one I preferred and I had no idea. I prayed the whole way there asking for guidance! Halfway through the interview I knew which position I wanted and felt like the rest of the interview questions geared towards that position. The following Monday I was offered a job and accepted!!

 

The cake my mom ordered me for my graduation party!



Daniel and I at my graduation party.



 

I spent all of Christmas break being sick and working in my new room! My mentor teacher, her assistant, and my assistant helped me paint over the “jail grey” is what they called it.  It started out looking like a tornado went through it but now it looks like a real classroom!! I still have a lot of work today but it's a start!

 

I’ve been in the classroom for two weeks now and loving every minute of it! Don’t get me wrong, there have been some challenging days and I’m figuring out what works and what doesn’t. I’ve got many people that have been supportive and very helpful!  

The love of my life!

I’m very grateful for getting a job right before I graduated. Daniel and I are still planning to adopt in the future! We’d like for me to work for about a year to a year and a half and then we will start looking to buy a house. After that we will start the adoption process. Until then we just continue to pray until the day comes that we can be parents.

Three years...

It's hard to believe that it has been three years since this day....Where does the time go???

I'm very big on traditions so for the past three years Daniel and I have tried to base our annivserary around the traditional anniversary ideas.

First Year Anniversary- Paper

Daniel's thoughtful gift

With the help of Dad, we made this sign for Daniel that still hangs on our front door

We spent the day in Wichita. Went to Old Town Theatre and watched Toy Story 3 in 3D


Two Year Anniversary- Cotton

We are both huge Nascar fans. We went to Kansas City for our Anniversary.

 We both picked out "cotton" t-shirts.

 

I planned a picnic in the backyard with red "cotton" napkins.

Three year anniversary- Leather (crystal)

Daniel got me a necklace with "crystal beads"

We went to a Redhawks Baseball Game

Daniel loves homemade gifts. I ordered a "leather" Texas Rangers Baseball and wrote all over it for his card. I also got him a leather bookmark for his bible that says "faith".

We ordered cakeballs (the best you will ever eat!!) to celebrate our anniversary. A friend of ours had made these for our wedding so we wanted to include them in our anniversary. (I'm glad we did! Yummy!!)

Our "actual" anniverary day I spent in class for school and then Daniel drove me to Perry so that I could leave with the girls to Fort Worth for Premier!! 

 

It's so hard to believe it has been three years since I married my best friend. I love him so much and I'm so grateful for him. I thank GOD everyday for him. The other day I was talking with my mother in law and we were talking about how things always work out or happen for a reason. We started talking about my journey with the Lord. Like I've said in previous blogs, I didn't grow up going to church, I didn't know much about him, my husband had stopped going to church once he entered high school and I only recently got baptized last summer. I feel that our journey of trying to get pregnant and deciding how to become parents in the past few years has lead us to be closer to the lord. We probably would not have found a church that feels like home or met the amazing people that love us like family. I feel in my heart that if Daniel and I had been able to conceive a few months after getting married we would not be where we are in our faith with God today. Daniel and I often talk about becoming parents and continue to pray. We are hoping to start the process in about two years. I will be finished with school this December and will start looking for a job soon after. Our plan is for me to work for a year and then start looking for a home. After we purchase a home we’ll start the adoption process. Please continue to keep us in your prayers.

 

An' how can two people who built a lovin' home,
Try for years an' never have a child of their own?
When somewhere out there tonight,
There's a baby no-one's holdin' tight:
In need of love.
To me, that don't add up.

But I wasn't there the day you filled up the oceans.
I didn't get to see you hang the stars in the sky.
So I don't mean to second guess you,
Or criticise what I don't understand.
These are just a few questions I have.

Clay Walker

Emotions Emotions....Learning to TRUST...

Spring/Summer 2011
           Daniel and I spent the next several months going back and forth trying to decide if IVF was the route we wanted to take and if "now" was the right time to start. We were still definitely concerned about being approved for the IVF financing and coming up with the additional costs not included. I think that at this point my biggest fear was what if my body didn't accept the egg, we would be out of all that money, we would have no baby after going through the process and how would we be able to go a different route financially. Some days I struggled with knowing that our child wouldn't look like me, people always say "oh your baby look just like you". Daniel looks just like his sister, dad, and grandpa...would our baby look like us?? If we did IVF, it would be someone else's child growing inside of me, how would I feel about that... Daniel talked about how he didn't think it would be fair to me that the child was coming from him and someone else's egg. We talked about how IVF would allow me to experience "pregnancy" and the baby growing inside of me. If we chose not to do IFV neither one of us would ever get to feel our child kick inside my belly or hear the heartbeat. On the other hand we also knew that we would love a child no matter where they came from; whether it is from an egg donor or through adoption. All of these "what ifs" are just tiny road blocks compared to the greater picture "God's gift", but it still hurts knowing that things will be different for us. After many discussions we decided that maybe we should try adoption first. If we adopted before we did IVF (if we did IVF at all) at least we would still have "our" child if IVF didn't work.

I joined Premier in March 2011 to help us out when I'd be in my last semester of school.

How do you adopt? How much does it cost? When do you have to have all the money? Who do you adopt from? What is the process for adoption? How long will we have to wait to get a baby? How do you know what agency is right for you?

           These are just a few of the questions we had and some that we still have about adoption. Rebecca and I talked with a woman about adopting through DHS and their Bridge Foster adoption (if you're fostering a child and they become available for adoption we would have the chance of adopting them first). We were told that trying to adopt an infant through DHS was nearly impossible, the waiting list is so long and that there have been people on the list for YEARS. Our best option would be doing their program Bridge Foster adoption. We would basically have "first dibs" on the child we are fostering if they were to become available for adoption. One downside to their Foster adoption program is that you're not guaranteed that the child would become available for adoption. I had my friend (who use to work for DHS) come over one evening and discuss things we would need to do/change for our homestudy if we wanted to adopt and stay where we are. We were hoping we could stay where we currently live and share a room with an infant for a year so that we could save money after spending money on adoption. After talking about living arrangements it was decided we would need to move from our current home because it is only one bedroom and when adopting you must have a separate room for the child. One positive aspect about adopting through them is that it is completely FREE to the adopting parents. We wouldn't have to pay a thing! One negative aspect is that if we did the foster adoption, the child could be with us for 24 hours to many years and then be given back to their parents. We have given Bridge Foster Adoption a lot of thought. We are definitely open to the idea of this program because we know that if the child was to go back to their parents, we gave them a stable, loving and safe environment while they were with us. If we did this program we would rather do it after we officially have our own child because it's going to be emotionally hard to give up something you want more than anything and be left at square one again, not being parents.

            Towards the end of summer and into the fall of 2011, I started researching different adoption agencies. I talked with a lawyer friend to see if he knew where we should start. I contacted a couple different agencies who sent us packets about their agency. One company, the first thing you do is complete their application and return it with a $100.00 check for the processing fee. Their estimated adoption fee is $17,250.00 and gives a breakdown of costs into three phases. They also included other possible adoption fees: birthmother related living expenses, medical fees, interstate compact, contract work per hour, mileage and travel, and extra legal fees. All fees are due before each service. The other company I contacted is in Colorado. Daniel has two cousins who were adopted from this agency. They included a Fee Schedule that gives a breakdown of the costs totaling $21,031.76 plus they had other possible fees included with a breakdown of the estimating costs. All fees are due as services are approved. They included a financing page; Small Business Job Protection Act of 1996, allows possible Federal Income Tax relief of up to $5,000.00, Bank of America has a Home Equity Loan Program specifically for adoptions, Grant programs are available online, local banks may be able to customize a loan for adoption, some companies will provide assistance to their employees, and some insurance companies let you borrow against an existing policy. They also included a suggested reading list; Lost and Found the Adoption Experience by Betty Jean Lifton, The Whole Life Adoption Book by Jayne E. Schooler, Tell Me a Real Adoption Sotyr by Betty Jean Lifton, Dear Birthmother by Kathleen Silber and Phylis Speedlin, and Adoption without fear. During this time I was introduced via facebook to a girl going through the adoption process with her husband. They had gone with a company that had an all-inclusive fee of $30,000. The process would be no more or no less than the $30,000.

My best friend, Rebecca

Spring 2012
Will we be able to come up with that kind of money? How long will it take us to save the money for adoption? Who do we go with? What agency is right for us?

           Those are questions that only GOD knows the answers to. It's hard not knowing the answers, knowing when it's going to happen and letting go and giving full control to GOD. I joke around and say GOD knew that I'm not good with pain so he has other plans for me to become a mother. I've put my faith into GOD and just continue to pray that he will lead us into the right direction, give me patience to not worry about our situation, help others to understand our situation and not pressure us into things we are not ready for, and help us be more financially responsible. Daniel and I recently started a Dave Ramsey class at our church, my best friend and I have talked about doing some fundraisers or bake sales once Daniel and I have decided what company to go with and when we are ready to take the next big step in this process. I continue to pray all the time. Daniel and I are waiting to start any adoption process until I've finished school in December 2012 and when we move so that we can have our Home Study completed. Please continue to pray for GOD to give us direction, patience and be more financially responsible with our money so that we can make our dreams of giving a child a loving home and becoming their parents.

Easter 2012