One Year ago today we saw her sweet face for the 1st time!

I can not believe it has already been one year! I want to simply start this post by praising God! Darin and I have been blessed beyond measure! As many of you know this miracle of our daughter came out of loss. I was 3 months pregnant and lost the baby 2 years ago. We then tried for a year to get pregnant with no success. That year of trying was the worst and hardest year of my life!! I would cry every single month when I would realize I was not pregnant. Not just a little tear, it would consume me! I would sob uncontrollably. There were many nights when I would wake up and just begin to cry. I can honestly say I was obsessed with being pregnant. Pregnant... I wanted to be pregnant more then anything! It was all consuming my thoughts would go something like this... OK if I am pregnant now that would make the baby due in August that would mean he or she would be one of the oldest in their class, good if its a boy ...not so much if its a girl.. Oh that will make for one hot Summer I would be 8 months pregnant in the July and so on... But then one night around 3 in the morning I woke up crying, crying and with consuming thoughts and I simply gave up... I gave up everything at that point could physically do nothing else but pray. I prayed the most sincere prayer I have ever prayed. I asked God to please help me! God please if it is your will make me a mother! It is all I have ever wanted! And I clearly heard God speak to me and say, "You do not need to give birth to a baby to be a mother." And that changed EVERYTHING! Praise God!

We started the adoption process in February. Kathy Miller, who's daughter is a great friend of mine from way back in middle school and all the way to present has a huge part in us finding Claire. You see Kathy and Sue (director of Ethiopian adoptions for CCI) have been friends since they were 3. So I had actually emailed Sue from CCI in December and she had told me that they did not have any infants. So we proceeded to find another adoption agency. We did our Dossier with the other agency but then found out that the agency was not even licensed in Ethiopia and there were some fishy things going on with them. Also at that same time Sue had asked Kathy how we were coming along with our adoption and Kathy told her we were still waiting for a referral. So with that Sue said that she has just signed on with a orphanage that has 6 infant girls in it!! And she had 2 infants that did not have a home. So we of course switched agencies and went with CCI. Then one year ago today we were sent pictures of the most precious baby in the world!! Our sweet Claire Dollame!!! And 3 months later she was in our arms, HOME and SAFE!


This was the 1st picture we ever saw of Dollame
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LOL Gotta keep it real :) Right Danielle?

Good Wish

As some of you know Ethiopia has changed their rules for adopting. We now have to travel 2 times to Ethiopia. We will have to travel to bring the babies home, something we did with Claire, but now we also have to travel to see our babies and go to their court date. Then we come home wait a few weeks until they have passports and all of their paperwork and then go pick them up and bring them home.
When we traveled to pick Claire up last year it cost us about $5,000. When we started this process again we knew that God would provide. There is not a doubt in my mind that God has big plans for our family! What he has called us to do is overwhelming at times. But we are trusting in Him.
We began this process basically with no money for the adoption but with some pretty serious budgeting and no extra spending what so ever, we have been able to save a decent chunk of $. We did not budget this extra $5000 dollars to travel twice. Please prayerfully consider giving a good wish to our next 2 babies. I am feeling overwhelmed and heavy fearing that we may not have the $ to bring our babies home.
Please keep our family in you prayers!
God Bless

Click here to give a Good Wish
http://www.onehundredgoodwishes.com/family/joleneshrock