November comes to a close...

Thank you everyone who has followed our journey. We are approaching 10 months since we sent in our application. 10 months!?! Wow. Seems like its been so long but in the reality of adoption, we are just at the beginning. 

With November coming to a close, I wanted to take some time to reflect on our first Adoption Month as future adoptive parents. Wow! We were busy! We did a lot of fundraisers this month with the help of our family and friends. 

We started with our cape and dress sales. (they end today so if you want to order please follow the links!) We are excited to see how successful the fundraiser was for baby Campbell. We are hoping that with your help, we were able to spread the word enough! 

dresses: http://tinyurl.com/dressforacause

capes: http://tinyurl.com/capesforacause

We also had a wonderful burger night at a local restaurant.(The Warwick) Our friend Karyn set it up for us. We don't know exactly how much we raised but the Warwick was so helpful and kind to us the entire evening.  We do know that we felt so loved the entire night. Each time the door opened more and more love came through. Thank you everyone who enjoyed a tasty burger that night. Thank you for the hugs. Thank you for being part of our village. 

That same night, at the same time, another friend of ours was hosting a Lularoe fundraiser for us. Michelle met Margaret through Lularoe while picking up a (beautiful!) skirt. Margaret put her inventory on Facebook and let her ladies shop. Through the purchases they made, they raised $500! Margaret was extremely gracious and donated $500 making the grand total $1,000. It was such a blessing to us to meet Margaret and have her be so generous. We felt so supported by strangers encouraging us and supporting us all while buying amazing clothes! (Check out her Facebook page: Lularoe Margaret Miller) 

and it continues.... 

Baked with Love. That's what they say right? But really this bread was baked with love. Michelle's mom baked and sold home made butter braid bread for Thanksgiving. The time spent mixing, needing, baking, and wrapping was all done in love for baby Campbell. Because of her efforts and donation of all the supplies... she raised over $300! Thank you to everyone who ordered bread. I hope you were able to share it around a big table at Thanksgiving. Or maybe keep it all to yourself! 

We currently do not have any fundraisers planned for December or 2017. We cancelled our babysitting event because of lack of interest. If anyone has ideas please let us know! We love to have help brainstorming. 

As far as the paperwork part of the adoption.... we are waiting. Waiting, waiting, waiting. It is still our hope that we will have our home study by Christmas so that Michelle can start the grant writing process! 

Please continue to pray for our fundraising, home study completion, dossier paperwork, and the determination to keep going even when we are told to wait! We are so thankful for you! 

Adoption Awareness Month Begins

WOW!
We are shocked.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Our Pumpkin Glow Bake sale raised over... wait for it..... $1,300!

This has been our best fundraiser yet.

We had 15 bakers for this event. We had 8 helpers the day of the events.

What was sold? Hot Dogs, Chips, Cookies, Popcorn, Brownies, Popcorn, Hot Chocolate, and Candy.

We were blessed with great weather this weekend and a tent to shield us from the wind.


What is the most amazing thing about this event? Community. Michelle (I) was not among the bakers or helpers. I drove around and collected items but when it came down to it, I was home recovering from surgery. I couldn't say thank you to each person that dropped items off at to sell. I couldn't say thank you to each person that set up and helped at the event. I couldn't help. For me, that is hard.
But with this awesome community around us, this fundraiser was a huge success!


November is Adoption Awareness Month. I will be sharing facts and information about what adoption is and how it works all month. We will also be doing a lot of fundraisers this month.

Who are the children that are adopted? Although the typical profile of child varies depending on the country you are adopting from, on average, most children are boys and girls between 2-3 years old at the time they arrive home. In 2015, 75 percent of children placed through Holt International had some special needs, whether minor or correctable, considered healthy in the US, or more moderate.  (holtinternational.org)


Please save the date: November 16th: Warwick Burger Night. $1 from every burger sold will go to baby campbell. (Local to Hummelstown PA)

We've been given an amazing opportunity to be a feathered family for this cape and dress sale! How cure are there?!?! Take a look at the link below and select "Creating the Campbells" in the dropdown menu if you are interested in ordering! These would also make a GREAT Christmas gift for the Superhero or Princess in your life!
DRESSES  tinyurl.com/dressforacause and CAPES  tinyurl.com/capesforacause.

We are looking forward to both fundraisers for different reasons. The burger night will be so fun to get together with friends and build our village for Baby Campbell and the capes and dresses are a great way to get everyone involved. Please share the links to friends and family that you think may be interested. The more sharing we have the more successful this will be!

PHEW!

2 Months... It has been 2 months since I have written a Blog. Why? Because adoption is hard. Really hard. There are good days and not so good days.

I have been told that adoption is not for the faint of heart. I completely understand why they have said that.


What has happened? Let's start with the hard stuff and move on to the happy and now!

We had our home study. We were so excited! We didn't know what to expect and of course were anxious for the day to arrive. Once it was finally here, we were ready.

During the adoption process we have to prove that every part of our life is good enough for a child. They asked questions such as: How are we going to support a child? (financially) What do we not like about each other? How will we handle a child with special needs? Etc.

We did a quick tour of the house to ensure that our rooms were big enough and our house is "good enough" for a child.

I say we are guilty until proven innocent. This can become taxing. We try to stay positive.

During the home study we learned that there was information and paperwork that needed to be done months ago that we were never told about. The information that they needed was our "net worth". All I heard was that we weren't "worth enough". Meaning we weren't good enough. I was heart broken. I was angry. I was sad. I cried. How can someone say we aren't worth enough?? We aren't good enough??   Someone that hasn't met us or only met us once. Since when does money make you a good parent?

Long story short, after hours of work and doing a complete inventory of our house and lives were were able to move on to the next part.  I was exhausted.

We scheduled our second visit. Yesterday was that visit. We were asked to fill out a long relationship questionnaire prior to our social work coming to the house. Of course, we did it that night and sent it along. During this home study, the social worker spent 1.5 hours with me and 1.5 hours with Adam. The questions this time were about our family.

We were asked to give 5 adjectives about each of our parents and memories that went along with them, we discussed relationship with siblings and our nieces. We answered a lot of the same questions that we answered during our psych eval.

Adam asked if we failed our home study! Our social worker said "not by a long shot". This gave me enough peace of mind to enjoy the night. Adam and I ended the night with a sushi date.

Today when I got off work I had an email saying that there was no concern and that we would make great parents. This was the BEST email I have ever received!

We now wait. We wait for our home study to be written and sent to us. Then, we can move on to our international paperwork!



FUNDRAISING!
We have been busy fundraising and planning during this time. We have a lot of fundraisers coming up.
In October, we did a family picture fundraiser. Thanks to Marta and Jessica the families are blessed with gorgeous pictures and we were blessed with over $500 to add to baby campbell's account! We are so thankful!
Next weekend we will be hosting the bake sale at the Pumpkin Glow in Hershey. If you are in the area check out the beautiful pumpkins and come say Hi!

November is Adoption Awareness Month. I will be posting again soon. Save the date for upcoming fundraisers.
All month- We will be selling capes! Fun for kids, great stocking stuffers.
All month- Michelle's mom will be selling homemade bread for Thanksgiving. If you would like to order bread let Michelle or Adam know!
November we will also be blessed with a LULAROE party fundraiser!


SAVE THE DATE: November 16th 5:30-?? Burger night at the Warwick. This is a local restaurant that will be donating a percent of their burger sales to our adoption! We would love to see everyone. We will be hanging out all night. Come say hi, eat a burger, and help us support baby Campbell.

Thank you everyone for your continued prayers and support during this journey. We are excited to focus on fundraising this month while we wait for our home study paperwork to be completed! While there are days that are hard, we know that this process will lead us to an amazing child that will become ours. We forge on. We don't give up. We stay as positive as possible. We put on our big girl/boy clothes and take another step! We focus on one day at a time. One task at a time. No matter what happens, we will not stop. We will continue to search for baby Campbell! We are so in love already and we don't even know who you are yet!

PHEW!

2 Months... It has been 2 months since I have written a Blog. Why? Because adoption is hard. Really hard. There are good days and not so good days.

I have been told that adoption is not for the faint of heart. I completely understand why they have said that.


What has happened? Let's start with the hard stuff and move on to the happy and now!

We had our home study. We were so excited! We didn't know what to expect and of course were anxious for the day to arrive. Once it was finally here, we were ready.

During the adoption process we have to prove that every part of our life is good enough for a child. They asked questions such as: How are we going to support a child? (financially) What do we not like about each other? How will we handle a child with special needs? Etc.

We did a quick tour of the house to ensure that our rooms were big enough and our house is "good enough" for a child.

I say we are guilty until proven innocent. This can become taxing. We try to stay positive.

During the home study we learned that there was information and paperwork that needed to be done months ago that we were never told about. The information that they needed was our "net worth". All I heard was that we weren't "worth enough". Meaning we weren't good enough. I was heart broken. I was angry. I was sad. I cried. How can someone say we aren't worth enough?? We aren't good enough??   Someone that hasn't met us or only met us once. Since when does money make you a good parent?

Long story short, after hours of work and doing a complete inventory of our house and lives were were able to move on to the next part.  I was exhausted.

We scheduled our second visit. Yesterday was that visit. We were asked to fill out a long relationship questionnaire prior to our social work coming to the house. Of course, we did it that night and sent it along. During this home study, the social worker spent 1.5 hours with me and 1.5 hours with Adam. The questions this time were about our family.

We were asked to give 5 adjectives about each of our parents and memories that went along with them, we discussed relationship with siblings and our nieces. We answered a lot of the same questions that we answered during our psych eval.

Adam asked if we failed our home study! Our social worker said "not by a long shot". This gave me enough peace of mind to enjoy the night. Adam and I ended the night with a sushi date.

Today when I got off work I had an email saying that there was no concern and that we would make great parents. This was the BEST email I have ever received!

We now wait. We wait for our home study to be written and sent to us. Then, we can move on to our international paperwork!



FUNDRAISING!
We have been busy fundraising and planning during this time. We have a lot of fundraisers coming up.
In October, we did a family picture fundraiser. Thanks to Marta and Jessica the families are blessed with gorgeous pictures and we were blessed with over $500 to add to baby campbell's account! We are so thankful!
Next weekend we will be hosting the bake sale at the Pumpkin Glow in Hershey. If you are in the area check out the beautiful pumpkins and come say Hi!

November is Adoption Awareness Month. I will be posting again soon. Save the date for upcoming fundraisers.
All month- We will be selling capes! Fun for kids, great stocking stuffers.
All month- Michelle's mom will be selling homemade bread for Thanksgiving. If you would like to order bread let Michelle or Adam know!
November we will also be blessed with a LULAROE party fundraiser!


SAVE THE DATE: November 16th 5:30-?? Burger night at the Warwick. This is a local restaurant that will be donating a percent of their burger sales to our adoption! We would love to see everyone. We will be hanging out all night. Come say hi, eat a burger, and help us support baby Campbell.

Thank you everyone for your continued prayers and support during this journey. We are excited to focus on fundraising this month while we wait for our home study paperwork to be completed! While there are days that are hard, we know that this process will lead us to an amazing child that will become ours. We forge on. We don't give up. We stay as positive as possible. We put on our big girl/boy clothes and take another step! We focus on one day at a time. One task at a time. No matter what happens, we will not stop. We will continue to search for baby Campbell! We are so in love already and we don't even know who you are yet!

Today we celebrate the invoice!

Thank you everyone who participated in fundraisers this month. We had a super fun lularoe fundraiser thrown for us by Sarah. We then had a (very hot) work day at the church and had some fabulous friends come and donate their time for us.

With the two fundraisers we raised another $500-600.

I have had some people ask me what all of the money we raise goes to. I wanted to explain the financial part of this process a little more.

We have already paid for the behind the scenes things. (Physicals, blood work, clearances, psychological evaluation, application, trainings, etc.)

The next “fee” is for our homestudy. We are hopeful that this will happen in September and we will need to pay around $3,000 including mileage. We are so bless that WE SENT THIS CHECK today thanks to all of your donations and fundraising support! This means that we will be assigned a social worker soon and are one big step closer to having our home study done! Today is a day to CELEBRATE!

_________________________________________________________________________________

As soon as the homestudy is completed we have two fees to pay.

*The USCIS application fee. That is $1,200. We have been blessed and now have enough to cover this fee completely! This will ensure that our child will have US citizenship following the adoption.

*US processing fees. This will be paid as soon as the homestudy is complete and we have been approved by the United States to adopt. This will cover the communication between the United States and whatever country we adopt from. It will also cover the cost of translating all of the paperwork and submitting it. The US processing fees are $3,500. We are a ½ way to covering this cost! (we will need to be able to pay this in the next two months)

_________________________________________________________________________________

The next step is a big one. We have an adoption program fee. This is paid after we are matched with a country and a child. These fees cover the care of the child from the time we are matched until we travel to the country. (food, clothing, shelter, medical care, foster care or orphanage costs, and other direct services) It will also cover the cost of the child’s paperwork and passport, legal services, and operational costs. This fee is  $15,000. We haven’t begun to work towards this yet. We have about 7-9 months to have this money ready.

There are of course more steps than this but lets not get ahead of ourselves! We will take one step at a time and we will get there together. “It takes a village” starts before we even get to meet our baby. Thank you for being our village!

The next fundraiser we have scheduled right now is a family picture day. I will be posting a flyer soon to advertise for this event. October 9^th noon-6pm time slots available. Two locations: Messiah college and Milton Hershey school.  30 minutes - $60.00 60 minutes -- $120.00 50% of the money will go to our adoption! We are so thankful for our photographers who have volunteered. If you know any other photographers or would like to get your picture taken let me know!  (creatingthecampbells@gmail.com)

Let us continue to pray for baby Campbell and his/her birth mother who could very well be finding out soon that she is pregnant!

Brainstorming and planning!

Hello! So sorry we have been away for a while. We are busy working behind the scenes. While we are waiting for our paperwork to be read and processed to move forward with our home study we are working on fundraisers!

We are blessed to have enough money raised and gifted to us for our home study. Once the home study is completed we need to pay for our international paperwork. This is called our dossier paperwork. This is a file that contains detailed information about our family, home study findings, and any information each country requests. This packet is another payment. We are close but do not have enough for this payment currently. We know with some creative fundraising we can get there!

That brings me to where we are now!
Our upcoming fundraisers are listed below! More information will be coming out soon.

August 14th 2-4 Lularoe party thrown by our amazing friend Sarah! The party is in Carlisle PA.

August 20th we will be doing a work day at our church. It will be 1-5pm with dinner to follow. For each hour worked, $10 will be donated to our adoption!

October 9th- 12-6pm we will be hosting a family picture day. We will have two locations. One at messiah college and one at founders hall. If you are a photographer or know one who would like to help let me know! The sessions will be 30 minutes ($60) or 60 minutes ($120) this is a perfect time to get Christmas pictures taken!

December 3rd 9am-1 pm we will be doing a babysitting day. This is a great time to drop kids off for fun and go Christmas shopping!! Babysitters and helpers will have their clearances and experience with children of all ages. Mark your calendars!


If you have any questions, want to help, or have any other ideas for fundraisers let us know!

Our ongoing fundraiser is through gofundme. https://www.gofundme.com/qzvexyks

We also have a bank account through members 1st that donations can be made through.


As we continue this fundraising process and paperwork we thank you for continued prayers and support. We are completely open to answering questions. The next blog post will be answering some of those questions. If you have any questions please comment or ask and I'll be sure to answer them soon!!

Waiting... Waiting...

“Our willingness to wait reveals the value we place on what we’re waiting for….” Charles Stanley

Adam and I don’t have a lot to update. We are in a waiting period. At first we were thankful for the wait. We were thankful for a break from the numerous appointments and piles of paperwork.

We have a few more phone conferences, we need to complete 2 more hours of training (each country requires different things we want to be prepared), and we need to wait for our FBI clearances to come back. In the grand scheme of how much we had to do this seems minimal. Originally my hope was to have the home study completed before school starts this year, it doesn’t look like that would happen. Our home study will be in the fall sometime.

We are actively waiting. We are waiting for the next step but even more than that we are waiting for our baby. Waiting for something that will change your life so much is hard. We are taking this time to continue the process in any way we can. We are continuing our fundraisers, our research, and our prayers.

We hope to have a fundraiser every month until we flying to pick up our baby. Spreading these out will hopefully keep us going and help us feel that we are helping the process.

Our July fundraiser is a sub and sandwich sale. If you have a place of work that you can sell subs see us! If you would like to order a sub please let us know. Orders are due July 13^th and the orders will be in on July 21^st. Pick up will be at our church. 1215 Fishburn Rd Hershey. 

If you have any ideas for fundraisers please let us know. We have been blessed with family and friends organizing fundraisers for us and are so grateful for the help!

Our friends Karyn and Jess started the go fund me account for us. The account can be accessed as follows: https://www.gofundme.com/qzvexyks

This week during her blog she posted another link for adoption information. This link is as follows: http://confessionsofanadoptiveparent.com/one-phrase-you-must-never-say-to-an-adoptive-mom/?utm_content=buffer5ed21&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

So while we actively wait… we ask you to actively pray! If you ever have any questions for me please do not hesitate to ask. 

Support Surrounds Us

We recently have completed two fundraisers with the help of Michelle’s parents planning skills and the support of family and friends!  First, we did a work day at the church and earned $450 towards our home study.

We will be doing another work day June 4^th 8am-12noon. If you would like to donate 4 hours of your time to earn money for our adoption fund please contact Michelle or Adam.

This past weekend our Fishburn Church held a funfest for the church and community. Michelle's mom organized a bake sale for our adoption. We are so very thankful for everyone who took time to bake for this fundraiser and who came out to support us!  We raised $936. 

Because of these awesome fundraisers and donations from friends and family we now have enough money for our home study.  Once we are approved from our home study, we will apply to a country. This is called dossier fees. We are now working on raising the money for these fees.

Also, once our home study is complete, we will be able to apply to grants to help with the cost.

We are excited that we are in our first waiting phase. We have completed (FINGERS CROSSED) all of the requirements for the home study. We now wait for paperwork to come back.

Most of the questions we are being asked we can’t answer yet. Questions such as: What country are you adopting from? What is your time frame? When are you expected to hear next? How old will the child be? When will you be matched? Etc.  Once a country has approved us, we will have a much better idea of what is happening next and specifics. Each country has their own program with their own rules and schedules.

Praises: Our Psychological Evaluation is complete

Our trainings are complete and all passed

The success of our fundraisers

The generosity of our family and friends

Prayers: We have completed everything correctly for the home study

That our home study is scheduled shortly!


Below is a link to our Gofundme account. 
https://www.gofundme.com/qzvexyks

A journey of gains and losses.

We have completed another fundraiser. On Saturday, a few wonderful people from our church gathered together to clean and do projects around the building. Rather then everyone getting paid, all of the money was donated to our adoption. Because of everyone’s hard work, we now have $450 more in our adoption account.  We also have received some very generous donations from people whom we love so much. WE are extremely grateful.

We have completed 2/3 sessions for our psychological evaluation. We have also completed 4/5 training sessions needed for our home study. We are coming to the end of our list! We are ready for this next step.

Journey

We are on a journey that started many years ago. A journey that has been filled with heartache, questions, uncertainty, love, laughter, joy, and peace.  A journey we feel is blessed by God and lead by God. A journey that is hard, really hard. A journey that is a rollercoaster…. the kind that makes your stomach drop but you want to ride it over and over!  A journey that is beautiful and messy.

This week I heard from yet another doctor that the likelihood of me getting pregnant is slim to non. I have heard this before, we have prayed and pondered and discussed our next step.  That doesn’t make hearing it any easier. Each time is another part of our rollercoaster.

When Adam and I learned, 3 years ago, that I had endometriosis and needed surgery we prepared for everything. We researched all of our options, talked about every outcome, probably over talked if you ask Adam. 

We cried. We prayed. We hugged. We showed love. We researched. We listened.

We chose. We chose our path. We want this. We feel God wants this. We are ready. We are happy. We still grieve.

Our training today talked about how birth moms, adoptive moms, and the child will all have gains and losses when the adoption happens.  The training was about how to support the child when they are happy for the life they have but long to know about the life they had before. But, it also validated that it is okay to feel sad and happy at the same time. It is okay to be excited about the adoption and path we are on and feel sad for the path we can’t have.

God has a plan. A plan bigger than what we can imagine. We are thankful for the plan, thankful for each other, and thankful for the support from all of you!

Feel free to share our blog and gofundme account. https://www.gofundme.com/qzvexyks

If you have any ideas for fundraisers and would like to help us, please feel free to contact me!

Week of progress and surprises!

This week was one of progress! We feel accomplished and motivated.

This week we had our first fundraiser. Laura, a great friend of mine, held a younique fundraiser for us. Thank you to everyone who purchased and made the fundraiser a success.

We also had an anonymous donation on our GoFundMe page this week. This was a first for us! Thank you to everyone who continues to share our page and donate to baby Campbell.  https://www.gofundme.com/qzvexyks

Our prayers have been answered and we found a physiologist that will do our evaluation for us under Adam’s insurance. We are scheduled to go April 27^th!   Please pray that this appointment goes well!

This week Adam finished his blood work and we are waiting for the results to officially have the medical report signed! He also completed the financial statement that we need to mail in.

We started our adoption trainings online. We honestly were a little put back by the types of trainings that need to happen. We know that these trainings are in place because bad things have happened. There are bad people that use any system for their own benefit. We just don’t process life that way. Our hearts are good… they are full of so much love. We are saddened to read some of the trainings because they seem like common sense or things that just wouldn’t happen. The truth is, there wouldn’t be trainings without a reason. We also had a training on having a biracial family, or as the called it a conspicuous family (one that stands out). We have been and will continue to pray for the community around us to embrace our child into their lives without degrading their heritage or negating their culture and beginning.  We are looking forward to the day that we are accepted by a county and can begin our research into the cultural norms, language, parenting, etc and hopefully continue some of those traditions with our new baby! We don’t want to adopt a baby and make them conform to our culture. We are really looking forward to celebrating both!

On our list for this week is to draw a map of our home and write up directions. We also are going to complete ALL of the adoption trainings by Sunday!

Our next fundraiser will be May 21^st. Our church does an annual FunFest which is a free family day with lots of events and food. We will be doing a bake sale during the FunFest. I invite you and your family to join is from 10am-1pm at 1215  Fishburn Rd. Hershey. Stop by and say hello! If you would like to help bake a treat to sell please contact my mom, Jane Kratz, at janek4pink@comcast.net or let me know!

When we got home last night we found a very generous donation that was sent to us by two people we dearly. This put us ½ way to our goal for the home study. Adam and I stood in the middle of the kitchen speechless at how much love you share with us. Thank you just doesn’t seem to be enough.