July 4, 2014: Gotcha Day- One Year Later.

July 4th is a special holiday for anyone in America.  We celebrate our freedom.  As Christians, we celebrate and reflect on our freedom in Christ.  And as the parents of Elliana, we celebrate her.

July 4 will always have a special meaning for us now. And how cool that we will always have fireworks to celebrate such a special day!! :) 

One year.  Wow!  Happy Gotcha Day, Elliana Genet!

We were able to celebrate with our Frazey family in California this year.  The day was a fun filled day with the beach, hot dogs, corn on the cob, swimming in the pool, fireworks, and a Gotcha Day cake!

Some pictures:

Out on the beach for fireworks:

Every year I'm sure we will reflect on the previous year and stand in awe that God chose us to be Elliana's family.  Last year we were driving home from the airport watching fireworks with a little baby in our backseat and we were no more than a stranger to her.  This year she was cuddling in my lap and never tried to get down as we watched the fireworks together.
Also, she sure loves water bottles! :)

 

And my two favorite pictures are of us re-creating my favorite photo from the airport at her homecoming.  I think each year until I'm old and gray I will make her do this:) 

Here is the picture I'm referring to:

 

 

 

 

And I always love looking back to the previous year of special events!

 

 

Meeting her sister:)

One year.  So much progress to report.  It was easy to get discouraged in the moments of some many days, but when we look at the big picture of the past 365 days, it is simply amazing how much Elliana has grown.  She has grown physically. She has grown emotionally.  She has grown perfectly into a Frazey.

We can say that we have had a really good experience bringing Elliana into our family.  I know not all adoptive families can say this.  We take no credit for this and give all the glory to our God.  Our sovereign God ordained that Elliana would be our daughter.  He allowed the events in her past to take place and moved in our hearts and opened our eyes to the beauty of adoption.  All in His timing. 

Honestly, many days were overwhelming and some days were so hard for me as I was pregnant, emotional, moving into a new house, training two toddlers, then having a newborn, and all while trying to figure out how to attach to a child that I didn't grow in my womb.  I know one thing that always gave me hope and assurance was that God knew exactly how all this would go.  It is easy in my flesh to doubt and wonder how I could do it.  To wonder how my kids will turn out because I couldn't care for Elliana as I thought in my mind I needed to because I had a newborn to nurse and rock.  Yet I was torn because he maybe didn't get the attention he should because of the demands of my other children. (But let's be real...he's the fourth child!) But God knew it.  God planned it.  God saw fit to place me in the midst of these circumstances and as I can see how much growth God has given me as well as my daughter. It is all from His hand and God is always good.  Even in those hard times, He is on His throne and gave us the grace to keep going.

In saying all that, again, I can say that overall we have not had any major setbacks or hard times.  I have said from the beginning that the hardest part of all of this was dealing with my own sin.  God has used the events of the past year to expose sin and idols of my heart I didn't even know were there.  And that is hard to handle.  Satan was on full attack and where there is a heart to honor God, there is spiritual warfare.  In it all I failed a lot. God was gracious to give me more than I could handle and cause me to turn to Him. And praise be to God that our failures don't determine our child's salvation.  They are yet a way we can point them to Him by seeking their forgiveness.

We know that God blessed our faith in Him and trusting in His Word to raise our children.  Elliana is our child and there is no discrepancy between adopted or biological.  Things may look a tad different at times for certain situations, but for us overall, over the past year of having her home, we sought to raise her in the fear and admonition of the Lord and train her in the way she should go.  That, we believe, has fully supported our attachment and caused her to learn to trust us and love us. 

And my oh my, how things have changed.  Brent and I often will look at her in awe and say "remember when....".  That is of course fun to do with any child, but with a child who has made such strides in a short time and who has a traumatic past, it is just extra special.
I remember when we used to force her to stay on our lap.  I remember when we didn't want to lay her down in her bed because she didn't seem to mind she was going there.  I remember when she didn't cry or make noise to get out.  I remember when she cried. and cried. and cried. and cried more and we didn't know why.  I remember when I would have to look on the monitor in her room and if she hadn't fallen asleep after a few minutes of being in her crib I would go get her because we didn't want to just leave her in there.  I remember when she couldn't sit up and didn't roll over much.  I remember when puff snacks made her vomit.  I remember when she used to cry so hard she would vomit. I remember when she started rocking on her knees.  I remember when she pulled herself up on the stairs.  I remember she bear crawled everywhere and wouldn't bend her knees to walk.  I remember when she learned to crawl. and walk. and talk. and sing. and dance. and run.  I remember when she used to turn her face away when we asked for a kiss.  and when we would kiss her cheek or touch her face she would melt down and shriek.  I remember when she started to hold on tight to me and not let go.  when she started to cry as we would walk into her room for naps because she wanted to stay with us. I remember when she puckered her lips to kiss me and say "I wuv woo." and when she learned to say "mama and dada" and know who we are. I remember when she shook her head back and forth to calm and soothe herself.  I remember when she learned to throw trash in the trash can and how every time she finds a diaper she joyfully takes it there without being asked.  I remember when she started standing up in her crib when we would enter the room to get her up and she would throw her paci down in excitement and put her hands up to be held.  I rmember when she wouldn't take a paci.  I remember when she started stealing her brother's paci because she loved them. I remember when the milk used to run out of the bottle down her cheek because that is what she was used to and also when she learned to use a sippy cup.  I remember when we had to hold her hands down as we spoon fed her and cut out all distractions.  I remember we had to open and close her mouth for her sometimes. I remember when she started to pick food up with her fingers and also begin feeding herself with a spoon.  I remember when she would not eat anything and now will eat what is served. I remember when she was bothered by a fly on her face because it wasn't the norm for her anymore.  I remember when she learned her animal noises and sounds.  When she learned to say her brother and sister's names and recognize other family members.  I remember when we would all play and wrestle on the floor we had to ask her to play and bring her over to involve her.  I remember when she started tackling her daddy because she loves wrestling with him.  I remember when she started laying down so we would tickle her. I remember when she would go up to strangers at the park. I remember when she would clench on to me when someone else spoke to her. I remember when she started her obsession with shoes. and sunglasses. and hats. I remember when she started running to the door yelling "car" and go into the garage, hold the door handle until it is opened for her, and then climb in.  I remember when she used to run away from me if I had a bow in my hand and cry before I even touched her hair.  I remember when she started leaning in and bending over when she sees me carrying a squirtbottle and rubberband.  I remember the pain and heartache we felt as we waited.  I remember the joy and overwhelming love we felt when we brought her home. 
I remember when things went from hard to normal and through it all I could never imagine my life with out her. 

This is all over the place, I know. So many things to remember and reflect on.  So much beauty. 

I wish everyone could see and know the Elliana we see at home.  Joy is an understatement.  She is a bit more reserved out in public so her personality doesn't shine through.  She fills our home with laughter and love. There isn't a dull moment with her. She has taught us all to love in new ways. It pains my heart to ever imagine life without her.  She isn't flesh of my flesh and if it weren't through the beautiful redemption of adoption, she wouldn't be my daughter. I am so grateful. Humbled to be a chosen child of the King, and then He humbles me more when given this great responsibility and chose me to be a mother. 

 

We are attached.  We are bonded.  I'm sure there will be hard days ahead.  And I'm not certain that adoption will have anything to do with it.  I know it won't have everything to do with it though, because raising any child will bring hard days. 

I pray that one day I can look back and remember when I heard Elliana claim Christ as her Savior and Redeemer and that she finds her identity in Him.  That I can say with John that there is no greater joy than seeing my child walk in the truth (3 John 1:4).


To those that have read this--take a moment and consider adoption.  Consider why you haven't considered adoption. 
I cannot imagine not having experienced this entire process and the amazing blessing of calling Elliana my daughter.  Those that know her--can you imagine her not being a Frazey? I know you cannot, because she is so perfect for our family and God has woven our hearts and stories together.
Adoption is the closest picture of earthly redemption.  It is a picture of our spiritual adoption on a horizontal level and God has given us the privilege of being a part of that.  You will be forever changed and you will forever change the life of a child.  

 

 

 

Any News Is Good News....

 Eeeeek! So excited!! I saw an email last night just before going to bed (and with all my might said this blog post could wait until the morning!) that said  "Case Filed" in the subject line.  Our email shows the first couple words of an email before we actually open it.  I read 'Congratulations!' Oh boy, I couldn't get that email opened quick enough!

The words I read don't change anything.  We still don't have a court date and still don't know when we will go to court and travel to see our sweet baby girl.  However, at this stage in the process, ANY news is good news! It's just something to hold on to and know that things are progressing along. 

So what did the email say? 
Our case was filed with federal court on Thursday, January 3, 2012. We are now waiting for the Ethiopian courts to schedule our first hearing.  Our agency said we should receive the dates for our first hearing in about 2 weeks.  We do not need to travel for the first hearing.  From my understanding, this is the preliminary hearing and the director of West Sands in Ethiopia as well as a representative from the orphanage will appear to represent us.
And the best part of the email said this: "You should plan on traveling in as soon as 6 weeks."

YAY!!! :)

In other news....
Checked in to immunizations.  There are no safe vaccines for nursing mothers for malaria.  BUT, the lady at the Maricopa County Adult Immunization Center (so I'm assuming she's pretty knowledgeable) said that malaria mosquitoes only bite at night and there are none in Addis Ababa, which is where we will be sleeping each night.  So she said as long as we don't stay over night anywhere else, I should be fine.  The agency told us to wear 100 deet at night at 30 deet during the day.  Hep A is safe for both of us, so we will go to get those.  However, yellow fever is not safe at all for me either because that is passed on to the baby and can make their teeth black.  So, we'll be passing on that one too!




Printed off our 20 page packet for travel that the agency sent us.  We have lots of information including a packing list, information on cultural norms, weather, and what we can bring for Elliana.  We also will be taking an extra suitcase (or 2...just depends what the airline will allow) full of items for the children at the orphanages.  How fun!! If anyone has any children's clothes they want to donate or diapers, we would be glad to take them. (But check with me first so we can get a variety and don't have more than is allowed).



Stay tuned...

Update: Dossier Complete!

On Friday, February 10, we mailed our dossier to West Sands Adoption!  This was a lot to gather and complete in less than two months, so we are happy to have it completed.  According to the flow chart West Sands gave us, it takes 2-3 weeks for the dossier to be sent to Ethiopia.  From there, it says that the process varies by country, but they gave us an estimated 3-6 months of waiting for a referral.  Once we receive a referral, we will travel to Ethiopia for the first time for court. Then it will be another 6-8 weeks when we travel there again to bring home Baby Frazey!  The dossier is a huge step done because now we are just waiting for a phone call......


We are also required to get fingerprinted by USCIS at Homeland Security in Phoenix this week.  Those take six weeks to process, but West Sands told us that they do not need those in order to send the dossier.

From here, our updates will be letting everyone know where we are on the waiting list.  We don't have a number yet--so stay tuned! :)

Update

It has been a while since a post.  That isn't because nothing is happening, but because there isn't much new to report.  But I do want to provide a little update since some of you have been asking. 

Our current status for Arizona clearance is that we are waiting.   Our completed homestudy and fingerprint clearance (that was something we were waiting for a while back, but finally came in on 11/29 and we couldn't move to this step until we had it)  are probably sitting in a pile on a judge's desk somewhere in Maricopa county and when he gets to our paperwork then he will deem us approved to adopt in the state of Arizona. 

Before we can do anything for national clearance, we have to get the state's approval.  So in the meantime, we are working on more paperwork!  On December 12 we got a phone call from West Sands that they would be sending over our dossier and we can begin working on that.  This consists of things like:

•  a letter indicating why we want to adopt from Ethiopia, signed & notarized by both of us
• gathering government issued birth certificates (not copies) for Brent and Allison
• obtain a new government issued marriage certificate (not a copy)
• we need to get a "Good Conduct" or local police clearance letter for each of us
• more medical reports for each of us that must be notarized by the doctor
• write a financial statement and get it notarized by both of us
• Brent needs a letter of employment verification letter and it must be notarized
• a letter from our bank saying we are in good standing
• a letter from our insurance company for life and health
• more letters of recommendation, but we will just use the same as we did for the homestudy.  but this time they must be notarized!
• passports, which we got our photos taken last week.
• and a few more papers that we need to sign and take to a notary.

It really doesn't sound like too much but a lot of it just depends on how fast the companies are with getting us the letters back.  So this is what the dossier is and this is what we are working on in free time!!  It really isn't so bad :)

Other than that, we are going to go to the Post Office on Thursday to apply for the passport and then we will wait for those to come in. 

Until next time, thank you for praying for us.  May God be glorified!

Approved!

Today we received a phone call from West Sands to let us know they have looked at our application and we are approved!  We continue to be very impressed with this agency.  We mailed the application to them on Monday and they call us on Thursday! Angela and I chatted on the phone for several minutes about all sorts of things. I thought it was nice they called us rather than emailed.  

 Once we send them more money (of course!) they will send us the dossier (more paperwork) and the process will continue.  In the meantime, we still wait for our fingerprints and look forward to our meeting on Saturday with the social worker.  She said we are ahead of most at this stage because we already have the home study completed rather than waiting for acceptance then getting the home study done. 

Complete!

The homestudy is now complete!  Our social worker sent us a copy and in it she recommends us to be adoptive parents! Whew, we passed:)  We are still waiting to hear from the courts about the fingerprints.  We see that they cashed our check on September 9, so we know they have received the documents in the mail.  So for now we wait.  As soon as we get that clearance back it will be submitted to Maricopa County Courts to go to the judge then it will really be official!

Thank you for your continued prayers for our baby and for a smooth process. God is so good to give us a peace and contentment that we know can only come from Him.  Each pause in the process is part of the timing that is needed to bring the child that He has for us home.

Making Progress

We have officially handed in everything on our end for our homestudy!  Before Brent left for Michigan, he dropped off all of our final papers and reference letters to the social worker.  We spoke to the social worker last week and she said that she is working on the draft now.  We are still waiting for the FBI fingerprint clearance to come back and nothing can happen until we get that.  She said that Maricopa courts are taking about three weeks to process the papers once handed in.  So once we get the fingerprints back and she types the homestudy report, it will get handed in to the courts to decide that we are able to adopt in the state of Arizona!  So for now, we wait. :)

Our First Meeting

Today we met with our social worker from Southwest Adoption Services.  We handed in our paperwork and copies of our birth certificates, marriage license, and other important documents.  She went over our personal information with us and we discussed our reasons for adopting.  It was very relaxed and everything went well.  Our next meeting with her is on September 20.  She will interview each of us individually at our home. 

Right now we are waiting to get a letter from Maricopa County Court for our CPS clearance form as well as the clearance for our fingerprints from the FBI.  That takes 4-6 weeks and we cannot move forward until we get that processed.  We mailed those out on September 1, so Lord willing, by mid October we hope to have all this paperwork done so our social worker can submit the homestudy to the courts.  She said once it is submitted to the courts, it will be another 4-6 weeks.

Frequently Asked Questions

You ask "Why?" and we answer "Why not?"

God's timing is....perfect.  We have been pretty active with Crisis Pregnancy Center for the last couple of years.  Because of this, we have seen the alarming statistics on the number of the abortion in the United States as well as all over the world.  Our awareness of this, in addition to having our own daughter, as both a blessing and joy, is what God has used to place this desire on our hearts to adopt a child at this point in our lives.

We always thought we would adopt a child "when we were done having our own kids".  But as Allison was memorizing Ephesians 1:3-6, adoption was always at the front of her mind.  Not 15 years down the road, but now.  God had placed the desire on Allison's heart to adopt a child to be her own just as God has adopted her as His daughter. 

Allison brought this up to Brent, not expecting the response she got.  When Brent told Allison that he had already been praying about adoption for a while and he had the desire to adopt while continuing to have children of our own, Allison was very surprised and pleased. 

At this point, we prayed. and prayed. and prayed.  We sought counsel from others and felt that God was calling us to expand our family through adoption.

So, back to the WHY?
We wholeheartedly say to that question, "Why not?"  We cannot see any reason why we would not welcome a child into our home as our son or daughter.  We did nothing to deserve the grace and mercy that God poured out on us as His adopted children.  Through Christ's sacrifice and death on the cross, we are His blood bought children.  His death and resurrection has saved us from a life of utter destruction and an eternity in hell.  We have the opportunity to give that gift to a child, so why wouldn't we?  We can rescue a child from a life of poverty, foster care, or even no life at all as a result of abortion.  We can rescue that child as Christ has rescued us.  Not only will we give that child love and care, but we will raise the child in the fear and admonition of the Lord.  Our prayer is that one day we will not only call that child 'son' or 'daughter' but we will be able to call that child a brother in Christ.

As Christians, we feel that this is one way we can fulfill the Great Commission. We can bring the mission field home. We are called to care for the orphans and the fatherless. We want to bring God glory through our adoption.

International or Domestic?

At this time, we are pursing a domestic adoption. We are seeking a newborn baby with no preference towards race or gender.

How long will it take?

This is difficult to answer as the timeframe is different for everyone.  We obviously want it to be as quick as possible, but that may not be God's plan for us. First, we must complete a homestudy(which we have already begun that process). Once we are past the homestudy and are 'waiting parents' it becomes a waiting game until a prospective birth mother chooses us as the adoptive family.

Do you still want to have biological children?

Yes! We would be so thrilled if the Lord blesses us with another biological child.  We could very well end up with multiple children under the age of 3!  It is all in the Lord's hands and in His perfect timing our family will grow.

Isn't adoption expensive?

Yes, adoption can be very expensive and that is something we have taken into consideration. Yet, we feel very strongly that God has called us to adopt, and while it can be cliche to say "God will provide" it is still true. We truly beleive that God will provide the means for us to adopt. Whether it be through grants, donations, or some means we have not even thought of, we believe that God will be faithful to those who seek to bring Him glory.

How can you help?

First, we ask for your prayers and support. Just as God knit Raelynn in Allison's womb specifically for us, God is creating another child for us in the same way. We ask for prayer for us as we go through all the adoption steps.  We also ask that you would begin praying now for our child and for the birth mother. Finally, we would ask that you pray for God to provide the funds that we will need to adopt our child.

We will be having various fundraisers over the course of the next few months that we will need help and support to accomplish. We also have a PayPal 'Frazey Family Adoption Fund' account set up that you may donate to as well.