Hurry up and wait

Hello there!  I’ve been meaning to update the blog for a while but two things keep stopping me.

1) Sheer busy-ness:  parenting a two year old, Youth for Christ, selling Wildtree, grant writing, MOPS, running, need I go on? 

2) Always wondering if I’ll have something new and significant to add in a couple days. 

Most of the summer Clint and I worked on our home study in one way or another.   We would get our education done together at night after Mae had gone to sleep.  As a psychology major in college I found topics like abandonment issues and stages of adoption-related grief very interesting.  For Clint it was a bit more of a challenge, but he took it all in stride and did great through all of it.  During this time we were also filling out stacks of paperwork and going to various places to get specific documents signed.  Along the way, we have had a lot of help from friends and neighbors such as our neighbor Sandy who we discovered is a notary public.  That saved us a lot of time and inconvenience as most of our documents had to be notarized.  What a huge help!  Also, if I had this to do over again I think I would print off a lot of labels with Pauquette’s address on it.  As time went on, I ended up writing their address over and over on envelopes that were given to different government agencies and departments to send documents in for our home study to be completed.

Ideally, now that the home study is completed, we would select several agencies that we want to work with for a child placement and send in our family profile.  Then we would wait for the much anticipated call from the agency that we had been picked by a birth-mother.  The Lord has had different plans and is placing another obstacle in our journey, a financial one.  We thought if we just kept plugging away and saving, that we’d be able to send our profile to at least one agency with a lower fee before the end of 2014.  When I called Brian at Pauquette’s to share our plan, he informed me that the first potential agency to which we would send our profile had raised its rates above what we can afford, and was no longer working with them.  From the very beginning of this process Clint and I decided that it is best for us to wait to submit our profile until we know for sure we have the money to pay for the full adoption.  We know that the emotional strain of being placed with a birth-parent and then not having the finances to back it up would be horrible on our end, and potentially on the birth-parent as well.  So here we are saving and waiting, waiting and saving.  I feel like in this waiting process I am learning so much about the Lord’s character.  There are times when I have said to Him “Why isn’t this happening faster?  I thought this was Your will for my family.  I want my baby to be home.”  The response I usually get is “I am enough, it will happen on My time.”  How can I argue with that?

Prayer points:

-patience for us

-favor by the people who will be potentially selecting us to receive adoption grants

-for the birth parents of our future child and health for the child

-that we would be wise in our spending

How you can help:

-pray for us

-make a delicious meal.  Buy Wildtree products or host a Wildtree party.  Twenty percent of all sales go into our adoption fund.  Thank you to everyone who has already purchased products.  For more information or to order go to www.mywildtree.com/lizgosse

-buy a piece of our puzzle and be part of our story.  See previous blog posts for more information

From the outside looking in

Our home study is officially underway!  On May 20^th we drove down to Portage and met with Brian Tool of Pauquettes Adoption Services.  Other than a lot of questions, I wasn’t sure what to expect.  The couple weeks prior to this we had worked on answering a handful of essay-like questions about ourselves so the agency could get to know us better.  Clint and I both separately typed up our answers to questions such as “Tell us about your life growing up” and “What are your future career aspirations?”  Never ones to be brief on topics like this, Clint and I both were relieved to get all of the questions done.  I personally rewarded myself with a couple marshmallow peeps and a new issue of Runners World.  Our interview with Brian was very low key; he answered some questions for us, let us know what to expect from here on out, shared some stories about his life as an adoptive parent and adoption social worker of 35 years and, yes, we did talk about our essay questions as well.

The following Tuesday it was Brian’s turn to make the trip.  He came and visited out happy abode here in Marshfield.  I’ve seen a meme on Facebook that says “I clean my house more in the 10 minutes before someone comes over than the rest of the week.”  The same can be said for a home study—all of the cleaning and organizing we had be putting off for so long magically got done on Memorial Day and the hours before Brian’s arrival.  His visit again was very low key and relaxed.  He toured our house and checked out our backyard and garden (Clint’s pride and joy).  MaeLynn joined us for part of the time; being her typical self she kept walking past Brian and saying “hi.”  Our cat Oscar being his typical self was very interested in Brian and tried in vain a couple times to jump on his lap.  All in all child, pets and neighbors all acted normal during his visit which is just what I was hoping for.

Now comes the homework part of our home study—20 hours of education to complete (most of it online), forms to fill out and a profile to create.  Clint and I agreed that we would sacrifice at least one night a week that we would typically watch “Scrubs” or “Sherlock” on Netflix to hammer out education instead.  I started a file on the computer yesterday to put pictures in for a profile book and I’m working on making goals of when to have certain clumps of paperwork done by.

I realized this morning a lot of what this boils down to is how people see our family.  From the outside looking in who are the Gosses?  What do we stand for?  How will we parent a child that is not our own biologically?  Of course I want them to see a loving family that has room for more members, people who love God and follow Him, living in a home that is safe and close to a couple parks.  But what else?  Should they know too that we are a snuggly family that loves hugs and Eskimo kisses?  Or the fact that we like to watch birds and squirrels in our backyard while we eat breakfast in the morning?  I don’t know.  I guess ultimately I want them--whoever “them” may be—that we are so excited to do this and would love nothing more than to add to our family through adoption.

Prayer points

• ·         the biological parents of our child-for their health and wellbeing
• ·         for efficiency and timeliness in getting our paperwork, education and profile done
• ·         for guidance in choosing which agencies to send our profile to
• ·         Our finances: that we would be wise in our spending and that God would provide extra money for us to put away to pay for the adoption

How you can help

• ·         Pray for us
• ·         A couple smaller fundraisers might be on the horizon—I’ll post when I have more information
• ·         Make a delicious meal!  Buy Wildtree products or host a Wildtree party.  With a possible promotion in sight, now is a great time!  All of the proceeds from my sales continue to go directly into our adoption fund.  Thank you so much for those of you who have already purchased from me!  If you enjoy the products, tell your friends!  For more information, or to order, go to www.mywildtree.com/lizgosse  

Big P, little p, what begins with P?

One of big-sister-to-be MaeLynn’s favorite books is a Dr. Seuss ABC book that has every letter in the context of “Big ___, little ___, what begins with ___”  Clint and I both have it memorized.  I felt like it was fitting this time, all of my updates start with P.

Patience-We got a call from Pauquettes about 1 ½ months ago saying they were ready to move us off of the waiting list and into the home-study process.  It’s great news, but we realized we need to be a little more financially prepared before we start the process.  I told Lynn that we were still hoping to be ready for placement in October so we agreed to plan for our home-study in June—if we had saved enough by then.

Promotion-After getting the call from Pauquettes, it really motivated me to get a promotion with Wildtree.  If there was something else I could do to make sure we stayed on schedule to bring our son or daughter home in a timely fashion I wanted to do it!  I called my up-line leader and started working on a plan so I could promote to team leader.  So far it’s involved some extra training and stepping out of my comfort zone.  I need two months of strong sales and recruiting to do it.  For a while it was looking like I was on track to make my numbers this month but if all else fails I’ll keep trying!

Praises-God has been blessing us financially in a couple different ways.  First of all the His Kids Sale on April 5^th went well. We had a good turnout, thank you to everyone who helped, attended or donated rummage sale items!  A shout out to Diana Ugoretz and Aimee Clay for going above and beyond the call of duty to make this event a success.  Overall it raised $2,600 to be divided between the His Kids Fund and MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers).  We plan on asking for some of the money raised to go towards our adoption.  We are planning on making this an annual event in hopes that it will make adoption a reality for more families.  We have been blessed with a couple unique financial opportunities these past couple months.  As I type this Clint is hard at work on the sound system for a wedding at church.  Two times in March I was asked to judge 4H speaking or drama events—both of which I got paid for.  As a result of that too I now hold an official 4H fair judge license.  Hopefully this will provide me with more opportunities to judge this summer while adding a little here and there to our adoption fund.  Also for the first time since we have been married, we received a tax refund—enough to pay off what we had lingering in credit card debt and add to the adoption fund.  Thank you Heavenly Father for how you are working in our finances!

Plans-I started writing the draft of this blog about a week ago.  Not long after that I realized our schedules are filling up and if we were going to do our home-study soon we better get it scheduled.  After looking at Clint’s teaching schedule I realized June wouldn’t actually work so we have the two parts of our homestudy scheduled for the last two Tuesdays in May.  OH MY GOSH THIS JUST GOT MORE REAL!  And so begins the first of many moments where I will question, “Did I do this right?” and “I hope we look like responsible people.” For anyone who has adopted in the past, we’d love your words of wisdom on preparing for home-studies.

Prayer points

• ·   the biological parents of our child-for their health and well being
• ·         for our upcoming homestudy
• ·         Our finances: that we would be wise in our spending and that God would provide extra money for us to put away to pay for the adoption

How you can help

• ·         Pray for us
• ·         Make a delicious meal!  Buy Wildtree products or host a Wildtree party.  With a possible promotion in sight, now is a great time!  All of the proceeds from my sales continue to go directly into our adoption fund.  Thank you so much for those of you who have already purchased from me!  If you enjoy the products, tell your friends!  For more information, or to order, go to www.mywildtree.com/lizgosse  

And the winner is...

Well after much searching and speculation we have chosen an agency to work with.  This process took a little while--as is evident by the nearly 3 month gap in posts.  We met face to face with two agencies, talked to another one over the phone and then also did some searching online.  There are some amazing agencies out there working hard every day to get kids placed in loving homes.  When it all came down to it, we needed to find the one that fit us and our situation.  The agency we decided to go with is Pauquettes.

In late January we submitted a sheet requesting to be on their waiting list—while it was a simple sheet of paper I think it’s probably the most excited I have ever been to write on a sheet of paper!  On it we indicated that we would be open to a child of any race up to about 12 months of age.  We also said that we would be ready for placement beginning in October.  Only the Lord knows the real time table involved here but we felt from our perspective that this would give us enough time to get our house and finances ready.  Of course too this just means that that is when our profiles start being shown to birth families, it could take many months after that for someone to pick us.

In other news we have set the date and started work on a fundraiser to be held at North Ridge Church called the His Kids Sale.  Held April 5^th 9:00 am to 2:00 pm, this event will include vendors and crafters from around the area, a silent auction, a bake sale and a garage/rummage sale.  It will be held at North Ridge Church, 1021 W. McMillan Street in Marshfield.  Three quarters of the money raised will go into the His Kids Adoption Fund (a fund at our church that helps families offset the cost of adoptions) and the other quarter will go to the local MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) chapter.  We are hoping to receive some of the money raised at this event to put towards our adoption.  If it’s a success I’d love to make this an annual event and bless as many pre-adoptive families as possible.

In addition to planning the event we are also working on hammering out some education hours or should I say working on figuring out how to hammer out our education hours.  The state of Wisconsin requires about 20 hours of education during the adoption process.  I was supposed to do a couple hours via webinar a few weeks ago but it got cancelled due to the presenter having a family emergency; it has yet to be rescheduled. 

Beyond that we are just listening—listening to the stories of adoptive families and trying to get a feel for what to expect.  If you have a story to share we’d love to hear it.

All I know for sure is an adventure awaits us!

Prayer points

• the biological parents of our child-for their health and well being
• The His Kids sale, that vendors and crafters would come forward, that we would get a good amount of donations for the garage sale part of it
• Our finances: that we would be wise in our spending and that God would provide extra money for us to put away to pay for the adoption

How you can help

• Pray for us
• Do some spring cleaning—if you have any unwanted items that we could use in the garage/rummage sale we’d be happy to take it off your hands for you
• If you are a vendor or crafter have a table at the His Kids Sale or donate something for the silent auction or bake sale
• Come to the His Kids Sale.  Here is the Facebook link to it:  https://www.facebook.com/events/342472275895254/
• Buy a puzzle piece, the price is up to you.  If interested please email me at Elizabeth.gosse@gmail.com
• Make a delicious meal!  Buy Wildtree products or host a Wildtree party.  All of the proceeds from my sales continue to go directly into our adoption fund.  Thank you so much for those of you who have already purchased from me!  If you enjoy the products, tell your friends!  For more information, or to order, go to www.mywildtree.com/lizgosse