The Count Down is ON!

We have started a count down for this baby boy to get here and guess what!?!  We have 16 days left!  We are so excited!  We have been trying to get ready as quickly as we can.  We are all so excited - Ella checks our countdown daily, and is usually the one to update it.  We have been cleaning and organizing the baby room, finding all of our old baby stuff, and buying some new baby boy things.

We  haven't updated anything about this adoption yet, so we thought we would do that so we have a record of it.  We got an email from our adoption agency in October (around fall break) saying that a birthmom would like to have lunch with us to meet us.   We met a few days later at Olive Garden and got to know her.  We instantly liked her and felt really good about the meeting, but didn't want to get our hopes up.  Well, our caseworker called us as we were driving home saying that the birthmom would like to meet Ella.  We set up a meeting for Friday (lunch was on Tuesday) at City Creek.  We got there and she gave Ella a present right off the bat.  It had a puzzle and bubbles in it for Ella, then buried at the bottom was blue binkies, and little blue booties.  I immediately started to cry and so did Erik.  Ella was a little confused, but soon we explained to her that meant we were getting a baby brother and she was excited.  Our birthmom also gave us a card letting us know she had picked us.  We were so overwhelmed and feeling beyond blessed.  We all went and got ice cream together afterward.  Later that day when we were talking to Ella about it and making sure she understood she said, "This just feels so right!"  We couldn't agree more.

So if everything goes as planned, the birthmom is scheduled to have the baby on December 14th.  She could definitely have it early so we are just trying to get prepared!

We do have quite a bit of money to try to raise in such a short amount of time, and will probably continue raising money after the baby is born to pay loans back.  We have already paid about 3/4 of what we needed to, but are still needing more.  We have applied for some grants and are waiting to hear on those.  And we truly appreciate all of the generous donations we have received.  We are planning a Christmas Auction on December 5th.  We have received so many generous donations, and would love to receive about 10-15 more!  We are also planning an improv workshop and show.  Lastly, we have our gofundme account (see funding tab)
and appreciate all donations there.

Thank you all for your love, concern, prayers, and support.  We have been continuously blown away and overwhelmed by the amazing friends, families, and even strangers who have so lovingly supported us in this journey!  We love you all!

Erik, Ali, and Ella

Adoption Update

We know it's been awhile since we posted last. That's because we have not been looking forward to this post at all. The situation we were matched with has fallen through. The sister of the birthmom decided she wanted to help the birthmom raise the baby. We have been devastated to put it mildly. It's taken us a couple of weeks to ourselves before we were ready to share this news with the world. We are doing better now for the most part. We are buying a house which has given us something to look forward to, and has kept us very busy. We also know that things will work out and we are continuing on in the adoption process. But as my awesome aunt put it "it still sucks."  

We appreciate all of your love and concern. And we will keep you posted on the journey. 

Guess What!?!

We are so incredibly excited to tell all of you that a birth mom has chosen us!
We are expecting a baby girl due May 27th!
We found out on Wednesday that were were selected by a birth mom whom we love and now we are just working out the details and preparing to add a little baby to the family.

Ella was super excited when we told her...(see video)

We will be learning a lot more over the next months and will continue to update about the journey through the process and all throughout the first year. We do know that the birth mom is planning on having the baby here in Utah and we will meet her in about a month.

The journey isn't over it's just beginning and the final push is going to be raising the money for this a heck of a lot sooner than we anticipated. We appreciate every penny and prayer we have already received, and please know that we understand financial situations (trust us we KNOW the feels). But, just in case there is someone out there who was waiting for the right time or something like that we will post the links to the different fund raising options we have, and we will be doing a few more things to help us raise the money that we need in the next month. We have plans for 3 more big events to help us offset the cost and some smaller things (Norwex and Noonday anyone?) but we will post those here as more plans get finalized.

Thank you for the love and the prayers, we know that this is a gift from our Heavenly Father. We know that many prayers have been said in our behalf, and we know that they came from all of you... Thank You!!

Erik and Ali

https://www.bonfirefunds.com/gunn-family-adoption-help-us-spread-the-love

or 

Visit our gofundme page at:

https://www.gofundme.com/cbhnyxbw

Erik and Ali's Adoption Fund

13

It's Official!

We got word today that we are finally official! Hallelujah! It's funny because Erik and I both feel like we have been at this FOREVER, but it has only been just over 2 months. We are excited for this next part of the process and are hopeful to get a baby sooner than later! 

We appreciate all of your love, prayers, and support as we continue on this journey! 

Erik and Ali

Share the Love

You guys!  We have started one of our fundraisers (we are hoping to have many - hopefully something for everyone)!  We are so excited to be selling these unique shirts for our fundraiser.  All proceeds of the shirt go directly to our adoption funds.  If it's something you're interested in - hurry quick!  The fundraiser end March 31st!  If you're not interested - it's not quite your style - please share with your friends and family!  We so appreciate all of your love and support in all of our efforts to raise money to be able to bring home our baby! Click the link below to check out the shirt!


Grab your own Gunn Family Adoption  Help us spread the love shirt before it ends! @BonfireFunds https://www.bonfirefunds.com/gunn-family-adoption-help-us-spread-the-love

All But There

Pre-Home Study Family Picture

We had our home
study on Monday night (we ended up having to reschedule from Saturday because Ella got strep).  We think it went well.  She checked smoke detectors and fire extinguishers,  and then we sat and talked (were interviewed) for about 2 hours!  Craig and Keri had to be interviewed as well because we are currently living with them.  That took only about 15 minutes.  She then talked to Erik, Ella, and me.  She asked Ella a few questions - like if she was excited to be a big sister, and how she would help me take care of the baby.  Ella then ran off and played with grandma and grandpa while we kept talking.  It was surprisingly fun and easy conversation.  We had to really think about our philosophies about parenting and marriage, but it was fun to do together.

So now we wait a little longer - there are a few more things we have to gather for our file, but I'm hopeful that that will all be taken care of by tomorrow or Wednesday.  Our social worker has to type up our entire 2.5 hour conversation (sheesh!), and then submits it to the executive committee of the agency.  They will review that, and our entire file, and then approve us (hopefully)!

After we have been approved we begin the matching process.  We have also decided to hold some big fundraisers to help us with the rest of the costs - we will keep you all updated as we get those planned!

Thanks for all of your love, support, and prayers!

Ali and Erik

Home Sweet Home Study

For those of you wondering where we are at in this process...we have our home study scheduled! We are having it this Saturday! Crazy! After the home study we wait (hopefully not long) to be approved. After we are approved we can start the matching process!!! We are so excited and so grateful for all of your support and prayers! 

At IKEA after turning in paperwork! The adoption agency is so close that we decided to make one of many trips out of it! 

What's with all this Paperwork!?!

A lot of people have asked us what is entailed in this second pack of paperwork. I will tell you - a lot! Holy cow!  And it's not all paperwork, some is going out and doing or delivering so other people can do their part.

So below is a partial list of what we have done so far/what we need to do. (Feel free to skip to the end)!

-We both had to get physicals and paperwork done by our doctor saying we are healthy enough to adopt

-Ella's dr also had to fill out paperwork based on her last physical. Plus we needed copies of her immunizations. (Thankfully they didn't make us come in for another physical! Just took it from her birthday check).

-There is paperwork on finances as well as tax forms.

-Paperwork on us! We both had to fill out a 70 question autobiography all about ourselves. This was by far the hardest part of the paperwork thus far! They wanted to know everything! We definitely had to spend serious time thinking things through.  (Things such as explain your teen year, an outstanding childhood experience, goals for your marriage and family, how you discipline, etc.)

-We had to have our employers fill out a verification of employment, and insurance verification. 

-We have to have 5! Letters of references. Luckily we are blessed to be surrounded by amazing people who were willing to help.

-We have to have copies of our driver's licenses and social security cards (which should have been the easy part, but someone (me) couldn't find their social security card so I had to go and file for a replacement- which took FOREVER! (Just as Ella)).

-We have to have certified copies of our birth certificates and marriage certificate

-Adoptive family social and health history (everything medically you could ever want to know about us and way more)

-And a whole lot more paperwork explaining ourselves and for the birth mothers to look at and learn about us. We have to write a birth parent profile, and a short letter, containing enough about us to make them want to pick us!

We also have to both get cpr certified!

Sheesh! I didn't even list everything!

The incredible thing is that we set a goal to finish all of this by the end of January. We got the paperwork packet on Friday. It is now Wednesday and we only have 2 things left on the entire list (one of them being cpr certified which is not dependent on our schedule unfortunately - but even that has come together way smoother than we expected).

We decided at the end of November that it was right for us to adopt. Here we are in the middle of January almost completely done with everything! Erik and I feel so strongly that this adoption is supposed to happen NOW. That our baby is waiting and we better be ready. This hasn't given us a whole lot of time to save and get ready, but the Lord has already blessed us so much in helping all of this paperwork go smoothly that we know it is meant to be and he will continue to bless us.

Thank  you for all of your support and prayers!

Ali and Erik

https://www.gofundme.com/cbhnyxbw

Erik waiting for his physical - he wanted to title this post "let's get physicals"

Ella playing while mom got birth certificates - she's been incredible as I've dragged her all around town.

Initial Application Complete!

We had our first meeting today with the adoption agency! We are going through A Act of Love Adoption Agency. Today we met with them and turned in our initial application! We received our second set of paper work to fill out which is a whole lot bigger and quite a bit daunting. We are hoping to plow through it all quickly though. We feel strongly that our baby is getting ready for us right now and we need to hurry up to be ready! 

Because of this feeling, we are hoping to be done with the bulk majority of the paper work by next week! After that we can schedule our home study, and after that we can be matched any time! 

We will continue to keep you posted on this exciting journey of ours! 

(https://www.gofundme.com/cbhnyxbw)

  

Ali

Why Adoption?

A lot of you reading this probably know about Ella's birth story, but I am sure a lot of you probably don't. I was really sick while pregnant with Ella, and had major complications due to my diabetes and high blood pressure (not a great combo!). I went into the hospital twice before I had her. Once at 26 weeks and once at 28 weeks. Both times my blood pressure was really high, but thankfully both times the dr was able to get it to come down and we prayed that she would just stay in a little longer. Well at 31 weeks I went into the doctor again and had protein in my urine which is a sign of preeclampsia (along with my ever present high blood pressure). She sent me straight to the hospital. They gave me awesome medication which made me super sick, although kept me alive! They also gave me a steroid shot to help Ella's lungs develop faster. After 48 hours (to almost the minute...the amount of time the steroid took to work fully) they took Ella via C-section. She was surprisingly big at 4 lbs 8oz (diabetes is good for making big babies 😉) and they rushed her to the NICU. She is an amazingly determined and strong girl and blitzed through the NICU in 2.5 weeks (the longest of my life!). But the steroid worked and she didn't ever need oxygen! I, on the other hand, was still quite sick. My body started shutting down due to delivering too early and went into something called hhelp syndrome. Obviously I made it through and am healthy now, but it was a close call for a minute there.

Erik was ready to be done having kids right that second, for obvious reasons, but it was a lot harder for me to come to the same conclusion. (Some might say I'm stubborn 😉). So after a few years we tried again, and again, and again. All ending in miscarriage. Looking back, I feel strongly that my life was being protected, and while too stubborn at first, came to the same conclusion as Erik. 

After much prayer and time at the temple I finally feel so much peace at the decision that we have come to to adopt, and think it was the right decision all along, I just needed some time to get there. 

We are So excited to adopt and find and raise our baby! 

We have already started the process, and have our first meeting with the adoption agency on Friday! We will continue to keep you posted! 

Thank you for all of your prayers and support! We really really appreciate it! 

(And for those of you who have asked, there is a link to our gofundme account on the blog under funding or click this link: https://www.gofundme.com/cbhnyxbw)  

Ali

Holy Cow! We are Adopting!

Hello Friends!
We are officially announcing that we have started the process for adopting a baby. We will have more information on this in the VERY Near future and we will post the entire process here.

We look forward to this journey this year and are happy you are following along with us.

-Erik, Ali, and Ella Gunn