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