::Patience is the Art of Hoping::

Here's some new updates regarding our adoption process:

1.  Our home study is FINALLY notarized and ready for us to apply some adoption grants! (The hold up was our DC clearances.... if only we didn't live all in so many different states, this process would have gone by quicker!)

2. One of the two boys that we earlier mentioned turned out to be not a good fit for us. They discovered that he wasn't deaf, just non-responsive due to some severe neurological issue. We are still waiting on the first boy with PFO (condition where a hole in his heart has not closed) to receive his file, but there are other families who may be interested in him as well... we simply cannot have high hopes for this one. 

3. Our agency just found a little girl who is deaf-- but we received inadequate information on her. All we know is that she has GDD (global development delay) and was severely malnourished, too.  She is two years old. We will get her file within a week to see if she is a good fit for our family.

4. We received a surprising anonymous donation from Network for Good (some kind of online fundraiser) towards our adoption! Thank you to those who generously donated!! <3 

5. We also want to sincerely give thanks to Adobe for their donation (with awesome help from Uncle Larry!) It is exciting to see our adoption funds grow towards helping us bring our child(ren) home!

6. We will have two upcoming fundraisers later in the spring: Noonday Collection (gorgeous handmade items!) and another tee-shirt drive (custom designed by Jennifer Cavalcanti). We will keep you posted. The Noonday Collection fundraiser will start in late April. 

7. Our puzzle fundraiser's current status: 188 pieces out of 500! :) We love how this is assembled together with everyone else who donated as a part of our adoption story! You can contribute by donating $10 per piece via AdoptTogether.org/AdoptingASipek.

188 out of 500!

Over our recent spring break, we decided to start transforming our current guestroom to our future child(ren)'s room. We added some floating shelves to display some art/donations on the wall and also bought a floating picture frame for our fundraising puzzle once it is filled! The room is slowly coming in together. We painted one accent wall a "chilly mint" and it turned out looking great! There are a few more things that need to be done for the room. We plan to keep the room as gender neutral as possible. This is such a fun project for us!

A work in progress!

We will continue to keep you updated with our adoption progress. It definitely has been a long ride for us. Patience is hard. Sometimes, no matter how much you want things to happen, all you can do is wait. And usually, waiting is the hardest part. It's so true.

Off we go to apply some adoption grants!  If you know of anyone who has applied for adoption grants or has some advice/direction for us, we would love to hear from you!

Oxox,

Brian & Brooke