I Spoke with Janie Tonight!

Yay!  I finally got to speak with Janie, our birthmom, tonight!  The agency director got her phone number to give to me so that we could start talking more regularly.  It was a great conversation that gave me a lot more clarity about her life and this child.  We are really excited!  She also told me that she gave birth at 37 weeks with the rest of her boys and so she felt that she would probably give birth at 37 weeks again.  She said that all 3 boys were healthy weights when born even though they came so early.  At 37 weeks, it would put her at the beginning of December, which would be so great for us!  Maybe we would be home by Christmas then!  We will see.  

The other piece of news is that we are getting our counter-offer from the couple interested in our house tomorrow morning.  We pray that it is an offer we can accept!  We also found a couple of houses this weekend that we are very interested in, should we get a contract.  Keep praying for us!  

Lots of excitement at the Scholen household!  

Need a Covering

We need prayer. Most of you know we want to sell our home and move into a better situation that would allow our family to grow and provide for an opportunity for Tracey to stay home with the kids. We did receive a contract on Wednesday and we countered yesterday. We are not desperate by any means; just want to get the best value out the house. I believe it is priced with a discount in mind with the current market, but you know, everyone always wants more including this buyer. I just got off the phone with the buyer's agent and the buyers seem stressed out. They plan on coming by Sunday to see the house again and maybe talk about the details. Please keep us in your prayers as we negotiate some sort of win-win. -Jeff

We Got an Offer!

Yesterday the realtor working with our interested couple emailed asking us if we could show the house to her couple and their parents this weekend.  She was going to be out of town.  We said sure thing and thought, "OK.  Well, I guess we won't be getting an offer until at least after the weekend."  Well, this morning an offer was waiting in Jeff's inbox!!  We are thrilled!  We THINK we can work with this couple, so keep praying that the negotiations go smoothly.  They want to move in November 15th!  

Thanks team!

Our Profile

Hi everyone,

I know that showing you our family profile now is a little out of order since we have now been matched.  However, the consultant who did the design did such a great job, I had to show it off and finally figured out a way to put a couple of pages on the blog!

On another note, Jeff and I secured a toll-free number last night so that Janey can call us a couple of times a week.  We can't wait to talk with her again!  We have also been looking into flights to Utah and hotels/condos to stay in while in Salt Lake City.  If you know of any great places, we would love to hear about them!  We will need to be there for a couple of weeks and would love to keep it economical.  With adoption costs so crazy, anything we can do to save money would be helpful!  

One last thing I almost forgot!  We have a couple who will potentially be placing an offer on our house!  They have the seller's disclosure list and are reviewing it now.  Please pray that we will receive an offer and be able to negotiate a contract with them.  It would be SO great to move before the baby comes!

That's it for now!  Thanks for all of your support and prayers.

We are officially 6 months pregnant!

Hey everyone,

So sorry to keep everyone in suspense about how things went on Friday night.  Jeff and I were actually up in Virginia celebrating our anniversary (Oct 2nd) and his birthday (Oct 3rd!) with my parents, my aunt, and cousin.  We were out to dinner at one of my parents' favorite restaurants in Charlottesville, Virginia when we were scheduled to speak with Janey, the birthmom.  We had to leave the restaurant to go out to the car to have the conversation!  A little chaotic, but worth the effort!  

It was a good conversation.  A social worker mediated the conversation and we told her a little about ourselves and then she told us a little about herself and then after about 20 minutes it was over!  After talking with her, I found that I had a bazillion other things that I really wanted to ask her, but I know that I will have plenty of time to ask her more over the next 3 months.  We will get the chance to talk about 2 times a week until she delivers. 

Jeff and I went back to the table after the conversation to wait for Jane, the agency director, to call and let us know if Janey liked us, etc...  And after about 1/2 hour, we got the text above!  We had a big celebration and Jeff videotaped our first message to our unborn child at the dinner table letting him or her know that we were matched!  Very exciting!!

The next day, Saturday, we had a bit of a hiccup with the process (we will spare you and us all of those details) and weren't sure if we were going to continue to move forward.  It was an upsetting day to say the least.  Another reason why we hadn't updated our blog sooner.  But after getting a lot of really good counsel from my parents and friends, Jeff and I felt unified in moving forward last night.  So, it is official!!

The other good news is that last night we found out that Janey will actually be induced on December 15th!  This agency tries to make it as easy as possible on both the birthmom and adoptive family and so they induce at 38 weeks so that everyone can plan and feel a little more in control of the situation.  We think in this case, we will probably be stuck in Utah for Christmas as it takes some time to push all of the paperwork through the system and to get a clearance to bring the child home.  But, you never know!  We may get home in time for Christmas, which would be so great with a new child in hand!!

Keep praying for us.  Specifically for:

1)  Our baby that Janey is so lovingly carrying for us and placing with us to raise as our own

2)  As we finalize the contract with the agency that all will go smoothly

3)  God to give us comfort in our fears that this adoption will fall through somehow

We've only got 10 weeks to go!!! 

We should be "officially" matched tonight!

Hey Everyone,

Thanks so much for praying for us!!  I believe we have a birthmom!  I can't tell all of the details only because I don't have the time at the moment, but I promise to fill in all the gaps tonight after we talk with Janey, our birthmom!  Yay!  Jeff and I are going to be on a conference call with her at 7pm tonight.  I can tell you that she is from Kentucky and that she is due December 31st!  Happy New Year!!  We don't know the gender and won't know until she gets a sonogram 3 weeks before she gives birth, but she is getting regular prenatal care.  

Ok.  That's it for now, but promise to tell you all everything once we talk with her.  

love you all!!

We may have a match VERY soon!!!

I think we will be matched in the next couple of days!!! I got a call from another person we are networking with to find adoption opportunities and she tells me that she called her agency to see if they got our packet and family profiles. She left a message with the agency director in the morning but thought that the director probably wouldn't get our stuff until Thursday because that was when the UPS man said it would be there. Well, she then got a phone call from the director at 6pm tonight and she said the director told her, "OH MY GOODNESS! I LOVE YOUR NEW FAMILY!" (meaning us! : ) "And I have the PERFECT birthmother for them!" The birthmom wanted a couple to place her child with who didn't have any children yet and who put God at the center of their lives. I think we literally may have put something to that effect in our family profile! Crazy! The birthmom is due in January. So, basically, with this agency the director sorta "matches" families together and then tells each party about the other and then if each are in agreement, we set up a conference call and the match is made! From what it sounds like, the birthmom already wants to set up the call and we just need to talk with the director to get all of the specifics on the situation and then set up the time to talk with the birthmom! And then voila! The match is made! We hear that the birthmom is a great birthmom - no drugs, etc... and is very committed to the adoption plan. So, we think it will be good! We don't know the gender yet - we think it is unknown, but the director will let us know tomorrow.

Oh yeah! And on another note a realtor emailed Jeff today and told him that her clients who just recently saw the house are leaning on putting an offer on the house! They just wanted to see a recent seller's disclosure form. Double good news today!!

Please be praying for us!! We will be SO excited to finally be matched and have a birth mom to talk with and get to know over the next couple of months while preparing. We love you all!