Merry Christmas

We had an unexpected Christmas this year. Tuesday, Dec. 23rd Kenna decided to come down with the flu. So all of momma's excitement about "firsts" went to madness. Why did she have to get sick 2 days before Christmas! I had dreams of Christmas Eve pictures at Nana and Poppa's, reading the Christmas Story and then going to the Christmas Eve service in their prettiest dresses! Showing off my beautiful girls...I mean hearing the singing and remembering Jesus' birth and oh the candles - hoping no children burn the church down - especially not mine! Both are what I love I must admit:) And then Christmas morning - Kayla and Kenna all under the tree and then heading to Chattanooga to see the Walker family.

All that changed with one doctor saying its the flu! But we did have AN INCREDIBLE time! Christmas Eve Sean and Kayla were able to go celebrate with Nana and Poppa. They came home and we snuggled, played, made a fort in the living room (that momma let stay up much longer than I normally would)! Kayla put out the cookies and milk for Santa and off to bed the girls went. Kayla woke up so excited - she couldn't wait to see if Santa ate his cookies! Even before looking under the tree! Kenna looked much better today - she loved her new toys and especially loved waving at her nana and poppa who came by to see what the girls received. Staying on the porch of course - trying to avoid those flu germs:) Later that night, we took the girls to look at some Christmas lights and then when we got home we watched Home Alone! Kayla said it helped make things better, but she still missed going to Chattanooga! Then Kenna came down with a rash and found out on Sat. that she had Roseola - yuck! Finally on Monday, Dec. 29th we made it to TN. We are VERY blessed this year with our family and even though we were thrown a curve ball, we made the best of it and we have another Christmas full of cherrished memories!

Still Nothing!

Kenna is almost 10 months old now!! She is still our little peanut weiging in at just 15.6lbs. She and Kayla have the BEST relationship! They both light up whenever they see each other! Of course Kayla thinks she is her very own real "LIVE" baby doll! We have to be careful with her at times:)

From what we were told today, the 5th attorney will now be handling the termination of the fathers rights. Jay (attny # 3) has sent a draft to #5 for her to complete and then submit to the State Court in Globe, AZ. We hope to hear from #5 as to what the next steps are after that. From what we understand, it will be to get a date to finalize Kenna's adoption!

Thanks again for all of your prayers! Looking forward to the day when we can announce that she is OURS!!

Here's what we know

We had a conference call with Dianna this afternoon. So here's what we know:
1. Jay is close to getting the birth fathers rights terminated.
2. After this is done, Dianna will file a petition with Tribal Court. She says that typically she can get a date within a month, but she is missing some of the Tribes adoption law, so she's not certain if there are any time constrictions, prayerfully not.
3. She feels we will only have one final court date in which the 3 of us will have to fly out there. We will probably not take Kayla, but Kenna has to come!

Dianna knows the judge and he was a state court judge before moving to tribal court! He is also favorable for adoption!!! Yeah!!!

Longer than we hoped

The 5th attorney has finally agreed to represent us. We will have a conference call tomorrow afternoon in order to get more information and see if we want her to represent us.

We were told that our chances of finalizing before the years end is not likely! Jay feels the hardest part is over - but we still have to be realistic that Kenna could be taken away from us. We will be going back to Arizona for the final Tribal Court at some point!

We hope to have more information after tomorrow's conference call - this is when Sean and I will get a chance to see if we want to continue with Dianna or search for another. Please pray for our discernment as we seek to finalize Kenna's adoption ASAP.
Thanks for your prayers!

Attorneys...love them or hate them...

We are still waiting on this 5th attorney to be hired. She has had over 3 weeks to decide...from what we were told today, she is a bit under the weather?? So being sick is keeping her from making a decision???

We contacted our agency who is trying to get more information for us. Our questions right now are: why do we need to finalize in tribal court - could we do a state court since ICWA has been satisfied? do we have to go to tribal court, or can the attorney represent us without us going there? what are the chances that Kenna will be taken from us? She believes that the finalization is just a technicality, so we pray she is right. We are so ready to officially call Kenna ours!!

Right now our attorney fees have totaled over $20,000!!! Praise God that Sean and I choose to go with our agency's one time legal fee. Our agency is out quite a bit of money, but thankfully it's not us!!

Frustrated

Apparently being willing to represent us and actually representing us are 2 different things. Since it had been over a week since the 2 attorneys were meeting, we decided to email Jay to find out what was going on.

Ms. Montgomery told Jay last week she has to think it over and will get back to him. If she agrees, then we will need to have conference call to discuss the case, after which Sean and I will need to decide if we want her to be our attorney.

As always...thanks for your continued prayers!

More Info Coming Soon

Here is another email we received today from Jay:

I had a conf call earlier today with John Perlman and Dianna (sp?) Montgomery ,who is an attorney who is lic. to practice in the San Carlos Apache tribal court. Ms Montgomery stated she is willing to represent Sean and Katrina to finalize the adoption. Before she has a phone call with Sean and Katrina, she is going to review the legal memorandum I drafted on the ICWA and she and I will have a follow up phone call on Sept 19th or 22nd.

So sometime after the 22nd we will know what our next step is! Thanks again for your prayers!!

Rounding Second Base!

Here is an email from our ICWA attorney Jay McCarthy:
Great news the hearing in tribal court went well and Cynthia signed the ICWA consent…The Judge was unwilling to sign an order to terminate the alleged birth father’s parental rights, given that he does not live on the reservation . Thus I will file a motion in state court for this order. The next step is John Perlman and I visiting with an attorney to determine if she will represent Mr and Mrs Kelley for purposes of finalization

This is GREAT news for us! Our attorney feels that all should go well, but of course we can't assume anything. We will hopefully know more early next week as to what steps are next. More than likely we will be heading back to Phoenix to finalize Kenna's adoption!

But as Jay said tonight we are rounding second base! We're half way there!!!!

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU FOR YOUR CONTINUED PRAYERS AND SUPPORT!

AMAZED!!!

A HUGE thank you to everyone for your prayers and donations! We had over 20 family and friends donate to our sale and as you can see from the first picture our garage was PACKED! Our adoption fundraising has amounted to $2725!!!!! We have a few more possible sales in the works! Kayla and Bradon had a lemonade sale and I must say they were EXCELLENT sellers!! We enjoyed seeing how God worked this weekend. We were able to meet MANY people and share our journey with them. We also had the opportunity to tell them how GOD has blessed us and has guided us through this entire process! We met many who are now joining you as our prayer warriors and we are so greatful for you all!!!

JUST 4 DAYS UNTIL OUR COURT DATE!!! Scary and exciting!

6 MONTHS OLD

Kenna is continuing to be a healthy little peanut! She weighs 14 pounds and is 25 1/2 inches long! At the doctors office today I met a lady and her son was 14 pounds at just 8 1/2 weeks!!! He was a little chunk!

We are excited about our garage sale tomorrow and Sat. We may do it again in a couple of weeks since this is a holiday weekend. We are so thankful for everyones donations and prayers! We will update on Saturday how the sale went!
We are now just 6 days away from our court date!! Yeah!!!

About the Apache Tribe

During our time of wait, we have and always will, be praying for Cynthia. Kenna's birth mother. Last night I did more research on the San Carlos Apache Reservation. This is where Cynthia lives and if the Tribe denies Cynthias request for adoption, this is where Kenna will be taken to.

I had tears coming down my face learning about the living conditons of this reservation. The items I'm posting below come from the Chairman of the San Carlos Apache Tribe. It was written in April of 2007 as he was requesting more funding from the government to assist with No Child Left Behind.

Here are some of the living conditions on this reservation from his perspective:

As you know, our Indian children struggle due to the staggering poverty and unemployment on the Reservation. This poverty leaves no part of life untouched. Our children cannot do well in school if they have no home, insufficient food, few supplies, inadequate transportation, poor medical care, unsafe communities, or broken families. The situation only seems to get worse.

The total population is 13,299 members. While we have worked hard to develop our Reservation economy, 76% of our Reservation population is unemployed compared to the national unemployment rate of 4.4% and the state of Arizona rate of 3.9%. We suffer from a poverty level of 77%. The communities on the Reservation are rural and isolated. This creates many basic needs for our students because of the lack of housing, overcrowded housing, poor nutrition, lack of school supplies, lack of opportunities, and public safety risks due to violent crime, domestic abuse, drug use, and gang violence. For example, in 2004, 64 babies out of 256 were born to San Carlos Apache tribal members addicted to meth, and 24-25% of pregnant women at San Carlos tested positive for meth. In 2005, the number of babies born addicted to meth was even higher. About 50% of all newborns at San Carlos test positive for alcohol or drugs. In 2004, there were 101 suicide attempts on the Reservation. The age range was 15 to 54 years old with 50 individuals being females and 51 being males. Of the 101 suicide attempts, two resulted in death.

Thank you for praying for us and our adoption of precious Kenna. We would also like to request that you pray for Cynthia and the Apache Tribe.

COURT DATE SET!!!!!!

We are excited to announce that we have a court date!!! It's much later than we hoped, but its a date! It will be held on September 3rd at 11:ooam (2pm our time)!

My feelings through the process

I wanted to share a little here about my feelings as we struggled with our infertility and adoption. I have found that many people don’t really know how to talk to someone struggling with infertility. They think that they are helpful by saying such things as:“Oh, once you adopt…you’ll get pregnant” or my favorite “if you quit thinking about it and worrying, you’ll get pregnant”. Then others just have no idea what to say, so they say nothing at all. The worst for me was how people look at you when they find out you have been married for many years and have no kids. I can remember many times people asking why I didn’t have kids and did I just not want any. They had no idea that I had lost 2 babies and desperately wanted a child. I know that no one meant to hurt my feelings or be unkind, but infertility stings and those of us going through it feel helpless and alone!

After 6 years of marriage and lots of prayers we had the opportunity to adopt our first baby! Our process with Kayla was so simple! We found out about her Oct. 26th of 2001, and Kayla was in our arms on December 10, 2001! Her birth mother was out of touch for just 3 or 4 days, other than that Kayla’s adoption went very smoothly! I even had the privilege of being in the delivery room and saw her first little breath! The parental rights were terminated quickly and her adoption was finalized on May 31, 2002! We celebrate that date each year as her “Gotcha Day” the day she legally became Kayla Elizabeth Kelley!

When Kayla was just months old, I knew that I had a strong desire for another child. Sean and I prayed and both of us couldn’t shake the feeling that God had another child for us! Of course we knew that our infertility was going to make it difficult to conceive and at this time adoption agencies were so expensive that we knew we couldn’t take that route. We decided to look into some inexpensive fertility treatments and in March of 2007 I was pregnant! I miscarried VERY early. It still was hard. Every where I turned family or friends were having babies. And though I could not be happier for each of them, my heart ached to hold one of my own. I truly love each one of my friends babies and my nieces and nephews! I enjoy holding them and playing with them and babysitting them!!! I found comfort in Kayla, but the feelings of emptiness continued to grow!

Infertility also takes a toll on marriages. Sean and I have met couples going through similar situations and some of them ended in divorce. We have had our trials, as all marriages do! I am so thankful that each of us made a covenant before God that nothing would separate us! We have been tested and it has been tough, but our God is stronger than anything and doesn’t give us anything we can not handle!

So for 5 years we prayed, searched, cried, laughed and struggled… I so wanted to have a baby. I wanted to see what a Walker (my maiden name) and a Kelley would look like. I wanted to feel my baby growing. I wanted…I wanted…I wanted… Then I realized how many times I said I wanted! Not only did I struggle with the I wants, but I also struggled with the why’s. Why not us? Why has God allowed us to go through this? He knows how much I love children. What is wrong with me. What have I done wrong to deserve this. Again it was all about ME! Was Kayla any less mine? ABSOLUTELY NOT! Could I love her any more if I gave birth to her? ABSOLUTEL NOT! Am I any less her mother? ABSOLUTELY NOT!!

I can’t really say that there was one magic moment that brought me to a peace, because I had to go through a process of acceptance. For me it took 5 years, but I am grateful for the lessons I was taught. So in the summer of 2007, Sean and I again tried fertility treatments. Month after month passed and my body was not cooperating. We were a little disappointed, but not devastated! We also started looking into adoption agencies again. Through a google search on Christian Adoptions (which I had done numerous times before), a new agency came up. To my surprise this one was located in Canton, Georgia! What did we have to loose? Right? So, Sean and I met with Amy and Erin in late November of 2007. The peace we had leaving their office was astonishing!!! Words can not describe the excitement that we both had! We spent another month praying and in January we began and completed our home study. We also found out in January that we would be able to proceed with the fertility treatment. So in mid January we had an IUI done and would find out if it took on Feb. 20th. We put a hold on the adoption process for 6 weeks to wait on our results. With the consulting agency (Christian adoption consultants) you work with multiple agencies. There was one agency we did not call to place a hold on and to our surprise they contacted us on Feb. 15th about a baby to be born in Arizona. I quickly called my doctor to see if we could find out if I was pregnant and they said not this late in the day. So we had to decide what to do, the agency needed an answer quickly because the baby was due on Feb. 22nd. Just minutes later, the nurse called me and said if you can make it up to the office within 30 minutes, we can get you in to the hospital for a blood test! We were going to be able to find out if the IUI worked after all! It’s hard for me to describe my feelings as I drove to the hospital. I remember telling my sister that I think its negative because I have this strong connection with this baby in Arizona. WHAT was I saying???? I longed to have a baby in my stomach, but now I was at peace with it not working. It was bittersweet for me because I also new this was our last chance of trying to have a baby. When the nurse came to give me the results I was fine. They were negative. But instead of 9 months, we were possibly going to have a baby in 1 week!!!

And one week later on Feb. 22nd at 2:13am, Kenna Grace was born! (you can look back at our posts in Feb. to see the process of getting Kenna)

What a blessing children are! I sit back and look at how Kayla has grown these 6 ½ years. She is such a young lady! To see her heart molding and becoming a child of God is so awesome! The other day she was figuring out that not only are Sean and I her parents, but we are also brothers and sisters in Christ! She came up with this on her own! Her thought process went something like this… mommy, since God is our Father that means you’re my big sister, right?! WOW! I love the simplicity of children! I am convinced that I am learning more from my 6 year old about my own relationship with Christ than I ever imagined!

And then I hold sweet Kenna in my arms. What will her heart be like? When will she accept Jesus as her personal Lord and Savior. We have truly been blessed by the most BEAUTIFUL girls ever!

If God had given me what I wanted…. Kayla and Kenna would not be a part of the Kelley family. None of us can imagine life without either one of them! God knows what we need, He alone sees the BIG picture. All He wants is for us to TRUST HIM. Even when we don’t understand why!

Thank you for reading this long note! When you think of us, please continue to pray for Kenna’s adoption to be finalized quickly. She has a chance in our home to meet Jesus, to be in a home with a mom, dad and big sister who love her so much, to grow up with wonderful grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and friends!

We honestly love each one of you and thank you so much for all that you have done for us!

Love,
Katrina

Support Update!

Thank you for all the love and support you all have shown us. We have had several people already calling to donate to the garage sale.

We have had requests to know how much we have raised/ how much we need, so we have decided to put a graphic on the left side that will fill up as we raise money. For example after the garage sale, tax credit, etc we will update the graphic with more pink.

We are looking forward to seeing how God works! Thank you all again.

Colosians 1:3 We give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you.

Help support Kenna's adoption!

Psalm 127:3 - Behold, children are a gift of the LORD

God has indeed given us a gift and a very special one she is. We are doing as many things as we can to raise money. If you would like to help us out there are several ways to do so.

• You can donate items for us to sell in our adoption garage sale coming in late August. We will also be posting some things on here and craigslist that are too nice for a garage sale.
• If you need some graphic design or computer repair work done Sean does both.
• Lastly if you feel God leading you to donate money any amount will help. Click the donate link to the left.
  
  Thank you for your support and love.
  Love,
  Sean, Katrina, Kayla and Kenna

Our little girl prefers her thumb! For those of you who know Sean and I well, you know we tried HARD to get her not to be a finger or thumb sucker!! Oh well...it sure is cute though:)

ENJOY SOME PICTURES OF OUR SUMMER!

Still Waiting

Just a quick message to let everyone know that the court date has still not happened! Sean called our Georgia attorney and she hasn't heard about a date yet either! Thanks for your continued prayers!

4 Months

Kenna at 3 months - We went with the Kelley family to Debordieu Beach! What fun we had getting to spend time with everyone! Here's our girls with their cousins! Thomas, Cooper, Andrew, Hanson and Leila!

I love this picture of the girls! Kayla was having fun playing with Kenna in the front yard, and I caught her giving her little sis a kiss!

Kenna now weighs 11 pounds 14 ounces!

Possible Court Date

We heard tonight that our Arizona attorneys are hopeful that we will have a court date before the end of this month! Please continue to pray for Kenna's adoption! This is both exciting and scary, a complete stranger can decide to keep our precious little girl. We know God is in control, but we are also human!!

3 Months Old

Kenna is a healthy 10.2 pounds! She is still our little peanut! She is sleeping through the night giving us between 10 - 12 hours! Wow! We didn't realize how much you can miss sleep!!

We have a little bit of new information. We just found out that once the Tribe rules, prayerfully in our favor, then the adoption can be final! The Tribe has the ability to finalize an adoption without going through the regular state courts! Please pray that our Judge will rule in Cynthia's favor (granting her petition to place her baby up for adoption.) It's hard to believe that once we have this court date, she could forever be ours!!

Daddy's first dance!

One Step Closer

A fourth attorney has been approved! Since the Apache Court will not call our ICWA lawyer back, he found a way around it and got a friend of a friend to co-council with him so he can get in.

Last week we were not sure the agency was going to approve this fourth attorney because the expenses are piling up. That is one way God was good to us in this. We had the choice to pay for lawyers ourselves and not pay the agency flat rate. We are so glad we payed their rate because the fees have far exceeded what we payed at this point. God is so good!

We are now waiting to hear when the Apache court date will be. Hopefully we will know this week! Check back for further updates and new pictures!

Two Month Check Up

(2 month check-up 4-22-08)

Kenna weighs 8 pounds 8 ounces & is 21 3/4 inches long! She is still our little peanut! She is not quite sleeping through the night, but she is giving us 6 hours straight most nights now. The doctor said she needs to be eating more than she is, so hopefully we can get her to eat more and sleep longer. She is a great little sleeper, but mommy and daddy are still tired all the time.

Kenna also has a great big sissy. Kayla loves having a sister. Her favorite part is to pick her up as you see from the picture. This was taken on Sat. April 19th. in our driveway. We were going to the Big Shanty Festival in Kennesaw!

Kenna's room...this only took us 5 days to complete! We still have a little bit to add, like pictures on the not polka-dotted wall. On the dot wall, we are going to paint Kenna's name in the pink stripe. We really love how it turned out!!

No News Yet

Kenna is a healthy 8 week old and is smiling and cooing all of the time! We are having so much fun having 2 little girls! Kayla is still an amazing big "sissy"! She loves to hold her and kiss on her!

As far as our ICWA case goes...we are still waiting. Our attorney has found another attorney that is able to present a case in the San Carlos Apache Court. So now we are just waiting to hear when the case can be heard.

We will post some pictures this week so you can see how much she has grown. She has her 2 month check up on Tuesday and I can't wait to see how much weight she has gained! but I'm not looking forward to her getting her shots!

Complicated Explained

OK, so we had our conference call with the lawyers and got the explanation we needed (notice I did not say wanted). We did not get terrible news, we basically got an explanation of what the different options are in the ICWA hearing. As with any adoption there is a risk.

The case is complicated because Cynthia (birth mom) is a N. Cheyenne member but lives on an Apache reservation. The Cheyenne historically are hard to deal with concerning adoption, they want to keep their babies in the tribe. Apache's are historically easy to work with. The lawyer is working on getting the case heard in the Apache court and not involve the Cheyenne. The birth mom is on our side, and hopefully that will matter a lot to the court. We know Kenna is going to end up wherever she needs to be, we just keep praying that is with us.

If you read the March 18 post you will notice that some of it does not make sense. Katrina entered this one while on medicine for strep throat, flu and nausea. It made her say and see strange things.

Complicated Case?

Well we got a voice mail today from our GA attny that said she spent and hour and a half on the phone with the ICWA attny and that we need to have a conference call on Tues to explain to us what is going on. She said our case is a very complicated case but failed to tell us if that is bad or just more paper. Please keep on praying for Kenna and of course the rest of us. We are definitely trusting God, but can't help but to feel a little nervous. Obviously no case is too complicated for Him!

Another Wait!

We called our ICWA attorney today to see if he would email us the results or call us since the timing was so later for us.(10pm our time) The paralegal said that the social worker and cynthia were not able to get their plans together (what that means??? I really don't know)

Peace through the storms
Jay McAurthory is our attorney and he will contact us once we get another court date! He has already requested one. We don't know any other information other that.
Handling Peer Pressure
Now one additional info from a nurse i over heard - (we were in a small location) She wanted to have Cynthia's child. A healthy girl is born and everyone wants him/her. But if Kenna has the smallest amont of problems, we wouldn't love her any less. These girls are our precious gifts from God.

One Hurdle Cleared!

OK, we made it past the birth mom hurdle! It was actually past Fri night @ midnight, but we were in Chattanooga without a good connection. Anyway, one step closer! We truly believe we have nothing to worry about, but please keep praying. We definitely feel your prayers and cherish each and every one of them.

Stay tuned for updates and check back next Tuesday to hear how the ICWA court date went.

Tick Tock, Tick Tock

That is the sound of the 10 days ticking away. We do have a peace that all will be well, but this 10 days is always a little tense.

We got the official word from the lawyer today that the 10 days will be over Friday @ midnight. To add a little more good news, if the birth mom wants Kenna back she has to do a little work. She either has to show up in person here in GA or she has to get the paperwork filled out and overnighted to the lawyer. The lawyer said it would have to be postmarked by tomorrow.

Thanks for your prayers, keep em coming. little Kenna, I mean tiny Kenna says she likes it here in GA. Specifically all the green trees and grass, sure beats the desert.

Specific prayer concerns:

1. 10 days over tomorrow at midnight
2. ICWA hearing, March 17th at 6pm our time.
3. Birth father's rights will be terminated at some point. Will also update this one when we get final word. The lawyer did say it will be over a month. For Kayla it was almost 2 months. This happens when the birth father cannot be found.
   

All is still going good!

We are adjusting well to our family of 4. What a complete feeling we have! Kayla is doing such a great job being a big sissy! We have just 3 days to go until GA's 10 days are up! We are still waiting to find out about the ICWA court date. Kenna went to the doctor today and is now
5 pounds 9 ounces!! We went because she is spitting up a lot and I didn't want her to loose weight, apparently she's gaining just fine! She goes on Thursday for her 2 week checkup! She is just a perfect little girl!

Our Trip Home

We wanted to give you guys a little more info about our trip home. On Thursday as we were trying to figure out if we could leave AZ or not (found out we couldn't). Christi called Katrina and wanted to visit us in our apartment and meet Kenna since she had not had the chance yet. Christi and her husband Matt came over that night and visited for about 2 hrs in which Kayla had a great time showing off and being silly.








This is Matt, Christi and our girls.

This is the church and apt we stayed at:

Friday morning when we got the clearance to go we headed for Cali to see the CA Kelley's:

Before we got to Cali we made a stop on the highway. Kayla had wanted to get up close and personal with a cactus all week and she finally got her chance...were still getting needles out of her!

Fun at the CA Kelley's:

Another one of the blessings God had for us! Greg and Rayna let us stay at their house Fri night because with having 25...I mean 5 kids there is not a lot of extra room at the CA Kelley's.

Coming Home!

No update earlier today because we were traveling to Ca. Finally got a chance to update via my awesome Palm Centro. Anyway, we got great news while traveling! GA icpc went thru in record time making us all clear to bring Kenna home! Still need prayer for birthmom not to change mind and ICWA to go through. We trust God Kenna is ours, so we are coming home on faith.

We will be back in GA Sat evening! Can't wait to see you all later.

Good News!

Arizona's icpc went thru!! Yippee!! Our packet should get to GA on Friday (please pray it does). Our agency in GA is contacting the icpc office in the morning so they can be on the lookout for it. If they get the packet tomorrow, there is a good chance it will be approved tomorrow and all 4 of us get to come home on Saturday! No going to Chattanooga!!! (sorry mom, dad and aunt krissy) We still will have the 10 days which will be over next Thursday at midnight! So it's still a risk us coming home, but we will be legal to be in our home state!

Thanks again for all your prayers we can't wait to tell you all in person all the blessings God has shown us during this past week. We have been blessed to meet some incredible people and I hope we get the chance to come visit here again! Bethany Bible Church made us feel right at home. EVERY person we met has such a heart for God and words just cannot express the gratefullness we have for each one of them! We've said this before, but thanks again Kenn! WOW! how awesome is our God!!

Prayer Request and Good Doctors Visit!

We have a specific prayer request. Arizona's icpc did go through this afternoon. Cynthia still has until next Thursday at midnight (March 6th) to change her mind according to Georgia's consents. We can take a risk and come home all together, but if she changes her mind, we would have to bring Kenna back. We feel strong that her mind is made up, but it is a risk. We ask for peace and wisdom in knowing if Katrina and Kenna should stay in AZ or CA or go on to Chattanooga until Georgia's icpc goes through. We all are ready to come home!

Kenna's doctor apptmt. went very good. She is small for her age, but is healthy. She is 5 pounds 2 oz. and is 18 3/4 inches long!! Our little peanut! We have our clearance letter from the doctor for her to travel home. Our court day with ICWA (indian child welfare act) will be sometime within the next 2 weeks. We do not have to be here for that, our attorney takes care of this and will take Cynthia with him to court. Our GA attorney feels everything looks good for ICWA.

After Kenna's doctors visit, we went to CamelBack Mountain. We didn't hike too much with a 6 day old, but it still was a pretty (Arizona) view!!

Thats not water on my shirt!

Great Day as a family of 4!

Today was super!! We were able to get into the apartment at Bethany Bible Church! What a blessing! We have a kitchen and can make Kayla her much needed Kraft Macaroni and Cheese!!! We went to church tonight and met a lot of people. Kayla went to class and played with Steve Woods daugther, Samantha. She had so much fun, she didn't want to leave!! We are so grateful that Steve and Theresa took the time to introduce Kayla to their daughter as Kayla doesn't transition to new environments very well. Sean and I and Kenna went to the young marrieds small group to meet the people here who have been praying for us! This is an awesome church!!! God is so GOOD!! We did find out an interesting fact about the house we are staying in...It was Alice Coopers childhood home! How bazaar!!

One thing we failed to mention yesterday was that Cynthia's brother gave Kenna a backpack full of booties, blankets, and onesies. We are so appreciative of his generosity and Kenna will know how much her birth family loves her!

Kenna goes to the doctor tomorrow at 10:45am, I am wondering how much she weighs now...she is just so tiny!! We'll let everyone know how she is!

Our First Night

Well Kayla wanted to be the first to hold baby Kenna, but mommy wasn't having that! So we compromised with Kayla being the first to feed her!! Kayla has been a GREAT big sister! Kenna had a great first night. Sean and Kayla slept thru the first feeding at midnight. We all woke up at 4am, but daddy fed, so Kayla and I went back to sleep. Kenna woke up again at 6:45 and has been awake until now (10am) She is very alert and eats well. She's only been fussy when she is hungry, sleepy or has needed a diaper change. We have been blessed again by Kenn's contacts here in Phoenix. Their church has a studio aptmnt that they use when missionaries are in town. They are letting us stay there for only $10 per night! We are amazed at how God is taking care of every detail in ways only HE can! Thanks for being a part of our journey...we look forward to when Kenna is "officially" ours! Love to you all!!

Our Next Steps

So we have our beautiful little girl and so our next step is to wait some more!! All of the appropriate papers have been signed, so we are hoping that Arizona's icpc goes through on Thursday or Friday. Sean and Kayla will be coming home on Sat. Katrina and Kenna might be. It depends on AZ icpc. Once we have approval from AZ, we can leave the state and go anywhere except GA. Crazy huh? So if Katrina and Kenna come home, they will immediately go to Chattanooga to stay with Katrina's parents until Georgias icpc gets approved!

Thanks for your prayers, notes of encouragement! We can't wait to introduce her to all her family and friends!! We love you all!!

Kenna's in the house!

She is ours...i.e. the 10 days has started! It is soooooo amazing that she is here! Here are some pictures of baby Kenna! Let the sleepless nights begin. This has been such a rollercoaster of a ride, so emotional and so wonderful at the same time. Please enjoy with us and keep praying for us! We love you all.

Not Again

I just posted a few minutes ago and we get more bad news. Cynthia may not be discharged until tomorrow. This just can't be happening. I'm ready to come home......

Another call, another concern.

Our agency just called us with more news. Apparently after a request was sent to the Northern Cheyenne tribe, an Aunt who works for the tribe called this morning saying she wants the baby. (this is Cynthia's fathers sister). Cynthia does not want this woman to have her child. She has not seen or spoken to her for over 8 years. We were assured that this is a non-issue, but they wanted us to know. Yes, I'm concerned even though they told me not to be. They told us that family members have no right in a voluntary placement.

Once consents are signed this afternoon, she will still have 10 more days in order to change her mind. We can proceed with icpc (legals to get us back to Georgia) during this time, but it looks as if Katrina will be in AZ for much longer than we anticipated. We don't even think she will be able to go to CA as we once thought.

Thanks again for your prayers...we can definiately feel them!!

Still Waiting

Just got off the phone with the attorney's office and we have a little more time to wait! (again we had to call them) Cynthia's parents are not coming with her i.d. until sometime later this afternoon. (it's only 10am here) We just want to scream!!!!!

Just how good God is:
In Kayla's devotion last night here was the verse we studied: "For the Lord your God is testing you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul." Deut. 13:3. We have been praying through all of this that God would be glorified and that we would honor Him even through all of these obstacles. What comfort to know that God brings these tests in order to know our true hearts.

Thanks

Stephanie sent me an email that I just was able to view. For any interested its worth watching http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yX_7j32zgNw There were two things that stood out to me the most
No barriers can hinder Him from pouring out His blessing

He's the only one stable to supply all of our needs simultaneously

Thanks for all of your emails of encouragement, they always seem to come EXACTLY when we need them!! And with modern technology, we can read them on our phones as soon as they come!!!

Another Blow

Sean was going to write about how this is the big day, but one phone call can change everything. I feel if it wasn't for bad news, we would have no news to report....so here's our latest obstacle:

Sean just got off the phone with our attorneys office who says that Cynthia can't sign today because she has no i.d. on her. Her parents are coming to pick her up tomorrow, so now we just sit and wait some more. We have had to make all of the phone calls to try to figure out what is going on, you would think the attny would've called us with this news as soon as she new right?

Yesterday's church service with John MacArthur encouraged us knowing that satan is not allowed to do anything without God knowing. In essence he serves God. It is comforting knowing that God is in COMPLETE control...yes we are aggravated with this whole attny stuff, but our God is bigger than them!!

Another 2 Obstacles

We decided to travel 4 1/2 hours to California today for our niece's 3rd birthday party...on our way here, our Georgia attorney called with bad news for us. Not only did we arrive in Arizona too early, but Georgia does not accept Arizona's consent for terminating a birth families rights, so we have to go with Georgia's law as well as Arizona's. Something our "wonderful" agency should have known don't ya think? What this means is that we now have to wait 10 more days once she signs on Monday morning b/4 Kenna will be closer to ours. So Katrina will be staying much longer than we anticipated.

Our 2nd blow was that Cynthia is a registered tribe member. This was such a blow because this can be a big hangup and we were told by our "wonderful" agency that she was not a tribe member, making the process much easier. This means that we have to hire another attorney who specializes in ICWA laws (Indian child welfare act), luckily our many fees cover this extra attorney. There are a few more papers to sign and another court hearing to satisfy ICWA. Our attny did say that this was not a difficult thing and he feels that the tribe has no rights since she is relinquishing her rights voluntarily.

We are on such a roller coaster ride, we get hit daily with bad news and then God blesses, turns it around and uses it to bless us! He is so much bigger than all of this and we are seeing Him work in only ways He can! We will list a few of these to end this post on a good note.

So we got out here 3 days early, which was going to make us spend a lot more in hotel costs, rental car costs, possibly airline costs. We lost the chance to get the babies room ready, we would have known it was a girl, etc... Well, I know your wondering the blessing in this, here is where Kenn comes in. He knows some wonderful people in Phoenix (Steve and Theresa) that opened their office to us as a base of operations (Internet connection, couch, drinks, and a TV for Kayla) as soon as we got into town. This image is what we saw when we arrived at the office. Steve was out of town but his wonderful assistant Kristy helped us find a place to stay as well as printed us off directions to every place in town we might need. Kristy also let some friends know of our situation and instead of having to spend more money for a room Brian and Angela offered their extra room to us for the night! Kayla even had a room of her own!! We can't put into words the feelings of appreciation we have for this group of people...they still want to help us out when we return to Phoenix on Sunday evening!!

Katrina was about to run out of minutes on her cell phone and she called Sprint to buy more and they gave her 300 extra bonus minutes!!!

Our wonderful family (that we drove to see) had a home cooked meal for us and another place to stay tonight!! Family is so wonderful to be with during hard times!!! Kayla really needed this time to run around with her cousins (they have 5 kids) and be a kid!!

So, 2 nights out of town and no hotel rooms!! In the morning we are going to John MacArthur's church, so we know we have an awesome place to worship!

So, we are waiting to see how God handles this next challenge. Please pray specifically about the extra 10 days we have to wait now. If we feel comfortable enough with Cynthia's steadfastness in her decision we may all 4 come home next Sat. We love you all and are glad to be able to share with you what God is doing in our lives.

New News

Well we just talked to the lawyer again and found out that this is standard Arizona procedure. They don't have adoptive family's here until the 3 days is over. She has let our agency know that for future reference, but for us were just stuck here.

We are planning to do some sight seeing and hanging out with some people out here that Kenn got us in touch with - thanks Kenn. Sorry we don't have any good updates at this point. We will get good news posted as soon as we get it.

Thanks for all your prayers.

IT'S A.......

GIRL!!! Kenna Grace was born on 2/22/08 at 2:13am she weighs in at a big 5 pounds 1 ounce!!

Now is the frustrating part. We are here in Phoenix and have been for over 5 hours, yet we haven't been able to see our baby. There is all this lawyer stuff that we didn't have to go through with Kayla. This is where we need some major God intervention. Our fingerprints that we did on Dec. 28th are somehow lost in cyberland. In order for the adoption to proceed, they must have our prints back with a no records found result. Although we know we do not have any outstanding warrants, the states need to have this paper.

We hope to get into a hotel soon and get some much needed rest! Sean and I have only had 2 hours of sleep! Hopefully we will get to see Kenna soon and update with some pictures!

Leaving for Arizona

We got "the call" at 5:35pm (feb 21) to say our baby was on the way! Kayla jumped up on her bed screaming!! She is VERY excited and has said this is going to be her best vacation ever! (even better than our Disney trip in December!) At 7pm Cynthia, the birth mother, was induced. It is now 1:28am and we haven't heard if our baby has arrived yet!

We will fly out of Atlanta at 7:40am on the 22nd and be out West for at least 1 week. Katrina may have to stay longer due to interstate compact laws, but hopefully not. We spent the better part of this evening running around getting background checks and going to the Cherokee County Jail at 10:20pm due to a mix up with our fingerprints. We are tired, yet very excited!

Keep us in your prayers...Cynthia will not be able to sign consent for 72 hours after birth and we are not certain where our baby will be during this time.

We hope to be able to update this blog often and let everyone know what is going on!

Here we go!

We have big news this month. Our wait seems to be over! We got the call last Friday that there is a baby due this coming Friday, Feb 22 in AZ. The reason I say "seems to be over" is because the birth mom has to wait 3 days before she can sign the papers during which she could change her mind. From all that she has said in her reasoning of placing her baby up for adoption it does not seem likely that she would change her mind, but it is always a possibility. Our next step is waiting for the phone call saying the baby has arrived! We will then catch the next flight out to Phoenix! Please keep praying for this adoption and stay tuned for updates.

Our Journey Begins

God is leading us down an amazing road! Our daughter Kayla is adopted and has been the biggest joy in our lives ever since. Now 6 years later God is leading us down the adoption road again.

We got started down this road again because we were contacted about a girl in FL that is 13 months old that mom has decided she can’t handle anymore. So after a whirlwind few days of getting a profile together and all the paperwork together we are waiting to find out if she is going to be ours. The mom will get up to 5 profiles of families that are interested. At this point this adoption is on hold so we are already looking at other agencies.

We know many of you have been praying for us as we have been searching for how God was going to add to our family and want to thank you. If this girl in FL is not meant for our family we will be pursuing other adoptions. The consulting agency we are with averages 6-10 months per adoption, so either way it should not be too long.