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.