She is OURS!

This past Friday, April 16th was a very exciting day for us. Below I have copy/pasted the notes I was putting on Facebook to keep our family and friends updated on the events of the day. We have had a wonderful weekend celebrating answered to prayers - Grace will be apart of our family soon!

Hannah Grace Adoption Update #1

For all Hannah Grace prayer warriors and supports, as many of you know we are waiting for my fingerprint results to come in from the FBI, it is the last piece of the puzzle for our homestudy to adopt Grace. Tomorrow is the BIG court day! I was told by my caseworker they have no reason to believe that tomorrow will not go smooth and Grace can officially become an Evje! :) Please remember Grace's birthmother in your prayers. She will be in court tomorrow and I can not imagine how difficult tomorrow will be for her.

Today I got the phone number to FBI and called. I got to the correct dept and explained our situation that the only thing that really keeping us from our daughter is my fingerprint results. The nice lady on the line starts to give me the run around. I break down and tears and she asks me all the details of the envelope I sent, the tracking #, what day it arrived, my contact info, etc...She said she would do her best. Then 15 minutes later I received another call from that dept from a very sweet lady that said she could not imagine what we are going through right now and that she will go looking for our envelope to expedite these fingerprint results. She gave me her direct line and asked me to call her Monday to get the status and see if she was able to locate and process! Amen! I felt like all those prayers for these fingerprints....God is working....and hopefully this will be complete next week!
Please join us in continuing to pray for our sweet homecoming with Grace. I hope to share great news with everyone tomorrow evening once court is done. Thank you for your kind words, encouragement and prayers.

Hannah Grace Adoption Update #2

My adoption caseworker told me that they have a late afternoon case. She said do not be surprised if I do not hear from her until after 4:30pm. She promised to call as soon as court is over.

GREAT NEWS!! I called FBI again this afternoon and got my friend "Julie." Julie told me they found my envelope and the fingerprints. They have put the fingerprints through to process and she asked me to call back Monday morning for status. Julie said she would overnight the results to the agency once they receive them. Thank you Lord for compassionate FBI employees!
As long as court goes fine today....which I will post again once I hear.....we should get Grace Tuesday or Wednesday. Praise God! Hallelujah!
I have been singing and dancing around the house and I know my dog thinks I am crazy. We are crazy for this little girl that has stolen our hearts and we have not even met her! :)

Hannah Grace Adoption Update #3

Court went as expected. All birthparental rights were terminated. Hannah Grace is our sweet girl the Lord has entrusted to us. As you might imagine I am overwhelmed with emotions right now. I am typing through tears of joy! God is so good! It looks like our placement will be next week based on getting the fingerprint results. We will know better on Monday what day next week will be our placement day!

"For this child I prayed and the Lord has granted me what I asked of Him." - I Samuel 1:27

Prayers for Fingerprint Results

Friends and family please join us in praying this week that my fingerprints will get processed at FBI. I had to go our local jail get fingerprints done and then had to send to WV for them to processed. Eric and I did it back in January. Eric's results came back fine. I guess I had a poor fingerprint quality so they made me re-do my fingerprints. I resubmitted my fingerprints to FBI about 2 weeks ago. Our homestudy caseworker has not received the results. She calls FBI fingerprint dept every couple of days and today she got someone on the phone and they have not passed security yet. As you may imagine Eric and I are anxious about these fingerprints getting completed since the court date is this Friday! We appreciate the prayers and remind ourselves that nothing is impossible with God!

All Things Bright And Beautiful

Grace is 3 months old yesterday. The countdown to April 16th is 17 days.....we are so excited to be getting closer to getting you baby girl! Our agency gave us permission to get a recordable storybook. The reason we decided to this is that we wanted Grace to get used to hearing our voice. Our caseworker told us the foster family agreed to play it a couple times a day for Grace to get used to our voices. We chose the book - "All Things Bright and Beautiful" for Grace. This story, based on the hymn "All Things Bright and Beautiful," lets you tell a child how unique and special she is."

Fun Facts about the Hallmark Recordable Books:

Recordable Storybooks from Hallmark feature exclusive voice-capture technology that enables a person to record each page of a book and have it played back over and over as the recipient turns the pages.


The recording will not be lost, even when the batteries need to be replaced.

Hallmark introduced Recordable Storybooks in September 2009.

Consumers have found many creative ways to use Recordable Storybooks, including:


Parents stationed overseas in the military have recorded books for their children waiting for them at home.

Grandparents and other family members who live far away have recorded the books for the children they love as a way to be with them even when they can’t be physically present.

Family members took turns recording each page of a book for a loved one in a nursing home.

Adoptive parents have recorded a storybook for the child they were waiting to adopt in another country so the child would recognize their voices.

An entire family recorded a storybook for an adult child who lived overseas and couldn’t be with them for the holidays.

New Pictures

Last week we received new pictures of our sweet baby. Hannah Grace at 8 weeks is 11lbs and 6 oz, she has gained 5 lbs since birth. We were told she is a happy baby with a sweet temperment. Eric said that the bottom picture, she is winking at him. Hannah Grace already has her daddy wrapped around her finger.

The court date is still April 16th. As long as everything goes as anticipated in court, our adoption agency will have our placement ceremony April 19th. As of today, we are 40 days from our answer to prayer. Thank you Lord for this sweet child you have entrusted to us. We get more and more excited with every passing day!

Baby Shower Loot & Update

Our church family threw us a baby shower this past Sunday. As you can see, I will be busy this weekend cleaning up and organizing the nursery. Our friends and family have showered gifts of love for Hannah Grace! You just wait little girl! I hate to admit it, you are a little spoiled already! Your mom and dad can not wait until your home so we can spoil you ourselves.
Pastor Bobby said from the pulpit this past Sunday that Hannah Grace is the church's baby! There are so many people that can not wait to meet you.....who have been praying for you for a long time.
I was able to speak to our adoption caseworker today and she said she saw you this past Sunday with your foster parents. They brought you to church! It thrilled my heart to know they had brought you to church. She said you are looking good....still look similiar to your newborn pictures just filling out a bit more, blue eyes, dark hair with a bit of a wave and sweet temperment. I keep running these descriptions through my mind and imagining you! On Monday you will be 9 weeks old. Your daddy and I talk about you often and reminded each other tonight we have 49 days until the court date - April 16th. We pray and think of you often! We love you sweet baby girl!

Hannah Grace's Nursery Pictures

Eric and I poured hours into preparing Hannah Grace's nursery. It has been nice to have a project as we endure "the wait."
We really have enjoyed that time together and have prayed for Grace, birthmother, foster parents, caseworkers, lawyers, and the process. God's timing is perfect even if we do not understand it.

Our friend painted the mural, the colors on the mural are similiar colors in the bedding. Lisa did an excellent job! I showed her a picture of what I wanted, she added some creativity and ta da! My favorite part, verse on the border reads, "For this child I prayed, and the Lord has granted me what I have asked of Him." I Samuel 1:27

Hannah Grace, we are ready for you to come home! We love you!

We Have Pictures!

It is with great excitement and joy we present Hannah Grace to you. We received pictures of her yesterday and being a little bias we think she is beautiful! Can't wait to get a cute bow in her hair. :)

We also found out that the current court date planned is April 16 which is the same day we will be able to get her. There is always a possibility it could change and we are praying it is sooner than later. As painful as the wait is, our adoption agency's goal is to protect us (adoptive parent) so once Grace is placed in our arms, she is ALL ours!
Thank you for your continued prayers. We have been blessed by the outpouring of love from all our family and friends! We praise the Lord for this beautiful gift to us!

The Best Christmas Gift!

Many events have taken place since my last post. Tuesday, December 15 found our first potential adoption situation, we were not chosen. We were disappointed.Wednesday, December 16 received an email from our caseworker from our adoption agency in VA stating there is a birthmother interested in meeting us, will be in VA over Christmas? We had already planned to leave that weekend for VA, the caseworker set-up a meeting between us, birthmother and two caseworkers on Tuesday, December 22 (my brother's birthday).

Very anxiously we arrived to "the meeting" and all I can say is the meeting lasted for almost 3 hours and we could sense the God's presence and peace through our entire interview. Birthmom was beautiful, well-spoken, intelligent and caring. As akward as you may think the situation was, we were put at ease and peace from the beginning. The birthmother had very directed questions towards Eric. What drew her to Eric and I was that Eric is a pastor and she told us she believed God has incredible plans for this child. She asked Eric about his testimony, his call to the ministry, and how he planned to balance family life vs the ministry. Eric as we all know him shared and poured out his heart and she really got to see Eric! :) The birthmother and caseworkers cried as he shared what God had done in his life since he surrendered his life to Him and the ministry. The birthmother shared that when she found out she was having a girl she was reading through I Samuel and she knew a couple had been praying for this child and she named her Hannah. Then the birthmother asked me what names we liked, I proceeded to tell her we never came up with one name and then I shared about 4-6 weeks ago through my quiet times and other situations the name Grace keeps coming up and I had shared that with Eric a couple of weeks ago. I have never thought of that name before and thought it was odd. I looked across the table, the birthmother had tears streaming down her face and asked me to stop....then she said I didn't tell you the entire story I named this baby - Hannah Grace! She asked if we would consider naming her Hannah Grace if she chose us. We wrapped up after sharing our hearts and learning more about this amazing birthmother. She amazed me at many levels! We left the meeting, our caseworker told us she would keep us posted.

Thursday December 24, Eric and I had finished having lunch at my parent's house when I received the call from our caseworker who told us the birthmother chose us to parent her baby girl. The caseworker told us the birthmother chose right after the meeting and they suggested she think and pray for a couple of days. They met with the birthmother the morning of December 24 and she was still resolute in her decision and asked the caseworker to please let us know before Christmas. We received the best Christmas gift, we were going to be parents!! :)

Baby girl was due January 8. Today, Eric and I took the day off - ran errands, bought her first outfit, enjoyed talking about being parents and what we thought she would be like. We have already fallen in love with this baby! I received the call tonight from the caseworker that baby girl was born this morning  - December 28 (1.5 weeks early). We named her Hannah Grace, we will call her Grace. She weighed 6lbs 6oz, 20 inches, and healthy. As this is being posted late....I can not sleep. Grace is here...she is real...we are parents....she is an answer to many prayers.....we could not be happier! We praise the Lord for how he has put our family together. It is not over....Grace will stay with a foster family for 2-3 months until all parental rights are terminated. I can not wait to post, we have a date and get to pick-up Grace. Stay tuned!

Luke 1:37 - For with God nothing will be impossible.

I Samuel 1:27 - I have prayed for this child and the Lord has granted me what I asked of Him.

Trusting in His Sovereign Will for Our Lives

Tonight we are one step closer to Baby Evje. What does that mean? We found out today that the birthmom considering us to parent her child chose the other family. God answered our prayers....you might ask how is that? We asked the Lord to make it very clear to the birthmom on what family she should choose. While disappointing....we our trusting our Sovereign Lord that He has another child out for us.
"Trust in Him at all times, O people; pour out your hearts to Him, for God is our refuge." Psalm 62:8, we are trusting in the Word and His promises tonight. This is the cry of our heart. I can not thank our family and friends enough for your love, support and prayers.

UPDATE

I realize it has been almost a year since I have posted anything to our blog. It has been a busy year! To be honest I started this blog over a year ago anticipating that we would have a baby in the coming months, and what a great outlet to blog and update my family and friends who live at a distace on our child's growth and development. We submitted our profile to our adoption agency in October 2008. Here we are 14 months later and still no baby. Of course that was not my plan.....so as the months has gone by I thought about posting and think who wants to hear about Eric and I?? As the days go by and still no activity on the baby front.....God is his grace reminds me, Heidi, where do you find your identity? Are you finding your identity in a baby or being a parent? Heidi, please find your identity in me and where I have you right now. Heidi, look outside of you and see the ministry I have placed all around you. I trust God will provide that special child to us in His timing (Isaiah 55:8-9). As Eric and I march on in this journey of faith we claim Luke 1:37, "For with God nothing will be impossible."

Three weeks ago our agency (VA) sent an email from another Christian adoption agency (AR) and this agency was looking for some adoptive parents who were interested in a potential adoption situation. This agency did not have any profiles to show this birthmother. Eric and I stepped out in faith and submitted all the information required to this agnecy knowing that if the adoption went through it would cost us twice the amount of money it would cost us if we went through our current agency (VA). As it stands today, the birthmother is trying to decide between us and another family to adopt her baby boy. We were told two weeks ago she would be making a decision. Apparently the birthmother likes both families and this is a very difficult decision for her. We are still on pins and needles and this has been the longest two weeks of our lives. We hope to hear soon what her decision is. If we are not chosen it will be difficult, we have been praying that the Lord make it very clear to this birthmother what family she should choose. We know there is another baby out there for us. Thank you for love and prayers. We are BLESSED!