Day 69: The furniture is here!

It's here, and it's beautiful! The guys assembling the furniture only took about 30 minutes to unload the crib and dresser and set them up. I've been back to the room multiple times just to stare at it. I have to remind myself that as much as I'd like to see our baby sleeping in the crib RIGHT now, I have to be patient...patient in God's timing and patient with the process.

We still haven't decided on a wall color or the bedding. We'd like to narrow it down and have one boy option and one girl option. That way if we're able to find out what sex our baby will be, we can create the nursery based on that.

When I got home from work last night, we had some additional items that were delivered to our house! Our den has a swing, exersaucer, and a jumper in it!!! We are blessed with kind and generous friends who are letting us borrow these things. A special thank you goes to Turner for so graciously allowing Baby Dunn to use her things! And thanks so much to Hayden and Tristan's Dad for the delivery!

Quick update

Hey y'all! I'm in the middle of CWE Training Week which means I'm away from home until about 11 or 12 each night. Fortunately, the end is in sight! Our first session of CWE is next Wednesday!

There was a scheduling glitch in the nursery delivery, so it's coming tomorrow morning! Yay!! I can't wait to see it! Also, our next visit with the social worker has been changed to June 4. Our consultant has received our profile materials, so they are working on it as we speak!

Have a great night!

Day 60

Quick update...we've finished compiling our information for our consultant, and it will be placed in the mail tomorrow! Our consultant will use the pictures we submitted (we've given them 276 to choose from) and our answers to a series of questions to create our profile booklet. This profile is what the birthmothers will view to make their selections. Additionally, we've chosen to have them create a DVD profile.

Happy Friday!

Day 58

Home Study Visit # 2 is complete! Today's interview went very well. Our social worker interviewed us individually for about 1 1/2 hours a piece! The main focus today was our childhood and our parents. Here are some of the questions we got:

- What were you like as a child? (That's a loaded question...umm...how do you say we were perfect? Kidding!)

- What were your hobbies as a child? As a teenager?

- Favorite family traditions?

- What trait of your father's do you identify with the most?

- What trait of your mother's do you identify with the most?

- More questions about our marriage

- More questions about our feelings toward adoption

Whew, I was talked out after my session. Matt was the same way. It was fun though to reminisce about our childhoods. Our last pre-adoption visit is scheduled for Tuesday, May 26. In the mean time, we have to get physicals and fill out some more paperwork for the home study. Additionally, we are almost finished getting our information together for our profile. We only lack 5-7 pictures for our profile, so we hope to get everything to our consultant this week.

We took our first visit to the local Sheriff's Office yesterday to get fingerprinted for our criminal background check. Well, make that our second visit. We tried to do this last Thursday, but did not have the forms filled out properly. Silly us for trying to be prepared! Evidently, Lee County is on the leading edge of fingerprinting technology. No more sticking your fingers in ink for fingerprints - it's all done electronically. Your fingerprints get scanned, then printed out on cards - it is really cool!

This past weekend was a big weekend for Baby Dunn! Matt and the grandfathers worked all day on Saturday to put up bead board, a chair rail, and crown molding in the nursery. Even with two bosses there, Matt was "allowed" to use power tools! All kidding aside, it looks absolutely wonderful and is exactly what we wanted! Matt and I are so thankful to have such supportive parents! We also got a call on Saturday that our nursery furniture is in! They are delivering it on Friday afternoon. Next up is deciding what color to paint the walls and what bedding to get!

Hey everyone! This is Matt, and I am a first time blog poster. Melissa asked me to write a little on this post so I thought I would share with all of you something meaningful from last weekend's Sunday School lesson. We are currently studying the book of Isaiah, and we were reading through Chapter 55. Melissa and I were both struck by verses 8-9 which say "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways declares the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." We've both always known these verses, but it really seemed to speak to our hearts as we're going through this situation. As we've gone through a roller coaster of emotions throughout our infertility journey, at times we could not understand why God was putting us through this situation. As we've seen His plan begin to unfold for us, we are so thankful that His thoughts and ways are much better than any plan we could imagine for ourselves. Thank you again from the bottom of our hearts for constantly praying for and supporting us.

Day 52

Our hearts are full! Matt and I have talked all day about the heartfelt prayers, kind e-mails, blog comments, and phone calls we've received. We had no idea so many people were following our journey. Thank you so very much. Katie (a precious friend, who along with her husband, Jamie, are wonderful examples of godly parents), asked specifically how to pray for us, so we thought we'd share some specific requests.

Please pray for...
- Patience...with the process, with the amount of paperwork, with the Lord's timing. Please pray specifically that the Lord will sustain us as we go down this journey.

- The birth parents of our baby...we have no idea who they are, what state they live in, or when our paths will cross. Thank the Lord for their choice to give life to our sweet child!

- Other adopting parents...we have friends currently going through the adoption process. Pray specifically for peace of mind, patience, and direction from the Lord.

Thank you, Katie, for asking how to pray for us. We are truly blessed to have so many family members, friends, and co-workers praying for us.

Day 51

Thank you so much for your prayers today - they were felt! Matt and I weren't nervous and feel our first home study visit went extremely well! We really like our social worker and felt comfortable talking with him. We can definitely feel God's hand in leading us through this home study process. Our social worker met our adoption consultant recently and is connected to Enterprise and Ozark.

The visit lasted three hours - however, it didn't feel like it took that long at all! He asked us about a wide variety of things - how we met, how we got engaged, our wedding ceremony, our marriage, how we communicate, what we admired about each other, each other's strengths and weaknesses, what we would change about our mates, how we view adoption, how our families and friends view adoption, our church, and our spiritual lives...you know, just your typical everyday conversation! Ha! Matt and I had been praying over our responses and trying to anticipate what might come up. There were a couple of questions that were a bit challenging, but we made it through! Our next visit is next Tuesday morning. This time, he'll interview us individually.

Our social worker did walk through each room of our house. Whew, I'm glad it was clean! We've joked that we need to eat all of our meals away from the house so we won't make a mess! My Mother suggested we check into a hotel so we can keep it clean! However, having these visits so frequently will be good for us and will help us keep the house straight! He also wanted to see our backyard, so we took him out there. We were very pleased with our dogs - they didn't utter a peep! They curiously looked up at us and just walked around the pen. Perhaps they could sense they needed to behave for once!

Again, I want to thank all of you for lifting us up in prayer. We truly felt at peace before, during, and after our visit.

Day 45

We have news! Our first home study visit is this Tuesday morning! I've spoken a couple of times to our social worker, and Matt & I are looking forward to meeting him. To be quite honest, I'd always assumed our social worker would be a woman. However, that's not the case with us, and we're fine with it! I've heard some great things about him. At choir tonight, I sat next to the wife of our Minister of Adults. When I mentioned our social worker's name, she almost fell out of the chair. As it turns out, she knows him well - he used to work with her husband in the ministry at our church! God is so good!

Our initial call about the home study visit came yesterday...ever since then my head has been swirling. I know the social worker isn't going to come to our home and do the "white glove" treatment. I just want it to be in order - which it almost is! I came home today to my precious husband straightening our bedroom. He's been out of town since Friday and jumped right in to clean when he got back. I'm so incredibly lucky.

Most of you know that the busiest time of my job is right now and continues through the summer. One of the many things I feel the Lord is teaching me throughout this process is to slow down and realize that I can only do one thing at a time. One decision at a time, one day at a time. I can very easily become overwhelmed with what's going on in our adoption journey or with what's going on at work. The Lord is teaching me that I can't be everything to everyone, all of the time. That's not my job - it's the Lord's!