Day 100 - We are truly blessed!

A lot has happened since our last posting - we have a lot to be thankful for! Many of you have met or heard me talk about my dear Auntie B. She has cancer and has been under the care of MD Anderson in Houston. She went back for a check-up recently, and the doctors were floored! All, but a small area of cancer in her liver, was gone! It is truly a miracle! The doctors said it was unprecedented! Our family is truly blessed, and we are so thankful! Thank you for praying for her!

One of my oldest and dearest friends hosted a shower for Baby Dunn! We received so many wonderful things! I was blown away by the thoughtfulness and generosity of our family and dear friends! Baby Dunn is going to be loved by so many! So many of the gifts will be helpful for us when we travel to pick up Baby Dunn! Check out these lovely gifts:

We've also been finishing up our home study requirements. Matt and I had our physicals. Matt, ahem, had an interesting experience. We did get a call from our doctor yesterday with our blood test results, and all is well! We had to get multiple letters of reference - those are being sent to our social worker as we speak. We've very thankful for y'all doing this for us and for getting them to our social worker so quickly! Once he has all of them (seven to be exact), he'll type up his report and submit it to his supervisor for approval. Our consultant is working on adding pictures to our profile. We edited the text this past weekend and got it sent back to them on Sunday. Once the home study is complete and the profile is finished, we will apply to agencies! That could happen within the next several weeks!

Thank you for your continued prayer and support! We are truly blessed!

Day 88 - To spank or not to spank?

Today was by far our favorite home study visit! We were very relaxed, and so was our social worker. We sat casually in our den and had a great conversation. The time flew by and before we knew it, our social worker said, "Well, I guess that's it!"

Today's topics included our parenting styles, how we plan to discipline, and additional questions about adoption. Here are some of the questions we answered:
How will you handle an "attitude" from your child? (I had some great examples from college students!)
What will you say about your child's birth parents?
What are some parenting techniques you'll emulate with your child?
What are some techniques you won't?
What values do you hope your child will have?
What forms of discipline will you use?
Will you keep adoption a secret from your child?
How will you handle your child wanting to search for his or her birth parents?

We spent a lot of time discussing spanking - a subject that can be "taboo" in the adoption world. In some states, you can be denied a successful home study if you plan to spank. Matt and I were very up front and honest about spanking. We both were spanked as a last resort and will spank our child, if necessary. I know this can be a touchy subject, but one that had to be discussed today. We both feel that it can be used - only as a last resort. Personally, we both were spanked when nothing else worked. Taking it to an extreme and spanking while angry is extremely dangerous. With any discipline measure you use, we know it's important for our child to know what they are doing is wrong, why it is wrong, how they can correct it, how it affects others, and why it has consequences. However, it is key for our child to understand we love them unconditionally. No matter what.

The general theme that we kept going back to was "Model what you expect." I talk about this with our Head Camp Counselors. In fact, my boss said that one time several years ago, and I've continued to use it. It's exactly what we want to do with our child. We expect our child to be kind and considerate. We hope our child learns what's right and wrong from us. We expect honesty. We hope they live a life of integrity. We hope our child learns the value of hard work. We expect our child to respect us and respect others. Most importantly, we want our child to love Jesus. How they learn all of these begins with us. We model what we expect.

This was our last pre-baby visit. Our social worker will type up his report, gather our six reference letters, and submit his write-up to his supervisor for approval! He told us things looked really good for us - praise God! He has heard back from our child abuse and neglect clearance, but is still waiting on the results of our background checks. Please pray those results will come to him soon - this is the check that typically takes the longest. Matt and I have our physicals and blood tests early next week. Pending successful results, that's all we will do for this chapter in our journey. Our social worker said we could be approved in 2-4 weeks. Our adoption consultant in Georgia is working on our profile - we already have the text for that. Matt and I are going to proof that and get that back to them next week. Once they have that, they will add pictures. Once the home study is approved and the profile is finished, we'll apply to agencies! From there, we will move into the waiting chapter.

Jeremy Camp's song, "There Will Be A Day," has been on my mind tonight. Please pray specifically for a friend of mine traveling down the adoption journey too. Pray for her and her husband and for their wait.

There will be a day with no more tears, no more pain, and no more fears
There will be a day when the burdens of this place, will be no more, we'll see Jesus face to face
But until that day, we'll hold on to you always

I know the journey seems so long
You feel you’re walking on your own
But there has never been a step
Where you’ve walked out all alone

Thank you for praying for us, sweet family and friends! We are truly blessed!

Coming up for air

I've been out of touch lately - CWE's Training Week, plus Sessions 1, 2, and 3 are now complete! It has flown by! I'm so thankful to have about a week before our next session. While I'll still be coming into work, it now means I'll actually be at my desk and in my office. Plus, I'll get to see Matt on a regular basis!


Our third and final visit with our social worker is in the morning at 8:30 a.m. Please say a prayer for us. From what I understand, this visit will be about our parenting styles (Umm, right now, it is sit, stay, and down for our four-legged friends!!) and our thoughts about discipline. I've been thinking alot about the discipline topic. I don't know what is going to work with our child - all I know is that Matt and I will love our child unconditionally, just as Jesus and our parents love us. It's hard for me to say, "We're going to do this ______." I just don't know. Matt and I were "good" kids - with our luck, we'll probably have a child that will be out of control. Oh well, that's okay. I'm thankful for this opportunity.


On a different note, we had a phenomenal worship service last Sunday night at church! I was able to leave Camp early and was so glad I did. Our choir combined with Greater Peace, and it was absolutely spirit-filled! There were over 100 voices - I had such a great time singing, clapping, and swaying! Yep, that's right - all of that at a baptist church! It was truly one of my favorite singing events to take part in...there was so much joy! It was such an encouragement to me and a nice break in the middle of a Camp session!

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.