I am in baby world! I know Steven is getting tired of hearing about all this! We just registered at Babies R Us a couple weeks ago and that had to be some of the most fun I have had in a long time. This is really happening. Its real. This is the route that we have chosen to take before pregnancy and it could never feel more right. I am in love with the baby that God has for us before we ever see him/her. I am just so in love! I wish my body reflected how I feel. I honestly feel about 8.5 months pregnant. I am really hoping that in the next couple of months we could have a baby! We are so so excited!
This morning at church we talked about being adopted into God’s family and I just couldn’t help but cry knowing we have such a beautiful picture of adoption by the way God loves us. There are many adoptions that have not gone well. I learned this when we first started this process. There are many heartaches and tears shed both ways over these precious kids. I wish they could all be perfect and that these decisions were easier for all parties involved. I want so badly for ours to be healing and for us to be able to love on our first mom and invite her to be a part of our family if she wants that. I think about these mom’s all the time. Their love, sacrifice, heartache and what incredible women they are. My main concern is that she makes the right decision for herself and that she is not pressured from anybody else either way. I want her to do what she thinks is right for her. This is what I pray for most.
We sat next to our friends Eric and Mandy who just adopted baby Cohen. Their blog is: http://mandyandericmoore.blogspot.com. They have had a beautiful journey and its amazing to see how incredible Cohen’s birthmom is and the beautiful love she has for her son. We went through our adoption training together and I love how you can see desire and love all over people’s faces and to see the results of hours of paperwork, working hard to raise money, hours of training and hours of waiting turn out. To see that precious baby and know that they were able to give this incredible women a second option is all just really overwhelming.
We will keep you updated. Steven has his individual interview this week and I have mine next week. After that all we have left is for them to come to our house and approve us to adopt and we are done! We are hoping and praying for all of this to be done by June 1st. Its pretty scary how close we are. Please pray for all of the mom’s that are in this situation. Please pray that God would provide the money that we have left to get. Please pray that we can have all of this done before Steven leaves for the summer! Love you all so much, thanks for reading and keeping up with the Bush’s!
I am feeling very different lately. I think I am getting a little freaked out at how close we are getting in this adoption. The agency has been sending out reference letters and everybody is telling me that they have gotten them and are sending them back in already. We have our marital counseling in the morning. Things are just working like a well oiled machine right now and I can only think that God is moving. I feel like His hands are all in this and He is moving this very quickly.
Since the day we got married, its always been just Steven and I. We have loved our precious time together! That time won’t stop just because we are adding to the family. He is such an amazing man and I find something to fall deeper in love with inside of him everyday. There is something missing though. Its like the Grinch- I feel like our hearts are growing! I can tell that we are both longing for this child. I am just starting to feel like there is something missing from us. The other day (I work at a hospital) I walked to the newborn nursery and just stood there looking through the windows at the babies. It was quiet in the hall and I just wanted to watch their little bodies and how they moved, cried, yawned and slept. It just made me feel closer.
I hear people say occasionally, “What if that baby is placed with you and you don’t feel close to that child because they haven’t grown in you and you have never seen them before.” I am NOT trying to be cheesy but since last August when God called us to move forward with this adoption I feel as if this child has been growing inside of me. Its in a different way but I have been bonding with the fact that we want to have a child ever since. I am ready. I am ready to love on any child that God places with us for the amount of time that they are with us. Even if that mom changes her mind we will love that child for however long we have them. My heart genuinely feels 8 months pregnant!
I love being an option for girls/women who get themselves into a situation that maybe they didn’t intend to get into. I am so thankful that there are positive options. Not all adoptions are healthy but I am determined to make this a healthy adoption! I really want this child’s mom to be a part of our lives if she chooses to do so. Ultimately I want to show Jesus in this entire situation. He loves. He provides. He nurtures. He heals. He has brought us as Gentiles into His family and made us sons and daughters. My heart overflows for women who are pregnant and are overwhelmed. First and best option is always to parent! If she chooses not to we would love to be a loving option for her. I just think about her all the time. Please pray for these women/girls today. Some of them are faced with very hard decisions.
We will keep you updated with where things are going. Hopefully we can be “waiting officially” within the next month. That is the goal.
maris & i have been super blessed through this entire adoption process. so many of you have sacrificially given to us & our adoption. we are forever thankful for your prayers & support, and we couldn’t have gotten this far without you guys. from donations, to photography, to people buying t-shirts, to friends helping us with a garage sale…we are amazed at how much you have helped us out. i wanted to say thanks from the bottom of our hearts for this support.
it’s getting closer to the time where we will be waiting to be chosen. it’s real real close, and we can’t wait. i can’t wait to be a dad…even though it scares the crap out of me at times. i’m ready to have that little guy crawling around here…i’m ready to see maris be the awesome mom that she dreams of being…i hope i’m ready to show him how to live life chasing his dreams, loving God & loving people, living day to day as if it were his last.
i want my kid to know that i support him in his dreams. if it doesn’t include college…then so be it. if he wants to be a missionary in africa…then so be it. i want him to live life without any regrets. i want him to live a life that is spent serving others…loving others…and doing whatever he can to fight the injustices of this world. i hope he lives a life opposite of the things mother culture teaches about chasing the American dream…of what she teaches about consumerism…of how she teaches that our worth is found in material posessions, wealth, & power. to find worth in Christ & in turn serving others is my hope for August.
before i can hope these things for him…i have to be willing to live the same way. i pray that God continues to refine me, give me vision, & a passion to see this world change…not just for the sake of change & the Kingdom…but for the sake of me being an inspiration to my children. i can’t expect him to chase his dreams…if i am not willing to do the same.
we are one more step closer. we took our psych evaluation test this past friday, and we have another meeting with the psychiatrist to see if we’re sane. i’m a little worried. haha…those test always freak me out. it makes you realize how your brain works, and how messed up you really are. i know everything will turn out fine…those test just make me nervous.
we sent in our paperwork, and then realized they were missing a few pieces. i’ve scanned and emailed them today. i’m still waiting on 2007 tax returns, and we’ll be done with the paperwork. i also need to talk to our insurance company about getting coverage for august. any of you adoptive parents have advice for talking to them? what questions i need to ask? what kind of coverage?
we recently ordered some more 2xl adopting august shirts. we had run out of them, but now they’re back in stock. we have every size available now. if you’d like a shirt please let us know. the links above will order the shirts through paypal. every little bit helps. we’re a little less than halfway on the funds that we need. so that’s exciting. i’m also still doing photography for our adoption. if you or someone you know needs photos please email me & let me know. it’s been an awesome way for us to make money for this adoption.
today is the day that we have officially sent off all of our paperwork for our adoption! it means that we are moving one step closer to bringing August home. we can’t tell you how excited we are about this. i finished up this afternoon around 1pm with collecting all of our stuff. I went to Kinkos and made copies, and then proceeded to the Post Office. They should receive the envelope by tomorrow. We still have a couple of more things to do before we are in the waiting process. We have our home visit, psychological testing, and our profile. then we will be put on the list! it seems like we still have alot, but after getting that small book of paperwork finished this stuff looks easy.
thanks again for all of your prayers & support. please continue to pray for us as we have these last steps to complete. pray for everything to work out with Maris’ job so that she can have the time off required to get our counseling done. pray for provision. we are almost half way there with our funds, and we still have a ways to go. i know the money will be there…but i’d be lying to you if said i didn’t worry about it at all. pray for the mother of this child & all of the things she is going through. pray for a safe pregnancy. pray for us as we try to keep focused & moving forward with what we have left to do.
we’d love to show you & your adopting august shirts off to the world of web. if you could email me a picture of you or your family in your shirts we’ll put them up. that would be awesome! bush(at)stevenbush.org
thanks for your prayers & support. they are greatly appreciated.
I just watched the Martin Luther King special from Oprah. I will be honest when I say that I do not know a lot about Martin Luther King. I know we covered him in school but now I wonder how much of his life did we really cover? I went to a mostly white private school and I don’t think they had the desire to really dive into his life or legacy. The older I get the more fascinating this man becomes. I listened to pieces of his speeches during this special and just cried like a baby. This man changed the face of America with the passion inside of his heart. I believe he READ the Bible and he preached equality. This special inspires me to learn more about his message and mission of his life. I will be looking tonight for a book of his life.
We are all the same. White, black, rich, poor we are all created in the image of God and we are equal. We are a fallen humanity who is in need of hope and a savior.
When I dream about my family I realize that I can dream these dreams because this man stood for what he believed in. I long for a family that is transracial. I want as many colors of skin as we can squeeze into our limit of children. I want our family to stand for equality and love. I want to celebrate every culture we have in our family and I want us to love each other the same. Our colors are beautiful.
Sometimes I worry about what people will think of our family especially when we are out in public. After watching this and seeing what people fought through to get here my fears are eased. What if MLK lived his life based on what people would have said about him? What if he had never pushed the envelope and encouraged people to think outside of the box? What if he had never taught people how to love? How would America look today if he had worried and tamed down his message due to stepping on toes?
There is racism that still plagues our country. Do we surround ourselves with other cultures? Do we stay in our safe white community? What are you going to do to change the face of racism? Please take 5 mins to watch this video.
My great friend Tamera over at (http://cosbyfamily.wordpress.com/) just posted a blog about a couple that went through Bethany Christian services and they were just chosen to be the parents of twin girls who were born this morning. My excitement for them and what they are feeling is beyond words. Twin girls!?! How fun, chaotic and exciting. I would eat that up. I am so excited for this family!
The feelings I have are proving to be a double sided emotion. I long for that day that we are chosen. I get frustrated with God’s timing. It just feels like he is saying…”not yet.” It is so out of my hands and sometimes that drives me crazy. I am so excited for this couple. Really I am. I know this seems like such a selfish post. I just long for the day when that is us. So for today I will imagine what this family is experiencing, pray like crazy for them as they travel to Mississippi to meet their girls for the first time and I will keep dreaming and praying for August.
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ADOPTION, God's love, One Step closer, thoughts and prayers | 
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Posted by marisbush
