just a small update

Wow! Its been quite a long time since i have made a post here!! I just want to give a small update to let you all know where we are at.

As most of you remember...Richard and I were in the middle of our adoption process when we VERY unexpectedly found out that i was pregnant! That was definitely something i never thought i had to worry about happening!! Ha! We found almost almost a year ago exactly. And we now have a 5 month old son, Jonah. :)

I don't have much to update but people keep asking if we still plan on going through with the adoption. The answer is absolutely yes! We told you before... that adoption is a desire that ony God could put in our hearts, and we are still in love with adoption!

I had somebody that i dont really even know...and they dont know me...accuse us of faking the adoption just for the money and then us get pregnant on purpose.  The ONLY reason i bring that up is because if there is anybody out there who even for a SECOND had that thought....it would KILL me to know that!! I pray that those of you who know us will know our hearts are longing to grow our family through adoption. So that being said I just wanted to answer some "unknowns".

We are still going to adopt! All that money that God blessed us with through YOU ALL is still in the posession of our adoption agency and we are still put on hold. I called our agency yesterday to find out if they had a required time limit of being on hold and if we would be required to start the adoption process back up again now. They told me that Jonah needed to be at least a year old before we start again. They also said if we werent ready by that point then we had until June 2017 before we were required  to start it up again. I was actually relieved by that because we are loving every minute with Jonah and he is already changing so fast so we want to be able to just embrace this moment of our lives as long as we can. Does that mean we will wait the full 2 years to start adopting again? I highly doubt it. I believe we will want to start sooner than that....because we are still so excited for this to happen!

We will Absolutely be letting you know when we start this adoption up again because all your prayers will be needed. We love you all. And thank you for loving us and our family. Its a feeling that cant be described knowing you all are loving and supporting us.

It's True....God definitely works in MYSTERIOUS ways!!!

If you are deciding whether or not you want to read this LONG post...let me decide for you.  Yes...you really do.  It's about to get crazy!  haha :) 

Where to begin....??

First of all, Richard and I just want to make it completely known how much we love and appreciate all of YOUR help that has been freely given to us these last 10 months or so.  All of you out there have given so selflessly.  You have given your time, prayers, money, encouragement, and so much more to us that has truly touched us deep in our hearts, and it is a feeling we will never be able to get rid of.  God has used you all to show us that in impossible situations that miracles DO happen.  Do you all know how much you are appreciated and loved by us?  I truly hope you do, because I honestly can't say it enough.  We have grown so much in this whole process and I know we still have growing to do.  God has shown us even more how much he loves us and supports adoption.  He has taught us faith, trust, patience, love and so on and so on.  So far this experience has been AMAZING!  I could literally go on and on about GOD and about YOU all in this process.  But I won't do that to you :)

All this being said...let's get to the POINT of this blog post.  Richard and I are here to tell you that our adoption is being put on hold for right now.  Several feelings I have about this.  I am sad because this means we are going to have to wait to grow our little family through adoption a little longer.  HOWEVER....at the same time, we are BEYOND excited because our agency has a good reason to do this right now.  Have you any idea what I am about to say?  Probably not...haha I was pretty shocked to hear this as well.  Are you ready?  Here it is..... I AM PREGNANT!!  Wait....WHAT?????  I KNOW...trust me...I am just as shocked as you are!!  :)  We are so excited and looking to God and asking...what is going on here?? haha.  We had our first appointment today.  I am 10 1/2 weeks along.  Due date is January 5th, 2015.  Heartbeat was strong and perfect.  Even got to see the baby and baby was just wiggling around like CRAZY!!  Our hearts are full of every kind of emotion right now.  Please keep praying for us!  Just pray for healthy baby.

Now I know many of you have questions about what this means for the adoption.  Please ask me!!  Are we still going to adopt?  YES!  we are still going to continue to adopt.  Adoption is in our hearts and it's not ever going to go away.  It is definitely a God placed desire and we are in love with adoption.  Our agency has suggested that we go on hold until after baby is born, because as they have seen in the past, birthmothers just won't pick a woman who is pregnant.  What about all that money that people have given?  Nothing has changed.  The money will stay put exactly where it is.  We are just literally on pause.  As soon as we have the baby and get adjusted, we will tell the agency we are ready to start again...and they will hit the "un pause" button and everything will pick up where it left off, like nothing ever happened.  So THAT is great news!! 

Well...I am not sure what else I can say right now.  I am just in shock, in awe, excited, etc  so if I keep on talking it will probably just be a lot of rambling!!!  Thank you all for your support!  It means so much to us.  We will definitely keep you all updated!! 

with lots of love
the nuzum's :)

Blessed Beyond Words

Today was the day!  We had our pancake feed fundraiser that I have been bugging all of you about!  Ha!  It was so much fun to get to see everybody come and just hang out and eat breakfast with us!  So several people have already asked how we did today.  In our heads we were shooting for a total of like 500 dollars.  We thought that was probably a good estimate for a pancake feed and I really felt like we could maybe make it to $500.  Well....we didn't get $500, but don't worry we aren't disappointed....because the total was $1300!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  REALLY???  I mean REALLY!?!?!?! Why is this such a theme in my life???  Why do I get so surprised when God totally blows my expectations out of the water??  Tears come to my eyes when I think about the love that my community of family and friends have for us!  You all are seriously just making me speechless because it's not something that I can comprehend.  I truly pray that God blesses you all doubly for the blessing that you all have been to us.  Despite everybody's busy weekend activities we had an awesome turnout!!  I promise you all that as our child grows up he/she will know that this community is what made all of this possible.  It takes a village right?

So here we are...still waiting.  Our agency has contacted us twice within the last 3 weeks about 2 different birthmothers who are desperately trying to make a decision about choosing a forever family for their baby and we were asked if we would like to be presented to them and of course we said yes.  We aren't sure if anything will come out of it.  It may and it may not...we just wait and see.  These are the things that keep us going.  Just when we are getting weary of the silence....God knows just how to rebuild our hope/endurance/patience. 

Just keep praying for us!  Pray for patience.  Pray for hope to remain strong and for us not to want to give up.  Pray for this child that God has already picked out for us, and pray for that birth mother who is having to make the most difficult decision of her life. 

We love you all so much!  Thank you so much for coming out this morning and thank you to all my friends and family who volunteered their time to make this all happen!!

Love
The Nuzum's

 

Breakfast Anyone??

Hey friends! :)  My blog posts are starting to have a theme....waiting.  Ha-Ha.  I hate to not keep updating you all, but just assume when I know something...you'll know something :)  There really isn't a whole lot to update right now.  Like I said...we are still waiting.  It can be tedious sometimes.  It can be draining most of the time.  But it's going to be so rewarding and totally worth it in the end. That being said there HAS been some activity going on with our adoption profile...more activity than the USUAL activity.  It's very small, and I don't think that anything will come out of it, BUT it was something.  It was a little break in the silence.  And  it was enough to refresh us and help us stay excited about the end result of this adoption.  SO in the meantime while we are.....waiting :)  we are going to be having another fundraiser.  We still are needing about $3,000 or more to be fully funded.  You all have been soooo good to us in the past that I can't even begin to express our gratitude for our family and friends and our community.  We are excited about this upcoming fundraiser and we hope that you all will participate and come hang out with us.  Here it is:

On Saturday March 29th we are having a Pancake Feed!!  It's going to be at the Annex here in Pleasanton and the time is going to be from 8:00 AM to 11:00 AM.  You can come anytime during that time and eat breakfast with us drink some coffee and just hang out and talk!!  There is no set fee we are doing everything based on donations.  :)  I hope you can make it!!!  Thank you all for your support.  We love you!

The Nuzum's :)

The Waiting Game

WOW!  It has been 5 months since my last post!  How crazy is that??  Stay with me guys because this may be a long one after I catch up on all the new information!

Where do I even start??  We had our home study in August and passed with flying colors!  We were so nervous about having somebody come into our home and studying our lives and how we do things and decide if we were fit to be good parents.  It was with a big sigh of relief and gratitude when she emailed and said that we passed our home study!  So that was VERY exciting for us!

After we passed our home study that meant we were eligible for our website profile to be put on our Angel Adoption Website.  So now our agency has been passing out our paper profile to potential birth mothers and our online profile is available for any birth mother to view from any state.  Angel Adoption updates us every month about how many birth mothers have our paper profile.  As of right now we know that at least 15 birth mothers have our paper profile!  That's very exciting to us!  Once birth mothers have profiles to go through it could take up to several months for them to make a final decision.  So we pray for those mothers who have to make the hardest decision of their lives.  We pray for direction and peace for them.

Right now we are in the waiting game.  It's awful, it stinks, and I'm pretty sure i'm losing at this game!  It's hard because we don't know ANYTHING.  We just sit and wait, and we have no idea how long this will last.  The waiting could end before I finish this sentence! It could end tomorrow, or it could continue on for another year or so.  UGH!  It's the unknown that is the killer!  We will get through it, with lots of prayer and continuing to trust that the Lord is still in control of our situation.

SO, in October we went to the arts and crafts festival in mound city and we shopped around and looked at all the awesome crafts.  While we were there I saw a certain booth and I got REALLY excited!!  It was an adoption booth.  This woman and her husband were adopting internationally and all proceeds they made went towards their adoption!  I was so excited when I saw that and I couldn't wait to purchase something to help out.  They were selling necklaces that they had made and so I was looking through all their necklaces and there it was....the only one like it that i saw.  It was meant for me...I just knew it!  I grabbed it immediately and knew I didn't have to look anymore.  I had a special connection to this necklace already.  Here is what the necklace looked like:

And this is my life right now.....waiting.  Sometimes not patiently, some days harder than others, but this is where God has us right now, so this is where we shall stay. 

When I am praying about our adoption it sometimes feels like I am wasting my breath and I am just talking to the ceilings.  I KNOW that is not true, it's just how it is on some days haha.  But on a Sunday in church a few weeks ago, Allen (our pastor) said something that has stuck with me, encouraged me, and brought back a renewed frame of mind.  "God is still sovereign in
the silence".  There it is guys....the whole point of our adoption story and what we want people to know.  God is sovereign.  He is in control of this adoption. All glory goes to Him.  We want people to know that. 

SOOOO let's wrap this thing up.  We have some fundraisers in our minds that we are excited about doing.  We are SO close to being fully funded.  Maybe another 2 thousand or so??  In comparison to the almost 15,000 we started off needing...2,000 seems so small!  It's been an amazing journey thus far and we are excited about continuing on through this adventure!  So we will let you know when we get things planned out for fundraisers!

We love you all!  We wouldn't be here without you!  We are so blessed by you! 

We love you
The Nuzum's :)

And this is our PLEA

Hey everybody!  Well our 31 gift fundraiser put on by Jerri James is now over.  And it raised $400 dollars!!  That was so sweet of her to volunteer her hard earned money and time to help us with the adoption.  We can't think everyone enough for the huge amount of support that has been given to us. 

SO...here's the big news now!  Our case worker got a hold of me today wanting to set up our home study appointment.  It's going to be August 26th (Monday).  That is only 12 days away!!!!  Goodness!!!  I instantly got nervous when we set the date.  So much to do!  You would think that knowing this was appointment was coming that we would be getting the house ready bit by bit so we wouldn't have to rush.  I mean...that would be the responsible thing to do right???  Haha.  Those who know me laugh because every one knows that I am the queen of procrastinators.  I work well under pressure.  I like it.  Ha!  So here we are...12 days away from meeting with the woman who has our future in her hands.  The one who says yes you are capable of raising a child or no you are crazy, no child for you.  haha. 

So, this is our plea.  Pray!!  Pray for us!  Pray for our case worker Rachel. Pray that she sees us as fit to parent a child.  Pray that we won't be nervous. Pray we will continue to trust God through this whole process.  Ultimately HE is the one who has our future in His hands.  Not Rachel. 

We also got word today that another mother has our profile.  As you know...all it takes is one mother to choose us to parent her child, and we know of two mothers that have our profile.  Please pray for those mothers.  Can you imagine the decisions she is trying to make right now??  How hard this must be for them.  Pray for peace for these two women. 

We are so excited!  We are slowly getting closer day by day! 

We love you all
The Nuzum's

Belyn

This post is dedicated to my ADORABLE and BEAUTIFUL new cousin Belyn!  I am SO excited to welcome her to our family.  My uncle and aunt (Brent and Christi) have been going through the process of adopting  Belyn from Ethiopia and TODAY (Wednesday) they have left to go get her and bring her home!!!!!!!  I am so happy for them and can feel their excitement all the way from here.  This sweet little girl's life will never be the same now.  She now has a forever family that will love her unconditionally.  She will be home very soon and I can't even imagine the feelings that Brent and Christi are feeling right now as they are about to see their daughter in this orphanage for the last time and will get to bring her home!    I thank God that He has brought this all together and I know that He has been glorified and honored in this process. 

As for us, we have FINALLY finished the mountains of paperwork that we had to complete in order to turn our home study notebook in.  It is now getting processed and we will be expecting a call from our case worker so we can set up a time for them to come to our house and interview us and inspect our house.  There was SO much to fill out in this home study notebook that it was almost overwhelming, but you just have to breath and push through it.  I'm not going to lie...it almost got to the point of being annoying having to fill out all this stuff.  I just wanted it to be done so we could move on!  HaHa!  So after we get approved by our case worker we just wait.  I'm dreading that part...waiting....  It could be short...but it could also be VERY long. 

I know I have said this in our previous blog post, but we have raised and been given a little over $10,000.  We are needing around 4 to 5 thousand more.  My mom and my grandma held a garden party fundraiser recently to raise money for this adoption.  They both worked VERY hard to make it a success and we raised around $800 dollars!!  We were so thankful to them for their sacrifice of their time and money to make it a success. 

We also have a friend, Jerri James who is a 31 Gift consultant.  They have so many cute things to buy.  Jerri has been so awesome to us.  She is throwing a fundraiser with her profits going to our adoption.  I can't thank her enough for being so giving.  So everybody go check it out!!  Buy some awesome things for yourself or for gifts and in turn help us get closer to the reaching our goal!!!  LOVE this idea. 

Other than that, not a whole lot going on right now, just waiting.  We do know that one mother has our profile.  One is obviously not very many, but it only takes one mother to choose us to raise her child.  So we pray.  We pray for whoever this woman is.  Pray that she has the courage to make the decision to choose life for her baby.  Give her the courage for the decisions that she will have to be making.  It has got to be the hardest decision of a life time. 

Anyways...we love you all.  We are excited.  We thank God for all of you who read, who support, who pray for us.  We will keep you posted!!

love you all
The Nuzum's :)