Lanie Jo & Nica Nugget update

Many of you have sent us sweet gifts and words of congratulations and encouragement as we welcomed home our little Langdon Jo on April 19th. We can't believe that we are parents!

The same week we welcomed home Lanie Jo we received more news about our Nica Nugget. Nicaragua slowed their adoption program back in 2017, the country actually declared that they no longer have an orphan problem. They changed all of the orphanages to daycares and were not matching children with waiting families unless they had special needs. While this was discouraging we continued to move forward knowing that with our in-country connections that we have a decent chance of being matched quickly.

The week we brought Lanie Jo home we found out that Nicaragua was struggling with more than a confusing decree in regards to adoption. In the middle of April Nicaragua's president, Daniel Ortega, made a social security reform that led to political upheaval. We have known that Nicaragua struggles with political divides but this brought the divide to a new, and scary, level. We are thankful that the Nicaraguan people are stepping up for their rights, freedoms, and hope but are also saddened that it took violent protests and the loss of 63 lives. As the Nicaraguan people call for Ortega to leave office so they can move back towards democracy for the first time in years, many protests and demonstrations took a scary turn including burning buildings, violence towards student protestors, and tens of thousands of people in the streets.

Now as you can imagine, this upheaval has rocked this country and in turn, has completely stopped any movement for adoption. In fact, one of the buildings that has been burned housed, Mi Familia, the Nicaragua adoption program. We are still waiting for news and praying that this is resolved quickly and peacefully. We are ready for adoption to be open again. Our hearts break thinking about the orphans that are not getting matched with families because of political issues.

It hurts to think that our nugget could be caught in the middle of this. We have been praying that God protects the people of Nicaragua, our dear friends that live there, and that our future child and their birth family remain safe. We have no way of knowing what will happen or how long it will take for Nicaragua to see peace and open up adoption again. However, we are fully confident that we are meant to adopt from this country. That God called us here to wait on our nugget as long as it takes. We are grateful to have Lanie Jo home and healthy as we pray for her future sibling.

Gathering & Growing

If you are here, it is probably because you saw our social media post about growing our family.  We have been so excited to share this news but also savoring the time with just a select few knowing our little secret.

We knew that when we decided to share this news with "the world" that there were going to be lots of questions. It was no longer going to be whispered about among friends and so many people were going to immediately ask about our adoption. So, we knew when we found the right time to share that we needed to take that opportunity to speak and share about our wonderful and unique situation of being pregnant while in the midst of adoption.

To answer the big burning question everyone asks right off the bat, YES- our adoption is still happening and YES we are still right on track.

Now, the biggest thing I want everyone to know is that we are adopting because God called us to and we are growing a little baby because God called us to. He put the desire to adopt a little nugget from Nicaragua on our hearts and opened up door after door to make sure we knew adoption was His plan for our family. Then this summer, He called us to take another step of faith and to grow our family biologically. From the moment Reed and I decided to "talk" about growing our family we said our first priority was to follow God and let whatever we do be for HIS glory. We want our children, adopted or biological, to know that our "family plan" was to grow up children that know and feel the love of God each and every day no matter what their story.

Each of these children is a miracle. We can't wait to meet them both and have these two pictures of our faith be forever in our family. But they are a miracle because they were both knit together by our amazing Father. We are not adopting because we could not get pregnant and we did not get pregnant because we are adopting. We are pregnant and adopting because God wrote an amazing story that we get to live out and share with the world.

Adoption and pregnancy are both a journey that not every family has the joy of experiencing. We know that many families adopting may struggle to get pregnant. Or that adoption may come up later after biological children. We want to savor every moment of both of these journeys and remember that God has us on them, at the same time, so we can share His family story.

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