50's and sunny in Bulgaria next week!

I can't believe we are at the point where I am checking the weather and deciding what to pack! We leave for Bulgaria in 4 days! It's truly a different feeling than any other trip I've taken. I can't believe we are finally going to meet our son!

We have had the joy of shopping for him for the first time. It's such an indescribable feeling. Dan and I were in the mall and we decided to buy him a Colorado t-shirt to bring with us. As we were making our purchase I was overcome with tears of joy that we could finally buy our son something! It made things so tangible. I look over at the small pile of things we will bring for him and feel like it's not enough, but I know that nothing will be enough until we have him home.

We leave November 10th to start our journey to Bulgaria, and we will finally meet our boy on the 16th. We spend the 16-19th with him, before we wrap up our trip and come home to wait for the adoption to be finalized. We are finishing up the last bit of paperwork that will go to court with him after we are gone.

Please join us in praying for this unique experience we are all about to go through. For Dan and I that we can show all of our kids the right amount of love in the right ways at the right times. For our kids that they will see an instant connection in one another and form a bond that only brothers and sisters can share. That he will feel our desire for him to join our family and know how much we love him already. For his foster mom, that she will feel peace in this situation and see that we want the best for the boy she has been raising for us these past 4 years. For logistics: our trip, our time in country, struggling with the language we are trying to learn....

We are so humbled by the love you have all shared with us leading up to this moment. We truly do not feel alone in this, but lifted up by the many ways you have all partnered with us. Thank you all for supporting our adoption story. I can't wait until we can come back and share pictures and stories with you all! 

Referral = Done Deal! (Almost)

Proud Momma:

I'm not sure what I thought it would feel like when we got our referral. I'm not sure what I think now that we have it. Yep, that's right WE GOT OUR REFERRAL!!!!!

We just booked our flights to go meet our son! We leave November 10 and come back November 23. We'll be with our boy for a glorious 4 days in the middle of all that. We'll have a few days before we meet him to adjust to the time change and for us to focus on preparing ourselves and the kids.

Thank you to everyone who donated to our purecharity account! Your generosity provided us with $11,532!!! We were able to pay all of our Gladney adoption agency fees with it and a good portion of our fees for the agency in Bulgaria.

The garage sale and just people giving us cash paid for a lot of our home study fees, and a generous donor provided us with travel money to cover our first trip. We have been able to fill in the rest by the grace of God and his blessings on our finances. We also received a grant for $1250!

We only have about $4,000 left in fees for our agency in Bulgaria, our second trip to bring our son home, and then $1600 in social worker visits after we bring him home. I know that God will provide faithfully as He has so far!

It's been amazing to have all of your support, whether it's financial support, prayer, or kind words at just the right time. We could not have gotten to this point without you, and every bit helps! We are so excited to share these next steps with all of you. We have so many questions that are waiting for answers. We can't wait to get to know our son!

Proud Papa:

At each new milestone or event, this becomes more real. The length of time that this process takes is, in some sense, a blessing. It has given us time to gradually digest this life-altering pursuit. This is the most amazing news we've received, and if I'm being honest, it's also a bit terrifying. I look at our biological children and believe in our hearts that we've done a pretty decent job thus far, with a lot of help from family and friends. Still, nothing can truly prepare us for what's to come.

With this referral comes a certain level of certainty. It is certain that we have passed muster and have been granted the legal authority to adopt this boy, the rest is paperwork and his decision. The joy of that knowledge is too intense for my man-sized emotional range to express in a way that would do it justice. I'm bursting inside, but you probably wouldn't know it to look at me. Maybe I'm just tempted by the knowledge that, with that certainty, comes gobs and gobs of uncertainty. It's a paradox and it's real.

So now the hard and messy part(s) truly begin and I'm starting to think like his parent. Adoption isn't the answer to children without family or those in abhorrent conditions. A good home and a good family are the answers. Adoption is just the vehicle, that's all it's really meant for; child A to family B. Can we provide the good home and are we the good family he needs? We're encouraged that friends, family, and complete strangers in two different continents, countries, and states seem to think so. We're encouraged by how God has been, and continues to be, so obviously involved in this. His generosity and faithfulness, in every sense and meaning of those words, are indescribable, and we're all going to need more of it in the months and years to come.

In a few short weeks, we will meet him for the first time. He still may or may not be aware of our existence at this stage, but we have to trust that the people closest to him have his best interests in mind, and will prepare him in the right way and at the right time, however and whenever that is. For now, prayers are so graciously welcomed. For our travels, his response and reaction to this news, our meeting and our short time together.

All over but the waiting...

Wow! What a day!

We received our USCIS application approval yesterday and that got the ball rolling on a whole bunch of stuff. We rushed downtown today, got our FBI fingerprints done electronically and had the results within 20 minutes - approved! I mailed all our documents to Gladney today and now everything is done on our end to submit our dossier! It's an amazing sense of relief and joy to know this benchmark has been met.

Please join us in praying persistently for the dossier to be submitted and approved quickly. We can book our travel to go meet our son as soon as we get the approval! We are so excited for this!

We are going to run another t-shirt campaign, so if you didn't get yours the first go around, you can still get one soon: http://teespring.com/world-s-best-adoption-shirt

If you want to be a part of the story financially you can contribute to our donation site: https://purecharity.com/dorazioadoption for a tax break on your part. 

Fingerprinting... done!

We are really making progress now!

Yesterday I had my fingerprinting appointment for USCIS. This is the last big thing we need to accomplish before sending our dossier to Bulgaria! We are so excited that we are almost there! We have to wait for the fingerprints to be approved and then we have to get a few more things including that notarized and apostilled. This should all take another 2 weeks, then we can send the dossier! It's crazy!

I have no idea how long it takes to get a dossier approved, but once that happens we get our official referral. That is a document that says we can adopt our boy! Once we get that, we can book our trip to go see him! Lots of exclamation points, because we are getting so excited!

We just started school with the kids and are learning as much Bulgarian as we can until it's time to go. We are focusing our efforts on that now, since all our paperwork is pretty much finished. We just got a certificate from our adoption agency telling us that we are approved by them to adopt our boy!

Fundraising has gone well. We have paid all the fees on this end of things in the US, but still have to pay 8500 Euros to the agency in Bulgaria, our travel fees, and various things like his visa and medical appointments to get him home. Our tshirt fundraiser went well and some of you have asked if you can still get a tshirt. You can go to: http://teespring.com/world-s-best-adoption-shirt and reserve one, if 25 people do this, they will do another print of them. You won't be charged unless they end up reprinting.

If you already got your tshirt, but want to be a part of the adoption story, you can still donate to our Pure Charity account and get a tax deduction: https://purecharity.com/dorazioadoption . We have been doing well saving our money and are about halfway there on the rest of our fees. I think we are doing this all without going into debt and it's crazy!

You guys have all been so supportive and amazing through this whole process supporting us financially, through prayer and through your love. We've felt like we haven't been going through this alone. We are on the home stretch now, hopefully you will all get to meet our son soon!  

Garage Sale Gold!

We had the garage sale this past Friday and Saturday with amazing success. We raised an incredible $1800 and we still have a few big things left to be sold! There were so many people who donated items to us in the weeks leading up to the sale. The stuff filled our garage completely and even spilled over to our backyard. It was overwhelming, but every item brought us to our total, so in the end, definitely worth it!

We had great friends who donated their time sorting and pricing items in the week before the sale, which was awesome because I've learned that garage sales are not my thing! Then, Friday morning when we started pulling stuff out and setting up, we were surprised and overwhelmed by the people that showed up to help! All day Friday and Saturday we were surrounded by friends who weren't going to let us do this on our own.

We feel so blessed and so loved by this weekend. We are truly full to the brim!

We've been praying boldly about the financial aspect of the adoption. It's been something that hasn't made us feel stressed, but that we know needs to happen. We have received over $11,000 from donations on our Pure Charity website: https://purecharity.com/dorazioadoption Between that total and what Dan and I have put in, we have paid for everything we need to pay for to apply for the adoption! We still have 8,000 Euros to pay to the Bulgarian adoption agency, all our travel costs, and aftercare, but we are on our way!!! It's amazing!

Our t-shirt sales are also going well. Our goal is 100 shirts and we've sold 40 shirts already!! If you haven't gotten one yet, check it out: http://teespring.com/world-s-best-adoption-shirt  Here's a close up picture of the design:

Our home study has been approved by the state of Colorado and now our paperwork has been sent to USCIS. Please pray that it will be dealt with in a timely manner and approved quickly. The government of Bulgaria shuts down for the month of August, so we probably won't get the dossier submitted before then, but hopefully everything will be dealt with right in the beginning of September. We want to get our son home soon!

Thanks for all your prayers, support, and financial contributions. We are so in awe of the way you have all invested in our son and our family in your own ways. It's filled us with peace and joy that we can't begin to describe. 

World's Best Adoption Shirt!!! World's Best Garage Sale!!!

This shirt is amazing!

Impress your friends!!

Don't miss your chance to be the best!

http://teespring.com/world-s-best-adoption-shirt



This garage sale is the most amazing garage sale you've ever been to!

You will find all the items to make your dreams come true!

There is something for everyone at our incredible garage sale!!!

http://denver.craigslist.org/sys/5106455273.html

Home Study Visits are Finished!

Things are going really well, really smoothly! It's pretty incredible to have so much peace and comfort in a time that has been billed as stressful. I know we aren't all the way in it yet, and there might be stress coming, but so far we are doing great!

We had our last home study visit last Friday and it went really well. The social worker was very thorough asking questions, but we never felt like we couldn't just be ourselves. We have been forthcoming about everything and it seems to be all good stuff for her. We had the opportunity to describe each other, and therefore to listen to descriptions of each other from the people we love the most. It was precious and touching to hear the things Dan and the kids had to say about me and one another. I think we have grown even closer as a family going through this process!

The social worker has to write up her report, and then the serious paperwork begins. We have FBI fingerprinting and background checks, sending official documents to secretary of state to be authenticated, and many other annoying and boring paperwork based tasks to complete.

Our garage sale is coming up in a month and a half and we have a t-shirt sale fundraiser we are going to run. Other than that, just our donation site: https://purecharity.com/dorazioadoption is our only fundraiser. We are a third of the way toward our goal, which is incredible!!

At this point we are just waiting on everyone else involved in the process. Please pray that all the paperwork will be received quickly and smoothly without incident, and that the officials are able to get to our documents in a timely manner. The quicker our paperwork goes, the sooner we will have our son home!! Thank you so much everyone for your support!