Our Next Adventure

 * If you didn't read my latest blog post, I encourage you to do so. It gives background to this blog post about our next adventure...the adoption of Baby Woodley #2!*

  In November of 2015, we adopted our beautiful baby girl, Abigail Cindy Woodley.

Her story is nothing short of a miracle. Dave and I had not tried to conceive naturally before we adopted, Abigail. We adopted her out of a desire to adopt and a very clear calling that adoption, at that moment in our lives, was exactly what we were supposed to do. And there was a reason- our Abby girl!

From start to finish, her adoption process took less than 6 months. Talk about fast!! We have had many hard days and long nights with our sweet Abby, but watching her grow, flourish, and beat all the odds makes all those days totally worth it!

 We recently began hearing the words "infertility"; "difficulty conceiving"; "IVF" and have been faced with some devastating facts and hard decisions. In the midst of this infertility journey, Dave and I continue to believe that one day God will fulfill our desire to be biological parents but until that time, we are going to be adopting!!

Baby Woodley #2

 Many have asked about what our second adoption will look like. God's plans are so much better than our own!! Because of the circumstance that surrounded Abby's adoption and the need for her to be adopted quickly, we were left with a surplus of money through Bethany Christian Services. Though we'd signed papers saying that there would be no refunds, Bethany offered to hold the surplus for up to two years in case we wanted to adopt again... and here we are just 8 months shy of that two year mark! This surplus allows us to have about $8,000 of the $30,000 adoption cost reduced. This is a huge praise!

  We are also not going to be open to severe medical needs again. We are open to minor medical/surgical needs and of course, we are open to either gender and any ethnicity. And, we are once again looking for an infant. My prayer is that we will have another baby by Christmas!

 Our paperwork and meetings will go much faster this time around as we are already in the system and much of what we have to do just has to be updated.

Prayer Requests:

 Adoption is hard- for many reasons. Knowing our ability to conceive on our own makes this next adventure of adoption very different from the last one. Adoption means the loss of a child from his biological mother for any number of reasons and that's just down right tough...on the child, on us, and on his or her birthparents.

 Adoption is expensive. We will once again be doing fundraisers to help raise the next $20,000 we will need in order to bring our second child home. We watched as God financially blessed in incredible ways for Abby's adoption and we know He will do it again!

 Adoption is exciting. Please pray that we will have patience in the process. Pray that we will not grow weary in well doing. And be in prayer for our second child- whoever he or she may be!

Adoption takes a village! Though my time is limited with our busy toddler, I will be blogging about this next adoption adventure whenever I can!! We are on an adventure to find Baby Woodley #2 and I hope you will join us!