"It takes a village" they say...and boy is our village AMAZING! Joe and I are overwhelmed with the outpouring of love and support we have been given as we embark on this journey to parenthood through adoption. From your prayers to your monetary support to your encouragement with your words, we can't thank you enough!

Last week, we explored two ways that you can help us bring Baby Loyer home. Part 1 asked you to pray for us as we begin the seemingly long wait process. Part 2 asked you to step out on a ledge and prayerfully consider donating to our Butterfly Fundraiser.

Today we are going to explore Part 3-Help us Find a Birth Mother!

While we have chosen an agency and we absolutely love our social worker and everything about her, the wait time with working with such a small agency can be long...as in two years long. We are willing to wait for however long it takes for God to allow our paths to cross with our birth mother, but we also know that we have an AMAZING village and want to explore all of our options.

Enter-designated adoption. Designated adoption is when we meet a birth mother through mutual connections of family and friends. There is a major price difference when it comes to this route because we are doing the connecting as opposed to the agency providing all of the services.

For example:

Domestic Infant Adoption: $14,000

Designated Adoption: $7,000

So what can you do to help us find Baby Loyer?

1. Share our photo and adoption intentions on any social media site. 

• Example: Hey everyone, I know an amazing couple who is looking to expand their family through adoption. If you or anyone you know is interested, let me know! Thanks for sharing! 

2. Ask around about any adoption situations.

• Hospitals, birthing centers, etc are great resources

3. Continue to pray! 

• We know that God's plan will work out perfectly and that He has already chosen our sweet baby and amazing birth mom. We know that He will make things work out in His perfect timing but it doesn't make the wait time any easier. So please continue to pray for strength and patience during this process!

Thanks for being so amazing, village! Baby Loyer is so loved!

Bringing Baby Loyer Home (Part 2)-Butterflies

"You can chase a butterfly all over the field and never catch it. But if you sit quietly in the grass it will come and sit on your shoulder." -Author unknown

Butterflies have always been so important to our family and we knew that since we couldn't tell our guardian butterfly how excited we were about our calling to adopt, that we would somehow incorporate butterflies into the process.

Earlier this week (see part 1), we asked you guys to consider praying for us and we are feeling those prayers! Our home study is written and awaiting final documentation from the state and doors are opening like crazy! So THANK YOU!

Ya'll can I be honest with you just a little bit? This whole "adoption thing" is great and we are so thrilled to be doing God's work through adoption. However, we have to be honest when we say that it's not only draining physically and emotionally, but financially as well. To be honest, we held back at first because we didn't know if we could afford it. Type in "costs to adopt" in Google and the results will astound you! It. Is. Not. Cheap.

Joe and I have made some drastic life changes to begin saving for this new little bundle of joy that we will soon bring into this world but we know that we can't do it alone, no matter how hard we try. I remember the first person I talked to about the financial constraints of adoption; she told me "God will work it out. He will provide."

We have continually prayed for this process, including just where the finances will come from. But as we have constantly been reminded throughout this journey, God's got a plan and we are just along for this roller coaster ride. (Have I mentioned I hate roller coasters yet?) We are trusting that He will provide and we were hoping that you guys would consider helping us out.

We know that one of the beautiful blessing of adoption allows for us to bring Christ's love to others. In fact, in His word God reminds us that He has adopted each of us according to His will.

*Ephesians 1:5 says God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.

So can you all prayerfully consider helping us in this journey?

Here's how it works:

Enter Butterflies!

*We have purchased and punched 500 butterflies in the colors of Baby Loyer's nursery (pictures coming soon-we promise!

*Follow this link to be directed to our Go Fund Me account

*For every $20 donated to Baby Loyer, we will write your name and a message on a butterfly in the color of your choosing


As butterflies are sponsored, we will adhere them to the blank canvases we bought. These will be hung in Baby Loyer's room so that he or she will always know just how many people helped bring him or her home. (And that they have a special guardian butterfly looking over them constantly-thanks to their very special Aunt Lisa)

We are so excited to begin this process and jump with two feet in! We know that God has chosen our beautiful baby and it's only a matter of time before we are united! So until then, we will sit quietly in the field and wait for them to "land on our shoulder."

PS- As I type this "How great is our God" is playing on my Pandora...see He's got this ya'll!

Bringing Baby Loyer Home: Part 1-Pray for us!

This will be a three part blog post in which we will let you all know how you can help us bring Baby Loyer home!

The hardest part about the adoption process, according to those who have been there, is the wait. Like I said in earlier posts, we could wait for up to two years....yes, two years. And while we long to hold our baby in our arms, we also know that God has orchestrated this plan perfectly thus far and He won't let us down now!

We plan to fill this wait time with getaways, weddings, and celebrations of friends' babies. We also plan to become really active in the adoption community.

But ya'll, this is hard. We have already waited a mere two years to be parents and now you're telling me we could wait another two years? That's hard to swallow!

So will you please do us a favor?

Will you please cover us in prayer? We know that God's amazing plan is perfect in every way but we also know that it can be hard to sit back while God works out His plan.

We find so much comfort in knowing that God has already chosen our sweet baby and knows just when our paths will cross. He knows the color of his or her eyes, the color of their beautiful skin, the sound of their cry, and just how many hairs are on their head.

So will you please keep us in your thoughts and prayers as we navigate through this long road ahead?

Thanks for all the kind words and statements of support! It takes a village, guys! Thanks for being our village!

Adoption Timeline

Hooray! It's officially official because it's not official until it's Facebook official! Am I right?!

We posted our announcement on Facebook on Saturday morning and were overwhelmed with the response and congratulations from family and friends!

This is also the first official post that many of you are seeing...feel free to take a look around at this amazing mess that has been two years in the making!

With the official announcement comes many questions about the process, what's next, and how to help. We are overjoyed to answer any and all questions that anyone has, but I'm going to try to lay out the next steps for ya'll.

Here goes nothing:

Loyer Adoption Timeline

November 2014- God answers our prayers for direction (Read about that here)

December 2014- Met with case worker at local agency...fell IN LOVE! (Read about that here)

January 19, 2015- Completed our Home Study:

On January 19, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, our case worker came to our house and met with us for five...yes five hours! She took a look at our home, which we spent days cleaning and organizing, asked us questions, and got to know us as a couple and as future parents. This is a BIG step ya'll, a HUGE part of the process. As in if we didn't pass this, it was all over, we would not be approved to adopt. Thankfully, we are awesome and were approved! Talk about a load off of our shoulders.

January 2015- Completed online classes for Foster Care License

We had to complete four online classes to be approved for our foster care license. (In the state of Illinois, we have to be approved as a foster care home because the adoption will not be final until 6 months after the baby is born). We laid in bed for several nights in a row listening and completing the online courses. They were really informative and helped answer some tough questions.

January 2015- Completed and Ordered our Adoption Profile books

Birth parents get to have the amazing opportunity to choose who they want to parent their child. So we have created a book, more like a scrapbook, that outlines who we are, what we believe in, and what opportunities we will give to a child. We had a great time making the book and it turned out perfectly! It will be up on the website for our agency soon so I'll make sure to share the link!

January 2015-Officially a waiting family

Now we wait...

The Calling to Adopt

When Joe and I first began to ponder and pray about the possibility of becoming parents through adoption, we continually read that it is a calling. Adoptive parents from across the world said the same thing "God called us to do this." I found that to be both a profound and disturbing statement at the time.

I felt called to teach when I was a freshman at Northern, wandering the campus after a rough day when a small boy at the campus day care told me to "have a great day."

I felt called to coach when the position opened up at the opportune time and my former cheer coach told me about it.

We felt called to buy our house after looking at no other houses, when we met the couple that lived there before us.

But called to adopt? We hadn't exactly felt that feeling quite yet.

Remember when I wrote about the power of prayer? Yeah, let's revisit that. I distinctively remember praying in the shower one morning (sorry it's where I do my best thinking) and crying out to God "where do you want me? where do I need to go from here?" Like I said before, it was the first time that I had truly surrendered everything to Him.

And guess what? He called us...He rang loud and clear and said THIS is what I want you to do!

It's such an amazing feeling to hear God speak to you. If you haven't heard Him speak, or haven't heard Him in a while, I would encourage you to surrender your thoughts and troubles to him and be still. He will answer. 

So here we are, knee deep in this "adoption thing" and I can't imagine us being anywhere else. I feel such a profound sense of peace and understanding at where I am supposed to be in life.

Do we have everything figured out? No way! Are we scared to death? You betcha! Major finances, wait time, placement, and our home study still lie ahead of us. But guess what? God's got this and we are so ready for this amazing ride!

Here is our official announcement! It was so much fun telling our family and friends! I am working on a fun video compilation of some of the pictures and videos I took when we told them. Stay tuned!