Homestudy Approved!

This morning, our completed homestudy arrived in our hands via UPS.  This is a big adoption milestone, and reaching this point makes "Abraham's" addition to our family feel that much more real.  It's analogous to hearing a biological baby's heartbeat for the first time during pregnancy. 

The first trip to go meet him (hopefully this winter or early spring) will be like the 20 week ultrasound on steroids.  Instead of seeing his image for the first time and finding out if he's a boy or a girl, we will get to hold him for the first time and get a little glimpse of his personality.  Oh, I can't wait!  Even though at this point it looks like Sean will be traveling solo for that first trip while I stay home to care for Abraham's brothers and sister.  Sean will be equipped with his camera, and I know he will give me a very detailed account of each minute he spends with him!

I love adoption!  You get so happy and excited to receive an otherwise
long and boring report in the mail! :)

For all of our children so far, we have either visited ourselves or have had someone visit on our behalf, the Nombre de Dios Mission in St. Augustine, FL during each of my four pregnancies.  This time, to save money for our adoption, we are unable to visit St. Augustine ourselves.  So I put out a request to some prayer warriors to go and pray for our little guy there on our behalf.

On September 2, one of these special ladies arranged for a Mass to be offered for our little guy and us at the Rustic Altar at Nombre de Dios.  This is the site of the very first Mass in the Americas.  This is a very special place for us, and to know that a Mass was said on that very same spot for our adoption leaves me speechless with gratitude.

Last night, another prayer warrior sent me a picture of a votive candle featuring Our Lady of La Leche (La Leche League is named after her!), Mary nursing baby Jesus, which she lit for Abraham while praying for him there in that holy place.  The place where either we have or other people have prayed for our unborn babies in the past.  Now we're gestating Abraham in our hearts, and it is wonderful to know people are praying for him in the same way that was prayed for our other children.

She wrote his birth name and our last name with a heart. ♥ 
God willing, he will legally be a Bailey some day!
I removed his name from this picture for privacy reasons.