Dear Baby- #5 Meet Your Future Family

Dear Baby,
This past Christmas we got everyone together for a family photo.
They are all praying for you and can't wait to meet you!


- Love,
Russell and Meagan

The Next Step

I shared in an earlier post about the cost of adoption. I mentioned that our first goal was to raise the money required to list our profile with the adoption agency. This way our book and profile can be shown to prospective birth mothers. I told you about the Hopes Prayers and Lullabies cd that I wrote to help raise money for this process. I wanted to raise the first payment, $1750, by selling this CD. In the middle of December I wrote to you saying that we had 50 more CDs or about $500 more to go, and that I wanted to raise that by the end of 2010.

I am glad to report that today we reached that goal. We have a few finishing touches for our book and then we will mail it, along with the first check off so we can be listed. It is a great feeling and an awesome time, yet I know there is much more work to do.

Someone asked me what happens now. Well, once we are chosen by a birth mom, and agree to be the adoptive parents then we will have our next payment of $5000 due. This could be at any time from a month, to a year or more. This means we will need to continue saving, and raising money for when this happens. I am glad to say that we have received some donations to apply to that payment, so we are on our way.

How can you help?

1. Keep Praying
2. If you have bought a CD tell your friends about how they can get one and how you like it.
3. If you have not bought a CD, buy one.

Thank you all for your support as we travel down this journey.
We'll keep you posted!

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Russell and Meagan Martin

Cds Update Now 23 Left To Go!

Almost one week ago I wrote about needing to sell 50 more CDs, to raise enough money to post our adoption profile. I am glad to report that many of you purchased CDs and now we are only 23 Cds away from our goal.

Our hope is to have this all ready to go by the first of the year. That means we have 9 days to sell 23 Cds. If you break that down it's a few more than 2 Cds per day.

When I wrote the songs for the CD I had in mind a lullaby CD for infants. Many people though have written me back since purchasing it saying that their kids, and teenagers have "stolen" their CDs to listen to. One church uses some of the instrumentals for altar times. Teachers are playing it in their classrooms.

Since my last update I have been contacted by two churches who want me to share my music and our adoption story with them. From the beginning Meagan and I said that one of our goals, one of the reasons we have started this blog is so that through sharing our adoption journey, we can be an advocate and encourager for other couples wanting to adopt. I am so thankful for these upcoming opportunities.

So I hope that you will do three things. 1. If you have not yet, buy the CD. 2. Consider having me come to your church, class, group or meeting to share my music, lead worship, and talk about our adoption journey. 3. Pray for us, couples considering adoption, birth moms making the choice to put their child up for adoption, and all those friends and family members supporting those on all sides of this process.

50 CDs Away

I sat down and did a little math to figure out that we are closer than we thought. When I originally came up with the idea for the Hopes Prayers and Lullabies CD I wanted to sell enough to pay for our first payment of $1700. Thanks to your generosity we only have $500 to go, that's about 50 CDs.

There are several ways we can get to 50 CDs by the end of the year.

1. Someone could buy 50 Cds to give to all their friends.
2. 10 of you follow this blog. If you got 5 friends each to buy a CD then that would be 50
3. 314 of you follow Hopes Prayers and Lullabies on Facebook. If 1/6 of you bought a CD that would be 50. If you each bought one that would be half way to the second payment.

So if you know of someone who would like a CD tell them to go to http://www.indieheaven.com/artists/russellmartin and buy one. If you have a website or store for children's clothes, toys, games etc..., and would put up a link or put some CDs in your store, let me know. If you could send out a tweet, email or facebook message to your friends, letting them know about our story and this CD, please do. As always continue to pray.


P.S.
Some one asked me what would happen if all the sudden the Lullaby CD went viral, and we sold enough copies to cover all our expenses. What would we do? First I'd faint. But after that, we plan to put the extra money from the CD into an adoption fund for the next couple who wants to adopt. 

Text

Dear Baby #4- Got Whoop?

Dear Baby,
This is something you are going to have to understand. Your momma is an aggie. This means a few things:
1. Your favorite color isn't burnt orange.
2. The day after thanksgiving there is a football game on. Don't make plans.
3. You had better get used to receiving gifts like this. Sometime tells me this is only the beginning.

Adoption Update #1

I thought we'd take a chance and update you on where we are in the process. As of now we have turned in our initial paper work and completed our home study.

Step two is raising the money needed to activate our profile. This way we will be visible to birth moms and they could potentially choose our profile. This first step costs around $1700.

Russell has created a CD called "Hopes Prayers and Lullabies" and is selling it to help with this cost. We figure we need to sell around 220 for this first step.

We also have been working on our profile book. It is a collection of photos, like a scrapbook, that shows who we are, what our home is like, the things we like to do etc... The birth mom will look at this book when she is deciding on a family for her child.

In other news we have begun collecting baby stuff. We now have a crib, pack and play, glider, and a few toys etc... Special thanks to our friends who are so kind to pass their baby items on to us.

Whats next? Finish selling the CDs and get on the waiting list. That's really the next step.
We thank you for your continued support and prayers.

If you would like to purchase "Hopes Prayers and Lullabies" you can do so by going to http://www.indieheaven.com/artists/russellmartin. We are about a third of our way to our goal.
Thanks again,

Russell and Meagan

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Dear Baby #3- One Step Closer

Dear Baby,
Yes I know it's been a long time since I have written, but there is so much to tell you. The first good news is that we got our home study packet back. I got it and read it and found these words "I recommend that Meagan and Russell be adoptive parents!" That means we are one step closer. Oh, when you do arrive, you have some thank you notes to write. Some very special people wrote letters on our behalf saying how good of parents we would be. And though we only used 4 of them, I had so many people offer. That means there are so many people pulling for you, and us!

The second bit of good news is that we bought you a car. Ok well, not exactly. We bought a car for you to ride in. As far as you driving, maybe by that time you can use this car. Of course by that time we may be teleporting everywhere like in Star Trek. What's Star Trek you ask? Nevermind.

That's the good news so far. Next we will put together our profile book.

Hopefully soon I'll have another update with good news.

Hopefully soon I'll be able to tell this to you in person, in real time, instead of writing it ahead of time.

Dear Baby #2: Praying and Preparing

Dear Baby,

Preparations are under way even though we don't know when you will be here. We want to be ready. We do have a room picked out. It's right across from our room so you'll be close. We've already chosen some colors.. brown and green I believe. We even have had some toys, rockers and other stuff donated too.

We did our home study. That's where someone checks out us, and our house to make sure it's ok for you to come live with us. Oh and we went to the doctor who ran tests to make sure we are healthy enough to take care of you. We are still waiting on some results but it seems everything is going fine. We also have to wait a little while for some paperwork and such to get done, but soon we will be putting our profile for your mom to see. Once that happens it could be any time.

So until then we are waiting and praying. We are praying for your mom's health and the choice she has to make. We're praying for you too. And don't worry, we aren't the only ones praying. There are so many people who are praying for us, and for you too.

Dear Baby: #1 Introduction

Dear Baby,
Let me introduce myself.. I am Russell and my wife is Meagan. We live in a house with 4 puppies and a kitty cat. Meagan teaches school, and I lead music at our church.

Our house is a nice small house in the city. It has a yard out back with a small garden, and a tree where I can put a swing. I think thought we'll have to save the swinging for sometime other than August, it's hot!!!

Inside the house we already have a room picked out for you! Right now there's not much in it but we are working on collecting a crib, dresser, toys and all the other stuff you will need.

The colors are brown and green. I hope you like them, but if not we can change them once you are old enough to tell us what colors you do like.

It seems kind of weird writing to you because we have no idea who you are, or when you will come to live with us. Just know this.. we are praying for you, we are praying for your birth mom and we can't wait till you come to live with us.

It's late so I'll say good night.
Love You

Visit to OKC

It has been a while since the last post...this is in part due to a busy summer and also due to the fact that we are both procrastinators (yes, I admitted it!). The purpose of this blog is to take friends and family through our journey. In June, we took the first big step in that journey.

On June 10, we left Texarkana bound for Oklahoma City. The adoption agency we are using is in OKC and they require each couple to attend an adoption seminar. The seminar started on June 11th, but we went a day early to see the Oklahoma City Redhawks play.

The Redhawks are a AAA team in the Texas Rangers system. There was a great crowd that night and we had awesome seats (thanks to a friend of Russell's that used to work for the team.) During the 7th inning stretch, we got a big surprise. At Astros game, during the 7th inning stretch, everybody sings "Take me out to the Ballgame" and "Deep in the Heart of Texas." Well in Oklahoma, they sing "Oklahoma!" I sincerely wish I had a video of the guy standing on top of the dug out, dancing while singing. He was very amusing! After this, both of us were tired so we decided to call it a night. On our way out of Bricktown Ballpark, we got a quick picture of us in front of the

Mickey Mantle statue.

On Friday, we got to sleep late and left the hotel for a late lunch at a restaurant about half way between the hotel and the adoption agency. The seminar started at 4 pm, so we had a little time to kill. We ended up going to Target and PetSmart before heading to the agency. We really had no idea what to expect, how many people would be there with us, what information we would be given, etc. The seminar ended up being extremely helpful and it dismissed many of the fears we had. The seminar was from 4-9 Friday evening and 8:30-3:30 on Saturday. We were one of nine couples that were attending the seminar.

During the seminar, the agency staff cover topics including Legal Process, Grief & Loss, Creation of a Family, Attachment, Transracial Parenting, and Prenatal Exposures. The information was helpful, but by far the best part of the seminar was the panels of people that came and talked to us. The first panel was a group of birth moms. They each told their story and talked about the contact they have with the children they gave up for adoption. One mom had a very open adoption, while the others were semi-open or closed. Two of the moms placed their child up for adoption over 16 years ago, when every adoption was closed and just recently they have made contact with the adoptee.

The second panel were adult adoptees. They were all over 40 years of age and their birth mothers had given them up during a time when the moms did not even see the baby after birth. There was a screen put up during delivery. Each of them talked about their relationship with their adopted mother and their birth mother now.

The last panel was definitely the most entertaining! This was the panel of adopted families and the children were just precious. Each family told their story about the adoption process. The most interesting information we gleaned from the birth moms & the families was that the majority of them agreed on the hardest part of the whole process. Leaving the hospital.

Since it has almost been 2 months since the seminar, I have had time to try and comprehend all of the information. There was a ton of information fed to us in 12 hours. There were also many emotions to process.

Though it has been a seemingly slow journey for a while, things are beginning to gain momentum. The trip to Oklahoma was one step.. keep checking back for the steps to come.

Testing

This is a Test

Posted via email from Russell and Meagan's Journey

Free Concerts and A CD

When we first posted our news about adopting I mentioned something about a CD I would be doing. Here is the rest of the story.

For the past several years I have recorded several CDs. When I start the process my goal is to write music people like, that has a biblical message, and that is heavy in the use of the Piano.

I think have done a good job of the first two.. but it always seems that the songs that get chosen for recording are based on the guitar.... I wanted to change that.

This summer I am offering churches, youth groups, house bible studies and anyone else who will listen, a free night of music and worship. This will include congregational worship, original songs, and instrumental piano. The thing is, I'm leaving the guitar at home. Just me, the congregation, and a piano (or keyboard).

The entire evening will be recorded. At the end of the summer, or maybe early fall, I will collect all the recordings and compile them. Then I'll choose 10-15 of the best instrumental pieces for an instrumental piano CD.

When the CD is finished it will be made available for sale. The majority of the proceeds will help us in the adoption process. A portion of each CD, however, will go to help raise awareness about adoption, and to help others with the process.

If you are interested in helping you can do so in 4 ways:

1. Pray- Pray for us as we begin this journey, pray for families considering adoption, pray for children waiting to be adopted, pray for this CD and what God has in store.

2. Host a night of worship- My goal is to line up 15 worship events. These can be large church services, youth groups, retreats, or even home groups. My goal is to finish recording by the end of August. There is no cost for the event, I am only asking for a love offering to help with travel expenses.

3. Buy a CD when they come out. I’ll let you know when.

Our Journey Begins

Isaiah 55:8 "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD.

Life is a journey. It is a journey where the only thing you can really plan on, is that your plans will change. 5 years ago Meagan and I set out on a journey of our own. We got married, and planned on starting a family within a few years. A few years have come, and a few years have gone and we have not yet had the chance to begin this journey.

Someone once said that if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans. We have come to realize that our plans, for the way we wanted things to be just might not be what God has planned for us. And as Jeremiah 29:11 reminds us, His plans are to prosper and not to harm, to give a hope and a future.

One thing that Meagan and I both said before we even got married is that at some point we wanted to adopt. In the past year we have had little hints, and reminders that have brought that thought back up to us. So in November of this past year we began the process.

We are only at the beginning stages of this journey. We have an orientation to go to, home study to be conducted and money to raise. We wanted to let you know now, because we ask for your prayers. Prayers that we are doing what God wants of us; prayers that financial and physical resources will be found; and prayers for the birthmother and child we hope to be connected with.

We also want you to pray for all those who are, like we were, being led to consider adopting. We want to use this blog not only to tell our story, our journey, but also to encourage those who will be embarking on this same journey soon. If you are considering adoption, ask questions, talk to us. We will try to post resources, stories and encouragement we receive along the way. If you have adopted, then feel free to offer your own stories, of joys, struggles, and experiences you have encountered on your own journey.

Finally, we want to encourage you to pray for all those children who are currently or will be put up for adoption for whatever reason, wherever in the world they are.

So that's about it. You'll hopefully be hearing from us on a regular basis. You'll hear about our trip for orientation with stories and photos; you will hear more about a live piano CD that Russell is recording this summer to help raise money and awareness for adoption; and you will hear about where we are and what else is going on.

We hope you will join us and pray for us as we begin this amazing journey.

Thank you and God Bless

Russell and Meagan Martin