Another cool way to help out

Our first batch of t-shirts have been ordered and we will start getting those in the mail in the next week and a half or so. We're excited to highlight another way you all can help us bring home Baby Patterson AND get some great stuff to use as Christmas presents or to add to your repertoire of awesome jewelry.

Our dear, sweet friends Scott and Whitney Waechter (who have been SO helpful in coaching us along in this adoption process) have graciously donated over 120 hand made paper bead necklaces and bracelents; here's a little info from Whitney:

The paper bead necklaces are hand made by women in Uganda who make them and sell them in the market places to provide food, shelter, and school fees for their children. So by purchasing a necklace, folks are helping your sweet baby join your family AND also helping impoverished women across the world feed and care for their children.:)

SO, we are happy to offer these awesome bracelets for $15 and necklaces for $25 with 100% of that money going to cover costs associated with bringing home Baby Patterson. Here's the deal on these great pieces: there are NO TWO ALIKE! That is awesome but will require a little flexibility on your part; if you want a certain color, we will do whatever we can to match that and send you the perfect one. Cool? Cool! Here are a few pictures to give you an idea of how great these are, including some of the women who made them!

Love 'em, dontcha?? We do too! Some of you have seen Bethany wear these and, well, if Bethany wears them, you know they're amazing. ORDERING: email Wayne (wayne.rivercross@gmail.com) with colors you'd like, how many and if you want a necklace or bracelet (and how many of each). Payment:

1) You can send us a check to:

Wayne and Bethany Patterson

6034 SW 85th St

Gainesville, FL 32608

If you don't live in Gainesville, add $5-8 to the total on the check for shipping; we're not going to try and go crazy calculating all the shipping to specifically, but if you live in Australia or something, add a few more bucks. Also, put 'Ugandan jewelry' in the memo line

2) You can use our PayPal donation account; you can do the same thing as with a check: total up your order ($15/bracelet, $25/necklace) and make a note of that on the PayPay page

3) You can use Venmo - a very safe, David Patterson-approved, money sharing site that also has a great iPhone and Android app. You can search for me (Wayne) by putting in my name or phone number (7574127432). It will ask you what the payment is for; Ugandan jewelry for that

4) You can find Bethany or I and just pay us in person, using any kind of money, even sacks of gold. Naw, don't use gold. Or BitCoin. We can't accept either of those.

Cool? Thanks so much! Let us know if you have any questions!

Bethany and Wayne

We're having a baby!

Dear wonderful family and friends: it has happened! This Monday we received a call from Jenna at Angel Adoptions saying she had a birth mom who "REALLY like your profile and would like to speak to you by phone"! We talked and prayed for a couple of hours and Monday evening spoke on the phone with this prospective birth mom and it went fantastic - we had lots in common, she is excited about blessing us, and we felt an immediate and deep connection. It couldn't have been a better phone call.

Today we spoke with Jenna again after she had followed up with our birth mother and confirmed that all was great and that we can begin to work with a local lawyer (that they love and trust). And, if all goes well, we will be parents on February 8th - only 15 and a half weeks from now! Wow!

So, some questions we have already been asked and that we will try and answer quickly here and in more detail in the near future:

1) we will find out the gender next week - so crazy!
2) we can't publicly say where our birth mom is from/where she will be delivering the baby
3) YES, we will have lots of fundraising needs, especially in regards to the legal proceedings. It can be between $4,000 and $20,000 BUT, we don't know any hard numbers right now until we've spoke with the attorney that works with Angel. We will keep you posted specifically on that as soon as we can
4) we WILL have some baby showers but won't know when those will be until we know the gender and have settled out a few other details (this is all happening wonderfully fast!)
5) until our baby is home (and therefore relinquishment laws have passed) NOTHING is official. Please keep praying for this process as we have been encouraged by our adoption coordinators to temper our excitement (just slightly!) with the knowledge that until Baby Patterson is home, there are still variables (the birth mom could change her mind, for example).


I'm sure there are other questions that you have so please, feel free to ask!

Thank you all so very much for your love and prayers and support - we serve a gracious God who has a deep desire to see all children in loving homes and we feel honored that He has chosen us to bring this baby home.

Love you all,

Bethany and Wayne (and soon-to-be-home Baby Patterson!)

T-shirt!

Hello crew, we wanted to let you know as soon as possible that we could that we are starting TWO fundraising opportunities that will be ways for you wonderful and generous people to help us as you buy Christmas presents for your friends and family. We will always accept donations but there's something great about giving something with each donation - plus, it's a tangible reminder to pray with us AND a way to tell the story of adoption!

SO: item one is a t-shirt (pictured below) that we will be selling for $20. I have not ordered them yet but I will once I've taken an initial pre-order from you all. Please comment below or email me (Wayne - wayne.rivercross@gmail.com) with your order (just a how many and sizes, no money yet!) and we'll get the ball rolling from there. Make sense? Readysetgo!

Payment:

1) You can send us a check to:

Wayne and Bethany Patterson

6034 SW 85th St

Gainesville, FL 32608

If you don't live in Gainesville, add $5-8 to the total on the check for shipping; we're not going to try and go crazy calculating all the shipping to specifically, but if you live in Australia or something, add a few more bucks. Also, put 'Fundraiser t-shirt' in the memo line

2) You can use our PayPal donation account; you can do the same thing as with a check: total up your order ($15/bracelet, $25/necklace) and make a note of that on the PayPay page

3) You can use Venmo - a very safe, David Patterson-approved, money sharing site that also has a great iPhone and Android app. You can search for me (Wayne) by putting in my name or phone number (7574127432). It will ask you what the payment is for; Fundraiser t-shirt for that

4) You can find Bethany or I and just pay us in person, using any kind of money, even sacks of gold. Naw, don't use gold. Or BitCoin. We can't accept either of those.

Month 8

Monday marked the start of our 8th month of waiting for Baby Patterson to come home - 8 months! That simultaneously sounds like an eternity and a blip. 8 months simultaneously feels like an eternity and a blip. 

'How's it going with the adoption?' is a common question we are asked and sometimes that can be fantastic and sometimes that can be draining. Mostly our answer is 'great!' because it is, in fact, GREAT. I mean, God has already allowed us to raise over $12k! We've already been able to encourage several couples to dive into the scary-yet-wonderful process of adoption! We've learned more about the heart of our Heavenly Father than we could have ever anticipated! So, it is great. And yet there's always a desire to answer that question 'how's it going with the adoption?' with a definitive, quantifiable answer. We can tell you we are have over 80 prospective birth moms that have requested our full profile and we can tell you that because of a recent donation we've been able to increase the amount we are able to financially support a potential birth mother and we can tell you that we're in the top of the bell curve (months 7-14 are when most birth moms select adoptive parents in our program) and all of those things are wonderful but they don't exactly tell the story. 

We are waiting* for our child to come home and no definitive, quantifiable measurements help that waiting go faster. We are waiting for our family to expand, for that tan room to become our baby's room, for you all to finally get the 'ok, NOW you can throw us that shower', for our parents to get the privilege of spoiling their grand kid. So, 8 months feels like an eternity.

BUT BUT BUT! Jesus. Jesus changes everything. Jesus pursued us through everything - through every mess up and stubbornness we could throw at Him. He pursued us through much more than we could ever imagine pursuing our child, through much more than any red tape or bureaucracy or financial hardship. 

8 months. An eternity and a blip all at once. Thanks for praying with and for us.

Bethany and Wayne

*a lot of what we're learning on waiting comes from dear friends who are running the race ahead of us. Here's a link to an incredible post by one of our friends Dave on how waiting isn't nothing. Have a read

Beautiful, hand-picked team

Adoption is a process in much the same way as learning to ride a bike while learning to play the violin while learning to eat a burrito without making a mess. It's an inexact science that feels messy and impossible.

That is why it has been such a sweet blessing to have the beautiful, hand-picked team of supporters we have around us. So many of you have leaned into us during this process and we are so very thankful! And, in particular, God has blessed us with sojourners who are further down the path than we, people who have and do turn around and shout with love and grace-filled lungs 'keep going! You're doing great! You're almost there!'

It is to these dear people - Dave and Donna, Dave and Maggie, Scott and Whitney - that we are especially thankful for today. We would ask that you all who read this would know you play a special and vital role in our lives AND know that in different ways and seasons, God gives us particular people to reveal Himself to us.

We'd also like to issue a small, prayerful challenge: find those beautiful, hand-picked (by God) people who are leading you in this race and thank them. Readysetgo!

Love you all,
Bethany and Wayne

A looooong overdue update!

Hello friends! Sorry for the lengthy hiatus of blogging our adoption adventure...a mixture of moving and trips and laziness has kept us from being diligent in updating. Many thanks to all of you, as you've been consistent and loving in asking how things are going and in prayer - it's because of these tangible pictures of love that we want to more regularly update you all on how things are going. OK, enough of that, on to updates!

- Once/month our agency sends us an email with an update on how offend our profile is viewed (which is, thanks to many of you, a pretty substantial number!) and, more importantly, we are given an update on how often our full profile is requested by birth mothers; this number is an indicator that we are piquing the interest of potential birth mothers AND is also a number we are (prayerfully) not getting too hung up on - a birth mother can select dozens of profiles for further review if she pleases (and she is encouraged to do just that! It's a big decision and we want her to have as much information about as many adoptive parents as she can)

- Our profile was requested by 4 birth mothers February 10 - March 10, 9 times between March and April and 14 times between April and May. Pretty cool indeed!

- We recently moved into our first house (woot!) and are excited to add that to our profile as we will have even more space for Baby Patterson to grow up in (don't worry, we are still super close to Haile Village and our family). Many of our local friends have asked if we will have a house warming party and the answer is YES - and, many of you gracious people have asked the follow up question about gifts and, for now, it's probably best to just do Target or Home Depot gift cards (I know...boring) as we get ourselves situated 

- Some have asked for updates on fundraising and so we will post a separate update about that soon

- One last FAQ we have been asked recently: 'can we share your profile on line/Twitter/Facebook/etc?' and that's a big ol affirmative! Repost and share  as much as you want - any birth mother out there who finds our Angel Adoption profile will be directed to our coordinators, so YES, please post that profile link ( http://www.angeladoptioninc.com/birthmothers/choose-a-family/profile/wayne-bethany.html ) all over the place

Thanks for all the love and prayers, our hearts are full and we are experiencing the daily Grace of God in the journey. Love to you all,

Bethany and Wayne 

Update: money stuff

We've had several questions recently about how fundraising is going and what is next in that regard. We have raised $11,400. READ THAT AGAIN. WOOWWW. Have we thanked you all lately for helping make that happen?? 

We sent $7200 of that total to Angel Adoptions 2 month ago so here's a break down/overview of what's next...maybe:
- Medical expenses for the birth mother; not all birth mothers need assistance so this number could be $0 or it could be $2400. We have put in our profile that we are willing to assist if the birth mother has a need. Our agency coordinators will give our profiles to mothers who need assistance AND mothers who don't - by being willing to assist we hit a wider range of birth mothers
- Travel expenses to meet the birth mother if she desires that; so this could also be $0 or it could be $3000+ if she lives in the middle of Washington. Again, in an attempt to be able to connect to the most birth mothers possible, we put in that we are WILLING to travel, if that is something a birth mother so desires
- Legal fees; this will range from $3000 to $10,000 depending on which state our birth mother is from, if there are any special laws in that state, etc. If a birth mother from Florida chooses us, this will dramatically reduce this cost. If a birth mother from Colorado (currently a difficult legal state to adopt from) that number could easily go to high side of that range (or over)
- Hospital and hotel stay during the birth of our child: this one is a totally wide open number; we will need to stay in a hotel in the city where our birth mother gives birth from up to 2 weeks and we will need to get an adjacent room to her in the hospital for up to 3 days (well, that 'up to' could go any direction but we are required to plan on being in the hospital for 3 days). 

OK, that's a lot of information so here's the summary: we could still be on the hook for up to $18-20k or that number could much closer to $6-7k. You generous people have asked how to continue to help financially. There you have it - we have right around $4200 in the bank to go towards what's next. 

Love you all!!

Bethany and Wayne