Announcement

Guys.

Guess what? 

WE ARE HAVING A BABY!

Isn't he so perfect? 

To say that we are excited would be the understatement of the century. We knew this wait could take up to a few years, but a sweet expectant Momma chose us. First, she chose life for her baby and then she chose us to raise her precious little boy. We are amazed by her. We have been writing back and forth with her, and she is so sweet and selfless. We are flying down to Florida (for less than 8 hours – eeek!) to meet her next week Wednesday.

The baby is due November 14^th – so about 6 weeks left in the pregnancy.

Things are happening very fast around here, and we feel a little bit crazy! We know that God will take care of us, and our growing family. We know that there will be grace upon grace and all we have to do is take the next step. We have seen God provide for us in so many situations, and we are clinging to that promise that he will continue to do so.   

We are trying to get arrangements made for November, as we will be in Florida for up to 2 weeks while everything gets legal.

We are still working on fundraising for the adoption. If you would like to contribute financially we would so appreciate it! 

We are still doing the puzzle fundraiser – see the previous blog about that, but I have included a photo of our progress there! We would LOVE to have that puzzle done and hanging in the nursery before we leave to bring the baby home.  Each piece is $20 and you can buy as many as you would like!

We covet your prayers, and are so thankful for the support we have received during this process. Please let us know if you have any questions - brittany.immink@gmail.com

Love, 

Brittany & Mark 

Puzzle Fundraiser

As a child, I used to love doing puzzles.  And when I say love, I mean capital L, Love.  (clearly I had a rockin social life). I remember sitting at my desk under the warmth of my lamp, scanning the pieces of a puzzle.  There was nothing quite like finding the right piece, putting in place, and watching the picture come together.  In fact, I loved my puzzles so much, when I finished a puzzle, I would put modge podge on the puzzle so that I could hang it in my room. I even asked Brittany to be my girlfriend on the back of a puzzle that she put together in a Stake ‘n Shake back in college. 

I loved puzzles.

The thing about puzzles is that each and every piece is important.  And each and every piece has a special spot in which it locks in other pieces.  Puzzle pieces cannot be interchanged or manipulated.  If a piece is missing, the whole puzzle is messed up.

The more I learn about adoption, the more overwhelmed I get.  

Adoption is a really big, complex, beautiful puzzle.  There are paperwork pieces (the mountains of forms, tests, interviews, fingerprinting, home studies, and photobooks), logistic pieces (how do you plan to “have” a baby in another state, organize travel, find a place to stay for an uncertain amount of time, trying to make arrangements for our other kids), emotional pieces (we can’t have a baby, how do we talk about adoption, this is so hard, will anyone pick us, what is taking so long, is something wrong, the birth mom breaks our heart, will the baby have drug damage) and of course financial pieces (everything costs money: forms being processed, homestudy, photobooks, travel, prenatal care, attorneys, licensing, counseling for the birth mom, and on and on and on).

In order for us to see the complete picture when it comes to our adoption, we need your help getting all the pieces in place.  Unfortunately, the financial piece of the adoption is a large one - too big for us to manage by ourselves.  That is why we are asking that you prayerfully consider helping to fund our family bringing it’s newest member home through purchasing puzzle pieces. 

We will have a puzzle made for our future child that will be placed in a two way frame.  On the front, it will be the puzzle picture.  On the back, each piece will have the name of who purchased it, or the name of who it was purchased in honor of. Each piece will cost $20 and you can buy as many as you want, or split a piece with someone else.  We will be able to hang the puzzle and show our child how many people had a piece in their joining our family.

If we sell all 500 pieces we will raise $10,000 to go towards our adoption costs (which are going to total about $25,000-$35,000) and we would have a wonderful start and a great keepsake for baby Immink.

You can donate through youcaring.com/immink or by sending cash or check to us (email us for our address – Brittany.immink@gmail.com)

Thank you everyone SO much for your love, prayers, and support!

-         - Mark

Adoption fundraising stinks

I am having a really hard time with the “fundraising for adoption” concept. It’s a tough one friends. It’s kind of like how I felt making our profile book (a book about our family that will be given to birth moms choosing a family for their baby – felt like I was “selling” our family), or doing a home study (where you are asked a million questions and have to show your bank account and messy basement to a social worker you don’t even know). It just doesn’t seem right, it is so unnatural. It seems so unfair and dumb really.  Like we have to ask our friends and family to donate money so we can get a baby? And why is this so expensive anyway?  It also feels like just a gut punch reminder that we can’t just have a baby biologically – that we have to do all this silly stuff.

But here’s what God keeps reminding me:

“It’s not about you”.

 This adoption was never about me, or us getting a baby. It has always been about God.

The story in 2 chronicles 20 has always been one of my favorites. I love it. I love how Jehoshaphat has a huge battle in front of him, he looks to God (probably pretty scared) and remembers all the times God has kept the covenant for His people, and so trusts him for this future battle. God says “Do not be afraid and do not be afraid or discouraged, for the battle is not yours but God’s” (2 Chronicles 20:21).

Friends, we are up against some vast armies. Cancer. Death. Anxiety.  Abortion. Teething. Addiction. Sleepless nights. Lust. Three year old attitudes. This world is fallen, and to try and follow God daily is hard.

God is writing a story for our lives and for each of our children. The story is his, not mine. I get to play a part of it, but it is not for my glory. He is weaving so many people and stories together to show His glory. We know that if we follow him that He will provide victory in the battle.

 I cannot wait to tell each of our children awesome stories of how God made a way for them.  How he provided meals during our most stressed seasons, encouragement from friends and family too keep going, doctors – who have saved Gideon’s and my life, peace that surpasses understanding, and we are trusting that for the adoption he will provide financially. We will tell this next little baby how his birth momma courageously chose life for them, and that God used so many people to bring them home. We will teach them that sometimes life is made of hard, scary, and some seemingly stupid battles, but that it’s not about them. It’s about God getting the glory and God keeping his covenant. 

And sweet little one, we should be so glad that it is not about us, but about God fighting and winning His battles because that’s what he always will do.

-B

 

Because every blog post needs a picture :)

Next Steps - Adoption!

We wanted to keep everyone who is interested on our next steps- we are adopting!

We have always wanted to grow our family both through birth and adoption, and have always imagined having many kids. We are thankful we have always desire to adopt, especially now that we cannot have children biologically. In the bible God always tells Israel to look back and remember all the things that he has done, so that they can continue to trust what He will continue to do. We remind ourselves continually of all the goodness and grace God has poured on us and all the manna that he has given us, sometimes just enough to get through the next day, but he is always faithful. We hope that anyone who looks at our lives can see that God is faithful, and hope that we can all remember how he has been faithful and continue to trust Him for our future family.

Here are some of the most frequent questions we get when we tell people we are adopting…

Are you crazy, you already are so busy/overwhelmed with the two kids you have?

-          Yeah, we are probably considered crazy. But, we know that God always shows up in the middle of our crazy when we follow Him. We often talk about how crazy it was when we took D 10 days before going in to the hospital to have Gideon, and then everything we dealt with for Gideon’s nose, and how God just gave us such a peace, perseverance, and amazing support during that crazy time. We know that having another child will be difficult -we also cannot wait to see how God provides and weaves our family together.

Why don’t you “just” adopt from foster care?

-          We hope to, we really do. But guys, the foster care system is SO hard. We are over 20 months into drama, appointments, birth parent visits, and hearings for a child that we were told would either be back home, or his parents rights would be terminated within 30 days from us getting him. We are SO thankful he is still with us, but you just never know what can happen, and adopting a baby from the foster system is a very difficult and a very unlikely situation. We plan on continuing to foster, and of course we love D as if he was our flesh and cannot imagine life without him.

Isn’t adopting expensive?

-          Yes, very. The average adoption is about $40,000. That’s why we are busy playing the lotto. Ha, just kidding.  We have been saving for years by working hard and living modestly hoping to adopt some day. We have a small amount saved for this, and are hoping to have some fundraisers, and apply for grants to help as well.  If anyone has ideas, we would LOVE to hear them!

How does this adoption process work?

-          Well, first we did a home study (which has to be a totally new one from the one we already did for our fostering license…), where an agency comes and looks over your home and spends hours interviewing our whole family about our money, our faith, our neighborhood, our ways of disciplining children, and about a million other questions. We got fingerprinted, and made profile books about us as a family. These books will be presented by either an agency or attorney to moms who are looking for families for their unborn children. If we are chosen, then we will likely go meet with the birth mom to get to know her, and she will decide how much of a role we play in the birth plan, and we will all decide how open we want the adoption to be. We are working with Christian Adoption Consults and my cousin Kim, who is an adoption attorney in Florida. We have not been chosen by any one yet, and this step could take weeks, or years.

Are you sure you are ready for this?

 

-          Yes, as ready as we will ever be! I remember being in the hospital before giving birth to Gideon and not feeling “ready”. We are not trying to replace the baby we lost in April, we have, and still are, grieving that loss. We still have no idea what God was doing during all that, or why he allowed all that to happen. We do know that He has saved us. I have been in counseling, and adoption is not a knee jerk reaction. We have always wanted to adopt as a way to grow our family, and we are excited to start down this journey. 

Please be praying for us during the time, that we can make wise choices and cling closely to our creator and provider. We hope to update our blog more to keep people who are interested updated! Thanks for all your prayers and support friends. 

Love,

Brittany

My fight with God

It feels like I have been in a fight with God. 

He didn’t come through for me and I was furious. It felt like God had the perfect opportunity to show His amazing glory, and he didn’t.  He would have had an awesome testimony, and I would have had a baby and a uterus, but I don’t have either. He let me down.

The first few weeks I wanted nothing to do with reading my bible or praying or talking about God. It just made me too sad. Too mad really. I wish I could post about now – 2 months later - how I totally understand why He allowed everything so terrible to happen and how I completely trust that He is good and submit to His will over mine, but I am not there yet. I wish I could say I spent hours clinging to promises and singing hymns and praising God for all the blessings, and the fact he saved me from a very dangerous situation. But I didn’t.

Not even close. 

But now I am clawing to get back to that solid ground- slowly and desperately fighting to get there. Through forcing myself to read my bible and allow His voice to speak to me through it, through worship and songs that sing truth, even through just praying my anger toward God, and telling him my hurt and broken heart. Through weekly counseling, singing Jesus loves me to the boys (and me) 23 times a day, and through forcing myself to fellowship with people who can encourage me I feel I am healing my relationship with God. I am learning that sometimes things just don’t make sense and I may never understand this side of heaven. That even though things suck, He is still good.

I catch glimpses of how He is working in my life. Mark brings me flowers home from grocery shopping and it reminds me of how God has given me him, a best friend, during all this has served me and loved me so well. That my once painful stomach and leg, can now have a little boy touch it without horrible pain – He must be healing me.  That He allowed us to have one precious boy come from our bodies, and that we have had a funny, sweet 3 year old in our home every day, is pure grace. He did not need to give us even one child, and we have two. I can see things like McDonalds now serving diet Dr. Pepper and 59 cent cones as goodness from Him, that when paperwork goes easy or a doctor returns a call as help from God. Those small things are turning me back to my first love.

I still have hurt, and I still don’t understand, but I hope that this can be an encouragement to the hurting. Press in to Jesus. Keep faith and keep moving towards Him even when you’re mad and sad, he can handle it and loves you endlessly. 

- Brittany