Exciting News!

We have our in person training on June 2 and our caseworker said that we should be “open” a week after that! We are so excited and still getting ready to have a little one in our house. We need prayers as I’m sure the first placement will be rough as we get things down and know nothing about the little one we have. We still have spaces available for our puzzle fundraiser if you would like to still donate! I can’t tell you how much of a blessing it has been to have the money to prepare for this. 

 Here is our registry link again if you feel like donating that way! 

https://www.amazon.com/baby-reg/amber-gerhart-justin-gerhart-december-2023-justin/2KRV9CAG5EN95

We love and appreciate you all! 

Love, Amber 

Clearance

We are so excited! We passed our background checks! Now we just need to have our home study completed and I think a few other things done, and then we will be officially licensed! The waiting has been hard, but we know it will be worth it! 

Here is our baby registry that we have on Amazon. 

We have appreciated all of your support thus far! 

https://www.amazon.com/baby-reg/amber-gerhart-justin-gerhart-december-2023-justin/2KRV9CAG5EN95

Our Registry Link

So we tried to make an Amazon List, but ran into problem with it being private an what not. 

Here is the link for our wishlist/registry with Amazon. 

Gerhart List/Registry

Home Study

So our Home Study was this past Saturday and it went great! It lasted about 4 hours and we were all pretty tired after. Lots of in-depth questions about our parenting, our lives, our childhood, our finances, our current life, etc. it was a lot. 

We are really excited to see where God continues to take us on this journey. We have had 2 fundraisers so far and we are currently awaiting to see where we land total wise with those! We appreciate those of you who have given towards those! 

We will keep you updated on our journey and what comes next! We are just as curious as you are! 

Moving Forward and why we are Fundraising

We are finally scheduled for our Home Study! We will have it this Saturday and we are pretty excited. This means that the Agency we are going through comes and spends about 2-3 hours in our home and asks us very deep and personal questions about how we grew up, how we parent and discipline. Things of that nature. 

We are getting through all of our paperwork, and we are currently waiting on our background checks from the state. We still have to do finger prints and once that is done, I think that is it for now on our end. 

We decided to fundraise for a couple different reasons. Yes, we do get paid from the state when we have a foster child. We don’t get that money until AFTER the first month of a child being in our home. So we have furniture, diapers, formula and all that that we will need. We will also have to buy clothes, and everything that goes along with a baby. There are also costs that we have to pay for not only for us but also for my parents. Since my parents live with us, they also have to go through background checks, finger printing, and the home study. We appreciate everyone who has donated to us already. After our puzzle piece and greeting card fundraisers are done, we will be done for now with fundraising. We are SO appreciative of everyone coming along side of us with this journey! Thank you for your prayers as well! 

Ch ch changes!

We have had some changes in the adoption process. One thing I’m learning is hustle and wait. We have been filling out mounds of paperwork. With that said. We are also going from straight adoption to foster to adopt. What’s the difference? Well when you straight adopt, you get paired with a birth mom and have to pay 50k. With Foster to adopt we can still get a baby, but that baby can be returned to its birth mother of they go through the steps of getting their life in alignment with taking care of a baby. There are a lot of steps that the north parents have to go through in order to get their child back. 

Does this mean we could loose the baby afterall? Yes. Yes it does. Are we prepared for it? Is anyone ever prepared for it, no I don’t think so. It’s going to be a process. That’s what we have a family coordinator for. They know the situations and if we are a good fit for that situation based on our wants. There reason we chose this route is because once you have a child who desperately needs a home, when they turn 18, they get free college tuition. They also get free medical, dental, and vision until they are 18. We also get help to cover expenses for that child every month. I’m unclear if it is until 18 or until we adopt them. I’m thinking the latter. Either way these are amazing benefits for these kids. And we don’t have to pay 50k. We knew God would provide either way. Our expenses with initially be around $1,500. We are 1/3 of the way there. We will be having another fundraiser soon to help cover some of these costs, which will be a huge blessing to our family, and to this baby coming into our home. Those fees are for attorney fees for when the adoption happens. We also have some fees associated with getting all our paperwork together. Like finger printing, driving records, and various things that I can’t remember off the top of my head. We appreciate y’all so much! We couldn’t do this without you! 

Our Adoption Journey has Begun….

 So we just announced that we will be adopting a baby in the future. What does this mean? It means we’ve been praying for about 4 months now over what the process would look like, who God would decide to place with us. We’ve been doing research and attending meetings to see what is needed and expected. And the biggest one for us is finding out what the costs are showing to be. 

We have wavered between Foster to adopt and just straight adoption. We are finding with foster to adopt, they want us to be open to 6 years old or older. We aren’t really okay with that as we want to keep the birth order in our family. What does that mean? It means we want to keep Luke as our oldest child, then Dylan and then another little one. We ideally would like to have an infant but are willing to take up to 2. 

With straight adoption we are able to adopt a baby, but we have a lot of hurdles to get through. First off, it costs upwards of $50k to adopt a baby here in the US. That is with lawyer fees and all the adoption fees. With our research, there are Agencies that will protect your money in case something happens and the adoption falls through. Why every agency doesn’t do this is really beside me. 

We have started fundraising and our current fundraiser is going on right now! We have a 300 piece puzzle and we are “selling” each piece for $20. We will then write your name on the piece and after we have all $300 pieces filled we will put it together and hang it up! We will always remember those who helped us and provided for us to get to baby Gerhart! 

I’ll be updating as much as I can or as new information comes along. But for now, we ask for prayers and for guidance. That we would go the way that God calls us. Discernment over what agency to go through. 

We cannot thank y’all enough! Truly we thank you from the bottom of our hearts. 

J+A