Day 61

Hi there
So exciting! We painted the nursery on Saturday. It is a really light gray color. My fabric swatches came so I can order fabric. My Grandma Bushong is making the crib bedding! I am so excited. She is so sweet and is very excited about it. Here are some pictures of the fabric and room.

The animal print is the crib bumper and the reverse side is the dark grey with white polka dots.

The white soft fabric is the crib sheet. The white and yellow stripe fabric is going to be the crib skirt.

I really like the fabric and color of the room. It is all coming together!

Day 59

HI there
Matt and I are overwhelmed with the support we are getting from our family and friends that we sent out. I cannot begin to thank everyone enough! Wow! We feel so loved and we cannot wait to share our baby with you! Thank you Thank you Thank you from the bottom of our hearts! We can never repay any of you for all your generous support!


Matt and I are coming to you all with very humble hearts tonight. We are so excited to be adopting our child. Honestly, I am smiling just typing this. We are struggling to find the last bit of funds we need to bring our baby home. A birth mom has not selected us yet, but we need to be prepared for when she does. We are waiting to hear back from some grants, but we are unsure if we will get them. We are coming to you all because we love you and we trust you all so much. Our pastor, who adopted a baby last winter, encouraged us to call on the support of our family and friends to help us with our struggle. It is not an easy thing for Matt and I to ask for. We have prayed and prayed about this. I really hope we don't offend anyone by asking for support and if you cannot help us, really we understand. If you know of anyone who might be able to please feel free to forward our attached letter to them. Thank you all for all you do! We love you with all our hearts.

Dear Family and Friends,

Matt and I feel so blessed to be on our journey of adoption. We cannot begin to thank you enough for all the support and love we have received from all of you. We feel that this is the path that God has lead us to and He knew this was our path from the start. We have completed our adoption paperwork and home studies, and we are now officially waiting for a birth mom to select us. We are in awe of God's plan and how natural each step feels as we get closer to bringing our child home.

As we are preparing our home and hearts for our child, we get more excited each day as we realize our child is coming! Adopting a child is a very expensive process. Adopting our child will cost 15, 000 to 17,000 dollars. We have been saving and trying to find financial support anywhere we can. Since we don’t know how soon our little one will join our home, we need to be prepared for the final adoption cost. Matt and I would appreciate any support you could give us to help us bring our baby home.

Again, we are so thankful for all the support and blessings we have received from all of you. If you feel compelled to help us, we would really appreciate the support. We love you all so much!

God Bless you,
Matt and Janelle

Day 51 :)

Hi there
I am SUPER excited today! Today we had no school because of freezing rain, and Matt had a half day today. It was really nice to spend quality time together. We went to Noblesville to look for an antique dresser for the nursery. I want to use it as a changing table! You are never going to believe it....but we found the exact thing I had thought of in my head. I told Matt I wanted it to be painted white. We found it! :) I cannot believe it. We were both so excited because it was our first real purchase for the nursery! It is more of an off white, and it has pink handles....does this mean we are having a girl? If not, don't worry I will change the handles so my son isn't scarred for life! Anyways I am so happy! It was a great day with my hubby!

Day 46

Hi there! Matt and I are getting more excited about our upcoming arrival of our child. I don't think many people realize this, but this is our pregnancy. Us sharing about things we are doing is like us being pregnant. We don't get the comments about ultra sounds and my growing belly, but we do NEED family and friends to understand that as we share things we are doing to prepare for our little one it is like our pregnancy time. I really need people to understand this and treat it as that way. We are super excited! Honestly our hearts are bursting with excitement and we are so excited when we feel that in return from our family and friends!

Lately, we really have been working on the nursery! I have picked out nursery bedding!!! YEAHHHH! We are having someone on Etsy make it. If you have not gone to Etsy, then you must! And when you are there you need to check our my dear friend Natalie's hair clips! Handmade Haberdash is her store name! So neat! Anyways, I will post pics of the fabric soon! The lady that is making it is sending me swatches, so then I will choose our paint colors off of the colors in the fabric. Pretty exciting!

My dear friend, Mary, has really helped us out in a huge way! One of her neighbors had twins and she is going to be moving her boys out of their cribs and looking to move out some of her baby stuff too, so we are going to get her items she has! I am super excited about this and we are SO SO grateful! So I will post pics of the cribs and items later!

Also on another AWESOME note, Mary will be watching our little one when I have to go back to work so that is super exciting and really has been a HUGE peace of mind for Matt and I. Matt will take a half day on Wednesday and get to watch our little one and then my dear friend Nat will watch the other half of the day. It was a huge huge huge weight lifted off our shoulders as we were able to share that with our social worker Heather on Monday. What a huge blessing!!!

It is crazy how everything is falling into place. I know that is God's doing and we are so thankful for the many blessings he is giving us.

Lately, Matt and I keep praying for our birth mom and our little one. We wonder about our child and if he or she is already developing and growing! We are so excited to get the call and really hope it will be sooner than later. We will keep you all posted as we find things out. I have no idea how long we will be waiting. We are just hoping and praying for our baby. So excited to meet this little one because there is a lot of love that this child is going to be getting and I cannot wait to be a MOM!!!! :)

Love you all! Talk to you soon!

Day 40

Hi there! So tonight was our home study and our last one! Wow! How fast it has gone!! Yesterday, Matt and I cleaned our house for 9 hours. Honestly, I don't think there is a speck of dust anywhere! I was extremely anal about the whole cleaning thing, but I just wanted it to be perfect. Heather came to our home tonight at 5:30. We showed her around our home and then we discussed questions about Matt and I as a couple and our relationship. It went really well. I gave her our scrapbook and she seemed to really like it~ I am SO SO excited...okay so now we are just waiting officially....goodness..I will probably freak the next time i see Kids First come across my phone!

Now, Matt and I are starting to get things in order for the nursery. I know I don't have to have it ready for the baby to arrive and I know the baby will not be in there for a while, but I want to prepare it. Maybe it is my way of getting ready for the baby or maybe it is to help me feel more connected. I am not sure, but I am constantly thinking about it. I found some nursery bedding on Etsy, so now I am working on picking out fabric. We will probably paint either this weekend or next. So exciting. My favorite thing to say to Matt now is "the baby's room". I love to say that! Has a nice ring to it huh?

On another good note, I signed up for my last two masters classes! YEAHHHH! I will officially be done in May. I am so thankful that I am going to be done with that! Now if our little one wants to arrive in May that would be the best graduation gift ever!!! Well, that is all! I will continue to keep you in the loop as I find out more!

Day 35

Hi All
I added our scrapbook pictures. I think it turned out really well. I hope you can kind of get an idea of what it looks like by the pictures. It was kinda tricky getting good pictures. There is also a biography page about Matt and I and our letter to the mother, that I didn't put on there. Our home study was supposed to be tomorrow, but our social worker had to cancel. I was kind of bummed, but we rescheduled for Monday. I think that will be good because then I will have more time to clean. It is crazy to think how fast this has gone, but the whole time it feels so right and just natural. On Saturday, Matt and I cleaned out the office. We moved furniture to the attic and got a basket ready for Goodwill. I washed the walls and the baseboards. We are ready to paint now. It is crazy how excited I get to see that room empty. It makes my mama heart so happy and hopeful. Wow, to think after Monday we could be parents soon! Craziness but so exciting! Well I guess that is all for now. I will keep you all updated.

Day 35

Adoption Scrapbook Photos....let me know your thoughts..

Day 32

Pictures from Christmas and New Years! We had so much fun at Bushong, Knox, and Taulbee Christmas!

Day 31

Hi there
This past Wednesday, Matt and I had our second home study. We met with Heather, our social worker, and she asked questions about our childhood and our relationships with parents and siblings. Matt went first and had to answer questions about where he grew up, how his parents disciplined, what he liked about school, what his family enjoyed doing when he was younger, high school, college, and his job. He was also asked to describe his relationships with his parents and brother. I went after Matt and had to answer the same questions. It really went awesome! We scheduled our last and final home study! YEAHH! It will be on Thursday and she will come to our home. She will go through each room and be sure our home is safe. Then we will discuss Matt and I's marriage and our thoughts on children. We have completed our long list of items to gather and we are just waiting on our physicals and blood work to be completed. I have been working on our scrapbook like crazy and I will post pictures of it later! We are so excited to have our last home study because that means we are ready for a birth mom to select us. It is so exciting and nerve wrecking to think we will be parents soon and we really don't know when! Matt and I were talking last night before we went to bed and we just feel going through the adoption process has felt very natural and right. We honestly know this is what we are suppose to be doing it, because we feel complete happiness and peace in each step. I hope it continues this way as we go through the rest of our journey. I cannot WAIT to be a MOM!!:)