The What Ifs...

We made our way to the airport totally on cloud nine and a ton of excitement in all three of us.  The next morning I would be holding our baby boy!!  What would we name him....Landyn, Liam, Levi, Joshua??  (Notice Elijah was not even a choice in there)

Parking....$26.00 a day.....yikes, but that is okay we should only be there a week at most.  We took the tram to get to our proper terminal and started the process of getting our tickets.  Once we had tickets in hand we went to our gate to put our names on the stand by list.....would we make it out??  We sat in a corner and took some time as a family to pray that God would bless our travels and the people we would meet along the way.  Right before we were ready to board I called Stacey and let her know we were on our way and to let Nick and Leslie know that we would spend the night in a hotel since we were coming on such short notice....said by to her and our names were called....here we go!!!!

Now, we only had one little problem.  Our seats were not together and Caleb is way to shy to sit by a stranger for 5 hours!!!  One woman who thought that I had a window seat willingly switched, but when the woman came to that row and realized it was here seat.....well yeah words got heated (not with us!!)  The stewardess quickly came and said that they would work everything out.  With moving some people to first class we were all able to sit together!!  See God cares even about the small things!!  We had a direct flight so the next time we touched ground we would be in our babies home state!!


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So you all know the drill by now, the part of my blog that I really struggle with addressing!!  We need funding and kinda fast, in the next two weeks we need 500.00 for the attorney and 250.00 for our first post adoption home visit. (I know you know, but the paypal button to the right goes right to an adoption account, if you don't feel comfortable using paypal and want to be part of Elijahs story feel free to email me at dfkmcoffee@aol.com and I can give you our address)   We feel so blessed by all of you!! Would you consider not getting coffee today or not taking your family out to dinner to help support us?  If you can't support us financially will you support us in prayer?  That God would continue to work in the lives of those around us?  That we would continue to adjust to a family of four?  That my fainting episode was nothing to be concerned about...except for the huge gash in my chin!!  And yes, it hurt!!!  But you know what even in that God was watching!!  I set Elijah down before it happened, I fell forward not backward....friends, it could have been so much worse and I praise God that I don't even have to go there!!!

On Our Way....

Before we could leave we would have to have a new home study done as ours was not by a certified Social worker (set up by the same attorney we gave much of our money to.. :(  )  so yes we had ONE day to get a new home study....how does one do that???  Through the power of God!!!  We were able to have a social worker come Wednesday morning and for only $1350.00 we got our new home study!!



We went to NYC on Wednesday because I was supposed to have an appt for my knee for a final review.  We figured we needed to still go because if the mom changed her mind for any reason we could go to the appointment but even if we were still going to go to CA we would fly out of Newark anyhow (for those of you that don't know, my brother lives in Long Island so we were headed for a visit as well) The entire trip there was consumed with phone calls from the adoption agency and our attorney.  They were trying to figure out how much it would be for us to adopt Eli as NY and CA have such different laws.  Now remember, we are headed to CA on FAITH alone, knowing that Elijah is meant to be our son as we were not fully funded.

The agency called at about 1:00 pm our time and said we could go ahead and book our flights for the same day.... yeah ok.....3 people, across the country.....same day tickets......how does $4000.00 sound??  Well the good news....Davids cousin works for Continental Airlines and got us what are called Buddy Passes.  This means we go on standby but that one way only cost $317.00 for all three of us!!!

So, with bags in hand, a suit case with all our things, one with all Calebs things, of course one for Elijah and an empty car seat we headed for Newark airport......


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Eli is doing GREAT!!!  His breathing seems to really be slowing down (think God is doing some healing???)  He is much more alert and is moving is head, arms and legs everywhere!!!  These things that they told us would be months before he may even attempt these things because of his low muscle tone!!  God is doing great things!!!  I posted a great link by the ZOE foundation on my facebook wall, if you have a chance, listen :)  If you feel led to financially support us on this journey there is a paypal button to the right that goes directly to an adoption account.  If you don't feel led to support us in that way, please continue to support us in prayer...we feel them everyday and know that God is doing great things!!!!

Chosen....

The mom was given our profile with several others and the next morning I read on facebook that the little boy with down syndrome found a family, since we weren't contacted my heart sank.  I did however feel a little nudging to call Michele from Adoption Answer (amazing, amazing agency) and said "I am assuming since you posted this baby found a family we weren't chosen", she said no, that family is you!!!!  My heart was overflowing with joy!!  Over the next few days we waited and waited, had many phone calls and unfortunately they never heard from the mom again, she was't returning calls, emails and wasn't going to the hospital to visit her baby boy.  At this point we were told to assume she decided to parent.  We were crushed but continued to pray for him because we weren't sure what kind of a situation he would be in knowing the dad didn't want to raise this precious little boy :(  Somewhere deep in my heart I still knew he was meant to be ours, but I didn't share that (except with David) as I was guarding my heart.

A few weeks went by and we were getting ready to go to Caleb's soccer game and my cell phone rang with a blocked call.  Figuring it was my mom telling me she was going to meet us at the field I answered really goofy....maybe not such a good idea!!!  The woman on the other end said "ummmmm, is this Kristen Coffee"?  I said yes....."this is Jamie from Adopt International, do you remember me"?  Remember her???  How I longed to hear her voice again because I knew it meant Eli was again going to be placed with a family.  She told us mom decided to place him with our family how soon could we get to California.....How is Thursday???  Thursday is great, see you then!!!!  And so the journey began!!


We are working hard on getting fully funded for Eli's adoption.  If you feel led to donate there is a paypal button to the right that you can use.  Also, we are in the process of doing an online auction and a pancake breakfast, if you would like to donate something for us to auction off that would be amazing as well!!  Thank you for investing in our family.  We continue to covet your prayers as we are on this journey ( and we are loving every minute of it, God is amazing us everyday!!)

More Donations...

Enter to win either a kindle 3g...black....or an ipod nano.....when using the paypal button to the right please specify which you wish to enter....

$10.00 One entry or $25 for three....if you do the 25 let me know if you want it all in one item or split between the two.

Thank you for your dedication to helping us fund Elis adoption!!

This will run until August 22nd......

Being called...

I knew that God was trying to talk to me for a long time, but I was so unsure of what He was calling us to. It felt as though we would never be chosen so I told David I wanted to stop the process.  A few weeks later we were in church and in the middle of worship.  For those of you who go to our church know that Bryan can really help draw you to worshipping our King.  I abruptly got a feeling in my heart and leaned over to David and said "what do you think about adopting a baby that has down syndrome"...his response..."whatever God has for us I am open to".....  This is where the story gets good!!!

The next night (ok, the middle of the night, was God preparing me or what!!!)   I was online and saw a post from a woman I had never met, but totally respected and prayed for as she and her husband went to Ethiopia to adopt their beautiful daughter.  Her post read, baby boy with down syndrome needs a family.  I tried my hardest to wake up David and tell him, but that my friends is next to impossible once he is asleep!!
I emailed my friend Stephanie and asked if she thought they would accept a family from NY.  She said "I don't know, but email this person, Tracey.  I emailed her and she was unsure but had me call Michelle....Michelle had us send over our profile and she sent us on to the agency that was handling the adoption.  This all happened in the matter of a day.....So if you are following me (kinda hard to follow myself... :)  I heard God on a Sunday and Elijah was born that Monday!!!  How good is our God???

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We are still not fully funded, should you feel led you can use the button to the right to donate, if you can't, we get that :)  but please pray for us that God would provide the funds we need.  We have given up coffee out, eating out and me getting my nails done......because that is what God called us to.....is He calling you to give up something today to help bless someone?

Looking forward to sharing more of our story with you....it only gets better from here!!!!

Much Love,

The Coffee Clan :)

THE NOOK WINNER!!!!

Thank you everyone who participated to help raise more funds for Elijah!!

We used Random.org to select the winner and it is.....

Mark Hager!!!

Congrats and thank you!!!  Please email me your address to DFKMCOFFEE@AOL.COM


Thank you again everyone!!!

The Beginning....the very best place to start....

David and I knew that we wanted a large family, little did we know that we would have had a hard time accomplishing that!!  We had always talked about adoption but thought that it would be later in life after our biological kids had grown.  After almost 5 years of infertility and no answers we decided to start looking into adoption at that point in our life.  We met with a private attorney and signed papers to start working with him.  We had just received a settlement from my knee and put away money from that knowing that adoption with this attorney would be about 7-8 k here in NY........so we created our profile, stated we were open to any gender any race.  Then.....we waited, and waited and waited some more.  We prayed, we thought about another baby in our house and at times we wept.....it was SO frustrating at times. I could feel myself withdrawing from God, almost getting angry.  But, I would always come back to Him, knowing He loved me and knew what was best for our family, I just had to be patient and know His timing was perfect, not mine.  As time went by other friends got pregnant, others adopted, and me....well I screamed out to God with tears streaming down my face "Either give it to me or take the desire away!!!!"....then I would again, calm down and know that He knew.  Maybe we weren't meant to have the large family I had dreamed about.....but maybe we were...........

I will write more next time....this is just the beginning of our amazing journey!!!

Tomorrow is the last day to enter for the nook.....we are so close, yet still so far away from being fully funded....like you read above we did have money that we set aside for our adoption.....but not enough, and unfortunately we poured  a lot of that money into an agency that got us nowhere....but God has a plan!! If we just had that money to hand over, well this journey wouldn't be as amazing and we wouldn't have gotten to see Him work in amazing ways!!!


I can't wait to see how God moves the next few days on our funding as we have a large portion due monday......will He use you?  There is a donate button to the right that goes to our paypal account that is directly linked to an adoption fund...should you not want to use paypal please feel free to email me at dfkmcoffee@aol.com...every dollar helps!!

I'm looking forward to sharing more of our journey with you as the days go by and hope you are all blessed by it and see how REAL our Father is!!!

Great Pediatrician Visit and our needs right now....

Eli went to the pediatrician today, he gained another 2 ounces....way to go little man!! Also, his heart sounded better and she was very surprised at his muscle tone and how much it is improving!!  YAY GOD!!!!  We continue to pray for complete healing for our little man, but should God not choose that we are ready and willing to walk this journey with him!!  We are so in love with this little boy and can't imagine our lives without him!!

Now the not so fun part,

We need to raise 500 by next Monday when we need to send another payment to our attorney in CA.....trusting God in this, though it is hard.  Sometimes I lay awake at night after feeding Elijah and think "what if we don't raise the money"  but God has been faithful at every turn at every surprise.  We are trusting Him with this too.  That is what faith is right, going forward full steam ahead when you hear the whisper trusting that no matter what He will take care of you, since He led you to it.....So with that...

Should you feel led you can donate with the button to the right, post our blog on your page as the more people that see it, the more people have an opportunity to bless us and be apart of Elijah's story!!

Also, you can read below about the chance to win a nook.  What a great chance to have a 250 gadget for as little as 10 should your name be drawn :)

In talking with several people I was saying how nice it would be just to be able to write a check and have all of Eli's fees paid for and the response "yeah, but then we wouldn't have gotten to see God work in all this"...How true is that??  Will you let God work through you?  If not to us, to who?  Who is God laying on your heart to bless....don't wait, listen, trust and give Him all you have.....you will be blessed!!