Edwin&Gigi

Hi, Thanks for the info. I am glad to hear she did well and cant wait to read all about it. Have a nice night. Gigi

Claudia, How did your garage sale go?? I hope you brought in a TON of money!! I cant wait to hear all about it. Gigi

Claudia, One suggestion is to sell Pop, water and chips. Those were a big money makers. I sent out an email to all family and friends asking them if they could help with donations. If you would like to see a copy of the letter, let me know and I can email it to you. We also hung signs up all over the yard stating it was an adoption sale and that really helped. A friend bought New Baby balloons and hung those also. It looked really cute. I will say a little prayer for you that this sale goes well (and no rain) and you raise lots of money. Please keep me posted on your success. There is so much love out there that you dont even know is there until you do something like this and let others know you are doing it. Post signs everywhere too. Good luck

Hi Stephaine, Yes we really are blessed with great family and lots of great friends. When we do get a child it will surely feel lots of love. On my in-laws side it will be the first Grandchild and neice or nephew. My older brother had 5 children but the youngest is 9. Her and the 15 yr old can wait to baby sit they said. They keep asking when the baby is coming. LOL The sale amazed us at how well it did and how much fun we had. We no sooner got the house cleaned up after a month of donations coming in like crazy and now everyone is bring over gifts or stuff their kids never used. It is really neat. We were going to start working on the nursery but decided to wait. With all the stuff that everyone has been bringing over it is kinda making me full of mixed emotions. I dont know how to put it into words but when a women is pregnant she knows when her baby is arriving but we have no due date and it is very hard to keep looking at all this baby stuff and no baby in site. I know it is going to happen and not on our terms but on God's but it doesnt make it any easier. I keep telling everyone, we are having a baby, we just dont know if it is a boy or girl and when they will be coming home. We have kept our faith with God on this. He has a plan for us and we have accepted that He does know what he is doing with this and why. I have come to realize now that I am not being punished with not having our own child but very VERY blessed that we will be able to adopt our child and I know they will still be our own child too. I cant wait to hear a little person in my house. God bless the women who want to give their child a better life and put them up for adoption. What a wonderful gift that is for their child. They had other options. Well I am off to bed. We are going up north by Cadilac to visit my brother for a nice long weekend tomorrow. Hope you are settling in nicely in your new home. How is that coming along?? Good night Gigi

Hi, Thanks for asking. The sale went extremely well. We had it Thurs, Fri & Sat. It rained on Thurs but we still made $150 that day. We had a ton of die-hard garage saler's. At one point it was raining so hard that we closed the sale only to have someone ring my door bell and ask why we were closed and that we had 5 cars outside waiting to get into our sale so I went out in the rain and opened the doors. I bet I changed my clothes about 5 times that day. Friday was a day I will never forget. We had such a circle of friends coming in an out all day to help us out and even in the evening we had husband to my friends show up to help out. I had a friend who baked cookies too. She called them stork cookies. They all sold pretty fast. Our friends put signage up all over the yard that it was an adoption garage sale and people really were generous with their donations. Some people didnt even buy anything and still gave money or others would give more then their totals. We had neighbors that didnt know we were having the sale go through their houses on Fri and Sat bringing over stuff on and off all day. It was amazing and then on Sat we had a blow out sale. Fill a bag for a buck. LOL That really helped to get rid of all the little stuff we had. The big stuff we marked down to 50% off. We had enough stuff to fill 10 tables in our garage with stuff on the ground too. All the way down my driveway to the front of the house. The donations were unbelievable. We donated mostly everything that was left but the good stuff we will go to the Flea Market and sell there. So all in all we ended up making (drum roll please) over $2100.00 and still counting because I am still slowly selling stuff to people at work. I will honestly say that the money is awesome but no money in the whole world can make up what we have in our hearts from the love and support we felt from family and friends. I wish I could get out of my heart into the words to tell people what this meant to us. I had friends I havent seen in about 4 yrs from my last job show up with donations because they heard through the grapevine that we were doing this. I cant thank my Mom or my 3 best friends enough for all of their hard work during this. We couldnt have dont this without them. My husband had to work on Thurs & Fri so it was nice to have my Mom by my side. My Mom is my best friend. Well next to my hubby. My in-laws who are in their 80's stayed all day Sat to help and then help packed up all the stuff left at the end of the sale. My husband however has made me promise, "NO MORE GARAGE SALES" for the next few years. LOL Way too much work. I couldnt feel my feet by Sat night. I would highly suggest this to anyone wanting to raise funds. Every little bit counts. Well enough babble. LOL Thanks for asking. I have been kinda out of the loop on the forum. Have you guys gone to an orientation yet?? We have not. We have our app in but didnt make it in time for Sept We are hoping and praying that we get approved for Nov. We have learned that when it is our time, it will happen so if we are meant to be in Nov, we will be there. Sad we are not making it to Sept but ok too. We also just finished our homestudy so we are all ready to go. Well I hope to hear back from you. Have a great night. Gigi

Thanks. We are so excited about doing this and cant wait to count the money. Lots of people coming to help and we will advertise also. The last day we will have a big blow out sale because it is better to make something on the stuff then nothing. Once this is over we are going to try to put together some sort of dinner or a road rally. Maybe both. Any other suggestions on raising funds would be great. I would also like to hear from anyone who has done a dinner and how they made that happen. I have not clue what I am doing with but willing to do what it takes to make it successful.

Hi Elaine, Sorry for the long delay in my reply. We have been quite busy with getting our Adoption Garage sale going. We are having it Aug 3-5. We asked friends and family to see if they had anything they could donate to the sale, and oh my have we gotten the donations for the sale. My basement and garage are so full of stuff. This is going to be really fun. We will also be selling hot dog, soda/water, chips and several people have offered to bake. So we have really had our hand quite full these days. Thanks for the info on the shower. We have decided to wait until we bring the baby home. We will get the room all set up once the sale is over and we have a little free time. Some family and friends have given us gifts already. Gigi

Hi, Yes we plan on coming to the picnic. It will be great to meet other's from our area and from Abrazo. Do you know how many are in and around Michigan that have adopted from Abrazo?? We are still waiting to hear back about our pre-app. I hope we hear soon. It would be nice if we got approved and were able to go to the Aug orientiation. I have a question. Now that family and friends know we are on our way to adopting a child we have had several people ask when they should have a shower for us. I dont know the answer to that. Any suggestion??? A few people said to wait until we bring the baby home. We wouldnt be prepared for a baby to arrive at our house if we wait until then. Gigi

HI, Livonia is a great place. We love it there. Maybe the next time you are out in our area we could meet somewhere or you can come over to our house. We would love to meet you. I am originally from Chicago and my husband was born and raised in Taylor, MI. I have been here now for 10 yrs and love it. Kami is our baby (Sassi our cat is too). We had no plans on getting a dog and 4 yrs ago I was up north and there was a little boy giving puppies away. Well I picked Kami up and she went onto my shoulder, licked my neck, let out a little cry and went to sleep. That was it. She was going home with me. Edwin and I had been praying for a child and after we got Kami we changed the way we were praying and asking God for a child without fur. LOL She is a very special animal and just loves life and people. Hope to be able to meet you soon. Gigi

Jenn and Dave, It will be nice to ride this wave of life with you. I do not believe we will make it to the July orientation as I just mailed out our pre-app this past Monday. We are hoping to be able to go to the Aug orientation. Keep the faith and trust that God has put you on the right path. Gigi & Edwin

Hello, I just wanted to thank you all for your kind words and support. We are very excited about getting to know all of you also. I wanted to clear up the misunderstanding about us not adopting from Michigan because we are scared of "Open Adoption" that is incorrect. That is not our fear at all. My husband and I are excited to have the option for open adoption at Abrazo. When we were going to go International it really bothered us that we would not meet the birthmom or know anything about her or her family. We look forward to meeting our birthmom and having a relationship with her and if possible the birthfather also. They deserve every photo, letter, phone call or personal meeting with the child that they would want to have. We are not coming to Texas to seek placement outside of Michigan so that we wont have to deal with the birthparents. That is not the case at all. Our fears is Michigan are the rights for the birthmom after she signs all the paperwork are too long. I have had a co-worker who has had 2 failed adoptions because after everything was final and they had the child home for awhile, the birthmom changed her mind and wanted her child back and got it back. We do understand that this is the hardest time for the birthparents. I cant imagine having to carry my child for 9 months and then having to give it up for someone else to love and raise. God bless them for doing that. I dont blame them for wanting to change their mind and take the child back but in my defense as the adoptive parent, I would like to be a little more protected from that happening to us. I know there are risks still, even going to Texas but they are less then going through Michigan. I am sure there have been a ton of very successful adoptions here in Michigan. We however have decided against adopting from our own state. I hope this clears the air about the fear I mentioned in my first posting. Have a great weekend everyone. Gigi

Hi, I hope I am doing this right. LOL My husband and I are new to this Abrazo and this forum. We are going to mail in our pre-app tomorrow and we are so excited. I hope we get accepted. We have heard and seen wonderful things about this agency. Never in my life could I have imagined that I would be 41 and without a child but recently I have come to terms with this. I now know there is a different path that God has for us and it is to adopt a child. We have been trying to have a child for the past 5 yrs and this past Christmas was the end of trying for me. I want to see a little person in my house. I am tried of crying all the time about not having my own child. Tired of seeing everyone around have children and being asked when we were going to have kids because we were getting too old to have them. I know that people say things they dont mean but they still hurt sometimes. We have been so confussed on where we should be going to adopt? We went from Domestic to International and just went back and forth. We live in Michigan and it scared us to adopt from here so that was pushing us into International. We were going to go to China but our hearts were not there. For the last 2 yrs through all different contacts we have been pull to explore adopting either in Utah or New Mexico. So I started to go that route a few months ago and then was directed to Texas and to Abrazo. Well now we know where we are supposed to be and we believe it is here. I have been reading the forum for days now and everyone single one of you in here are so special and loving. It is really a family of it's own. I want to be part of that family. I dont even know any of you and you have all helped me out more then you will ever know with suggestions, stories, thoughts, compassion, understanding etc. It is a good feeling to know you are not alone in this and that there is hope at the end. I look forward to being a part of the excitement you are all in. I cant wait to hold our baby. What a day that will be. We welcome all the stress we are going to go through filling out papers and such because it will not at all compare to the stress we have been faced with the last several year of not having a child. Let the Ride begin. Gigi & Edwin