Holding pattern....

Thank you all so much for the calls, texts, emails, meals and most of all prayers.
K isn't having contractions right now and hasn't had them for more than 24 hours!!!
Baby A has a leak in her sack and so they have K on Antibiotics and they did give her steroids to help develop the babies lungs in the event they needed to deliver.
For now we are hoping and praying that she can keep the babies happy and healthy for a couple more weeks to deliver at 34 weeks.
I was off on my calculations and she will be 32 weeks tomorrow.
As she makes the smalls goals that we have set for keeping the babies in we will begin to know the plans for delivery.  As of right now the doctors are saying they will deliver when she reaches 34 weeks, I just don't know what day that week.
So for now she's in the best place she can be.....waiting....holding on!

I am still in FL. I'm super blessed today to get to eat lunch and spend time with a friend who I met while Clara and Cooper were in the NICU at Miami Children's.  Their son is a few weeks older than Clara and Cooper and it has been awesome to see how far our Threeangers have come since those very long, hard, and trying days in the NICU.  Conner is a super hero in my opinion.  (I think his mom and dad are super heros too)
Tonight I get to stay with some super dear friends from our AZ days who now live in FL.  What a blessing to have friends who love us so well!  I am thankful beyond measure to you guys and your parents for being so loving and kind to us all!

For now we wait, for now we pray, for now we give thanks to God.
Its been a super trying week but I'm grateful for a renewed spirit.

Thank you all for loving us!
We are blessed by all!!

Prayers needed...

Adopting is never done by accident nor is it for the faint of heart.
Having lived in 3 states in the last 5 years has proven to be a challenge with paperwork for our home study.  Not to mention that GA is one of the most difficult places to obtain a home study from because of all the extra items they require.

K is 30 week tomorrow and with Clara and Cooper being born at 33 weeks, I'm getting super anxious about our home study not being complete yet.
We are missing 1 clearance from NE, 2 clearances from AZ, and 1 report from OR.
Please pray that our paperwork would appear on the right person's desk and they would feel a sense of urgency to return the completed documents to us very soon.  With out these forms they can not complete our home study.....which is stressing me out!!!

Please pray for our fund raisers.
We have been super blessed that both Jeeah's Hope, a local adoption support group, has graciously awarded us a matching grant.  We are a little more than 1/2 way to our total for the match and could really use the total match to complete our agency fees.  These too have to be paid before the babies arrive.  https://www.lifesongfororphans.org/give/donate/
(Please select to direct your funds to adoption, and adoptive family, our family account number is 6817 and family name Morrow)

Clement Arts has been so kind and is putting on a Canvas and Coffee to help us raise money.  The event will be Friday, April 28th at Christ Community Church.  All money over and above the actual cost of the supplies will go to our family.  I can't thank them enough for the support of Clement Arts. Clement Arts is also hosting a site that all donations to our family will be tax deductible.  http://clement-arts.org/event/coffee-and-canvas/

Joe is also working on a 50/50 raffle.  For $10 you guess a date and time the babies are born and whoever is closest will win 1/2 the pot and the other 1/2 goes to our adoption.

Please pray for our paperwork and home study.  That God will guide the right people who will understand out urgency and complete it very soon.

Please prayerfully consider giving if you can.

Thanks!
Joe, Karen, Clara and Cooper

Paperwork, fund raising and ultrasounds...

When friends who have had babies said that they blocked out the pain, or don't remember how painful labor was I laughed.  Wondering if that was true.  I think I forgot how painful all the paperwork is to get home study ready.  Its crazy!  I've been home study approved in both AZ and NE and GA is by far the most complicated and most complex!  I know why we have to do this but I'm over the redundant information that needs to be provided!  It too shall pass but right now I'm swimming in deep end!  

Since this adoption came upon up so quickly we will be doing some super quick fund raising. 

We are teaming with some great partners and I will blog about all opportunities to help us over the next couple of days sharing how everyone can help.  We will have some online giving options for our friends and family members who live outside of Columbus as well as a super fun night of painting at Christ Community Church on April 28th for a Canvas and Coffee.  We will also be selling coffee and who knows what else we come up with to raise the money we need!!  

We did a whirlwind trip to Florida this past week to see some family and friends as well as the kids birth mom and to go to a doctors appt and ultrasound.  On Saturday we drove to Joe's dad's house and spent the night.  Clara and Cooper love their Pop Pop and got to go swimming and love visiting with the people in the village.  Sunday morning we left Pop Pop's house to go to Cooper City, FL to visit with some wonderful friends who we met when we lived in AZ.  Its always such a sweet time watching our kids playing together and enjoying time to catch up.  It truly renews my spirit when we get to spend time together.  Monday morning we drove north to the Boca Raton area so I could go to a doctor's appt with K.  It was so good to see her.  We haven't had much time to visit so it was good to see her and see how well she's doing and how the babies are doing.  We all went out to eat on Monday night and Clara and Cooper loved visiting and eating with K.  Tuesday morning was our chance to see the babies with a 3D/4D ultrasound.  We confirmed we had a girl and we are pretty sure we have a boy.  Its so funny because with Clara and Cooper we had confirmation that we had a boy and weren't sure we had a girl.  It was so great to see these 28 week old babies!  Strong heart beats and very active....makes my heart so full!  

We will be posting more as things move closer to her due date.  

Please pray for us and this journey.  Especially for K and these babies.  

Peace and blessings to you all!  

Karen and Joe 

And they came 2 x 2!

God has a GREAT sense of humor!  

About 5 days after we had been matched with Clara and Cooper I sat straight up in bed in the middle of the night, woke Joe up.....Joe....Joe....they could be identical!!!  Joe laughed and went back to sleep.  Little did we know God was laughing at me.  My worries and fears could not be further from the truth.  Not only did we get a boy and girl but they look nothing alike!  

Now, nearly 3.5 years later God put a stirring in my heart for what I thought was for us to become foster parents.  I've been praying for several months that God would reveal to us exactly what His plans were for our family.  During this season of prayer Joe's mom passed away which gave Joe and I a few days without Clara and Cooper at his dad's house.  I shared with Joe what I felt like God was leading me toward and asked that he would join me in praying.  Over the next several weeks we talked to some really great friends who foster and other friends who are leading the charge at our church to start foster care support teams.  We were going to start the process to see what it takes to foster in February.  During the week of the informational meeting I ended up having to go out of town for work.  Sadly we knew we'd have to push the class off for one more month.  

Little did we know that was all apart of God's plan......

On February 6th, I was training a client when I received a call from the agency through which we had adopted Clara and Cooper.  They had received a call from Clara and Cooper's birth mother telling them that she was pregnant.  We had always said that we'd think about adopting again is if she was pregnant.....well.....the agency called asking if we were interested.  When I was talking to the agency she shared that Clara and Cooper's birth mother was pregnant with twins again!!!  All I could think about was talking to Joe to find out his thoughts but I still had a few hours of training that I needed to do before I could take a break.  Joe is so amazing!  When I called him he never skipped a beat.  He was on board from the very beginning.  We both realized that this was the stirring that God had put on my heart.  

The next few days while I was traveling and training for work were a blur.  

I couldn't believe (and still can't) that we are adopting again.....let alone adopting twins again!  

After I had talked to Joe and called the agency back they met with the kids birth mother and told her that we wanted to adopt the babies.  She was so excited to know that the babies would be with us and their siblings.  The day after we said yes and the day that she said yes to us adopting she had an ultrasound.  The babies are on track and look wonderful!  We did find out that the twins will be another boy/girl pair!  

There are so many things that make me smile which I'm sure are all apart of God's plan.  

Clara and Cooper were due Dec. 16th, 

New babies are due June 16th.  

Girl/Boy twins.....Girl/Boy twins.  

Clara and Cooper were 7 weeks early so we are praying that the babies hold out a little while longer.  

Clara and Cooper spent 19 days in the NICU so we are praying that the babies are bigger and hopefully reduce or eliminate their NICU stay.  

Please pray along side of us for K, her pregnancy, and for the babies.