An Update (in Pictures)

A LOT has happened since our last post so we decided it was time for an update (in pictures)!

We were granted legal guardianship

and this Sweet Girl...

became our daughter!

Family and friends gathered at the airport to welcome her home...

(watching the monitor)

We've had lots of 'firsts'...

First family vacation (Sea World)...

First birthday party...




First time trying new styles...

We finalized her adoption on October 5, 2011

and we think


that this Sweet Girl




is the PERFECT addition

to our family!

The First Days...

We spent our first day in Uganda getting settled into our apartment and buying groceries. We also had a meeting scheduled with our attorney that took up several hours of the afternoon. We had hoped to meet our sweet girl but it got too late and we had to wait until the next morning. That night we had dinner with another adoptive family with our agency who was staying in the same apartment complex as us. I'm pretty sure that we will be life-long friends with this family as well as many others that we met on our trip.

The next morning our driver picked us up to take us to meet our daughter for the first time. We had anticipated this moment for such a long time and it was hard to believe it was finally here! The drive took about 45 minutes and our driver kept having to stop to ask for directions. We took in the sights and sounds of Kampala and eventually we arrived at our destination.

(on the road to meet our sweet girl for the first time)

When we pulled into the gate, all of the children ran out to meet us. They were all in uniforms and I kept looking around trying to find our little girl. We were greeted by the director and a pastor who asked us to come and sit in the office. We sat down and a few minutes later she walked in the door. She was SO shy... she would not even look at us. The director asked her to say our names and to our surprise she very quietly called us Mommy & Daddy. It was so sweet! The director told us that she had been working on learning our names and the names of her siblings using the picture album we had sent a few weeks before.

(the door on the left is to the office where we met her for the first time)

We were given a tour of the school and as we walked around our sweet girl finally started to open up a little bit. She held my hand and giggled as we took pictures of the other children. She posed when we took pictures of her. All of the kids loved looking at their pictures on the camera screen. :)

(some of the kiddos enjoying suckers)

After a while we asked if it would be okay to take her out for a few hours. We were scheduled for court in two days and wanted to make sure we had as much time as possible to get to know her before then. We took her to lunch at a restaurant that mainly served pizza. She was not a fan! Oops!

After lunch we drove back to the apartment to play for a while. We kept catching her staring at us when she thought we weren't looking. Of course, we were staring at her, too! It was amazing and hard to believe she was really there with us! Soon it was time to take her back to the school. On the long ride back (over an hour because of traffic) she fell asleep in my lap. It was the perfect end to our first day together!

Let the Adventure Begin...

So much has happened in the last week...

We found out about our court date on a Monday. We left for Uganda three days later... Needless to say, it was a CRAZY three days! We had to leave our home around 4:30am for the airport and we literally stayed up all night packing! By the time we boarded our flight, we were exhausted! Excited... but exhausted!

Due to weather conditions (and the worst turbulence we have ever experienced) one of our flights was delayed, which turned a 2 hour layover in New York into a 24 hour layover. The airline was great to us and covered the cost of our hotel as well as gave us an "allowance" to buy some clothing & toiletries since they sent our bags on without us. Neither of us had ever been to NYC so we enjoyed taking in the sights and sounds. It turned out to be such a blessing to be able to sleep in a bed that night and get a full night's rest!

The rest of our flights were uneventful and we actually slept through most of them. After the turbulence on flight #2 we took some Dramamine and we were out! It was wonderful because when we finally arrived in UG we felt rested. Unfortunately, when we arrived our luggage did not. Long story... although I am happy to report that our bags were delivered last night. We are so thankful!

Day 1 & 2 (including meeting our sweet girl) in the next post...

Court Date

I just have a minute but wanted to share...

today we got the most wonderful news


We have a COURT DATE!!!


We will be leaving very soon to meet our sweet girl!


"Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever!"
Psalm 107:1

Last Call for T-Shirts!

If you have been thinking about ordering a t-shirt now is your chance!

We still have several sizes available and will be placing our final order for all other sizes on Tuesday, April 5th.

Shirts are $15 each and are available in youth and adult sizes.

You can purchase shirts using the button on the right or if you are local feel free to contact us and we can get your shirt ordered.

Thanks for your support!

T-Shirts Are Here!

We are selling t-shirts to help raise funds for our upcoming travel expenses!

T-shirt Details:

Adoption is a journey of HOPE

"Let your unfailing love surround us, LORD, for our hope is in you alone." Psalm 33:22

T-shirts are available in Youth (XS, S, M, L) and Adult (S, M, L, XL) sizes for $15 each (plus $2 for shipping if you are not local)

Click on the button on the right if you'd like to place an order! Thanks for helping us bring our little girl home!

Join the Journey

We continue to be amazed at God's provision in our adoption journey. Every gift brings us one step closer to bringing our daughter home. Would you please consider becoming a part of HIS story in our daughter's life? Below are some opportunities for you to join the journey.

1. Adoption Fundraiser Garage Sale (3/18 & 3/19)

• Donate items to sell
• Bake goods to sell
• Come shop!!!

2. Make a monetary donation (see button on right)


3. Buy a t-shirt to support our family (details coming soon!)


4. Order coffee from Just Love Coffee & $5 will be donated towards our adoption expenses. Make sure you use this link:

http://www.justlovecoffee.com/Womack


5. Pray for our little girl and our family as we prepare to bring her home!!!

BIG News

We have BIG adoption news! We've been waiting to share this news until everything was official...

We have been matched with a little girl!

She is four years old and absolutely adorable! We first heard about her a little over 3 weeks ago (the Friday before Valentine's Day). Another adoption agency was advocating to find her a family and we inquired to learn more about her. That night after our kids were in bed we received the email that would change our lives!

We opened the message and there was this picture of this beautiful, petite, shy little girl staring at us. We read the information that was included and decided we should at least ask some logistical questions to see if pursuing this little one was even a possibility. We discovered that we would have to leave our current agency, apply with the new agency (lots of paper work) and update our home study (at the time we were only approved for a child up to age 3). All of this would take time and there was always a chance that another family could be matched with this little girl before we could have everything completed.

It just seemed like such a risk.

We loved our current agency and we were just days away from being on the official wait list for an infant or toddler. Surely this was not the time to be switching agencies!

All weekend we talked about her and prayed for her. We prayed for her to find a family and that if that family was ours that God would make it clear. We prayed for our current agency to be understanding, that the paper work process would go smoothly, that we would just KNOW that SHE was the ONE.

We just couldn't stop thinking about this little girl.

So, that Monday (Valentine's Day) we started the process of updating our home study and leaving our current agency (who was COMPLETELY understanding and wonderful, by the way). We also sent in our application to the new agency and found out we were approved the NEXT day! That very day we also received our USCIS approval in the mail! This is significant because that little piece of paper was what we had been waiting on for 7.5 weeks so that we could be on the official wait list with our former agency. If it had come in the mail even a few days earlier we would not have been likely to inquire about a child waiting with another agency.

We had the confirmation we needed but she wasn't ours yet.

We still had to wait for some paper work to be processed before we could be offered the official referral. It took a couple of weeks but last Monday, February 28th we got the call that we had been waiting for!

More to come...

We're Approved!

Guess what came in the mail today? Our 1-171H approval from USCIS. We've been waiting for this form to arrive for the past 7 1/2 weeks. Basically it is permission from the U.S. government to bring an orphan into the United States.... which means we are one step closer to bringing our child home! :)

We have lots of exciting things happening with our adoption that I can't wait to share... I am hoping we will know more by the end of the week!

It's Official!

Our family is excited to announce that we are adopting a baby from Uganda! We have completed our home study process (more about that in another post) and have filed with USCIS (immigration). We hope to have a referral for a specific child in the spring and if all goes as planned we hope to travel to Uganda this summer to bring our new son or daughter home!