Letter from Us

Here is the letter we sent out to friends and family:

Dear Family and Friends,

Greetings to all! I hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas and a happy New Year celebration. I can’t believe that the holidays have already come and gone and we are now full speed into 2007. Looking back over the last month, everything from Thanksgiving until now just seems like a blur. Between shopping, work, parties, gatherings, etc., time appears to simply slip through my fingers, and before I can blink, the holidays have come and gone as quickly as they arrived. When we get together with family and friends during the holidays, we tend to feel so rushed that there is little time to truly share the joys (and struggles) of life with one another. I’m guilty of being too concerned with the next gathering or event that I don’t take time to relax and focus on where I am at that moment. I don’t think this is limited to just the holidays as I now find myself trying to think about what I have to do after I finish typing this letter! Anyway, as a result of the busyness that seems to control our lives, Stephanie and I have decided that a letter would be the most effective way to bring all of you up to date on how God has been working in our lives.
When Stephanie and I became engaged in December of 2000, we began confidently planning how our life would proceed. We waited until May of 2002 to get married because that allowed both of us to graduate from college and to focus on one another. As with most newlywed couples, the million dollar question quickly becomes, “When are you going to have kids?” For us, this was never a question of if, but rather a matter of when and how many we would have. Well, as with the other areas of our life, we planned to start having children after two years of marriage (This was a compromise with Stephanie, who wanted to have children after one year). We knew we would at least have two, so the larger debate was between three or four children. Anyway, after a year and a half of marriage, we decided to accelerate our plans and begin having children. Up to this point, God had provided everything we needed to carry out our plan with relative ease. So, we were fairly surprised and disappointed when Stephanie did not immediately become pregnant. At this point, we began rationalizing that we had started trying early and that we had not even planned to start having children for another 6 months. However, as each month passed without becoming pregnant, the frustration and disappointment began to build. Every time someone would ask about children, we would try to blow it off or change the subject, because we didn’t want to explain what was going on. Over the next year and a half, we rode the roller coaster of anticipation and disappointment each month as the news came in without any clear explanation. Then, Stephanie was diagnosed and surgically treated for a condition known as endometriosis. Although its effects on fertility are not fully understood, the condition is associated with infertility. So, after allowing her body to recover for a few months, we began the process again. Shortly thereafter in June 2005, we received the news that we were convinced would never come. She was pregnant. We didn’t understand why it had taken so long or why we had gone through the painful process, but at this point it didn’t matter. We believed that God had brought us through and He would reveal the purpose for the struggle in due time. With it being so early, we decided to tell only our parents until after the first doctor visit. The excitement of the first visit was incredible, until the ultrasound revealed something the doctor was a little concerned about. The embryo was not growing at the expected rate, and that was often an early indication of a miscarriage. He wanted to take blood tests and then take some more in a few days to compare the results for confirmation. The next few days passed excruciatingly slow, and we eventually received the news that she had indeed miscarried. The feelings of pain and disappointment were overwhelming. We were both hurt not only because of the loss but because we were right back in the middle of the infertility struggle that we thought to be behind us. We didn’t tell many people because we didn’t want to answer questions or hear that miscarriages are a common occurrence. So we continued the month to month routine of hope and disappointment, while it seemed we were stuck at this stage in life, unable to take the next step of building our family.
After talking and praying, we began to feel that maybe God had other plans for our life. We knew that he had created us with a deep desire to have children, so maybe His plan was to build our family another way. So we began investigating the various forms of adoption (domestic, international, and foster care). In June 2006, we attended an informational meeting about becoming foster parents. After the meeting, Stephanie and I both felt this was not the direction we were to follow at this point in our life. Also, we looked into domestic adoption, which involved long wait times (2+ years) and other uncertainties, so we moved away from that option as well. This brought us to the idea of international adoption, which seemed completely overwhelming at first. We began researching the various programs around the world and their respective requirements. Many have age requirements that we did not meet and others have travel requirements that seemed impossible to workout. During our research, one country’s program seemed to continue to stand above the others. The country was Guatemala. The program seemed to be consistent, dependable, and typically takes approximately 10 to 12 months to complete.
After several months of research, attending an informational meeting, talking with one another, and prayer, we submitted a Guatemalan preliminary application in October with Lifeline Children Services in Birmingham. Since that time, our application as been accepted and we are in the process of completing the home study. Once the home study is complete, we will submit a formal application (dossier) to the Guatemalan government. If everything in the dossier is approved, we will then receive a referral for a child. Essentially, a child will be assigned to us. At this point, we will receive a picture and a medical report of the child. In this particular country (as with most other countries), many more people request girls than boys, so there is usually a waiting list for girls. As a result, if you do not specify a girl, then you will likely be referred a boy. The children are typically between 0 to 3 months of age at the time of referral. Then, following a few months of processing through the Guatemalan government and barring any stumbling blocks, we will receive an appointment at the American Embassy in Guatemala. This appointment will determine when we travel to the country to pick up our child. We will probably stay in country approximately 3 to 4 days, and then return home with our child. Once we return, there will be a few follow up visits with the social worker. I would encourage you, if you have some time and are interested, to visit Lifeline’s website to learn more about the specifics of the country and the process (www.lifelineadoption.org).
I realize that this is a lot of information and that the majority of it has been rather factual in nature, so now I would like to provide some commentary to summarize and to put things in perspective. Every one of you (or someone close to you) reading this letter has been or is currently going through a difficult struggle in your life. This just happens to be the major struggle that we have been going through for the last three years. It is my sincere hope and prayer that this story will not generate sympathy for us, but would serve as an encouragement for you in the midst of your struggle. As with many other blessings in life, we took for granted that having children the “normal” way is not something we deserve (or a birthright), but rather a tremendous blessing from God. At this point in our life, we can’t explain every reason for this particular struggle and the direction our life is now heading, but we can be confident of a few things. Our love for one another is stronger and deeper now than at any other point in our lives, and it is the direct result of enduring this together. Also, we now have a deeper understanding of God’s love for us than we did before this process. We have seen that God does not just demonstrate His love for us by simply giving us everything that we selfishly desire or think we deserve, but He is more concerned with shaping and refining us in the image of Christ. As a result, we can be confident that His plan is exponentially better than anything we could imagine for ourselves. It is truly amazing to consider that our struggle for a child has actually been God’s plan all along to unite us with our child in a way we never dreamed. We are so excited to see how He has sparked a love and a passion within us for a child we have never met. What we saw with our own eyes as pain and hurt, God was actually using to bring about great blessing.
Now comes the time when we ask for your help. There are still a great number of hurdles that must be completed before we will be united with our child. We know that God is ultimately in control and we know that God hears and honors the prayers of His people. We ask that you would pray specifically for the following:
· Our child’s protection, provision, and development – (It is very likely that our child’s birthmother is currently several months pregnant at this point)
· Our child’s birthmother’s protection and provision and a peace about her decision to give up her child
· Our home study – Pray that it will be completed without any setbacks
· Our dossier – Pray that all papers and documents will be exactly in order
· Guatemalan government – Pray that nothing changes with the way international adoptions are currently processed and a clear path through the process
We can’t express to you how comforting it is to know that we have tremendous family and excellent friends who love and support us. Thank you all for what you mean to us. We have established a blog site to keep everyone updated on the process, report breaking news, and post pictures. Also on this site, everyone will have the ability to post messages. Here is the site:
http://babyallums.blogspot.com
There are already some updates on the site. We realize this is a lot of information, so if you have any questions or would just like to talk to us, please call us.

We love you,
Casey and Stephanie
(205) 497-3148
Callums313@charter.net
Sallums13@charter.net