a long overdue update

I have to admit that I have been avoiding posting this update. It isn't that we aren't excited with the new direction God is taking our adoption journey but I think that I am still trying to wrap my head around a lot of the changes and some new decisions we need to make. I was also surprised by how "upset" I was when Liberia closed - it's not that we always had our hearts set on that particular country but I hadn't realized that I had really created a picture (fuzzy at it may have been since we didn't know ages or genders) in my head of what our family was going to look like and needed to let go of that and even "morn" that loss.
Anyway, after a lot of prayer we have decided not to wait for Liberia to re-open but instead we will be pursuing a domestic adoption. We are open to any racial/ethnic background so we will most likely be adopting an African American child since this is where the greatest need is. Our agency actually works with an agency out of North Carolina to place African American children so it is also very likely we will adopt from there. Most likely we will be adopting a newborn but occasionally they do have twins, older infants or siblings available. We have been told that this process could move very quickly since the agency in North Carolina currently does not have any families available to take African American children. We have also been told to anticipate one match falling through which means that the birthmother changes her mind and decides to parent. Some families have no referral fall through and occasionally there will be a family that has 2 referrals fall through so they feel it is best to prepare everyone for that possibility.
There are a lot of things we need to figure out now that we didn't have to with an international adoption - what type of relationship we are open to with the birth mother and family, what medical and psychological conditions of the birthparents we are willing to consider and putting together a picture book of our family for the birthparents to look through to pick us. If you know me well you know that I am far more comfortable gathering mounds of official paperwork together to send to another country for an adoption verses putting together a cute picture book about us.
We are really excited about the new path we are on with the domestic adoption and the need that is out there. We are very excited that most likely this means that Jacob will be able to come with us to get his new sibling(s). We are also excited that hopefully the wait will be short.
Well this post seems like it is getting pretty long so I will stop now but we appreciate all the support and prayers being sent our way!