Updates, FINALLY!

I know we haven’t posted anything in a few months and that's mainly because there hasn’t been much to say. We've been stuck in paperwork purgatory and we just got out!

Apparently we were on hold for a background check clearance for Oklahoma that was taking forever. We couldn’t get anyone to call us back or respond to our emails about the status of our request. Finally about two weeks ago I just called and left messages and emails for anyone I could be transferred to until someone finally called me back. And you know what it turns out I was waiting for?? A form letter from the state of Oklahoma that says they do not process background checks for non-residents! That's what I was delayed months for? Seriously?!? (ok, breathe, Stephanie, breathe....)

Regardless, I got the form I needed and we quickly mailed in our I-800a form to the U.S. government. This is a provisional approval to adopt internationally and takes about three months to process, which includes yet another background check. Once completed, we will get our 797 form from the U.S. and our agency can finally send our dossier to China where we can be "logged in" and officially eligible to receive referrals for a child. Yay!

It's a crazy thought, really, that our child has most likely been born already. He (or she) is probably in an orphanage now and may be alone and hungry. It feels like a punch in the stomach when I allow myself to think about it for too long so I try to focus on getting them here and trusting that God loves this child more than I do. We pray that they somehow, by some miraculous work of God, know there is a family waiting for them. A family who will love them unconditionally. We pray that they are warm tonight and getting love and good medical care and nutritious food to eat.

But someday, our new child will be home with us, and this means we need to prepare another baby's room! We hadn’t planned to do this until we were officially matched, but we got a letter in the mail last week that the baby store where we bought Brooklyn's furniture was going out of business and selling all their items at great discount to get rid of everything. Since we love that store and wanted to take advantage of a good deal, we went Saturday to check it out. To make a long story short, we are now the proud (and broke) owners of new baby furniture. We love it and it's the same brand as Brooklyn's so we know we'll be happy with it. This is the first "tangible" thing we've really purchased so far and it's surreal thinking about setting up this nursery. It's really going to happen....

We celebrated Christmas last week in Fredericksburg with some good friends and had such a great time together. We are so blessed and are soaking in these moments with Brooklyn now as she's still our only one. And, even when she's a stinker, we are loving every minute of it! We even got some pictures with Ahn the Panda!

Our next update might not be for a few months until we get that 797 form back. Until then we're just waiting, waiting, waiting.....In the meantime, we'd love it if you'd keep us and our China baby in your prayers.

Progress!

We have made great progress in the last several weeks!  How exciting!

We had our home study visits on October 4^th and October 7^th.  The home study is the process where our social worker (assigned to us by our agency’s local partner organization Lutheran Social Services) comes to our home to see our house and interview us.  We had to submit a bunch of paperwork in advance of this visit so she could get to know us beforehand – things about our childhood, marriage and parenting philosophies.  She checked our home to ensure it was safe and suitable for a child and saw a few child-proofing issues we needed to fix. 

She also interviewed Brian and I together and separately.  She asked incredibly personal questions about our families, our marriage, how we parent, our growing up years, and any and all difficult events in our life.  Honestly, I didn’t love it.  We are not used to having our whole lives scrutinized and questioned.  It felt like we had to reach perfection and we were far from it.  As many of you know, we have experienced some traumatic events over the past several years and this can be alarming for an adoption agency because they want to ensure we have adequately dealt with those issues before bringing an adopted child into our home.  At the end of our meeting, I reminded our social worker that we felt we were better equipped for adopting a child because of our past experiences, not in spite of them. 

³ We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. ⁴ And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. ⁵ And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.  - Romans 5:3-5

She has met so many families and heard so many stories; this truth is not new to her.  We remind ourselves that her job is to ensure that children are placed in the best possible homes.  Homes where they are safe, loved and respected.  Her questions (they are required by China, she didn’t just make them up) are to determine our motivations for adopting, the strength of our marriage as well as our strength of character.  There are too many stories of children being adopted internationally that are then abused, killed, or forced into slavery or human trafficking.  Too many more of these and countries could decide to no longer allow international adoptions so it is very important, for many reasons, that families who want to adopt are thoroughly vetted.  We understand this and want to do whatever it takes to bring our child home – no matter how uncomfortable the process may sometimes be. 

The next step in the home visit process after the visits themselves is the write up.  Our social worker will write up the information she heard from us into a formal report and provide her approval for us to adopt including what ages of child we are approved for, what special needs, etc.  This report is required to apply for the US government approval for us to adopt internationally (called the I800a). 

We turned in all of our paperwork for our dossier (adoption paperwork packet) two weeks ago to our agency and will add the home study and the I800a to our dossier when we receive them.  Then we wait until Brian turns 30 so we can submit our entire package of documents to China to receive their approval for us to adopt.  After that happens, we will be officially logged into the country to adopt and can start receiving referrals!!

Saturday, October 5^th was a training day provided to us by our agency partner LSS.  In order to adopt from China, we need 12 hours of training and this course provided us with 10 hours.  What a long day!  It went over topics from attaching to your child, to developmental delays and medical concerns, to how to incorporate and respect your child’s culture.  This is a very important topic and one Brian and I are learning more and more about.  Chinese culture will become a part of who we are as a family.  I am excited to learn more about Chinese traditions and celebrations so we can bring these into the traditions of our family.  We must remember that our child will have two cultures – the one they were born into and the one they were brought into.  They need to understand how to function in circles of people from different cultures and feel confident in their identity as a Chinese American!  We also loved meeting other families who are adopting and have a passion for adoption as we do.  Hopefully we can reconnect over our journey to provide support for one another. 

We went to Baylor for homecoming last weekend and took some great pictures of Brooklyn and Panda.  Panda is the stuffed bear we got to help us have something tangible to remember our child in China until we get to meet them in person.  Sometimes you can get so bogged down in paperwork it’s hard to remember there is a real child at the end of this journey.  We plan to bring Panda with us as a reminder to us of the child soon to join our family and to show our child just how much we are anticipating their arrival!

Here are a few of the highlights from our trip!

 

Thank you all for your support and prayers!  We love you!

 

"Joy costs Pain"

Was moved by the message at church this morning. In my education about adoption I sometimes think about the potential difficulties of the journey we are embarking upon. The message this morning reminded me that God never promised us an easy life, but that His strength is perfected in my weakness. Few things in life worth doing are easy and I for one don't want to miss out on watching God shine because I'm afraid.

We sang this song this morning and what a comfort it was. Our God is enough.

A refuge for the poor
A shelter from the storm
This is our God

And He will wipe away your tears
And return your wasted years
This is our God

Oh, hmm, this is our God
Oh, hmm, this is our God

A father to the orphan
A healer to the broken
This is our God

And He brings peace to our madness
And comfort in our sadness
This is our God

Oh, hmm, this is our God
Oh, hmm, this is our God

This is the one we have waited for
This is the one we have waited for
This is the one we have waited for
Oh, this is our God

A fountain for the thirsty
A lover for the lonely
This is our God

And He brings glory to the humble
And crowns for the faithful
This is our God

Oh, hmm, this is our God
Oh, hmm, this is our God

And this is the one we have waited for
This is the one we have waited for
This is the one we have waited for
Oh, hmm, this is our God

Oh Lord You are the one we have waited for
You are the one we have waited for
So You are the one we have waited for
Oh, hmm, this is our God
Oh, hmm, this is our God

You are the one, You are the one
There is none like You, Jesus
There is none like You, Jesus

A Family in Pursuit...of what?

Several months ago, Brian and I chose a verse for our family. Something we wanted to be our compass for decision making and living life moving forward. We chose Matthew 5:16 -

"In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven."

Little did we know how far He would ask our light to shine....

So, why the title "A Family in Pursuit"? We are in pursuit of God's will for our lives, in pursuit of showing others the love of God, and, most recently, we are in pursuit of a young child with special needs in China.

Let us explain. Some time ago I spoke with an old friend who was fundraising for her adoption of a little girl in China. After our discussion, I began researching China adoptions and became hooked. I couldn’t get the thought out of my head that we could do this, we could have a child in China. Tears filled my eyes each night as I learned more about these children who are living in orphanages, just waiting for a family to love them.

So, I mentioned it to Brian - "What do you think about the idea of adopting from China"? Brian was immediately excited about the idea - "Let's do it".

So why a blog with this announcement? We realize that this may come as a surprise and, while we can't wait to discuss this with you in person, we wanted to give you a little bit of time to let the idea sink in. We hope we can answer a few of the questions you may have below and will then, of course, answer any other questions you have as well.

So, how long have you considered the idea of adoption?

Many of you know that we had some issues conceiving before Brooklyn was born and we had looked into domestic adoption at that time. Even though we were blessed with Brooklyn, Brian and I still felt we would be involved with adoption in some way.

Why adopt, though? Can you not have more children?

Brian and I feel like this is our calling, adoption. It is not our second choice. We are really excited about expanding our family in this way and we feel we are just being obedient to God's call to our family.

Ok, but aren't there children in America to adopt? Why China?

Children in need are children in need, regardless of where they live. There are several reasons we have chosen international adoption over domestic adoption and several reasons we have chosen China specifically, however the main reason is we feel called to China.

In the 1970s to control population growth, China implemented a "one child policy" which allows families in urban areas to only have one child. This has translated into thousands of babies being left in public areas by their parents for a variety of reasons which may include those who already have a child, are unwed, want a different gender of child, or cannot afford medical care for that child. I can only imagine how gut-wrenching it has to be to leave their baby and we pray for our child's birth parents often.

Unlike some other countries that allow international adoption, China is very stable. They have a set system of rules of how adoptions should be done and there are few deviations. You do the paperwork and meet the requirements, and you can end up with a child. Some other countries involve a system of bribes and government officials making decisions about whether you can have a child from their country and it can change on a dime.

China also has, we hear, decent medical care for the children in the orphanages. While their living standards are far below anything we would accept, the orphanages, for the most part, take good care of the children. This is not the case in some other countries.

You mentioned a special needs child. What does that mean?

In the past, people could adopt healthy children from China, mostly girls. However as the economy has improved in China, more people are adopting healthy children domestically. This leaves orphanages full of special needs children, of both genders, waiting for a forever family.

However, in China, a special need means something different than in the US. In China, a special need means that the child has any medical issue that could make raising them more difficult. In our case, in consultation with the International Adoption medical team at Children's Medical Center in Dallas, we have said we are open to adopting a child with minor, correctable medical issues. This could mean things like cleft lip/cleft palate, club foot, or minor heart defect. These issues are typically correctable with surgery or surgeries.

So what is the process like to adopt and how long will it take?

To simplify things, we think of the process in three chunks: compiling the dossier, waiting for referral, and waiting to go to China.

So far we have submitted an application to our adoption agency, Holt International, and have been accepted into the program. We have begun to collect the overwhelming amount of paperwork required for our dossier (the packet of paperwork that is sent to China for official "log in" in China's system to be eligible to adopt) and our home study (done by a social worker who interviews us and visits our home to ensure we are fit parents to adopt). We hope to submit our dossier to China in February.

Once all that paperwork is complete and sent to China, we can receive referrals for children in
China. When we receive a referral, we will receive the child's picture and medical records and will have about 48 hours to pray and confer with the specialists at Children's Medical Center who will give us their opinion of the health of the child and other things to consider. If we decide the child, for whatever reason, is not a good fit for our family, we can turn down the referral and wait for another to come. If we decide the child is a good fit for our family, we submit a letter to China to secure the child to us and receive official approval from the country that we can adopt that child. Referrals can take anywhere from 1 to 6 months (or longer) and then it can take several months to receive the approval from China.

Then we wait for the travel approval from China which says we can go pick up our child (yes, we will have to make a 2 week trip to China to pick up our son or daughter). This waiting time can take 4 to 6 months.

Overall we are expecting a process of 18 months +. As you can imagine, this wait will take A LOT of prayer and patience, however since we want Brooklyn to remain the older sibling, the wait will allow her to get a little older. The child will be anywhere from 9 to 18 months at the time they are referred to us.

So that, in a nutshell, is what we know so far. Thanks for sticking in there with us in this very long post and we know there is a lot of information. We wanted to put our thoughts together written down as the amount of information can be overwhelming, not just to us but we understand to our friends and family also. We have also purchased a few copies of a book called "In On It" which is for family and friends to help them better understand the process of adoption and how to get involved and best provide support. Please let us know if you'd like a copy as we'd love for you to be as involved in this journey as you'd like. We will also be updating this blog as we go so you can follow along.

Right now, we pray - for patience, for our future child who may or may not be in this world already, for their parents who will be gifting the world with this amazing person, for Brooklyn and for the ups and downs that will undoubtedly come with this journey, and most importantly that God is glorified every step of the way.

We are excited beyond words to share this news with you and we hope for your full support and prayers, there is no doubt we'll need it!