Ups and downs

This week has been truly chaotic. So much has happened in such a short amount of time. I don't have the time to start telling you our story yet, but I can tell you that Elizabeth "Ellie" Rae was born yesterday at 5:39pm. She is 6lbs 6oz and 20inches long. She has a full head of hair and is absolutely beautiful. So far she appears to be healthy.

I'm looking forward to sitting down and giving details. Just as a teaser, our social worker has given us the award for most dramatic/ridiculous birth story ever!

Please continue to pray for us. The birth mom is struggling both physically and emotionally. We are praying she can stick to the plan.

Quietly panicking

Jon and I will be making the 2 hour trip to meet the birth parents of our little girl in a little bit. I'm incredibly excited, but ridiculously nervous. I have an idea of what I want to say/ask, but I don't know if its too personal, emotional, none of my business etc. However, she is handing over her baby for us to raise. Is anything really off limits at this point?
We found out that she does not want to see the baby after shes born. Its kind of a relief, but it makes me really nervous. Its good because she is mentally preparing herself to say good bye to this baby. However, she said she doesn't want to see the baby so she wont have the chance to fall in love with her. That scares me, especially because they recommend moms see the baby to say good bye. I have a thousand what ifs going through my head. I know they are all pointless to worry about now, but I can't help myself.
I'm trying to prepare myself for the worst, but it kills me to think that this might not work out so I'm trying to stay positive. How do you balance the two extremes? How do people choose to adopt a second time?

Arus

Jon and I were out and the boys were with his parents. Ben was helping Gram wrap a present for our little girl. When she got to the to/from part she said she was going to put it for Ben and Sams sister. Ben said that Gram had to write her name. Gram tried to be sneaky and asked Ben what her name was. Ben spelled out A-r-u-s. I have no idea where he heard that or why he would think thats his sisters name, but he is insisting that is her name and gets very upset when we tell him she has a different name. We wont be changing her name to Arus, but something tells me we haven't heard the end of this one!

Prayers answered

The boys were down for their naps and I was watching Bringing Home Baby, one of my TLC guilty pleasures shows. This couple was adopting a baby. I've been praying quite a bit today because a birth mom was scheduled to have a c section today and we were waiting to find out if it was a girl and if we were picked. When the show came on, I was hoping it was a sign.
About 20minutes later the phone rang. It was our social worker. The c section was bumped for emergency patients so we have no information on her. However, they just met with another girl and wanted to pass on her social/medical information to us. This mom has some issues. At this point, I can't go into the specifics. I talked to Jon and our pediatrician and while their is one area of concern, we can't say no to this baby.
I called our social worker back and asked her to submit our profile to the mom. She asked me to make sure we were confident in this decision and not just getting impatient. Any potential issues wont be known until she is born or beyond, and she could be fine, so I assured her we wanted to proceed. She said great, because she already has your profile and she picked you!
I don't think I said one coherent sentence for the next few hours. It was a lot of laughing, crying, are you kidding and so on. It still hasn't completely sunk in yet.
The birth mom will be induced next week. We'll be able to bring her home for New Years.
We still need some prayers though. We need to pray that this baby is healthy, that the boys adjust, that they will be ok for the few days we spend away from them. We have to travel to meet her and then travel for the birth and pick up and probably stay for the 72hrs in between. We also need some prayers about those 72hrs. They start once the baby is born and the birth mom can change her mind at any time until those papers are signed.
I'm shocked, excited, nervous, scared, grateful, anxious, giddy etc etc etc. This next week and a half is going to be the slowest ever, but it will be so worth it in the end. Thank you for all your prayers and please keep them coming. We'll post more as we get more information and things become more official.

Hope

Every week we check in with our social worker and every week she tells me that nothing is happening, no movement, no ER's, no calls etc etc etc. Every week we walk away feeling a little bit defeated. Their have been a couple times that something might possibly be happening, and even though I tried not to get my hopes up, I did, and walked away with my head a little lower. I thought about writing about those situations, but it SUCKS to tell everyone something might happen then have it fall though. All you're left with are people asking what happened and where is your girl?
I was going to keep my mouth shut now, but some things are happening and we need prayers more than anything else. Our agency has 3 girls delivering in the next week and a half. They don't know if all of them are girls and they don't have a good read on all of them--our social worker has a pretty good track record of guessing if they will go through with the adoption or decide to parent. While each girl seems to have her own set of problems, this is more activity than they've had in months, so I can't help but get excited. They also have 2 girls that have a bit more complex situations, but you never know what could happen so I can't rule out anything.
So I beg you, send up some prayers for us and for these girls. If one of these situations works out, I promise you will be the first to know. If you don't see any major announcements or get any excited phone calls, please think twice before you ask about it. As excited as you are for us, we are 150% more excited, nervous, scared and potentially let down.

Waiting patiently

Another month has gone by and still nothing. According to our social worker we are still in the middle of the slowest period they have experienced in years. They are averaging less than one placement of AA babies a month since May. Seriously?!?! Our profile went out to two birth moms last week. We found out today that one mom is so annoyed they don't have any AA families to place her child with that she might end up keeping the baby. We have no information on the other mom at this time. Even if she picked us, I think I'd be really hesitant to match with a non-er situation. It seems like most of the moms that have considered adoption recently have decided to keep the baby. I guess thats good??? I don't want to tear kids away from their moms, but at the same time, why do so many moms think adoption is the best option for them just to change their mind in the last month? Statistically 50% of white moms change their mind, its slightly less with AA moms--until this year. I just have to keep reminding myself to be patient, to trust Gods plan and know that it will happen when its right for us.

Nothing

It occurred to me last week that I haven't put anything on this blog in a really long time. Sadly, there is really nothing to talk about. We are waiting. Every week I check in with our social worker and every week she tells me there is no movement. What happened to, "hurry up and get your home study done cause you'll be placed immediately" or all those agencies begging us to go with them because they have such a need for families open to AA babies??? It absolutely sucks. I know we will get the perfect girl for us and it will happen on Gods time, not ours. Seriously though--its been 4 months since we finished the home study. Some people didn't think we'd wait 4 days. I'm trying to be patient, I try not to think about it some days, I try to stay positive. I try to think about our friends who have been matched with the most handsome baby boy who are going to meet him next month just to turn around and leave him in Ethiopia for a few more months. I think about the China program we almost went with way back when. We would still have a 3+ year wait if we stuck with that program. Really, 4 months is nothing. We can do it, and it will be so worth it!

Domestic training

Our adoption agency requires every family working with them to attend a training class put on by the social workers. When I first heard about the training class, I was a bit annoyed. First, we have already gone through a ton of training. Second, its in Columbus on a Friday. That meant Jon had to use a vacation day to sit in a class room.
It turned out to be not so bad. We turned it into a fun weekend, which you can read about here.
It wasn't the emotional, heart wrenching stuff we discussed in our training back in February. It was specific to the domestic adoption process. We covered every step start to finish. We heard from a birth mom that placed her baby up for adoption. She was very open about her story, how she came to each decision (adoption, the agency, picking a family etc). We talked about some new Ohio laws and court cases which are currently changing laws. We talked about meeting birth moms, gifts, potential areas of concern, walking the line between being happy about the baby and not ignoring the birth mom and finished with the finalization process. I thought I had all the information I needed especially being this far into the process, but I still learned quite a bit.

The hard part is to think about how random the process is. We have been turned down by a birth mom because she wanted her daughter to be an only child, at least for now. The birth mom that came to talk to us wanted the same thing. Its hard to hear that and slightly discouraging, but then they reminded us that just as many moms want their kids to grow up with siblings and seek out families with kids. Race has also been an issue for us. It matters quite a bit to some people and not at all to others. The same can be said for our religion, pets, hobbies, jobs, pictures we put on the profile etc. We will be the absolutely last choice for some, but the perfect choice for one mom. That isn't reassuring for a control freak like me! A friend told Jon that this is the best place to be right now. Its out of our hands and in Gods hands. We have no pressure. All our work is done. In a way thats comforting, but in a way it doesn't really make it any easier.

We did get a pleasant surprise. Another family in the training class is from Lakewood. We also met a family from Bay Village and North Royalton. We are on our way to starting a Cleveland adoption support group. We also got to finally meet our social worker. I've been talking to her at least once a week for the past 4 months. It was great to put a face to the voice.

So now we are home and back to the reality of waiting. Back to pushing the anticipation to the back of our heads and praying for more patience.

Strike 2

I was on the phone yesterday with our social worker and she happened to mention a mom that was at Metro hospital who gave birth to a girl Tuesday night. She decided not to keep the baby and the agency had a social worker on her way to Metro to talk to her. It never occurred to me that they would place babies born in Cleveland. I found out they actually go to Metro and Fairview quite a bit. Unfortunately (for us), the mom picked an African American family for her baby. They were the only AA family on the list so I guess with every baby we get closer and closer, but that doesn't really make it any easier. Our social worker tried to stay positive for me. She reminded me that August and September are the busiest months for them--all the New Years babies! Last week I talked to a friend of mine that recently adopted her second baby. She said that when we get our girl, we will be so happy we got passed up by the other moms because our girl will be perfect for us. It was comforting to hear, exciting to know how true that will be, but it doesn't make that "no" phone call any easier.

Rejection

Rejection sucks. When someone who is holding your potential future child in their hands rejects you, it sucks even more. Last week we were presented to a mom who is having a baby girl in August. She is young and already has 3 kids. The dad is gone and she decided to give her girl up for adoption. She doesn't live near the agency so when we got the call 10 days ago asking if we wanted to be presented, we knew it would be a bit of a wait. Mail time for the profiles, the holiday and lots of thinking on her part. We got the call this morning that she has decided on a family that doesn't have any kids. It does hurt, but at the same time its ok. If she rejected us because we already have kids, then its her (and her daughters) loss. We have great kids and our little girl will be lucky to have Ben and Sam as big brothers. I'm just glad it wasn't something silly in our profiles. Something that I'd be kicking myself about and wondering why I put whatever the issue is in there or why I didn't add something she might have been looking for in a family.
She isn't due until the end of August so even if she did pick us, that would have been almost 2 months of excitement, but also worrying that she would change her mind. Maybe God knew that would drive me crazy so he is sparing me all that craziness. Jon told me today that he would prefer an ER baby. A drop your stuff and come get your baby call. After thinking through this situation, I think I might prefer that too. So, we will continue to wait. When its right, it will happen.

A good idea...on paper

This weekend Lakewood hosted a 3 day city wide sale. Basically a bunch of businesses on Detroit and Madison had street sales. Since so many people would be out wandering the streets, it was the perfect time for residents to have yard sales. The city even organized a website with a listing of all the residential sales so shoppers could plan the best routes. Debbie and I decided to have another adoption yard sale. We didn't enlist a lot of help. We figured everything should be well organized and priced after our last sale..... wrong! The clothes did us in. Hanging what was on hangers, hanging more on hangers, organizing kid clothes, laying out adults shirts, took for ever. We forgot that it started raining at the end of our last sale and the clothes got thrown all together in no particular order. We started bringing over what we were storing at 4pm. I didn't get home until 11pm! At least it was really well organized so we didn't have to get up too early Saturday morning.
We had made our first buck in less than 5 minutes so we had high hopes. Unfortunately, that was the only excitement for a while. We had bursts of people, but we found out that their were around 90 sales going on, not including businesses. People were out, but they had a lot to see so we didn't get the traffic we saw for our last sale. We ended up making about a third of what we did at the beginning of the month. That stunk, but we still managed to have some fun. We thought about doing one more sale, but we decided we're done. We split some of the bigger items that didn't sell and we'll try to get rid of them on Craigs List. The rest is going to the City Mission and Good Will. The sales were a good experience, but I wont be doing another one ANY time soon!

#5

I checked in with our social worker yesterday. Things are still moving slow over there, but they have placed 2 babies this month. Both were ER calls, meaning the baby was born and the mom did not want to take it home. With the first baby, the mom told the agency to pick the parents. In that case, they go to the couple that has been waiting the longest. The second baby was a boy so our social worker did not present us.
Right now we are #5 on a list of 7. They haven't had that many families willing to take AA babies in a year or two. How sad is that? 2 of the four families ahead of us are not willing to accept a baby with ANY exposure to drugs and alcohol by the mom and are very limited as to what family issues they will accept--meaning does a parent suffer from depression, heart disease and so on. So in a way that kind of makes us #3 on the list. Its rare to come across a baby with no (or little) social or medical issues. What does being #3 or #5 mean---pretty much nothing. If a mom comes in she is still presented all the families that are willing to accept her history. The only time it comes in handy to be at the top of the list is if a mom tells the agency to pick. It happens, but not often. So, we keep waiting!

Not that kind of call

The phone rang 2 days ago. I picked it up and looked at the caller id. It was the adoption agency. In about a second 50 thoughts went through my head----is it Megan? Does she have a baby for us? What if she is just checking in? No, she checks in by e mail. This must be it. Don't get too excited, it might not be it.... and so on. I picked up the phone and heard, "Hi Jenna, its Megan and this isn't THAT call." CRUSHED!

Yard sale

My friend, Debbie and I had a yard sale yesterday. Her family is also adopting a baby so we got some friends to donate items and we had a massive sale to help finance our adoptions (Thanks for the idea, Betsy).

12 families contributed to the sale. We received a little bit of everything from shoes to baked goods, dishes to a drum set. The location was even loaned to us from a couple at church. We had an amazing day. We had a couple friends, and my mom, with us the entire day helping out. More family and friends were in and out all day long to support us, drop off goodies and do some shopping. Customers started coming before the sale officially started. It started raining for the last half hour of the sale, but people kept coming and shopping, so, we got wet! We did better than anyone expected, but we still have a bunch of stuff to sell. We plan to have another sale at the end of the month when the city hosts a sale weekend. Thank you to everyone who stayed up way too late Friday night, got up way too early Saturday morning, donated items, food, time, muscle, cars, money, the house etc. The sale was a huge success thanks to all of you!

Its nice to have something to take my mind off the waiting. It wasn't as bad while we were waiting for the home study to be completed. At least there was a reason for our waiting. Now, we're just waiting for someone to decide they can't keep their baby. I feel awful for wishing that on someone. Not that I'm really wishing it, but that is the only way this adoption will be completed.

I talked to our social worker last week. She told me that things have slowed down the past couple weeks. She hasn't had a dry spell like this in a while. It sounds so cold to put it like that. Of course, I wouldn't want any mom to have to give up their baby especially if their was a chance of them being able to provide a decent life for them. I'm just waiting for that mom to come in that knows with out a doubt that adoption is the way to go for her. In the mean time, I will continue to hold my breath every time the phone rings!

Approved and received

Its officially done. The home study is finished!!! It has been approved by the head of the department. It was shipped to our new agency in Columbus and they received it today. This is when the really hard waiting starts. All we need is a birth mom (who is having a girl) to come in and pick us. It could happen tomorrow or it could take months. Obviously the sooner it happens the happier we'll be, but we really want to finalize this year so we can take advantage of all the tax breaks next April. We can't finalize until the baby has been here for 6 months so we hope to have her with us very soon. Keep saying prayers for us, but we're in the home stretch!

Inching along

I got an e mail from our social worker today. She needs 3 pieces of information and then she is done with the home study. Hopefully she'll get everything tomorrow. Once she finishes, it goes to her boss for review and approval. Once it has her seal of approval, we are done. By the end of next week, we should be presented to birth moms!

75%

Our social worker came out to our house this morning for our final interview/safety audit. It went really well. She was here about 2 hours. The boys were good, Bailey didn't attack her and she didn't find any major issues with the house. We do have to make some minor adjustments to the door locks, but she is going to trust that we do that and she wont hold up the home study by coming back out. The best part is that she advised us she is 75% done with the home study. We covered a lot today, but she said she is planning to have everything done by the middle of May. Of course, emergencies come up all the time so we can't put a date in writing, but we can see the light at the end of the tunnel!

Frustration

Our social worker came back from vacation last Monday. She gave me a call and I filled her in on the new agency and the grant. I asked her how the home study was going and when it would be done.

She told me we are top on her list of things to do, but if an emergency comes up or her boss gives her something to do, she has to do that first.

Ok, so when (approximately) will it be done?

Well, they have had budget cuts and people have left the department so they have more work than normal.

Ok, so give me your best guess, when will the home study be done?

Well, even though our application was received in January, it wasn't marked as received until February 5th. As long as its done before June 5th, her supervisor will be happy.

So it wont be done until June 5th???

It might be done sooner.

Thats where I'm at with Bellefaire.

We have sent in our application to the new agency as well as the application fee, openness questionnaire and some other miscellaneous forms. We also did our own profile. The agency typically does them, but since we are so open and could be matched so quickly, they suggested we do our own so we wont be waiting on them in case the home study gets done sooner than later. Not to brag, but the profile is amazing. Jon helped me out with a few professional touches and it looks just as good as the professional ones the agency puts together. I'm actually quite impressed with myself! As soon as the home study is done, it can be shown to the birth moms and hopefully someone will love us and pick us.

As annoyed and as anxious as I am, I have a wonderful husband that keeps reminding me we are on Gods time frame, not ours. The delay at Bellefaire is for a reason. We just have to keep reminding me that God is in control and we'll have our girl before we know it!

Creativity

Although we are still on cloud 9 (see last post), we were made aware of a minor glitch today. The agency we are using doesn't accept credit cards. How is that possible???? The grant will cover the last half of our fees. We still have to pay the first half. For now, they were going to go on a credit card. Time to get creative!

Now that we know what agency we are going with, I e mailed my social worker to get the status of our home study---no response. I called this morning and her voice mail said she is out of the office until Monday. I called her back up and got her voice mail. Hopefully we'll get a call back soon. The waiting is definitely the hardest part of the whole process.

If these are our biggest road blocks, I think we'll be ok!

GRANT!

God is so good! I said in the first post that if this adoption wasn't meant to be that it wouldn't happen. Luckily, it looks like it was meant to be---just not the way we thought. Isn't that always the case though?
So lets recap, just because I'm loving our story! We heard Gods whispers to us about adoption. We listened, but apparently not to the whole message. We thought Ethiopia was the way to go. We started with an agency that turned out to be ....not the place for us. We switched to another placing agency that forced us to find Bellefaire (our local agency). We got the facts about domestic adoption from them and spent a week agonizing about switching to domestic adoption through Bellefaire and possibly compromising on having a girl. We didn't get a clear call to switch so we stuck with Ethiopia. We still had a doubt or two floating around, but we stayed with the plan. Then every effort we made to finance the adoption fell through. Then Ethiopia changed its policy.
After getting the message loud and clear, we switched to domestic and found the consultants in
Georgia. The day we were going to sign the contract with them, we found out about the potential problems. That night I prayed that if Georgia was meant to be that when I called the courts to get clarification, I would get all the answers I needed and everything would be fine. Clearly that call didn't go as well as I hoped. I forgot about my prayer for a while, but once I remembered it, Jon reminded me that we have to stay true to God and he was telling us Georgia wasn't meant to be.
That brought us to our new agency (the one I wont list by name). They were left with 1 family wanting an AA baby. Because of their desperation to find open families, they are willing to let us select the gender of our baby. They typically don't let you do that. Had we looked into them when we first thought about switching to domestic, I don't know that we would have had the same luck with them.
Then we got news that not only has the tax credit been increased by $1000 and extended for another year, now is refundable. That means we will get a check for the full tax credit amount, not just our tax liability. I felt like things were finally starting to fall into place.
Today I KNOW that we have found our meant to be agency. We applied for their grant and have been approved for the largest possible amount! They just knocked the cost down by half! HALF!!! Between the grant, the tax credit (even though it wont be until next year) and generous friends and family, we are looking really good. We are so close to our girl and we wont be in the poor house when we get her!! It will be a while before I come down from cloud 9. If you need me, thats where we'll be!

Reality

In 2009, one major Ohio adoption agency matched just under 150 Caucasian and biracial children with loving families. That same agency matched approximately 18 African American (AA) children with loving families. The difference isn't because of a lack of AA children. Its because most adoptive parents are white and they typically want white babies. Because of this, agencies are forced to call around, even out of state, looking for families to adopt AA babies. Every agency I've talked to in the past few weeks have informed me of reduced or waived fees, waived travel for consultations or training, some agencies are even offering special grants if you are willing to adopt an AA babies.

After discussing the potential issues we could face with the Georgia agency with Jon and a lot of praying, we have decided to continue looking for an agency to complete our adoption. I talked to one today that typically does not let parents specify the gender of the child they want to adopt. Since they are in such need of parents wanting to adopt AA children, they told me if we go with them, they will help us locate a girl. Because of this, I wont be mentioning the agency name. They currently have over 40 families waiting to adopt children (of those, only 1 family is open to an AA baby).

I don't understand why this is such an issue. If you are willing to open your home to a child that is not yours biologically, why does the color of their skin matter? It makes me sad, but reinforces my willingness to adopt a little girl--any little girl---any color. I will be doing some research on our potential agency tomorrow. If everything checks out, we will be 1 step closer, again, to our girl. Details to come....

Could you be more vague?

Just when we were about to sign on the dotted line with our Georgia agency, we got a call alerting us to a potential problem. Our social worker is working with a couple in a different county who are trying to finalize their adoption. The courts denied their adoption because they used a consulting firm---or was it a facilitator??? Even though no one seems to know what the legal definition of a facilitator and a consultant are, facilitators are illegal in most states--or are they? While pretty much everyone says they are illegal, I can't find it in a written law that they are illegal and have found a site talking about how in Ohio and California, facilitators are allowed to charge for their services---but they are illegal.

I was told to call the probate court and talk to the magistrate. I called her and while she said Ohio has not been in favor of these situations in the past, its really up to the judge we get when we try to finalize. However, when she was talking about the situation, she described what a facilitator does, not a consultant. When I told her we were working with a consultant, not a facilitator, she didn't see a difference?!?!

It gets better. I called Courtney, our Georgia contact and part owner, and explained the situation because, of course, our social worker is gone for the day. She explained they are in the process of getting licensed by the state of Georgia and since facilitators are illegal (maybe), if they were a facilitator, they could not be licensed. Also, they are currently working with another couple in Ohio (we are in the process of finding out what county) who originally had the same issue, but once the process was explained, everything was fine.

So what is a facilitator? Most people think of baby byers when they think facilitator. A facilitator will say pay me $10,000 and you will have a baby in 2 months. The client pays, a birth mother is found and at the last minute the adoption falls through for what ever reason. Since the facilitator lived up to their end of the bargain, you are out $10,000 and have to start all over again. That is why they are illegal---maybe!

The consultant passes your information on to agencies and attorneys. Once you are matched with a birth mom, they step out of the picture and you complete your adoption with the birth mothers agency/attorney and your social worker and if you like, you can hire an attorney too. Which is why they are legal---maybe! Or they are legal, but the courts don't recognize them. Or some courts do, it just depends on the county and then the judge you get!

HUH?????

Anyone know a good attorney?

Georgia peach

I spent last week talking to between 15 and 20 agencies, consultants and adoption attorneys. We got a lot of good information and learned a little bit about different state laws. We were torn for about a minute between an attorney that was referred to us in River and a consulting firm in Georgia. The attorney is significantly cheaper, which was very appealing. While she seems very knowledgeable, I just didn't see us getting along. She has a very strong personality and was borderline condescending. I think my personality is borderline (yes Jon, just borderline) sarcastic and I don't respond well to condescending!

We decided to go with a consulting firm in Atlanta. They are basically the middle man. In this case a middle man is good. Jon and I will start working on our family profile. Its basically the story of us with a lot of pictures. Once we are done with the home study, Courtney (our contact) will be able to start "showing" us. When she learns of a baby that meets our criteria (a girl), she will bring us the social and medical history of the baby, let us know the state and agency the mom is using and let us know what the fees will be. If the situation is something we feel comfortable with, we will give the ok and Courtney will give our profile to the birth mom. The birth mom will then either select or reject us.

There are 2 really good benefits to using a consultant. First, we will be presented to moms all over the US, not just in Ohio (or the state what ever agency we picked is located). Second, since Courtney has one set fee regardless of who we go with, when we adopt or how much we pay, Courtney can be completely honest about the agencies. If a mom is working with an agency that has a poor reputation, she can tell us with out worrying about any ethical or contract issues.

Another really good advantage is time. Since Courtney works all over the US, the wait for a baby is SIGNIFICANTLY reduced. In my last post I mentioned we could have a baby by the end of the year. With Courtney, it is very possible we will have a baby by the end of summer!

We're trying not to get too far ahead of ourselves though. We will most likely be moving Sam into Bens room so we want to make sure both boys will be ready to share a room. We want them to understand (as much as they can) the adoption process and what it means to have a new baby in the house. We want to be comfortable with where our girl is coming from and what kinds of things she has been exposed to. We want to be sure that we can afford the process. Since things could be moving significantly faster, we wont have the next year to continue saving money. The cost will be pretty close to the original Ethiopia cost. It will all depend on the state the birth mom is in and what the agency fees will be.

Right now we just have to finish the home study, start our profile and continue to pray for patience.

We flopped

I think I'm about to make my mother very happy. Due to the changes in the Ethiopia program, Jon and I have decided to switch to domestic adoption. I should clarify that she will be happy that we are not going to get on a plane (twice) and fly half way around the world. It has nothing to do with adopting from Ethiopia.

We said all along that if it wasn't meant to be, God wouldn't let it happen. We've hit several road blocks in the past three months. We kept explaining them away as tests in our faith and the plan. We kept praying for a sign that we were on the right track and we kept getting hurdles.

Jon and I have been struggling to come up with the full amount of the adoption costs. Once we found out we will need a second trip which would add on another $5-7,000, we had to sit down and really think about the process.

We are still completely committed to the adoption process and bringing a little girl into our family. Now that we have more information about domestic adoptions and know that it isn't this scary, unpredictable process, we are comfortable proceeding in that direction. We are looking into agencies and consulting groups across the country. Bellefaire (the agency doing our home study) will finish our home study as planned and instead of proceeding with Holt (the international agency) they will forward our information to our domestic agency. We decided not to use Bellefaire for the adoption because they will not allow you to select the gender of your baby.

So instead of an older baby, we will be getting a new born and it is very possible that we will have her before the end of the year. While nothing is set in stone, we will most likely still be adopting an African American baby. We are heavily considering a consulting firm, but have one or two more agencies to talk to before we make a decision. Once we do that, I'll explain the consulting firm vs agency and hopefully have more details on time frame etc. Unfortunately, (or fortunately depending on how you look at it) the cost of domestic adoption is pretty much the same as the Ethiopian adoption (before the second trip was added) would have been. Please keep praying that God will help us find the rest of the money to complete the adoption.

While I'm a little sad that we wont be going to Ethiopia, I'm very excited about moving forward and completing our family. I think some day there will still be a trip to Addis Ababa in our future!

Changes

Ethiopia is going through a bit of change. They made 2 major announcements last week. The first was the country is now doing a more thorough investigation into the orphan status of the kids. Apparently a news show did a story claiming Ethiopian moms are being approached to give up their kids by adoption agencies. No one seems to know where that claim came from, but its great that they are looking into the accusations. However, it could result in more delays in the process.

The second change is huge. Adoptive parents are now required to make 2 trips to Ethiopia. In most countries, adoptive parents need to be present at the court hearing. Ethiopia did not make that a requirement, until now. We would travel to court, meet our girl, become official (hopefully) then leave her. We would fly back in 2 or 3 months to pick her up and bring her home. It doesn't sound like their is a lot of information regarding this decision right now. Our agency is trying to get details from their Ethiopian office, but communication is often difficult and slow. While we are waiting for more details, we will examine the impact this will have on our family and we'll keep you posted.

And how do you feel about that...???

Jon and I are going through the interview part of our home study. Apparently we are talkers because we each had to schedule a second interview. It seems that most people can finish theirs in one meeting. The interviews are a little bit like therapy. She asks a general question like "how do you feel about your childhood?" and you ramble on until you realize you've been talking for 10minutes straight or until she has to get a new pen because she's taking so many notes she ran out of ink! I finished mine this week (thank you Corrie for babysitting) and Jon will finish his on Monday. We have our fire inspection Tuesday and are in the process of scheduling our final interview. Our social worker will come to the house for that one. She will talk to both of us, inspect the house and even talk to Ben. Once that is done, all thats left is for her to write the report and our home study will be done!

Ben has been all about a sister recently. Every time I leave the house he asks me if I'm going to get his sister. I keep telling him she wont be here for a while, but he doesn't have any concept of time yet. I finally told him she wont be here until he turns 4. I knew I made a mistake as soon as I said that because now, at random times of the day, he'll say, "when I turn 4 I can have my cake and get a sister?" So now we are working on she wont be here for his birthday, but she should be here at some point when he is 4.

Later rather than sooner

Every month Holt (the adoption agency) will send out an e mail with any Ethiopia program updates. They updated the time table in the last e mail and the wait is growing. From the time we submit our dossier to the time we travel to Ethiopia can now be as long as 11months. That is the worst case scenario, but 2 months ago that was about the length of the entire program--application to travel.

Holt does a great job of breaking down every step on their website. Not only do they review what you need to be doing, but they break down what Holt does and what happens in Ethiopia. After finding out about the new time frame, I started reading about what happens in Ethiopia. I was amazed at exactly how much work goes into this process on their end. I thought it was kids going to an orphanage, someone matched them with potential parents and then the government puts through the ok and the visa. I thought the majority of the work would be done by the staff at the orphanage (or what ever homes the kids end up in), I was so wrong.

While dealing with frequent power outages, court closings, being understaffed in some departments, Ethiopian and US holidays and large case loads, the government has to have letters sent to the court to approve the adoption, locate the birth mom or dad (if living) for the court date, translate the court decree (if their are any inconsistencies, two court dates might be needed), letters need to be written to obtain a birth certificate and a passport, visa interviews and medical exams etc. That was just a small portion of what goes on.

While, I don't like knowing our wait to bring home our girl could be growing by the day, I have to appreciate all that the Ethiopian government is doing for the kids. I've heard of other country programs growing quickly like Ethiopia appears to be, and many of those programs have been shut down for months at a time to reorganize the system, avoid corruption etc. I'm so grateful that Ethiopia has been able to avoid shutting down their program for any reason and continues to place their babies all around the world. It just reinforces that GREAT things happen to those who wait!

A small exercise

I'm going to write out an exercise we did as part of our training class 2 weeks ago. I'd like you to do it. It will take about 5 minutes. If you don't have 5 minutes, stop reading. Come back when you have the time. Don't read ahead, just stop and come back later.

If you do have 5 minutes, get a pen and some paper. Yes, you need them. This isn't something you can think about and remember as you go along.

Ready? Number your paper from 1 to 10.

#1. Who is the most significant person in your life?

#2. List your most significant role in life (Christian, mom, wife, employee etc)

#3. List your support system (Best friend, spouse, parent, church etc)

#4. What is your racial or ethnic heritage?

#5. Write down the word "information". This will symbolize all the information you utilize every day in order to exist (I know how to change a diaper, I can drive to work, I can feed myself type of stuff)

#6. Where is your favorite place to be?

#7. Write the words "cultural information". This will symbolize all that you know about behavior, norms, traditions etc in your day to day life

#8. Write the word "resources". This will symbolize your work or any monetary means you have to support yourself.

#9. Write down the word "values". This is what you believe to be true.

#10. Write down any object or activity that gives you great joy or satisfaction.

Ok, here is where the "fun" starts. Look at your list and cross off 4 things you could live with out. Yes, you have to cross off four things. Anything you cross off will no longer exist in your world.

How did you do?

Ok, now cross off two more things. Yes, two more things that will no longer exist for you.

Its ok, I have a wonderful plan for you. This is going to be great, but you have to cross off just one more thing. Trust me.

So whats left? Did that suck? Hopefully, this little exercise will never be a reality for us, but this IS reality for our little girl. We were left with three things on our list. Our little girl might only be left with one or two things. I cried when we did this in class. I kept thinking about everything she would gain by being in America, in a loving home, having a big family. I never thought about how much she will leave behind.

This is part of why bonding with us will be so important. It can be a very slow and difficult process, or not. Obviously we wont know until she's here. However, right now we have to plan for the worst case scenario and pray that it wont be that bad. Because of this, we will be imposing some restrictions on EVERYONE. I thought it would be best to let everyone know what our plan is now so we wont have any surprises or hurt feelings when she gets here. Of course, this is all subject to change, but for now, this is our worst case plan.

When she comes home, we will most likely not have ANYONE over for a while. It could be a day or it could be a week. We don't know yet. Once you meet her, your visit will probably be very brief and you will most likely NOT be holding her. The more comfortable she gets being here and being with us, the longer the visits will be and the more you will be able to hold her.

All of her clothing (for a little while) will be very basic. Cotton shirts and pants. No frills, dresses, zippers, crazy designs, buttons, ruffles etc etc etc. She will not be used to any of this and will need time to adjust to "American clothes".

If you would like to get her any toys, they need to be very basic, old school type of toys. Dolls, wooden blocks etc. Anything that talks, makes music, flashes lights etc anything that doesn't require any brain activity will be held until she is FULLY adjusted.

If you are thinking about toys or activities, keep in mind that there will be a regression. They are now saying we will bring home an 8-13month old girl. In reality it will be more like bringing home a 6-9month old girl.

It is very possible that she will reject one gender. Since the caregivers are primarily female, its possible she will not want anything to do with any men, including Jon. Or she could be so fascinated by males that she rejects all women, including me. If she is terrified of you, don't be offended. Its normal.

What ever room she ends up in, it will be made girly for her, but it will be a slow process. She will be coming home to an almost completely bare room. Many of you bought decorations for the boys rooms. While we always appreciate any gifts given to our kids, don't be offended if you don't see it until weeks or months after shes home.

I think that covers the basics. Not what you expected???? Us either, but after our training we've learned how important it will be for our girl to know she can trust us, we'll take care of her and wont leave her. So, if you had visions of meeting us at the airport, a welcome home event, gram camp, babysitting and so on....you have a year to revise your visions or at least put them on hold until she is ready for them.

Critic

I took advantage of Jon being off work on Monday to run some errands with out the boys. While I was out, I saw someone I've known for several years. Someone who genuinely cares about me and my family and someone who I greatly respect. This is someone who LOVES kids. I worry that one day a mom will call the police on him. He has a tendency to not think when he sees a cute kid. He will pinch cheeks, give hugs and high 5's and gush over kids whether he knows the kids (or the parents) or not. We were talking about the adoption, and while he wasn't mean, he certainly wasn't nice. He made comments like society and our church has put pressure on us to adopt. He thinks we should do more locally. He said the more kids I have, the longer all I'll be is a mom and not a nurse. He is worried we'll end up regretting our decision especially when we start paying the big fees.

I expect that we will be criticized, but I expect it to happen when we have our little girl and are out in public. I expect people to make ignorant comments. I expect people to be cruel. I expect people to not think about how their comments will make our little girl feel. It completely caught me off guard that someone who knows me would say these things to me. I felt like he thought I was adopting because all the "cool kids" are doing it. It felt like he didn't trust me to think through such a big decision or that I wasn't thinking about my family at all. I was torn between politely explaining myself and telling him to kiss my back side.

I think I handled it well. Since he is someone I respect, I explained some of what started the adoption conversation, how we came to the decision, how the training has opened our eyes to things we never thought about and how we have prayed every day about our decision. I told him that after all the ups and downs, we are still 100% committed to the adoption process.

In the end we agreed to disagree. It crushed and completely shocked me to have this conversation with him. Is he crazy or is he the only one brave enough to say these things? I know deep down that it doesn't matter what he or anyone else thinks. When you are so excited about something, and think you're doing such a good thing, it catches you off guard to know that not everyone agrees with you.

Almost a flip flop

When we went to meet our social worker last week she told us about Bellefaires infant adoption program. The program they have is one of only a couple in the state of Ohio and is different from the programs I found when I was initially researching domestic adoptions. If you are a pregnant woman you can go to Bellefaire for counseling and they will help you come up with a plan. They give you a realistic overview of life with a baby--expenses, lack of personal life etc. If you don't feel you can raise the baby they explore family adoptions and then look at outsiders adopting the baby as a last resort. They only do 6-10 infant adoptions a year and are very proud of the low number. They believe it is best for the baby to be with the mother, even if conditions aren't perfect. If public adoption is the right choice, they show the mom profiles of waiting families and the moms pick a family. The adoptions are open so you go and meet the mom. After she gives birth, she has a waiting period of 72hours before she can sign over the baby. Once she does, they baby is yours. 3 days old, fresh from the hospital. Jon and I have been seriously considering switching to this program for the past week. Their are a ton of pros and cons in this situation. The waiting list is pretty small right now, so its very likely we could have a newborn before the end of the year, but about 50% of moms change their mind in that 72hour waiting period. The list of pros and cons is long, but the biggest con is they don't rely on ultrasounds (what if it was wrong). You need to be open to either gender. If you wait for a girl, you would have to wait for a mom who has already given birth, decided she didn't want the baby, called Bellefaire, received counseling and then signed over the baby. It could take two months or two years for that situation to come up. I love my boys, but I would still like to bring a baby girl into our family. As much as I would love to bring a baby home before the end of the year, we are committed to Ethiopia. We are excited to bring home a baby girl from Africa. It was fun (but ridiculously stressful) to think about some other "what ifs" this week, but I'm so grateful to be back on track with our original plan. Maybe I'll finally get some sleep tonight!

A little piece of happy

We finished our training yesterday. It was 9 more hours of depressing videos, sad stories and horrible stereotypes.

Bellefaire has an intern right now who is 22 and was adopted when she was 5 months old from Korea. We started the day by hearing her story. She seems likes a very intelligent, well put together, kind, light hearted girl. The kind of girl I would want my daughter to be when she grew up. Overall, she had a good story, but even with great parents and a great home, she still has "issues." All weekend, we were told about how even infants will have a sense of loss, trauma or even memories of their former life. I know our trainer is a professional and she knows what shes talking about, but that didn't seem possible. After hearing this girls story, I know she was right. She grew up with her adopted family for almost all of her 22 years. All she knew was her adopted mom and dad, but she still has a lot of abandonment issues (among others). Her story reinforced that regardless of who you are, how you parent, where you live, how old or young you adopt etc etc, you still have a lot of work a head of you.

Yesterday was its own training class so we had 2 new couples join the class. They both have adopted before. One of them is about to adopt their 7th child. It was great to hear their stories and get some insight, but it brought all the concerns and issues we will face on an even more personal level. They told stories about the racism and stereotypes they have personally faced. They talked about how one of their kids had never seen the moon and freaked out when he came here and saw it for the first time. They talked about how they literally had to teach their kids to chew food because all they were fed in the orphanage was mush. They also had to teach their little boy how to play with a toy car. We never had to teach our boys how to play with a toy. Luckily, none of these kids were from Ethiopia.

We saw some videos from orphanages from around the world. They (the orphanages) allowed us to see the best of the best. Some of their best would still be considered neglect and probably even abusive in the US. They were overcrowded, the kids weren't held, there was no interaction other than what was necessary to keep them alive, even when they were given a toy, the kids seemed to be so far gone, they didn't care. The only thing that gave me comfort was that the video we saw from Ethiopia was actually pretty wonderful. Women were actually holding the babies. They had play time and made it a point to get them into the sun to ensure they were getting plenty of vitamin D.

We ended the day talking about being a multicultural family. For the most part, we've only thought about our baby or toddler. We've given some thought to our 16 year old girl or would her potential husband be turned off by the fact that she had white parents. We hadn't put a lot of thought into the fact that when she was older, she would in a sense be on her own and would have to face the world as an African American woman, not as our daughter. It brought up even more questions and concerns.

I think the next few days will be full of praying, thinking, researching.... We haven't changed our mind about adopting, but we need to make sure the path we have chosen is the best path for us and we will be prepared to handle the issues we learned about this weekend.

Drained

Jon and I headed to Bellefaire Friday afternoon to meet our social worker and get the list of all the forms, letters etc we will need for the home study part of the adoption. Diana, our social worker, seems to be very nice and very knowledgeable about the process. She told us more about Bellefaire and their programs and the campus. It actually looks like a mini college. They have several buildings, offices and housing space for a variety of different programs, groups etc.

After dinner we headed to training. We were in class from 6:30-9:30 Friday night and from 9-8 today. We are completely physically and mentally exhausted. We have been given so much to think about. We covered things like attachment disorders and obstacles you might face when building a bond with your adopted child, the grieving process and how something terrible has to happen to them in order for something wonderful to happen to your family, open adoptions or meeting the birth parents when you travel internationally and how helping your adopted child adjust to their new life could take away from our boys. We covered the major areas of development and talked about how adoption can interfere in each area. Whether we adopt domestically or internationally, infant or older, the kids will face very similar issues and have many of the same questions. Unfortunately, it was all presented so negatively. I know they need to prepare us for the worst case scenarios, but it almost left me wondering where the positives were in the whole process. We keep telling ourselves, we are doing a good thing and just think where these kids would be if they weren't adopted. Many (especially the kids in Ethiopia) might not survive if they weren't adopted. Just when you start to feel good again, you're hit with coping disorders/unhealthy coping mechanisms, skewed views (from everyone including the kids) on your reasons for adopting, triggers causing kids (and adults) to revert back to issues of abandonment, neglect etc. I knew this wouldn't be an easy process, but there was so much we never considered. We thought the younger we adopted, the fewer issues we would have to deal with. I had no idea. Its going to take a while to process all the information thrown at us the past two days. We have one more day of training. I can't imagine whats left to cover, but it sounds like we'll have a full day.

Our boys are with my parents this weekend. I know they are having a great time, but we miss them. Talking about something that will greatly impact their lives and hearing about some of the horrors kids have to go through makes us miss them so much more.

We're trying to stick to the positives. We have so much love to give and we know we could give a little girl a life of opportunities she might not have if we gave up on this process. Giving up is not in our nature, but I'm really ready to hear about the up side of adoption.

Hurry up....and do nothing

Jon printed out 21+ pages of e mails, instructions, forms etc. Jon commented not too long ago about how amazing it is that they make you go through such a detailed process to adopt a baby, but anyone can have their own kid and people could care less if your checking account is in good standing or if the Ministry of Womens Affairs (MOWA) approves. Those are 2 of the many letters we need to provide. On top of explaining our motives to adopt from Ethiopia to MOWA, we need to provide tax returns, reference letters, letters stating we are in good standing with our bank account, employer and the police department. We need to provide birth and marriage certificates, power of attorney, medical clearances, letters stating we will comply with post placement procedures and on and on. What drives me crazy, is I'm ready to get going on this and then realized I will need a lot of the same information (of course on different forms) for the home study. Its pointless to go around getting forms filled out, signed AND notarized when I'm just going to have to turn around and go back to the same people for the same information in a couple days when we get our packet from Bellefaire. I'm organized, ready to go and now I'm waiting some more!

Paperwork

We have finally been transferred into the Ethiopia department at Holt. We received an e mail outlining the process from here on out. It includes a list of all the documents we will need to provide, information we need to obtain and forms that need to be filled out. It took 21 pages to explain everything we will need to do. As you can imagine, we have a lot of work to do. Once we print everything and I have a chance to look over everything in detail, I'll give you a better idea of what we need to do. I'm very excited to finally have everything, but a bit intimidated by the work ahead of me!

Training, part 1

Jon and I had our first training class at Bellefaire today. It was a cultural class. It basically reminded us that our culture is defined by hundreds of different qualities that we possess and it can vary greatly between neighbors, close friends and even family members. We talked about how our culture will effect our future daughter and vise versa. The class was actually pretty interesting and it was great to meet a room full of people going through the same process, some for the second and third time.

We ended the class with a video called Eye of the Storm. It is an experiment a third grade teacher did with her students just after Martin Luther King Jr was killed. In a nutshell, one day kids with blue eyes were told they were superior to kids with brown eyes. Blue eyed kids got seconds at lunch, longer play time at recess etc. The next day she told them she lied and brown eyed kids were actually superior. That day, brown eyed kids got all the perks. It was amazing to see the results. Obviously the video is old, but I highly recommend checking it out. While it was clearly about racism and not culture, it was easy to see how the two can overlap and it gave us a lot to think about. Our little girl is going to face a lot of uphill battles simply because we will be her parents. This class was the first step in equipping us to help her win those battles.

Next weeks class is going to touch on culture and a ton of other related topics. We will be spending 23 hours in class next Friday-Sunday, but I'm actually looking forward to it.

Baby steps

We have officially been assigned a social worker through Bellefaire. She called me to introduce herself and schedule our information meeting. We wont be able to meet until next Friday, but I'm excited to have something on the books.

We have our first training class this Saturday. Its only 3 hours so it should be an easy day.

I'm still waiting on the e mail from Holt. Still praying for patience.

Waiting, waiting, waiting

I know its been a while, but seriously, nothing is happening. The last time I posted anything, we were waiting for a packet from Holt. I was hoping to have it the next day, but with the weekend and the holiday, it came 5 days later. The packet didn't really end up being a packet. It was a mini booklet about Holts adoption process/policies. It took 8 or 10 finely typed pages to say (in many different ways) adoption is an uncertain process and we can't hold them liable if Ethiopia changes their policies at any point in the process and we end up being delayed, disappointed etc. We had to notarize that and send it back. Once they get that, they will e mail the next steps to us. We mailed that in several days ago so I'm hoping to get the e mail Monday or Tuesday.

I finally talked to Karen at Bellefaire. She is the head person that was on vacation. She confirmed our training classes, answered some questions, took some money and then told us a one on one information meeting will have to be scheduled since we missed the last one. Guess what--she doesn't schedule them and the person that does is on vacation! Seriously?!?!? I'm hoping to hear from her tomorrow. They prefer to have the information classes done before training and our first training class is Saturday. Hopefully tomorrow will be a productive day for us. I'm still praying for patience, guidance, clarity etc etc etc...

Approved

It seems like we're doing a lot, but not really getting anywhere. We gathered a ton of information for our previous agency. We submitted an application to Holt and to Bellefaire. They all seemed to ask for different information so we've done a lot of digging to get the correct answers, but all we've done is apply.

I just talked to Holt. They have approved our application and have a packet out to us. Hopefully we'll get it tomorrow and start the next round of information gathering. Once they receive that, they will forward our information to the Ethiopia people and we'll go from there. I have a ton of questions for Bellefaire, but the person I need to talk to is out this week. We sent them our application today and now we wait until Monday to get some answers. Patience has never been an area of strength for me. Pray that God helps me out a little bit.

How about some more good news?

I let Andrea (the woman we've been working with at the adoption agency) know that we were switching agencies (see yesterdays post if you haven't already). I let her know about the website and the some of the comments we found and let her know that we just didn't feel comfortable continuing with them. She talked to the director of the agency who apparently talked to the agency attorney and they all e mailed me advising me they would be happy to refund our application fee (that was previously non refundable). While it is just a small step in the right direction, at least we are going in the right direction.

On to the new agency. We have switched to Holt International. They were one of the first agencies we looked at. They have a fabulous reputation and are well established. The only reason we didn't originally go with them is because they aren't local and I thought it would be easier to use someone in the same state. Through them, and our friends, we have found Bellefaire JCB. They are the local agency who will be doing our home study. They don't even know who we are yet (our paperwork hasn't even finished going through Holt yet), but have allowed us to sign up for 2 mandatory adoption/training classes in the next couple weeks so we can be in the same class as our friends. The classes sound like they will be a huge help in many areas, but one in particular is explaining to your kids why their new sister looks nothing like them and how to adjust to that. I'm looking forward to it, although in just over 2 days we have to sit through 23 hours of training. That will be a challenge!

How about some good news?

So we got some difficult news recently. It came in the form of an e mail from a friend. She found a website that told a bunch of stories about peoples adoption experiences with the agency we picked. Unfortunately, they were horror stories. They made me absolutely sick! After reading those stories, I couldn't believe we were working with a Christian agency.

We have left that agency and submitted an application to an agency out of state. They are also a Christian agency, have a wonderful reputation and are the agency our friends are using. So far our friends haven't had any complaints and they are already helping us navigate the system.

I'm hoping the new agency is just what we need to kick start the process and get some good news rolling in!

First crisis averted

We received our first two information packets. The first is 24 pages of fact gathering. The second is 85 pages of reading---yes 85! The first packet looked a bit intimidating, but actually wasn't too bad. The only bad part was answering the same question at least 5 times. Of course it wasn't a yes/no question or a check this box type of thing. It was one of those where you have to attach a separate sheet of paper and explain in detail type thing. Copy and paste are my best friends! I hate to admit that I haven't started reading the second packet yet. Its all about laws and policies and fee schedules--very exciting reading.

So our first crisis (sorry honey, but I have to be thorough). About a week ago, I said to Jon, "We need a copy of our birth certificates. Do you have yours?" Jon assured me that he did. So last night when we were gathering all the final papers that needed to be included in our packet, Jon went to get his birth certificate. Guess what, it wasn't there. It wasn't anywhere here or with his parents. Guess who wasn't born in Ohio? We can't just go downtown and get a copy. We have to order it online and wait 7-10days to receive it. Did I mention that the packet has to be returned to the adoption agency with in 10days of our application?

Jon is a very lucky man! Andrea, our agency contact, is extremely understanding and will start processing the paperwork with out his birth certificate. We got everything else together and mailed it out this afternoon. Once they process the information in this packet, guess what.....we get another packet. I see a trend starting!

I love you baby!

Step one, done

Well, its official. We have started the adoption process. After a long day of thinking and rethinking the situation, praying, bothering Jon at work more than normal, chatting with our friends who are also adopting and a couple more calls to the adoption agency, Jon and I have decided to adopt from Ethiopia. We submitted our application last night and paid the first of many fees. I didn't know I could be this excited and freaked out at the same time. Our information is being put in the system as we speak and we should be getting our first packet (aka a major to do list) soon.

Prasti linked me to a blog yesterday. Its about a families adoption journey. They also went through Ethiopia. Its clear that she has a strong faith. She mentioned God and his plan for their family over and over again. Its so inspiring to read. The whole time I was reading it, I kept thinking to myself that I can't wait to be that strong and that secure in my faith. I can't wait until some of the things she said just rolls off my tongue as easily as she made it seem. I hope this journey will help me get to that point. I know we (I) have a lot of work to do in that area.

Please send some prayers our way. We'll let you know when we get the information packet.

Information overload

I talked to the adoption agency this morning. So far, they are just as good as they look on paper. The woman I talked to was so nice, patient with all of my questions and extremely knowledgeable. However, after 45minutes of information gathering, I'm feeling a bit intimidated. It almost amazes me that people do this all the time. She gave me a brief overview of the process and while she assured me they will be there every step of the way to help, I still feel overwhelmed and a bit lost.

I'm trying not to get too far ahead of myself and focus on step one, picking the country. So here is the breakdown on Ethiopia and China.

Ethiopia: They are by far less complex than China. It sounds like they are becoming a very popular program so the actual time to complete the process (application to picking up the baby) could take 12-14months. Anything could happen so it could go faster, fortunately it shouldn't take any longer than 14months. You need to travel to Ethiopia to pick up your child. Total stay is typically 4-7 days. The average age of your baby at the time you bring her home is 12-21months.

China: They are a Hague country so the process for China is a bit more complex. A Hague country means they are part of the Hague Adoption Convention that puts policies into place for the protection of a child. I forgot to ask them about the specifics of Hague, but from what I've found it looks like all countries follow the policies. I'm not sure what the benefits to us are (if any) , but so far the big con is a longer wait. Several steps have to be completed before immigration will consider your request to adopt internationally. If we go through Ethiopia, immigration will start to consider our application almost immediately. Once we finish paperwork and complete the home study process, they will review those papers and in turn will have a faster approval (hopefully).

They confirmed that in China, the wait for a healthy baby girl is 42-44months. That takes us to special needs girls. The needs vary to minor and possible miss-diagnosed issues to very severe. Once you are approved by immigration, you are logged as eligible by the agency. This gives you access to the special needs list. Every 6 weeks China gives a list to every agency they work with of all the children available and lists their issues. You search the list and if you find a child that you think will work with your family, you select her. You will then be given medical records to have reviewed by a doctor (if you are smart, you will have them reviewed). Assuming you are still comfortable with taking the child, you select her again and move along with the process. Here is where it gets tricky---you have to keep in mind that every agency in every country gets the same list. If 10 people fall in love with the same girl, it turns into a first come first serve issue. You could easily lose out on that baby and then have to wait 6more weeks for a new list. Then you have to hope that in 6weeks the list isn't filled with children whose needs are greater than you can handle. For China, you can also have a baby in 12-14months from start to finish, but you could also be waiting a lot longer than that. The potential for heartbreak also skyrockets with China. The truly sad part is when I asked her why it took so long to go through China she told me that even though it is clear to everyone on the planet that China can't handle the amount of children they have in that country, they are very proud and don't want to admit that. They purposely extend the waiting periods for children so they wont be adopted. The only people that suffer are the kids. The stay in china is about 2 weeks and the children are around 12-18months when you get them home.

She did mention a third option: Russia. Russia is one of the fastest programs. Start to finish is 8-10months. The children are 12months + when you bring them home. The downfall to Russia is you have to make 2 or 3 trips. Both parents have to go for a week to go to court. About 6-8weeks later, both parents have to go back for another week to finalize the adoption. Then both parents can go home and (one or both) can come back in 10 days to pick up the child or one or both parents can stay the 10days in Russia and then bring home the child. Because of all the travel you are looking at close to $50,000 for a Russian adoption. WOW!

The thought of having our baby girl with us for Christmas this year was a really exciting thought. Unless we go through Russia, it looks like we'll just miss Christmas. When Jon gets home tonight we're going to have a lot to talk about.

We'll let you know.