Saturday, December 26, 2015
Thursday, December 24, 2015
I know why they call it a journey....
I've been spending lots of time reading adoption info and family blogs to read about other families experiences and they always refer to it as their "adoption journey". I totally get it now. Sam and I had our orientation meeting at CCAI, our adoption agency, this week. A 2-1/2 hour meeting that was complete information overload. We had a bunch of paperwork to collect before going to this meeting and I thought that was a lot of work but that was hardly nothing compared to what is to come. They reviewed all the paperwork we would have to complete, the home study process, visiting the immigration office, getting our physical exams, and so much more. They also talked to us a lot about our trip to China which was both very exciting and a little bit scary.
Describing it as a journey is the perfect word for what we will be going through. Not only a physical journey of collecting paperwork, meetings, and training but an emotional journey as well as we struggle with knowing our little guy is out there and we can't bring him home yet. They told us if everything moves along smoothly we would be traveling in about 9 months to get our son.
Describing it as a journey is the perfect word for what we will be going through. Not only a physical journey of collecting paperwork, meetings, and training but an emotional journey as well as we struggle with knowing our little guy is out there and we can't bring him home yet. They told us if everything moves along smoothly we would be traveling in about 9 months to get our son.
It's making me a little sad to think there is a boy who will be our son very soon living on the other side of the world and we are having to spend Christmas away from him. I just hope wherever he is they are taking good care of him and he is getting loved on.
For now we are setting up our first meetings with our social worker for our home study and gathering paperwork and waiting for our agency to call us with a match. Merry Christmas!
Thursday, December 17, 2015
Sunday, December 13, 2015
Saturday, December 5, 2015
Big News!
Our next family adventure is a big one we would like to
share. We are on the path to adopt a
child from China! This whole idea started for me back in May. I had never really thought too much about adopting, but then a family from our church was going through the process and seeing them growing their family in this way really opened up my eyes to adoption. I started doing some more research, seeing faces of sweet orphans, researching countries and it really turned my heart in this direction. Sam and I have always toyed with the idea of having 4 children and this seemed like a perfect way to grow our family.
It was actually on my birthday this year that I brought this
up to Sam. He, of course, thought I was
crazy. We had never talked about it
before, and here I was feeling like it was so right and he had not even had
time to digest the idea. I requested to
read the file of one of the little boys I felt so connected to and to do this
the agency required me to fill out a checklist about our family and medical needs
we would consider.
Sam and I continued discussing adoption over the next
several months off and on, but we were just not in the same place with the decision to move forward. Adopting was never far from my mind over the next several months. It’s so hard to have faith
that this is what God was calling us to do.
There are just so many unknowns with this….Can we afford it? What if our other children don’t get along
with him? What if he resents us when he
gets older for taking him away from his home country? Can we leave our children for 2 weeks to
travel to China? I continued to pray about this daily and praying that if this was God’s plan for our family that Sam’s heart
would be softened to this idea.
Then two weeks ago I got a call from that same agency I had
been talking to over the summer. They
had a child for us! I was pretty shocked
to get the phone call since I didn’t realize they had kept our information this
whole time and were still seeking a little one for us to add to our family. His file was emailed to us and the clock
started ticking with a week for us to decide it we wanted to pursue adopting
him. Sam and I reviewed the file and
spent the next week talking and praying about this. He was a really cute little guy, a few months
younger than Ben, with a pretty minor medical need. I
won’t disclose his real name, but we called him “Ducky” as a nickname because
of his fuzzy hair. A week is such a short
time to make such a major decision, but understandable since they don’t want
the little guy to wait too long. Sam and I were getting to a much
closer place with this whole idea of adoption but we were still not in 100%
agreement that this was what God had planned for us. We continued to prayerfully ask God to give
us wisdom and lead us in the right direction.
We spent the next few days discussing this with family and friends and
shedding a few tears. The Saturday after
Thanksgiving, Sam told me that he was ready to commit to little “Ducky.” God had made his plan to grow our family in
this way clear to Sam as well as me and we quickly emailed the adoption agency
and told them we were ready to move forward with adopting the little guy.
Unfortunately, they had already shared his file with another
family (as we were outside of our 1-week time limit) and the other family had
decided to adopt him. I am so happy the
little guy found his forever family but sad for us as we thought he was going
to be our son. Obviously, God has other plans for a different
child for us. But “Ducky” helped bring
Sam and I to the same page about adoption and for that I am grateful.
So now the process continues! We have formally applied to the adoption
agency, CCAI. We have given our family
histories, medical information, financial information, and are working on getting
our references in and waiting for another phone call with a child that matches
with us. This is going to be a long
journey, but can’t wait to bring another little child into our family!
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