Long overdue update!

I did not realize until today how long it has been since I blogged.  So, we have a lot of catching up to do.  First of all, we finished all of our required education.  That is a huge relief!  It had to be completed prior to the final steps in our home study.  Because we finished it so quickly, we were able to schedule our 4th and final home study visit on December 28th instead of waiting until January.  This visit took place in our agency's office in Birmingham with our Colombia-specific social worker.  We discussed our expectations for our new family and our plans to deal with the challenges that most certainly will come as we all make this adjustment.  It was a long meeting.  Our social worker asked a lot of thought-provoking questions.  We still do not know the answers to many of them.  The education we have completed about the emotional and physical needs of the adoptive children has been extensive.  We feel as prepared as we can be.  But it is hard not to have twinges of fear when we hear about the struggles our children will be experience through this transition and the chaos that will bring to our already chaotic home. My anxiety only increased as I began to follow some other adoptive parent's blogs who are currently in-country with their children as well as some who already have them home. This might not have been the best choice.  While their stories are at times uplifting, I seem to be focusing more on their accounts of sleep issues, anger and attachment problems and pure exhaustion.  So, I'm taking a break from those for a bit.  

As I mentioned in my last blog post, we requested a Waiting Children file to view.  Children are assigned to these lists by Colombia's central authority (ICBF) if they are a difficult placement.  The reasons could be age of the child, number of siblings, medical issues or any combination of those.  The file we viewed was that of three boys ages 8, 10 and 12.  Definitely not the direction we set out in.  The boys seem to be healthy and well-adjusted given their situation. They have been in the same foster home together for many years.  And their pictures would just melt your heart.  Their number one request was a Christian home where they could go to church together as a family.  We prayed for many weeks about these boys.  We extended our review time of the files to over four weeks instead of the two we were originally provided.  In the end, we have some hesitations about the placement and no real answers.  Sigh.  So we continue to pray for answers and for these brothers.  We have not closed this door forever, but for now, the file has been released back to our agency so other families can also consider these precious boys.  Still, I cannot get them out of my mind.  I don't know if our reluctance is a nudging from the Lord or our fears.  Trying to sort that all out.

One of the last parts of compiling our home study is a round of visits to a psychologist for both of us.  We had our first appointment scheduled for January 15th.  On January 14th, I foolishly decided to save some money and take our children's passport photos at home.  Disaster.  This led to a spiraling down of my emotions to the point where I did not feel I could appear sane at that psychologist appointment.  I got up first thing the morning of the 15th and cancelled that visit.  I was convinced I would not have been able to get through the first question without collapsing into tears.  In hindsight, the entire event, because it was truly an event, is quite comical.  Amazing what a couple of days does for the old perspective.  Having now collected myself, I rescheduled our appointment for the 22nd.  It was a one hour appointment and completely painless.

Jude's best take

And Reese.

Upcoming steps: 

• 2 hours/500 questions of psychological testing this Friday
• Waiting on finalization of home study by our social worker in Huntsville.  Then it will be reviewed by our social worker's supervisor, our lawyer in Colombia and our social worker in Birmingham.  
• Once the home study is complete, we will submit it with our I-800A form to USCIS (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services).  They will schedule an appointment for us to get biometric fingerprints taken in Birmingham.  More prints?  Really? And then they will begin the process of approving us to adopt internationally.  
• While we are waiting on USCIS approval, we will begin compiling our dossier to send to Colombia for ICBF's approval.  This requires a ton of work on our end to provide documentation of every single thing we have ever done in our lives.  Certified and notarized documentation.  
• After we receive approval from ICBF, we will wait for referrals from them of children's files.  In the meantime, we can still request files of Waiting Children who are newly released to our agency.  

At the moment, I am feeling quite unqualified.  I am so glad that the Lord is holding me near during my uncertainty and assuring me that I just have to obey.  He will take care of the rest.  Please continue to pray for us and this journey.  We love you all!!

3rd homestudy

Yesterday we had our third homestudy visit with our Huntsville social worker.  Each visit has a "theme" to it.  The first was our marriage relationship, parenting philosophies, home safety/readiness etc.  The second visit was individual life histories.  The third really focused on the new children and how they would fit in our current family structure.  We discussed how our birth children would be affected depending on the ages and genders of the adopted kids.  These were some very challenging areas to explore.  It is hard to be willing, completely and totally, to choose difficulty for Dakota, Gavin, Reese and Jude.  But it will be difficult.  That is certain.  It will not be easy for them.  Rewarding in the end?  I hope so.  But not easy.

Selflessness is not a quality children have in leaps and bounds.  Even most adults struggle in that area.  We will be asking them to love these children they do not know.  Children that are taking up a lot of our time and energy.  And maybe not always being pleasant to be around.  It will disrupt and change the flow of our home at least for at time.  It makes me think some days, why are we doing this?  But then I think of our children who are already living somewhere in Colombia.  They are already mine.  I would never for a second wish any of my children away.  Even though they all came with major disruptions to our routines and relationships.  It has never been easy for me.  I struggled and still do struggle with selfishness with every single child.  I want sleep.  I want a tidy and clean house.  I want to go out to eat.  I want to go to the bathroom alone.  I want to have my coffee in silence.  I want to watch a tv show.  I want sleep :)  But these are all seasons.  Dakota and Gavin never want to go the bathroom with me now.  So I know it will pass!

That being said, we are still praying and thinking a lot about the ages of children for which we are willing to accept referrals.  We originally said two children (siblings) age 5 and under.  That would mean, based on Colombia's requirements, that one of those children would have a medical special need.  Other options for physically healthy children would require that we adopt 3 siblings or a sibling group of two with at least one of the children over the age of 8.  The older the child, the longer the institutionalism, the more likely they are to have suffered physical and/or sexual abuse.  It is almost a given.  So that has it's own challenges.  Both in dealing with the adopted child's emotional suffering as well as protecting our biological children from any potential danger.  Not for the fainthearted.  But we are not discounting any possibilities at this point.  We are open, if but tentatively, to whatever the Lord leads us to.

Please be in prayer for us.  We have requested to look at the file of a sibling group from Bogota.  I do not know if they are a fit for our family, but it is something we want more information on.  I'll keep you posted.

Our next, and final, homestudy visit will be in Birmingham with our country-specific social worker.  It will probably be sometime in January.  We are supposed to have all of our education completed by that date.  So some prayers of fast reading for Brant would also be appreciated :)

UPDATE: Just received requested file of sibling group.  We have two weeks to review and/or request more information.  Please, please pray!

Home Study Time

Since I last posted, we had two of our home study visits.  Our social worker is Sella and is really laid back and wonderful to work with.  When she arrived, we began some small talk and realized she and I are related.  Two ways.  We do live in Alabama, right? Her first visit was to inspect our home, see that it was safe and that it had plenty of room to house all of us plus more.  We stretched the more.  We could make it work by doing many sets of bunk beds :)  They accepted that.  After all, I'm sure our home is larger than many orphanages housing much more than 6-7 kids.  We are having the home study written to accept up to 3 additional children, 5 years old or younger.  But we are more specifically requesting a group of 2, ages 4 and under. At least one of the children would have a medically correctable special need if we are referred a group of two. By the way, Gavin managed to hold back on suggesting that Sella check the closets for mistreated children.  Thank you, Gavin.

Our social worker told us we could be picking up our precious ones in Colombia by next fall.  Ideally, Brant and I would both like to be in a different house by the time our travel takes place.  That is really not that far away, especially if we decide to build.  This is where you come in.  Please pray for us to have direction about our home.  Or you could also pray for someone to just come forward and hand us a check to buy our house. Then we will be forced into making a timely decision. Problem solved!

After our first home study visit, we had physicals to complete with our doctor along with extensive blood work.  We also received the first of our FBI clearances on our fingerprints.  We are still waiting on the clearances from ABI and the state bureaus of Florida, Tennessee and Ohio since I lived in all of those states as an adult.  After the first home study visit, we each had to provide our social worker with an autobiography.  We had a questionnaire to guide us so we knew what type of things they were expecting it to include.  Each of ours ended up being around 6 pages.  Typed.  No-double spacing.  After submitting these autobiographies, Sella scheduled our second visit which would be 1 1/2 hour individual interviews about the things we wrote.  Lovely.

I have to be honest and tell you that I completely dreaded this interview.  Writing the autobiography was about all the visiting of my past that I wanted to embark on.  But it was inevitable.  Most of you do not know much of my history B.C. (before Christ, before children, before changes).  Some of you know quite a bit.  But none of you know it all.  There was a lot of pain, sorrow, embarrassment and regret in my story.  It was difficult to discuss at best and highly emotional for me.  I have not taken the time at any point before now to really sit and reflect on my life as a whole picture.  The entire journey.  And while it isn't pretty, it is amazing.  The me now looks nothing like the me of years ago.  I hope that is because I'm growing to be more of a reflection of my Lord.  I hope the change in me in the next 15 - 20 years is just as mind-blowing because there is a huge gap between who I am and who I want to be.  I hope that somehow, because of my testimony, someone else finds peace, forgiveness and acceptance with the Lord.

When my interview was over, I walked into the nursery and just rocked in the chair for a while.  This is the song that came on the radio.  This is my story.

Café con Raul

This week we had the opportunity to meet with our Colombia in-country attorney, Raul Velez and his daughter Anna Christina.  The information he provided about the process was as invaluable as the Colombian coffee he brought was delicious!  By the end of the meeting, I was exhausted mentally.  So much so, that I was silent the majority of the drive home.  Gasp! The massive amount of facts has bottlenecked somewhere in my brain.  Right now I'm having to just chip off small pieces at a time to process.

There were several things that I took away from the visit.  The first being, how much Raul and our agency love what they do.  They are dedicated to the placement of these children in good, loving, Christian homes.  And they work very long hours to make that happen.  I'm so thankful for their faithfulness to this calling.  The second was a ton of legal process gobbly-gook.  But all things that we needed to know to expect.  Then Raul asked us to just close our eyes for a minute and picture the children we would receive from Colombia.  I cannot adequately describe to you the emotions I felt in that moment.  It was a jumble of excitement, trepidation, joy and a twinge of sorrow all wrapped in one emotional package.  What has happened to the me who isn't big on crying or emotional displays?  She is nowhere to be found these days.  And maybe that isn't such a bad thing.

I am amazed at how funny the Lord is.  I never really thought much about having children before I had them.  I was not the little girl who dreamed of what her wedding would be like one day or what she would name the little boy and little girl that happily rounded out her family of 4.  But the Lord knew differently.  I was not the mother who wanted a large family.  Too messy, too expensive, too exhausting.  I was clearly finished with growing my family after our first two children.  But the Lord knew differently.  Isn't it just like the Lord to take you and put you in a place where you are utterly unprepared and uncomfortable?  The one place you were not willing to go.  In this way, there can be no doubt as to who is in control.  I'm so thankful that He knew all along where I would find my joy in this world.  I am so glad that for once I listened.

Application accepted!

We received an email last week and a letter in the mail this weekend officially accepting our adoption application!  Along with that acceptance came a 130 page document to print, read and mostly fill out.  Paperwork doesn't bother me too much.  Brant, on the other hand, about broke out in hives.  So I spent the weekend evenings after the kids went to bed filling out 32 pages of the forms that are "immediately" due. Brant did a lot of initialing and signing.

I sent all the forms in along with our first major installment (ouch) today via Fedex.  We will go to the police precinct on Thursday for our first set of fingerprints.  These are for the state and federal child abuse clearances.  There will be more biometric fingerprints to be done in Birmingham after the home study.  Friday we have a one hour telephone interview with our agency social worker.

I know the process will be tedious at times.  Especially some of the upcoming paperwork including many, many discussion questions and an autobiography (neither of which Brant will be able to escape). But I'm really trying to relish even these mundane parts.  At least they are making me feel like progress is happening.  I slightly dread that period when I've done all I can do and just have to wait.  Did I mention that patience problem I have?

Continue to pray for us as we feel our way through the beginning.  I want to be completely in the Lord's Will.  I do not want my preconceived ideas to interfere with the best path for our family.  I am so thankful that He always has known and always will know what is best for me.  We love you all and appreciate you taking the time to pray for and encourage us!

The last thing I want to share today is an amazing quote which captures so perfectly what the Lord has laid on our hearts.  This is exactly what our adoption journey is about.

What country?

The natural question we receive after the domestic vs international question is, of course, what country? This decision was difficult for us. When we began discussing adoption, neither of us felt drawn to any one country over another. As a matter of fact, our interest sheet we submitted before our agency meeting listed 5 possible countries we were considering! Although our agency will let you change from one country's program to another with no repercussions, we knew some parts of the home study would need to be modified if we did make a change along the way. This is something we both would like to avoid. But we still did not feel pressured to decide.

While we were attending the informational meeting at the agency, Brant expressed to me an interest in Colombia. I believe he also re-expressed this on the way home. Probably making sure I was really listening! He had no real reason, just something about it appealed to him during the meeting. It was one of the countries already in the hat, so that did not rock my boat too much.

As we began studying the resources the agency provided us, the decision process involved quite a bit of natural elimination. Here are some of the things we had to consider:

• We could only choose from countries in which our agency has a working relationship.  Those include Bulgaria, China, Colombia, Congo, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ethiopia, Haiti, Hungary, Peru, Poland, Taiwan, Uganda and Ukraine.  We are thrilled with our agency and so that narrowed us down to 14 potential countries.

• Our existing family.  We have 4 children already.  That prevents us from entering Haiti's program.  They allow a maximum of 2 children in the home before the adoption.  

• The amount of time required in-country to finalize the adoption.  We decided on a maximum of 12 weeks although we would really love to keep that much shorter.  Brant can take 12 weeks of FMLA through the fire department. The Dominican Republic can require a stay as long as 18 weeks.  Definitely eliminates us.

• Availability of children under 2-3 years of age.  With our agency the following countries primarily place older, waiting children or children with medical needs more significant that we are prepared to deal with given our existing family size: Bulgaria, Costa Rica, Hungary, Poland, Taiwan & Ukraine.  

• Safety of travel.  If the stay in the country we adopt from is more than 1-2 weeks, we will be taking our children with us.  So safety is huge for us.  Now mind you, this is all relative.  But for us, Congo was immediately out.

• The next big eliminator was something that we both agreed we wanted.  To adopt more than one child. Possibly a sibling group.  When we expressed that desire to our agency social worker, she narrowed it down very quickly for us to China or Colombia.  The other countries either do not allow placement of two children at once to a family or they do not keep sibling groups together.

So many of the decisions were actually taken from us as we expressed our desires in the adoption process.  During this elimination process, I began to become very interested in the Colombia program as well.  As I discussed options with the agency, scoured the internet and prayed, I became more and more convinced this was the avenue we should pursue.  Brant was already there.  Just took me a while!

In China, we would receive two unrelated special needs children.  In Colombia, we would most likely be referred a sibling group of two where one has a mild, medically correctable special need.  Our focus ages are two children with the oldest not being older than 5 and the youngest being under 3 but preferably under 2.  We feel that maintaining the birth order of our two oldest is crucial and do not want that disrupted.  Brant and I both know we will receive the referral the Lord has for us.  That might not fit our initial "ideal" scenario.  Although I don't know that 4 children under 5 is exactly ideal either :)  Our only real plan is flexibility and that patience word again.

Colombia!  I'm already imagining their precious, little (pequeños) faces.  See that Rosetta Stone is really paying off!

Domestic vs International

One of the first questions people have asked is domestic or international? Short answer: international. We thought and prayed about this one question considerably. For us it came down to a few things. The first being our current family dynamic. We have four natural children. I have a difficult time believing that a birth mother would look at 10-15 presented dossiers of families and choose to place their child with a family who already has 4 children vs a family who has dealt with fertility issues and has not been blessed with any of their own. And quite honestly, I would not want that birth mother to. I would never want to step in the way of a mother and father receiving that child for which they have longed.

Our second determining factor was the staggering statistics. Worldwide the current estimate is around 143,000,000 orphans. Millions. Millions who will never have a real family home. 85% of young, orphan girls will be sold through human trafficking once they age out of their orphanage. 75% of young orphan boys will turn to drugs, crime or be sold through human trafficking when they age out. The suicide rate among these orphans is the highest among any other group of people. It is unbelievable really.

Now please do not think I am saying there is no need domestically. There is! There are approximately 18,000 infants adopted domestically each year in the United States. There are also a little over 100,000 foster children available for adoption here. But for us it came down to the most important factor, the calling. We have not been led to domestic (at least right now). We both feel very strongly that the Lord has directed us to international. And it feels overwhelming to try and make such a small dent in such a huge number. My only comfort is that I know the Lord sees them in their need. He is the Father to the fatherless (Psalm 68:5) and I know He hears their heart's cry. I can only begin to hope that our journey will inspire others to make their own tiny dent. For some that might also mean adoption. For others it might be giving to those in need. For all I hope it inspires a fresh vision for the need of others outside our comfortable circles. I covet your prayers, not just for us, but for those millions of orphans awaiting rescue.