Sqaure one??

So we've been thrown for a loop! We've been spending the past month with our sights set on Bulgaria, but reading some posts in the Bulgaria Facebook group have led us to realize that the process is probably going to take MUCH longer than we had originally anticipated. We were expecting 2 years... 3 years max. But it will probably be a four year wait for our daughter in reality. And now I think... if the wait is that long, is it because so many are wanting to adopt these young girls? And if so, are we really doing good for the cause of orphans? Should we instead shift our sights towards a child who might be in more of need of a family?

Tomorrow has been on our calendar for so long as the day we would meet with our program director and sign all the papers we need to sign to officially become MLJ clients and go forward with Bulgaria. But without wanting to delay the process any longer than necessary if we do go with Bulgaria, it is really important that we take a step back to be sure we have ourselves in the right place. We want our plans to line up with God's desire for our child and our family.

Right now we are throwing two additional countries back into the mix for consideration. They are Samoa and Poland. It seems Poland *might* have a shorter wait time than Bulgaria, but it's not looking promising. Also, with Poland we would need to be in country for nearly a month (away from our boys) between the two trips, the costs would go up, and we'd need to work with an out-of-state agency (using MLJ for our home study). With Samoa we are really hopeful we might have found a good place, but it's a pilot program that is not Hague approved and carries a higher risk. We are also not sure how the medical requirements might go (with BJ's health conditions we are limited on the countries we can work with).

So, the meeting tomorrow is not going to be as we originally expected, but we are hoping to find some guidance and maybe even some answers!

Regardless, we are moving forward towards our daughter. The process is feeling very slow, but this is a very important step to take our time with!

Passports!

...and today we're getting everything together for our passports, which we will needed current versions of for our dossier and of course, to travel! We took our photos last night, and today picked up the prints and a copy of our marriage license at the courthouse (since my current passport was from right before we were married).

It's not much, but it's progress! :)

I Will Not Leave You As Orphans

When thinking about all we are about to go through in adopting a child, the hardest part I imagine will be leaving our child after the first week-long visit (at which point we will head home to wait for the adoption to be finalized before we can return for her). In re-reading Russell Moore's book Adopted for Life, this part in particular was so heartbreaking.

"When Maria and I first walked into the orphanage, where we were led to the boys the Russian courts had picked out for us to adopt, we almost vomited in reaction to the stench and squalor of the place. The boys were in cribs, in the dark, lying in their own waste.

Leaving them at the end of each day was painful, but leaving them the final day, before going home to wait for the paperwork to go through, was the hardest thing either of us had ever done. Walking out the room to prepare for the plane ride home, Maria and I could hear Maxim calling out for us and falling down in his crib, convulsing in tears. Maria shook with tears of her own. I turned around to walk back into their room, just for a minute.

I placed my hand on both of their heads and said, knowing they couldn't understand a word of English, 'I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.'"

I pray that our child will not be in such squalor, though regardless I know this will be painful. I already cry imagining this moment. But I suppose the alternative is not seeing her at all until we are there to bring her home (not that that is actually an option for us, but for a different country perhaps). So, I am thankful that we will have this extra time with her. And, to be that close to having her with us will be so amazing!

We can't wait to meet you sweetheart!

An Important Day

Today I've been thinking a lot about our baby 3's birthday. It's possible that her biological mother is pregnant right now. Before even conception and birth this little one was on God's heart (I know, as He is making sure she is also on mine). He's making a way for her in this world even as she is being formed. I can't wait to have the chance to tell her how much she is loved by her Creator!

Medical Checklist

Tonight while the boys are sleeping and BJ is on a mini mission trip to Grundy, I'm curling up in bed with Google on my iPad and the medical (etc) checklist. It's not a fun time.

I keep thinking about our boys. Both have a known medical condition (though neither impact our lives at this point) - but on paper HAE and a heart issue would sound pretty scary. And of course with bio babies you don't make these choices. Maybe that's why it feels so unnatural to do this.

We have a lot of praying to do.

Decisions!

We have made actual decisions regarding our adoption and agency. The MLJ open house was amazing! There were about 30 families there all either interested, in the process, at the end stages (two just completed their first of two trips) or having just brought their child/children home. Everyone had great things to say about the agency and I gained so much confidence in them. We know now that they are the right fit for us, and that the program is as well. Seeing the children really made the whole thing real to me and made me all the more excited to get started. They were of course adorable (seriously ADORABLE), but also happy and adjusting so well. I met a family who just brought home a sibling group of three girls ages 2, 3 and 5 (adding to their family of 2 biological children and 2 children from the Ukraine). They have been home just a month, but are already understanding English really well (and slowly beginning to speak it), calling for their Mommy, running around, laughing and having fun with the rest of the children. You wouldn't know to watch them (at least in that environment) that they had come home to the US so recently.

I also got so much great information the process, medical advice (including a recommendation for a doctor in Cincinnati who specializes in adoption medicals), travel information, etc.

Our last decision to make is when to apply. With the holidays and both boys birthdays coming up things are a little crazy around here, so likely sometime soon after the first of the year we will start on our new adventure! It's going to be a long LONG road (2 - 3 years) but we're ready so so excited to get closer to meeting our little girl and bringing her home!

Up All Night

I've been up in the middle of the night lately thinking of our third child, but not in the way you might expect. Since tooth number 5 appeared in Ezra’s mouth we've had a small setback in sleep. He has for a while gotten up about 5 am, but now a 1am feeding has been added back in. Our pediatrician has recommended turning off the monitor, and I know at his age (1 week shy of age 1) he would be fine. After just a couple of nights the 1 o’clock wake time would taper off. But every time he cries in the night I think of the book “Adopted for Life”. The author talks about how when he and his wife arrived at the orphanage they were struck by how eerily quiet it was. A building filled with children should be loud, but this place wasn’t.  The children had learned to stop crying out, as no one would be coming to comfort them. It completely breaks my heart to know that possibly this will be the story of our third child's first years.



The sweet face I get to see at 1 and 5am

And so I come to Ezra when he cries, even at 1am, and pray for our little one who will not have me there when she needs me. 

Oh how I wish this world was not so broken.

Baby Steps

This weekend we will take our very first (baby) steps toward adopting. There is an open house in Indianapolis for families interested in adopting from Bulgaria and... despite the craziness of the weekend we have planned I will be there while BJ stays home with the boys. And, hopefully, I will come out of the meeting encouraged and ready to take on this long journey. 

We're just at the beginning and feeling a bit overwhelmed facing what will likely be a 3 year process to bring our third child home. That's over three pregnancies worth of waiting! The hardest thing is all of the uncertainty that goes along with international adoption. And with a long wait there's of course a concern that something might dramatically change with the program 2 years from now. But, I keep coming back to what we do know. 

And that is... God has set this all in motion. He is the one who has put this in our hearts and He will see it through to completion. He already knows and loves our child. He knows and mourns for what she will face in her first couple of years. And so he has pulled our futures together to show her His great love. And we have the great privilege of being the ones who take her into our arms and let her know that she is loved by us and by God. That in fact she has been loved and dreamed of by us for YEARS. That she is a joy and a blessing. That she is beautiful and created for a purpose in this life. Years before she was even born she was on our hearts and in our plans, and God was making a way for her.