WE GOT IT!!!!

This will just be a quick update...

We have been waiting for today. I have been waiting for today! It is not the end of the waiting, but each of these steps gets us a little closer. I knew yesterday was a meeting... I knew they might have reviewed our dossier, I knew we might get a referral. I knew we also might not, they might have reviewed others ahead of us. And we might wait another week. But, today, WE GOT IT!!! It is a verbal referral. The official referral will come in the next few weeks, in writing. At that point we will make travel plans. We will be going to meet our son, our Hamilton, next month. I cannot wait to meet him! It brings tears to my eyes, and makes me want to jump up and down all at the same time! This journey, it seems has taken so long and we have a long ways to go, but we are getting closer.

Every day, Every. Day. Verity asks, "When is Hami coming home." She is ready. She has been ready for so long. I do not know how she even understands at three that he belongs here, and she is waiting for him. She is going to be his sister! And David has told me he misses him. I do to. I miss him. How is it you can miss someone  you have never met? I do not know how to describe it but it is like part of our family is not here, we cannot wait to bring him home!

The first step will be to travel and meet him. We will go for 7 days and spend time with Hamilton in November. After we get back, it is usually 3-5 months until we are able to go back and bring him home. I imagine a really hard 3-5 months of more waiting.

But for now I am thankful, we are getting closer!!!

A Few of the Differences...

This is day 9 I know, and I have only posted eight times, I am giving myself some grace with this and just saying.. it is okay. I actually wrote yesterday, but really was not sure I was ready to post it, so maybe another time...
But for now, Day 9...

I am blessed. We have been blessed with four biological children. And with so many friends who have struggled to have children of their own, there is not a day that goes by that I do not think how really very blessed I am. And I am blessed to adopt. To add another child to our family, I am thankful. We have not brought Hamilton home or even met him in person yet. But in my heart he already part of our family. I have thought through this whole process; how very different the adoption process is than having a biological child.

1. In pregnancy, there is a lot of waiting. But the waiting is different. Some things you know for sure, like the baby will come in the next 9 months. There is a due date, and somewhere around that due date, Lord willing you will have a baby. In adoption, depending on the type, it could be years.

2. In pregnancy, you can do a lot of research and classes and gain information. But there is nothing required. Adoption requires training, hours of training. In both, no child or situation is exactly how you expect it will be and you can prepare a lot, but  never be fully prepared.

3. Pregnancy is expensive, thousands of dollars, most of the time, this is covered by insurance. Adoption is similarly expensive, thounsands of dollars, none of it is covered by insurance.

4. In adoption the government gets involved from the beginning to decide if you are able to be a parent, background checks are done, for international adoptions, the federal goverment does background checks and both make the decision if you are able to take care of a child. In pregnancy, this does not happen.

5. In pregnancy, you do not get to pick your child. This is the hardest part for me. How to ethically go about this. How do we state, I will take this or that child because they have this or that, but not that one because he has this wrong with him? You can make a list of disabilities you will take and then decide what you want. And even after you decide you can change your mind. This does not happen with a biological child. You do not get to pick what you want. It is one of the hardest things about adoption for me because all of these children deserve a family.

6. In pregnancy, the child does not get to pick the parents. In adoption this does not really happen either, BUT in domestic adoptions in the U.S. parents put together sort of "scrap books" that tell about themselves so birthparents can pick what kind of family they wants their child to be raised in. Again, this makes sense to some extent, but it seems a bit odd, often there are really great families that wait long times just because of this or that, people can be really picky!

7. Both can involve lots of labor, but very different kinds. There is a lot to carrying a baby, and caring for a baby while pregnant, and all those who have been through labor know it is a difficult thing. But adoption comes with it's own heart break, and labor of finding funding, passing homestudies, filling out paperwork, it is a really long, hard process. Many people have told me a phrase they have heard, and I fully agree, "Adoption is not for the faint of heart!" and one friend added on, "Adoption is for the Brave!" and I fully agree with both.

8. And the obvious, pregnancy comes with the blessing of a newborn. Adoption often ends with the blessing of a child, but at different stages with different backgrounds and different issues. They both involve adjustment. A newborn brings little sleep and middle of the night feedings. A newborn does not know how to express his feelings but to cry. A newborn trusts his mom from the start.  A child through adoption has a mom that may or may not have struggled through those new things with him, but now has new struggles to face with you. An adopted child is in a house they do not know, possibly in a country in a language they do not understand. An adopted child may not trust you from the start. And may be able to express himself with words but choose not to, or not know how to do it appropriately.

Both Lord willing end with a blessing, a child

A Little more About a Fundraiser...

I am trying to make this month not just about our adoption, but adoption in general. HOWEVER, we are in the process, so I thought I would just plug one of our fundraisers a little bit more!

I am training for a marathon. This will be my first. I decided to try the Hansen Method, which is where you run a lot of miles on really tired legs. However, the long run never goes past 16 miles. Psychologically this is hard for me. I really think I need a twenty miler to make it. SO, I tried last Friday to make it twenty miles. I died about mile 17.8. I still was a long ways to my car, but had to walk the remaining distance. Every inch of my body hurt. I felt like I would never walk again. I got home and collapsed. I slept for hours, and was in pain all day. I honestly have no idea what happened. I had run seventeen the week before and then gone on to play kickball and take all four kids shopping for the day. Now the feeling like dying thing sounds more normal to me than the other. But I was ready for the other. I had run 16 miles several times before and felt okay all day too. Tired, but okay. And the 17.8 killed me. I took two days off and made myself get up and run today. It was "just" 10 miles. I was terrified. But it was amazing! And I have had to tell myself that for whatever reason I just had a bad run, and everyone has a bad run. And I am running for Hamilton. It is what I tell myself on that bad run, and it is what I tell myself when I really am scared to get up and run again.

So I am running because it is one thing I can do. We are fortunate to be able to have people donate to our Adopt Together fund, which allows them to get a tax deductible donation.

And there are others running. It has been a blessing for me, because I am part of a running community, my friends, most of them run. And my sister runs. She is running a race in two weeks. She decided to run for Hamilton too! If you donate to sponsor her, it is the same place, you just leave a note with her name, and I have another friend thinking about running for Hamilton too. I am wearing a t-shirt for Hamilton during the race with all those who have sponsored my run to bring him home in the past month and leading up to this race on the 27th of October. If you are interested in supporting us to bring Hamilton home by sponsoring me to run this race, we would be thrilled! AND if you are running or race or thinking about running a race and want to run for Hamilton, and help raise some money, I would love to talk to you about how others are doing this! You can donate at our Adopt Together fund, anyone who give here or just on the donate button on this blog in the past month or over the next couple of weeks, I will be putting on the shirt! Thank you for your support in advance!

A Little Bit of the Process...

When you step into adoption, it is kind of like you need a dictionary to carry on the journey or a tour guide to walk you through the process. So I thought I would just walk through some of the basics, some of the terms that you will hear. And if you have friends adopting, it might help have some idea of what they are doing. And this is a very amature review of our adoption process. Each agency and country is different and things change all the time. This is meant to just give you an idea of the steps and some of the language used in adoption. It is really our experience, I am sure there are lots of things different or that I might be missing!

The first step is identifying an adoption agency. There are loads out there. I do not know anything about any of them.  There are lots of ways about going about adoption, so that is probably the first decision to make. Am I going to adopt internationally or domestically? Am I going to foster children and see if it leads to adoption? Am I going to open my home to foster children without a plan of adoption? There are all sorts of decisions to make at the beginning. Once you know what kind of adoption you are going to pursue, or non-adoption/fostering, then you can pick an agency. It is probably a good idea to do some research. OR you can go the other route, the one we did. You fall madly in love with a child, and then just go with the agency they are matched with. I think it works this way in other countries, but in the one we are working with, the children who are waiting are divided among different foundations. These foundations then work with different agencies to advocate to find homes for these children. Every once in a while the children are moved to different foundations so that other individuals will have a chance to see them if they are with different U.S. agencies. And if a child is seen on a network as "waiting" they can request that the child be moved to a certain foundation so they can adopt them. Lost yet? Well, we were really blessed to have our agency be a really great one. We did  not do any research. But I could not ask for a better case worker. However, she lives in a completely different state. Which means for the next step, Home Study, we needed a different agency. (just for home study, we could still use our agency for the adoption)

When we first told our agency that we wanted to adopt "Hamilton," we had to fill our paperwork to put him on "hold." Which seems weird, but it said, we want him, and we tell the country we are adopting from that he is who we want. And they gave us six months to get the paperwork complete.

We got fingerprints. And sent them off to the U.S. government to have them "apostilled." Apostilled, means having papers extra officiated. That is my definition. But basically it is saying, "these are real." Our fingerprints had to be apostilled at the federal level.

We requested birth certificates and our marriage certificate. And they had to be apostilled in the state they were issued.  So the state goverment gave their official word that everything was real.

Our agency had a list of agencies they had worked with in our state successfully for home studies. So we went with them on this. The home study consists of four visits. But starts with an insane amount of paper work. The paperwork consisted of thirty pages each of our life stories. We had letters of recommendation written. And we had background checks done. We also had doctors visits done, blood work done to ensure we were healthy and more paperwork for agencies. The home study visits started once we had our paperwork complete. The first visit was a joint visit with Nathan and I. Then I met one on one with our caseworker, then Nathan met one on one. Then she visited our home and met with our children and made sure we had a place for Hamilton. I was really concerned about this and ran out of time to mow the lawn and my friend reassured me that if she says that your home is not fit for him because the lawn is not mowed than there is something wrong. It gave me some peace.

Then we waited for it to be written. Once it was written, and reviewed and fixed. We had all our documents notarized, this is done at bank or by anyone who is a notary. We learned the importance of wording after all our documents were notarized: passport copies, medical reports, home study, hold paperwork, other random paper work from our adoption agency; and it was sent off to be apostilled at the state level. It was all returned because we were missing a statement saying it was a true document and what county it was notaraized in. We had to redo all of our notarizing and send it back for apostille.

Once we had our homestudy complete we also sent off our paperwork for our I800A. This is a federal piece of paperwork that requests that we can adopt a child or two. This paperwork goes through the US immigration department and requires a copy of our homestudy and biometrics fingerprinting. Biometrics fingerprinting are done in certain cities in each state and done by appointment, electronically.

Once ALL this paperwork is complete you have a complete dossier! And you are so relieved to have gotten so far. The dossier is sent to the country you are adopting from.The dossier is then translated by the foundation your child is matched with. In the country we are adopting from, the translated dossier then goes to an International Adoption Committee that gives a verbal referral. If you do not have a child you are matched with, I am not certain what happens next. But for those matched this verbal referral is then made a written referral and translated. The referral is then given to the adoption agency and the family is notified. The family is then given dates they can travel. Often this is just a couple of weeks later.

Before we go we have to fill our paperwork for an I800, this petitions to classify a convention adoptee as a family relative.

Then all countries are different and there are probably different steps. In our country, the one we are adopting from we have to take two trips. In some countries it is just one. In the country we are adopting. We go for 7 days. Half way through we have the chance to say we are really committed. Then we take this child to apply for a Visa. We come home. And we wait for I800 to be approved and if it is and the child is found legal to immigrate to the U.S. an Article 5 is issued. And we have to get fingerprints done again and another doctor's note stating we are healthy. Then our case is seen before the court and then we get to go again. It is usually three to five months after our first visit . Then WE BRING HIM HOME!

My favorite blogs on adoption...

One of the things I love is reading the stories of those who are adopting or have adopted or who advocate for orphans! There are some real heroes out there for the orphan. These are some of my favorite blogs about adoption. Some I have just recently stumbled upon, some moved us to take the first steps of adoption, and some are friends who are walking the journey of adoption!

1. THIS is the newest blog I have come across... it is beautiful, the story, the pictures, the heart

2. This WOMAN just amazes me!

3. A family with an amazing heart and courage!

4. A family starting their second adoption, a FAMILY I love!

5. This is the blog that started it for me, that got my heart stirred enough to take the first step of faith...

6. You have probably read her, and she writes on more than just adoption, but she is an amazing writer and LOTS OF FUN!

Fundraising and Adoption

There are quite a few ways to fund an adoption. One of the most popular is fundraising. Fundraising is a hard thing. Some people will say, it is worth doing, others (usually those not adopting) will say that you should not fundraise for adoption. "If you do not have the money to pay for adoption, than you should just not adopt." The thing is I really know hardly anyone who has $35,000 extra, just sitting in their bank account. And if they do then by all means ADOPT! There is a REALLY good blog post on this, at Embracing the Odyssey.

I have personally found fundraising stressful. Partly because with adoption, nothing is guaranteed, and most people are not able to make tax deductible donations, which makes it sometimes stressful when asking or explaining fundraising. There are lots of really good ideas though, I have read a lot on fundraising and there are so many good ideas! I wanted to make just a starter list for those looking for ideas. The other thing to remember in fundraising, is that every dollar counts. Five dollars really does make a difference because if twenty people give five dollars, you have a hundred dollars which is what we would need to pay for our little boys medical visit for Visa. Every dollar counts! So here is a list of ideas....

Auction (a friend of ours auctioned off jewelry, or you could auction off art, or baskets for presents. people are sometimes willing to give a "something" to auction because it is what they have, and it can grow their business)
Bake sale ( you could do this before or after church for a few weeks)
Birthday Party (a friend of mine did this on her adoptive son's birthday, the hope is for the next party he will be here, but for this year, they threw him a party fundraising for his adoption, great idea!!!)
Make something and sell it! (A woman in our adoption group makes "Owls for Orphans" She used it to help fund her adoption and now helps other adoptions with her sales) If you have a craft or trade, sell it. There is a spot on etsy for adoption fundraisers!
Make a signature quilt or puzzle. Each person who gives so much gets their name on a quilt or helps complete the puzzle piece. We are doing the signature quilt throughout this adoption process. Anyone who gives $10 or more, we will sign their name on the quilt that we are making for Hamilton. I am so excited to give it to him to let him know how many people worked together to bring him home!
Have a Drawing. Set a goal and when you get to that goal draw for a prize. I have seen this a lot lately, for example, set a goal of $1000, once you get to that goal you randomly draw a name of all the people who donated and they receive a prize. There have been some pretty great prizes, like a kindle or a $100 amazon gift card.
Host a Dinner or Party- Have a dinner or party, sell tickets, make the food yourself to offset costs. I have heard several of these have been quite successful!
Run a Race- This is another one I am doing. It is one of the things I can do, is run. So for each person that donates to our adoption in the weeks leading up to the adoption, I am going to run with their names on a shirt that I wear that says, "Bringing Hamilton Home" You could run a race or run as a team, or if you are really ambitious design a race, that the race entry fees go to funraising.

This is a short list of fundraisers. There are lots more lists out there. I would love to add to THIS list! If you have any ideas, leave a comment!

The hardest part... is the waiting

The hardest part... is the waiting.

My heart weighs heavy knowing there is nothing more I can do.

We have applied for grants, all our paperwork is overseas, and we are waiting.

We are in a stage of this adoption that is just waiting. Waiting for grants, to see if we get them, waiting for a referral and a signature. There is a possibility that the committee that give referrals will meet every week this month. There is a possiblity that they will review our dossier. There is a possiblity that they will not. That we will still wait.

I clean the bathroom and tears fill my eyes because there is a child on the other side of the world I am waiting for. He is not waiting for me, he does not even know I exist. But how can bathrooms HAVE to be cleaned and dishes HAVE to be done and laundry HAVE to be put away? How can it all still have to go on while I am waiting?

I am sure in any moment of wait this is how we all feel.

And sometimes the waiting is honestly paralyzing. Because I really do not want to do anything but wait. So I sit and dream and pray for this little boy.

And in the waiting and after the waiting, I want to be a voice for this children that deserve so much more. Who are valuable just because they are created by God, their lives matter just as much as any of ours.

A voice for a little girl who sits in an orphanage, blind, cast off because all that is seen is that she cannot see. She is, "not able to learn" not even given a chance, because she cannot see. A voice for a little girl that twice has had families commit, and then for a little boy in who needs heart surgery, his country cannot provide it and his life is on the line. A voice for a twelve year old boy with spina bifida that asks for a family, but may never find one. And a little girl that twice had families committed, that were not able to complete the adoption. She has spina bifida and is really smart her report says. She is five. All of these are real children, in different countries around the world. And they wait too. They are waiting for families. And they are the ones that might wait longer because they have special needs and are older.

If you are thinking about adoption or want information on any of these children or others waiting, let me know, I will be so happy to connect you with our case worker who can give more information.

And I continue to wait. There are definitely some things worth waiting for!