Our Milestone Blessing

I continued to be so humbled and amazed by how God is aligning all the steps for us to adopt.  After so many dark, lonely, and painful years, we see the light!

            If you’ve been following on our journey (I doubt many have, as I struggle to update this blog often!)  you know that we’ve been saving for several years to begin this journey.  We started work on a homestudy in November 2012, had an approved homestudy by March 2013, identified ‘our’ waiting child in April, and our dossier was shipped to Hong Kong on May 31^st.  Currently, we are waiting to be officially matched with this child, and then take the steps to secure a travel date (!).

            In early June, we met a savings goal for this adoption - $25,000 total saved, which should more or less cover all adoption expenses (including fees we have already paid).

            I am still astounded as to how that happened…but I’ll do my best to explain how we accomplished that.

            We didn’t fundraise, ask people for money, or apply for grants.  Not that we think there is anything wrong with that, but our area and situation wasn’t conducive to fundraising, we weren’t comfortable asking people for money, and by the time we were able to look at grants it was clear that we didn’t need them.

            We did: Live on one income (my husband’s) while saving mine (minus tithe and taxes) for three years.  The first year, I was working around 20-25 hours per week; the next two years it was a full 40 with the exception of summer and vacations. We saved part or all of any money we were given as gifts.  I signed up to be a consultant for Lilla Rose, started playing organ for church on occasion, and put those earnings into our adoption fund. 

            It doesn’t sound like much, and I amazed by God’s blessing and provision to make everything fall in place.  To Him be the glory, honor, and praise, both now and forevermore!

I am linking up with:

Father's Day

I'm sure I've mentioned previously that my husband is a pastor.  Today, as he was greeting our congregation leaving the sanctuary  one sweet little boy wished him, "Happy Father's Day."

My heart flipped over just a little, and I smiled.

Happy Father's Day to fathers, father-to-be, and those who long to be a father.

I continue to pray daily for the little one overseas that we have requested to make our child.  I pray that he is safe, that his needs are being met, and that we may be matched and united with him soon.

To our heavenly Father, God, be the glory, great things He has done!

Catching Up and Random Thoughts

First things first: Adoption update.  Last I posted, I was joyfully reporting that DH and I had identified a child that would like to proceed with adopting.  Since then, we have received a request from the overseas partner agency to explain why we wanted to adopt this child (and fulfilled their request), gotten our biometrics fingerprints done, received our USCIS approval ONE WEEK after getting the fingerprints done, scrambled to assemble the dossier and line up a final reference letter, and sent our dossier to our agency.  Our dossier was shipped to Hong Kong on May 31st!

It is just short of a miracle that our USCIS approval came as quickly as it did.  The timeframe we were given was five to eight weeks between fingerprints and approval.  I never dared dream the government would be so efficient!  I am still is joyful shock about that.  Praise God!

Now, we wait.  We need to be approved by the Hong Kong government to adopt a child, and to be approved by the overseas agency to adopt this specific child.  At that point we will be officially matched with this child.  We've been told that will take two to four months from the dossier submission.  Then we will wait for a court order and travel dates, which will likely take place either late winter or early spring.  I am praying that we will travel in early March at the latest.  "Our" child turns two around that time and I would love for him to celebrate his birthday with his mom and dad :), plus we will save ourselves the fees and hassle of updating our homestudy.

Finally, my random thought: You know you're a pre-adoptive parent if the first thing you grab to take to the basement during a tornado warning is the expandable file with copies of your homestudy and dossier.  ;)

April 23rd

Oh, my.  Oh, Lord – You are too good to us.  Your works are wonderful!  Truly, You know the plans you have for us!

WE HAVE IDENTIFIED OUR CHILD!

I NEVER expected this to happen so quickly and as easily as it did.  Let me tell the wonderful story….

One week ago today (April 16^th),  my car was in the shop for some minor repairs and routine maintenance. My husband was taking that day (a Tuesday) off instead of his usual Monday due to some schedule changes, so he picked me up from work, took me to a doctor appointment for a manipulation on my neck and upper back, then drove us to pick up my car and get some dinner.  On the way to the auto shop, I checked my e-mail on my phone and saw that we had a message in our private online adoption “portal” with the subject title “Waiting Child”.  This intrigued me…What about a waiting child, I wondered?  It was hard to wait to get home and see the actual message. 

When I was able to access it, this is what I read:

“Hi D and K,
We received a new referral through our partner in Hong Kong, and thought of your family. I wondered if you may want to take a look? If so, I am posting [child’s] referral here, [your social worker] is aware of this as well. Let me know your thoughts.”

Then I looked at the child study.  This is a more in-depth summary of a child than you would find in a photolisting, but not a complete medical report.  In this case, I learned this child’s gender, birthdate, medical diagnoses, and birth family background.  We didn’t have a preference on the gender.  I did review the birth family background, but honestly, it doesn’t have any bearing on our decision to consider a particular child or not.  The list of medical diagnoses was tricky – Hong Kong uses lots of British English medical terms that are tricky to ‘translate’, so there were several things we were unsure about, but we weren’t alarmed by any of the medical information.  The birth date was significant – I’ll get to that in a bit.

After taking a couple days to research things to the best of our ability, I called our doctor’s office to make an appointment to discuss this child’s file on Thursday (the 18^th). 

We met with our doctor on Monday the 22^nd and were encouraged.  Lots of the things we couldn’t figure out were not a big deal, just variations of normal.  He did say that this little guy looks “syndromic’, meaning he has the look and several anomalies that point to a possible genetic disorder.  I felt compelled to move forward. 

My husband kept asking me if I was ‘sure’.  I couldn’t say a certain ‘yes’.  I mean, it seems that in my (overly-realistic?  pessimistic?) mind that I can never give a certain answer.  There is always a shred of doubt that holds me back.  It was there when I chose a college, when I declared a major both times, on my wedding day, with job changes, etc.  And that ever-present little shred of doubt was still there, even though I wanted so badly to leap forward shouting, “Yes!”  We decided it would be wise to sleep on it at least one night before contacting our agency with an answer.

The next morning (Tuesday the 23^rd), I awoke at 5 a.m. thanks to our very active sump pump.  I had fallen asleep thinking about this child, and my thought was, “I want to say yes.”

I shared that with my husband when I arrived home from work, and he agreed.  We sent our agency the glorious message, “We would like to proceed!”

Our little one is a boy, just over a year old.  We are awaiting our USCIS approval so we can send in our dossier.  Our estimated time from dossier submission to being formally matched is 2-4 months (he is not "officially" ours until then), and we will travel 7-12 months after that.  Urgh – more waiting!  It is going to be so hard to know he is growing without us.  Ideally, we’d travel in January.  I am going to pray that we travel by early March at the latest, as that would save us the hassle and fee to update our home study.

And his birthdate…I just cannot go without mentioning this vignette that demonstrates how my God does all things well.  I had often heard from adoptive mamas that there was some special ESP about the day their child was born.  I basically considered that to be an exaggeration.  But God! 

The day our child was born, I was despairing.  I had been having a very strange period that week.  It came on time, but was extremely light and remained that way for 4-5 days.  I was going crazy wondering if it was implantation bleeding from a pregnancy.  I both did and didn’t want to be pregnant. I wanted to be a mother in whatever way God saw fit to answer my prayers, but I was also so sure we were going to adopt at that point.  I knew if I was pregnant, I would need to grieve again, this time for the adopted child we wouldn’t have at the time.  I went back and forth all week, debating to test or not to test, wondering what to pray for, struggling between hope and dread for conception and adoption alike.  I got two hours of sleep a night for three days straight and ended up leaving work early on that third day because I felt terrible, but picking up a pregnancy test on my way home.

I tested the next morning.  Negative.  And I wept for both relief and sorrow, pain and peace.  I both thanked God and was angry at him.  My full flow, of course, began later that day (and continued for 8 days afterward)….

…and halfway around the world, our son was born.

Oh Lord.  Who knows what He was trying to do with that lining up of events.  Perhaps it was a final test of my faith in the midst of infertility, or to prepare my heart for the rocky road of international adoption, or simply to strengthen me.  One thing is certain – He worked out for the best and for His glory.

As all great gifts from heaven do.

Clean Sweep!

When I first saw the introduction to the “Clean Sweep” series over on Caroline’s blog, I was intrigued, but not motivated.  I thought that surely I didn’t have the time and evergy while working full-time (and burning out fast as the end of the school year approaches!).

Then I saw her first challenge of creating a morning routine, and thought, ‘I could use that.”  Then I saw her organization of her boys’ bedrooms and thought, “Maybe I could learn how to spring clean from this challenge.”

So, consider me counted in!

Morning Routine

Rise

Eat breakfast

Brush teeth

Shower or wash face

Get dressed, makeup (except Saturday)

Walk the dog

Make bed

I tried this for the first time today and I thought it worked well!  Hopefully that can continue!

I would also like to set an evening routine, as that is the time I have a lot to get done and it’s easy to forget things.  Here’s the blueprint I followed last night, and am working on tonight:

Walk dog

Prepare/eat dinner

Dishes and general kitchen clean-up

Make a lunch (Sun – Thurs)

One hour of free time for computer, TV, or ‘fun’ reading

Power90 workout (5 days per week Monday through Saturday)

Snack, take vitamins

Shower & brush/floss teeth

Lay out clothes for tomorrow

Bible reading

Take dog out if my husband hasn’t

Free time until I crash :)

I will strive to post weekly updates here.  I will share a general list of things I’d like to do this month, and get done what I can as well as whatever else I think needs doing.  

My general goal is to get one cleaning/organizing task done per day (except Sundays and the last two Saturdays of this month when we will be otherwise occupied).  This will be in addition to regular daily and weekly cleaning duties.  My spiritual goals will be 1) to read 3-5 chapters of Scripture daily (save for Sundays) and to read a chapter of Church Fellowship by John Brug each week.  This is the book we are working through in Bible Study, and I'd love to keep up in the study.

Yesterday, I went through the refrigerator and threw out old yucky items.  Thankfully, there weren’t many, but I did toss some homemade Italian dressing from awhile back, a green smoothie that got hidden back in…January…(I know, ICK!), and ¾ of a jar of salsa that neither of us liked.

Today, I actually washed out the inside of the fridge and cleaned out the freezer!  I tossed three things that were over a year old (freezer pickles from summer 2011, bread crumbs, and something else that was in a Ziploc bag).

Other things that I would love to get accomplished this month:

Dog poop clean-up in the yard

Wash curtains

Wash bedding

Go through clothes…and actually take them to Goodwill

Put more mulch in the flowerbed

Sweep out and straighten up the garage

De-clutter movie shelf

Re-arrange the living room furniture

Figure out a better system for shoes and coats in the entryway and front closet

De-clutter cabinet in guest bedroom

De-clutter storage boxes under the bed

I think that’s a good start!

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Draining, Rejoicing, Thanking

The past few weeks have been draining.

It’s Lent, so my husband has two sermons to write and memorize each week instead of one.  I fill in as organist more often to relieve the burden on our one regular church organist.  Our church has received a request to form a dual parish with another church of our fellowship (located 30 miles away), so there’s been a lot of conversation on that. Work has been just exhausting for me.  The kids have been SO wired and loud and crazy.  Finally, of course, there is adoption paperwork.  We thought we were ‘done’ with the home study, only to have our social worker request scans of certain dossier documents before she wrote it.  Understandable, but hard for us to do in this busy season, in which we are struggling to find time to sit down together and get any sort of serious decisions made.

We may be changing our country choice, which would mean switching to another agency for placement after our home study is done and in our hands.  I don’t know what our home study (current) agency will think or do about that, but we have to do what’s right for us.  We never were ‘decided’ on country choice (just ‘declared’), can’t see how any of their country programs are going to work for us, and they have been questioning our declaration since we made it, encouraging us to continue elsewhere.  No decisions have been made – at this point, the goal is to simply get the home study done and go from there.  But it’s something needing to be carefully thought over, something else to consider amidst this very mentally full schedule of ours.

It was a wonderful day for some special friends of ours and the adoption of their baby girl was finalized in court today.  Yesterday was a grand day for the sister of an online acquaintance, as they received word that they will soon be parents of twin 3-year-old boys.  I admit, my first, knee-jerk reaction was to cry out of pure selfishness.  What wasn’t it OUR turn?  WE’ve been waiting for over six years for children; these couples had only been waiting about four years each.  When, Lord, will it be MY time?

Yes, selfish.

My struggle today is to rejoice in their triumphs.  And as both couples praise God for answered prayers, I look to focus on my prayers that have been answered, instead of whining about the big one that hasn’t yet received my desired answer.

I prayed long and hard for a significant other…boyfriend or fiancé or husband…and was blessed with my wonderful man, with whom I went from dating to engaged to married in less than ten months.  Many times, while working long, stressful hours to support my husband through Seminary, I pleaded with God that it would end.  It did.  I asked my Heavenly Father for my husband’s vicarage (internship) to be someplace warm, and his first Call to be somewhere back in the Midwest.  YES on both counts, and oh my, what joyful days those were! 

There has also been an unexpected blessing that I never asked for when we decided, rather suddenly, to get a dog last November.  I cannot even begin to express the joy she has brought us!  She has been such a loving, nurturing, healing balm to my hurting heart over the last several months.  We have asked ourselves several times, “Why did we wait so long to get a dog?” only to realize that, if we hadn’t waited, we wouldn’t have this one.

What a fitting prelude to our future adoption.

February Song

(The title of this post is borrowed from the lovely Josh Groban work, "February Song.")

Oh, February.  I think it's always been my least favorite month.  First off, there's the weather.  Gray, cloudy, slushy, muddy, and cold.  It really depresses me, to the point that I bought a therapy lamp last year.  Also, growing up, I hated Valentine's Day because I had no Valentine.  Of course, that changed when I got married.  My husband also happens to have a February birthday, which is something to look forward to.  In 2010-2011 we spent a year in the subtropics and I found I LOVED February.  The weather was absolutely beautiful.  It was quite the contrast to February in the upper Midwest, which we are now back to.  Gloom, gray, and cold.

It's kind of a fitting picture.  While it feels much better to be actually 'in-process' with adoption, it still feels stagnant.  We put so much work and time into the home study, only to move on to the more intensive dossier.  We declared a country (Hong Kong), only to still feel completely undecided about where we are adopting from.  As our social worker and the country representative have continued to constantly remind us, it is a program that only has children with moderate-major, lifelong special needs available.  I think we are both afraid of moving one step forward, only to take two steps back.

The point of my post here was to provide a bit of an update on our adoption status, as well as our mental and emotional states.  I guess I've done that.  You can see that things are moving, but we are as uncertain and fearful as ever.

God is in control, and He knows what He is doing.  His strength is made perfect in our weaknesses.  I can rest in that.