How long is the wait? Part 9

To get caught up on previous posts you can read Part 8 here.

Well another three months have passed, actually four since I wrote the part 8 post, since I last measured the goatee.  

For the goatee there hasn't been much additional growth this time.  It still is hanging out at about 19 cm.  On the adoption front things have been pretty uneventful as well.  We have heard from our placement agency twice recently but more on that in a minute.  The goatee continues to be fun as well.  Just today I was at the pool and somebody I hadn't seen in about a year said hi.  She said "I saw the goatee and said 'I know that person.'"

So Jenn's last post prompted an email from our placement agency.  They reached out just to say hi.  It was nice to have the contact and to know that there wasn't much to be doing.  As Jenn mentioned, our dossier is just hanging out and waiting.  That was contact one.

Contact two was a little more heart wrenching.  You may remember that we have said previously the hardest piece of the dossier to fill out was the form about acceptable abnormalities and the child's background.  This form was about four pages long.  It asked questions about what was acceptable in the parents past like history of alcohol use, mental abuse, physical abuse etc.  It also asked about characteristics of the children.  This section was even harder.  We had to make judgments about things like missing digits, minor abnormalities (not sure what that means), missing eyes, cleft palate, and many other things I had never thought of.  This was hard to do as we felt very selfish about saying no to certain things.  

Earlier this week we received another email from our placement agency. This one had what is called a list of waiting children.  This list is usually sibling groups of greater than three and children with other special needs.  It was suggested that we consider two individual children on the list.  They both have some kind of special need or tough history.  The entire document contained about 50 or so children or sibling groups.  As I looked through the list, it is so hard.  Your heart goes out to each of the children and you want to be able to say yes but at the same time need to make sure the fit is correct.  

When you have a child of your own, you hope and pray that the baby is going to be healthy.  In the end though, you know you are going to love that child no matter what.  In the adoption process you have a little bit of choice.  This is hard.  It can feel selfish to say no to somebody because she is not what you were hoping for in one way or another.  We will be praying about this choice and see where God leads us.  Ultimately, we will love any children we are able to bring into our family.

Active waiting

Active waiting

Many wonder what is happening with the adoption.  The easy and possibly frustrating response is nothing.

We haven't received any feedback via email.   We don't see if our paperwork has moved from one desk to another.

We don't know if anyone has even opened our information since we got approval 1 year ago.

I'm sure you probably are standing their with your mouth open.  "What do you mean?  Is it possible that your packet has sat in some file for 2 years?"- maybe.  I don't know.  All I know is that we are waiting.  "Is it possible that it will sit unopened for another 1-2 more years?"  Yep.

So I continue to learn patience.

I read to become a better parent.

I learn to forgive when I mess up.

I am a doer.  For those who know me know that I don't just sit.  I am always working on something.  And this is good.... sometimes.

However, I am learning to wait. 

To reflect.  

And to hopefully learn what God has planned for me.

I am learning that I need rest.  

I need reflection. 

I need the learning time.  

The time will come when I need to draw upon this deep rest.  

The time when I am active.  

The time when life tries to overwhelm me.

And so I learn rest.  

I choose to slow down and refresh.

Thinking about 4

When people think about their kids, they think about those who are there, or have been there.  I think about my boys... And the two others.  The two others don't have names, or genders, or specific ages  But they are my kids.  Not in the future, but now.  When I think about my family, we have 6 people in our family not just 4.

2 + 2

How long is the wait? Part 8

To read the rest of the posts in the series here is a link to part 7.

First let me start by saying thank you.  Thank you to all who are praying for us, donated to our adopt together fundraiser and those who bought T-shirts.

Well, here we are again.  You may have noticed that this post is a month late.  We decided to move it to coincide with our ICAB Dossier approval.  That was a year ago if you can believe it.  We have been on this journey officially now for just over two years.  It is a little daunting to think that it could still be two more years before the kids come home.  I think for me the thing that makes the wait bearable is knowing that it is going to be two years.  It was really hard to wait for the dossier approval. We had been told it would take about a month.  At a month we hadn't heard anything. It wasn't until about month two that they came back and asked for more information.  Once we were able to assemble the additional information it still took a couple more months to get approved.

It is fun to see the new connections that are made as we walk this path.  As we share with others what we are doing, many people share stories of their own experiences with adoption.  Some of the stories are of their own journey, others know people who have adopted and a few have tried and been unsuccessful.  It is always neat to hear what others have experienced.

As the goatee continues to grow, it is now about 19 cm, it becomes more of a conversation piece.  It is always fun to share the reason behind it and to spread awareness about orphans and adoption.  I will say I am beginning to get somewhat attached to it, or maybe it is just attached to me, and it will be hard when the time comes to cut it off.

Support

 


We are getting to that point where people often ask "how are things going with the adoption? You must be getting close."  Well actually, on our mental time line we are about halfway.  Yes that is correct we probably have about two more years until we bring any children home.  That is why we could still use your support.

Here are three ways that you can support us:

1) We know it sounds cliche to say but we do want and need your prayers.  We are in a good place right now but there are times where the wait seems long.  We also have come to realize that the transition to a larger family is not going to be an easy one, for us or the new children.  So please pray that God prepares us and the adopted children for a life together.  

2) We have set up a fundraiser through Adopt Together.  You can make a tax deductible donation on our fundraising page www.adopttogether.org/challengedgracefully If you have any questions about this just let us know.

3) We have partnered with another couple, the Wicklines, and Fund the Nations to sell t-shirts.  We worked with the designer directly and are very happy with the way they came out.  The shirts will be sold as a pre-order.  However, there is a slight chance we might order a couple extra depending on how things go.  Since it is a pre-order they will only be available for a limited time.  You can order from us directly or from the site http://mkt.com/challengedgracefully which we set up for this purpose.  All orders are due by: March 1st 2015.

Thank you for your continued support and interest in our journey.

How Long is the Wait? Part 7

 To get caught up on what this is about check out part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5 and part 6.

So time continues to pass.  We have now been in this process officially for 21 months and 8 months since dossier approval.  The goatee has continued to grow and is at least 15 cm long.  Of late it has been worn in ball fashion that you can kind of see in the picture above.

We received word just today that USCIS has received our renewal paper work.  This is good but starts the next wait.  We have been told that they are going a little slower than normal and it will take about another two months before we get our next finger printing appointments.  

Don't worry we are staying busy.  The boys both played fall sports, one in baseball and one in flag football.  They also are both doing cub scouts.  Having 4-6 activities a week was definitely keeping us busy.  We are glad that neither of them decided to do a winter sport and we can just focus on scouts and school for a few months.  

We are working on some different ways to raise support so stay tuned for more information.  Also please continue to be praying for us and our future children.  We firmly believe God has a plan and we are excited to see what it will be.

Empowered to Connect Conference

Empowered to Connect Conference

A couple of weekends ago JB and I went to an adoption conference.  I was very excited for many reasons but the main ones were: it's an adoption conference (AND I NEED TO LEARN EVERYTHING POSSIBLE ABOUT ADOPTION AND PARENTING,) it was local, and it was being led by the foremost leader in adoption: Dr Karyn Purvis.

It was amazing!  

One wonderful part was that JB's parents were able to take care of the boys for 2 1/2 days so that we could focus on the conference.  They even had them longer than we planned which meant we had some serious uninterrupted time to talk and process what we learned.  (And go out for a date!)



About the conference:  (Check out http://empoweredtoconnect.org/  for more information).

I learned so much. 

When we signed up I had in mind that this would equip me to help parent our kids from adoption but I was happily surprised that we could apply the techniques with our boys immediately.

Here are a few things I learned:
Setting expectations for both parent and child.  The statistics show that for every year a child is in institutional care they are behind by 1/2 a year.  So a child that is adopted at the age of 6 is really developmentally around the age of 3.
Creating connections.  Kids from hard places have learned improper ways to be connected to people.  It is even more important to teach, practice, and build on what healthy connections look like. Practice, practice, practice.
Love and have fun.  All kids need to have fun.  When kids are having fun and are creating positive memories, they are more able to learn and build connections intellectually and personally.

Do I feel ready to parent 4 kids?  Um kinda.  I know that just like the boys, our next two kids will need us to parent. (Loving, teaching, loving, teaching, loving, teaching....). As the presenters said, "it's not just love here or just teaching there.  It's one followed immediately by the other."

Oh, and we also need a team of friends and family that is ready to walk this path with us and be OUR support system.  So.... Who wants to join us on this adventure?