Paperwork

This phase of the adoption has been moving slower than we'd like.  Back when we were trying to decide what program and what agency to go through, I thought once we had figured that out, we'd move through the paperwork pretty quickly.  What I hadn't counted on was the rest of life still needing to happen: between each of us working part-time and caring for a 3-year old the rest of the time, that doesn't leave a whole lot of time for documents that require some focused, uninterrupted blocks of time to complete!  Add to that the holidays, a few other big decisions that required time and mental energy to research and resolve, a series of illnesses (I think I'm finally over my 5+week-long bout of flu-strep-sinus-pinkeye infections)...  so it seemed we hadn't been getting anything done with the adoption!

But this week we're finally seeing some progress:
- We both finished our 16-page personal history questionnaires for the home-study and turned them in!  These included lots of "thinking" questions about our childhood, marriage, parenting, health...  It took several weeks to get through them all but we finally did it.
- We had a dilemma for how to do our financial statement, since we need to list 2 years of income, and 1 of those years need to match a statement from our employer listing our current salary... but Gabriel just started a new job in August, so his current income has nothing to do with the past 2 years, and I got a raise in October, so mine doesn't match either!  Well I researched it this week and figured out that now that it's a new year, we can list our estimated earnings for 2015, to match our current salary!  After a couple emails back and forth with our placing agency, we've worked out the details and we have our financial statement - phew!  If you wait long enough some problems actually go away ;-)

Next step is getting the employment verification letters and police reports, and then we can start getting all the dossier documents notarized + certified + authenticated (more on that later).

Why China Waiting Child (special needs) adoption?

As we started researching how to adopt, we realized this was much more complicated than we had anticipated, and were overwhelmed by all the choices that needed to be made before we could even start!

The first big choice was whether to adopt in the US or internationally.  US options included infant adoption (working with a birth-mother in a difficult situation, either locally or interstate), foster-care (adopting through the state system, either older kids where the parents' right have been terminated or younger kids who may end up going back to their families), or embryo adoption (frozen embryos left over from in-vitro procedures, where the parents are looking to donate them to other couples).  Internationally, the situation varied for every country, with different requirements and procedures, and different categories of kids available (mostly older or with diagnosed medical conditions). There was a period last spring when we nearly gave up, as we couldn't discern a clear path forward, and the whole process just seemed overwhelming.  Plus Gabriel's freelance work had dwindled and he had been looking for a job for many months, and a stable job situation was one of the requirements to get approved to adopt (and necessary to pay the many expenses involved)... 


But by the summer things began falling into place.  A pastor friend (who had adopted) encouraged us to persevere and gave us good advice on how to think through the choices.  Then Gabriel started a new job which turned out to be a great fit.  And gradually one particular adoption path became clearer.  As we had been praying for guidance and exploring various options, the "China Waiting Child" program kept coming up as a possibility, and started to make more sense than the alternatives:
- We met all the requirements, which was not the case for all countries
- The children available tend to be younger (1-3 years old), and we want to adopt a child younger than our now 3 year old
- The process is relatively stable and predictable, which was a big concern with the US and several other countries' programs

- On the China side, the process is expedited for children labeled as "special needs" ("waiting child" is the term they use), so it's typically takes about 12-18 months from start to finish, which was much shorter than other programs we looked into
- For “special needs” children, China does not simply assign them to prospective adoptive families,but sends their files to adoption agencies (or to a central database that agencies have access to), who then try to match each child to a family who is open to the particular circumstances.  The family then has a chance to review the file (and seek medical consultation) before saying yes or no.  If yes, then they make a formal request to China to adopt the particular child.  If no, the agency works with them to understand what was the problem with this match and then tries again… This is an approach we’re more comfortable with than many of the other programs.
-Ultimately, we started sensing that this is what God wanted us to do.

Initially, our biggest hesitation about this program was the "special needs" label: when we started our adoption journey, we were not looking for a child with "problems".  In fact, like most people, we started out thinking of a healthy baby (that perhaps even looked like us).  But as we researched who needed adopting, we found that was not where the need was...

We came to realize that the circumstances that result in a child needing to be adopted are always painful and difficult.  In the best case scenario, a child grows up with their parents, who love and care for them.  The fact that a child is “available for adoption” means that something has gone terribly wrong.  These difficult circumstances are very often associated with some level of physical, mental and/or emotional problems (either as a cause or a consequence of the child leaving their family).  So most kids that need a family are dealing with challenges. As we researched the options, the Lord gradually opened our hearts to consider a child with extra challenges.

When we decided on the China program, we spent a lot of time researching the possible medical conditions and determining which ones we think we can handle.  The types of things we decided to check off on our "Medical Conditions Checklist" are considered more minor, but are enough to cause a child to be considered "unadoptable" in a country like China (things like deformed hands, club feet, a large birthmark, minor heart condition...).  By adopting one of these children, we can provide them an opportunity that they wouldn't have in their birth-country, to grow up in a family, to be loved and valued for who they are, and with hope to lead a full and productive life.

Why are we adopting?

For a long time (since before we got married), we've talked of the idea of adopting.  It seemed like a neat thing to do: grow our family by giving a family to a child in need.  But early on, we were very unsure of our parenting abilities and wanted to try having children biologically first: learn to parent first, then learn to parent an adopted child!  That turned out to be a more challenging journey than we had anticipated.  But eventually the Lord blessed us with a beautiful daughter in 2011.  As we struggled with infertility, our thoughts sometimes turned to adoption, but as long as there was another relatively simple step to take on the medical side, that route seemed to make the most sense.  But by summer 2013, we had reached the point where we didn't feel comfortable going further along the medical technology path, and it was becoming clear that we likely wouldn't have more children born to us.  That's when we started to seriously investigate adoption.

The biggest factor at that point was the desire to have more than just 1 child: we both grew up with several siblings and appreciate both the experience of growing up in a larger family, and the relationships we have with our siblings as adults, so we didn't want our daughter to be an only child.

We also feel strongly that children need families, and it's tragic that there are thousands of kids in the world who are growing up without the security and support of a family.  We can't help all the orphans in the world, but we can completely change the life of one child, by adopting them into our family.

As we started researching adoption, it also struck us that it is a beautiful picture of the Gospel.  What God does through Jesus' sacrifice is not just to save us from sin and death, but to adopt us into His family, as His children!  Just as marriage is a picture of Christ and the Church, adoption is a picture of God making us a part of His family.  So by adopting, we give witness to what God has done for us.

The Bible also talks repeatedly of God's care and concern for the orphan (and other vulnerable and powerless people).  So adopting an orphan is a way both to serve God and to show God's love to a vulnerable child.

Eventually we started seeing how God leading us down this path, and was using our journey of parenting and infertility to lead us to bless a child through adoption.