Our Adoption Story (So Far)

It’s time.

It’s finally here.

We are doing what we must do to bring our child home.

This child we have not met. We have not seen a picture. We don’t even know if this child is a boy or girl, or how old he/she is right now. But one thing we do know, and it is all we need to know right now:

God placed this child into our family long before we decided to take this beautiful road. When He first thought of Brett and me, at the beginning of time, He saw His plans for us. He saw each of our children and His plans for them. None of this is a surprise to Him, nor did He think twice about how he was going to so intricately weave this family together.

Head Knowledge

I have started reading two books about adoption (Orphanology and Adopted for Life), and they both from the beginning address the fact that adoption is the heart of God. Because the Bible is clear that God did not merely save us from our sins, but He also adopted us into His family so that we can be called His children. HIS CHILDREN! He isn’t only my hero- although He is certainly that- but He is my Daddy.

I have seen these scriptures about adoption in the Bible over the span of my life as a Christian, but they never meant a whole lot to me. I had the head knowledge, but it had not sunk into my heart… not until God laid adoption on my heart. Now, I feel like God has just begun scratching the surface of exactly how deep He is going to take this into my heart. He whispered to my soul today as my eyes watered out of overwhelming gratitude of this journey: “This is only the beginning.” Because through this process, He is going to show me things I have never seen before. I am going to get a very intimate encounter with His love for me as I find myself already falling in love with this child I have no details about. I am going to learn just exactly what it means to find my identity in belonging to HIM… not because I deserve to be called His child (because I certainly don't!), but because He chose to call me “daughter”. 

Adopted. Accepted. Loved. 

It All Began…

It was a beautiful July afternoon in 2009. Brett was attending a month-long course at a military base in Virginia, and Brielle and I came to visit for a few days. We were strolling around an outdoor mall, enjoying each other’s company, when seemingly out of nowhere he says, “I think we should adopt.” I asked him why, and he told me that he had been thinking about it and he really felt we should. He said that with so many children on this earth, why shouldn't we? I told him that I would love to, but I wasn't sure it was the right time. Adoption is expensive, after all. And I was only a sophomore in college at the time. But despite my questions, my heart was leaping for joy at the thought of bringing an orphan into our family. The more I thought and prayed about it, the more I knew that sooner or later we would be adopting.  

We did not know where to begin, so I started searching the internet for an agency. Overwhelmed by the huge number of adoption agencies out there, I just chose a highly popular one and requested a free information packet. After receiving the packet, I was bursting with excitement. There was something about physically holding adoption information in my hand that made it suddenly so real to me. We told a select few people about what God had done: He had given us a heart for adoption. 

And then, fall 2009 to fall 2010, not much happened. During that year we waited and prayed and sought direction. We talked and dreamed about when we would bring our first adopted child home. We had saved up a little bit of money, and we reasoned that if we timed it just right then we could bring the child home over my summer break between my junior and senior years. One thing about international adoptions, though, is that the timelines are HIGHLY unreliable and you must be very flexible. We had no way of knowing when we would be told it was time to go get our child. Despite the time not feeling quite right to start the process, we started looking seriously for an adoption agency. After looking at a Christian-based one online and then having a positive conversation with a classmate whose friend adopted using that agency, we decided on them. (For confidentiality purposes, we will not reveal the name of the agency and when we talk about any of our social workers/ adoption team, we will use an initial or a made-up name.) In addition to choosing an agency, we also decided to move to a bigger place. In December 2010 we move from our 2 bedroom apartment to a 3 bedroom townhouse. But, I was disheartened as I walked around our new home and prayed and felt God telling me that this was not the place we would be bringing our next child home to. 

So from December 2010 into 2011, we waited more and prayed more and tried to save more money. We had chosen Uganda from all of the agency's international programs. We stared at the application, trying to figure out why God laid this on our heart when we did not know how to make it work. Our new home did not feel right, we did not have nearly enough money saved up, and I still was not close enough to graduation. But we knew that we had to be getting closer. Then, in July of 2011, we bought a house. At about the same time, on a whim we had decided to seek adoption through fostering. We went through the required training classes and completed the home study. But our foster parenting plans ended just about as quickly as they had began. Looking back, Brett thinks that pursuing foster parenting was a result of us trying to take a shortcut. We were trying to do things our way because the road to Africa was seeming impossible. But, more often than not, He calls us to take the roads that look impossible. We are not opposed to foster parenting in the future, but next time it will not be an emotionally-driven decision. (It ended up being a good thing fostering did not work out in July, because that semester of school ended up being my toughest thus far. There were many nights where I did not know how I was juggling being Mommy, Wife, and Student and I knew there was no way I could have given a therapeutic foster child the time and attention he/she would have needed.)

Six months later, in December, we both felt like it was finally time. Overwhelmed with anticipation and excitement, we went to an informational meeting held by our agency. When asked what country we were interested in adopting from, we said Uganda without hesitation. We felt like we had a connection with that country because we had been following Katie's blog (kissesfromkatie.blogspot.com) since I stumbled upon it in 2009. But, as God often does, He showed us that our plans were not His plans. During this meeting, we heard about a brand new program: Democratic Republic of the Congo (abbreviated DRC). We both walked out of the meeting in wholehearted agreement that we would be adopting from there.

About a week later, we filled out our application, submitted the application fee, and completed our statements of faith. It felt too good to be true, that the time had finally came for us to do this. On January 4th, we got the e-mail telling us that they are looking forward to working with us. We became officially "paper pregnant" at this point, as our lives have been (and will be) inundated with loads of paperwork as we do what it takes to bring our child home.

Where We Are Now

Since being accepted, we have: Had the orientation phone call, completed two of the four required home study interviews, started on the required training modules and required readings, and dug into the mountain of paperwork. When our home study is complete in the next 1-2 weeks, the next step will be to wait on our referral. 

Agencies differ in how they match adoptive parents with a child, also known as a referral. Some agencies place you on a list, and as the child meeting your preferences comes available you move up on that list until it is finally your turn. Some agencies have you go to the country and select a child out of the orphanage(s) they work with. I am about to describe the way our agency handles referrals, and it is our favorite: An agency employee in DRC reads over our home study, which reveals a lot about us. Taking what they learn about us and what they know about the available children in consideration, he/she then prays while deciding which child to match us with. After that decision has been made, we will then get a phone call letting us know that we have a referral. We will get an e-mail with the available health information, estimated date of birth (Does this not break your heart? The day they were born, which is so celebrated here in the United States, is all too often an unknown date to them), and a picture. After reviewing this information, we tell them whether or not we accept the referral. We decided without hesitation a long time ago that whatever child we receive a referral for IS our child! I cannot imagine looking at the face of an orphan and then saying, "Nope, sorry. Next referral please." What if God did not accept us due to our health records or the way we looked?? We'd all be orphans. 

So this is where we stand in this process as of right now. There is so much more I want to say, but I wanted to try to keep it to the facts right now. My next post is going to be our responses to questions (some that we may or may have not been asked yet). I will leave you with some facts. Thank you for joining us on this journey!

Quick Facts

• We do not know if the child will be a boy or girl. We had the opportunity to specify the sex, but after praying about it we knew that was not something we were told to decide. 
• The child will be between newborn and 3 years old at the time we are matched. This also was covered in a lot of prayer before providing our age preference.
• We will be matched with our child (most likely) between late March and May!!!
• We will be heading over to DRC for a mandatory 2-week stay probably between December 2012 and February 2013. This is the time we will meet our child and bring them home!!!
• The longest and hardest part of this process will be from the time we are matched until the time we go to DRC to pick him/ her up. During that time, a lot of legal stuff takes place and we will be putting a lot of time and effort into fundraising.
• In the world, there is an estimated 143,000,000 orphans. (143 MILLION)
• About 5,000,000 (5 MILLION) of these orphans are in DRC.
• Most orphans in the DRC have lost their parents to war or disease.
• If the U.S. had an orphan crisis like DRC, 1 out of every 4 children would be orphans.
• Less than 1% of foreign orphans will ever be adopted.