Big Adoption Announcement!!

A little over one month ago, we made a big decision regarding our adoption journey.

For the previous few months, we’ve been talking about and praying about if we were going to continue with our Ethiopian adoption.

For now, I’ll give you the “short version” of the story :) There was much, much detail in how this story and this part of our adoption journey has unfolded.

We had been growing more and more weary in the process. We first began almost 3 years ago. We were on the waitlist for almost 2 years. There was still very little movement in the program, so we realized that we were looking at quite some time before we were likely to receive a referral and then a minimum of probably 6 months before we would bring our child home after the referral.

We had been working toward and waiting for an Ethiopian adoption to be complete for so long, but  just really felt like we needed to start checking into other options for adding to our family through adoption.

After lots of research, lots of praying and talking it through, we felt strongly that we needed to close the door on our Ethiopian adoption and begin the paperwork to adopt through the China Special Needs program.

That’s right! We’re adopting from China!!!!!

Even after we made the decision to switch and had begun our paperwork, we were feeling the mixed emotions of great excitement and anticipation about it as well as some bit of sadness as we grieved the loss of the Ethiopian adoption that was not meant to be for us. As we have immersed ourselves into the switch, the completion of our paperwork and learning all we can about the process and also about China we are nothing but excited. We know beyond a doubt that we have done the right thing for our family.

In the Ethiopian adoption, we were basically in line waiting for children to become available for adoption. In China, the healthy child program has a very long waiting list and it takes approximately 4-5 years to complete an adoption. With the China Special Needs/Waiting Child program, there are so many kids that are already legally available for adoption. Their paperwork is done. They are just waiting for families to say Yes to them! As the name implies, each of the children that are in this program have varying degrees of special needs or are older healthy children. Many of the children have very mild/correctible special needs. We are still requesting to adopt a 0-18 month old girl. (We are able to chose which types of special needs we are open to and those which we are not.) Also, we are still working with the same agency! We just had our file moved from the Ethiopia program to the Asia program. Everyone there (in both programs) has been extremely supportive and helpful to us in making the transition.

In fact, our agency can even possibly match us to a child before we even have our dossier complete. They are only able to refer children to us from certain orphanages with which they have partnerships. If there is a child that meets our preferences available, we could be matched very soon!

Yes, we have had to start our paperwork all over again. That’s the icky part! I’ve been living in what I affectionately refer to as “paperwork purgatory” again! Ugh!!!

BUT…. we already have all of our dossier documents complete!! No, it wasn’t easy! We just buckled down and got everything done! We have even had our home study update already! A few weeks ago, in fact! It happened really fast. We were just so thankful that she was able to get to us that soon! Just another confirmation that we are on the right track! We are just waiting on our home study revision to be complete and then we will send off for our CIS approval. After CIS approval is received, we will send our completed dossier to China and we will officially receive a “log in date”.

If we have not already officially been matched to a child at  this point, once we have our log in date, we will be able to be eligible to be matched to a child off of the “shared list”. This is the list of all of the children across China that are available for adoption through the Special Needs program.

At the time that we initially started our paperwork, we were given an “estimate” of the worst case being that we would be matched to our  child within 6 months. Of course, we could be matched much sooner that that or it could take longer depending on the children that are available at any given time.

So there you go! There’s our big update! We are excited to be able to share our news with the world.We’ve kept it a secret from the “internet world” for over a month now and that was kind of hard to do! :)

Bottom line: we are still fulfilling our dream and calling to adopt. There will still be one less orphan without a home. We are still so thankful for the opportunity to add a child to our family through international adoption.

Thank you all for praying for us and for our little girl. We can’t wait to be united with her and FINALLY bring her home!!

Stay tuned… we are partnering in a fundraiser with our sweet friends The Bennington’s. We are selling t-shirts to benefit our adoptions! I will share picture of the shirts soon! They are awesome!!! I know you will want one :) or both :)