Doors Close

So it's been slow going since we found out we couldn't adopt "Philip". We had decided to try to continue to pursue an adoption in Taiwan, but we encountered push back about our discipline choices. After a lot of email exchanges, a face-to-face meeting with our social worker here at CFC, and a phone conversation with the Taiwan program manager at WACAP, we have found out that the orphanages in Taiwan that WACAP is associated with do not allow spanking. The Taiwan program manager does not know why they have taken that stance and WACAP in general is not against spanking done in a loving, biblical and correct manner. We prayed about it and thought about it a lot, and finally decided that we should not change how we believe we should discipline without a specific reason to consider. So, long story short, the door to Taiwan is currently closed to us. We're in process now of seeing where else we may be able to adopt from.

Along the way we've decided to pursue both adoption and pregnancy. We really want to add another child to our family and decided to pursue both options and see what God does. It's always in His hands.

Disappointment

This post has been a long time coming. I'll try to keep it brief.

"Philip" is being adopted by a different family. We are sad and disappointed, but we are also thankful that he will be going home soon.

After finding out about Philip, we also learned that there have been more delays on our home study. Apparently Taiwan and our international agency, WACAP, consider any form of spanking to be "corporeal punishment" which is looked upon with severe disfavor in Taiwan. Our local social worker is very understanding, and came over to meet with us again to get additional details in how we discipline. That was two weeks ago, and we're still waiting for a verdict.

We would like to continue to pursue adoption in Taiwan, unless the door closes completely. In general, it's a 8-24 month process from this point to referral. We have been notified that there is a 9 mo old girl in Taiwan who may be a good fit for us. Her file is still being translated.

Thank you for your prayers and encouragement. We are learning more and more that all things are in God's hands. May his will be done!

More Questions

It's been pretty quiet on this blog. That's mostly because it had been pretty quiet on the adoption front. We got our stuff in for our homestudy by the end of July. Our CFC social worker was working on the draft, and we were just waiting. By mid-August we hadn't heard anything and decided to just get a status update. Turns out WACAP had a lot of edits they wanted done to our homestudy draft. So we had to answer some more questions, and our CFC social worker and her boss are working on finalizing things.

That was a downer. We really hoped they would say our homestudy is done and that we could now come and sign it. However, with a low, God provided a high.

We heard from our WACAP waiting child manager that "Philip's" orphanage ended up having the meeting we thought they would have in July, on August 26th. Furthermore, they had a few more questions they wanted us to answer. This is a good sign! There are no guarantees that we can adopt "Philip", but we've passed round one of considerations and they want to know more about us to make their decision. That's a praise!

We quickly answered those extra questions with joy and are once again waiting. It's a more hopeful waiting at this point for me. Please continue to pray for us and that "Philip" receives the perfect parents for him. Pray that we may be those parents and if not, he would not have to wait long until he can go home.

Adoption Can Be Scary

So the preapproval meeting that was supposed to happen the end of July did not happen. We still don't know when it will happen either. In the meantime, we have made much progress with our homestudy. We are one review and a few signatures away from it being done! It can be done in about a week. So exciting! This is a huge step in the adoption process, and getting it done means one step closer to bringing home our newest child. We're hoping that having our homestudy complete may be a benefit in adopting "Philip". We don't know if it will help us speed up the process or if we still need to wait for this meeting to happen when it will happen, but it definitely doesn't hurt to have it done quickly.

I mentioned before how I ended up learning quite a bit of things from the webinars we completed. One of the most unexpected things for me to learn is how scary it could be for our child to be adopted. We know it's a great thing to be able to grow up in a loving family, and we think about how awesome this could be for our new child. However, prospective adoptees don't necessarily know that families are great. They either don't know what a family is (having grown up in an orphanage) or have difficult associations with the idea of family (something went wrong, which is why they are no longer with their birth parents). Add in that we're white and they may not be, we speak English and they might not, and they've never met us before and we are taking them on a plane "home"... That could be very scary. It doesn't mean it's not worth it. It does mean there may not be the "warm and fuzzies" you hope or expect to have. Your child will have to learn to trust you/your family, and that will take time and energy.

I knew adoption was a loving act, but I realized I didn't fully think through why someone may need to be adopted. Every adoption starts with grief and loss of some sort. That's tough. It is encouraging that God can use our family to bring healing to a child. It just may not be smooth sailing (although, parenting never really is, is it?). "Philip" is still pretty young and he seems to be getting pretty good care as far as orphanages go, so it may be an easier and/or faster adjustment for him, but it's an adjustment nevertheless. And even when he's settled, he'll have questions and will need to continue to grapple with the fact that he's adopted. Our job is to help him through those questions and to let him know that he is loved and is with a "forever family" unconditionally. We will not give him away or reject him.

It's sobering in a sense, but also encouraging. May God use us in our children's lives in redeeming ways!

Webinars Done!

We just finished our last training webinar! Praise God!

Even though they were kind of boring in that we were just watching PowerPoint slides and hearing someone speak, in general they were informative and I learned some things. I'll consider sharing some of what I learned later. For now, goodnight!

Homestudy Almost Done!

Thanks to God and some awesome friends and family who provided us with references, we are almost done with our homestudy! Our interviews went well, we completed our house projects Saturday and had a great house tour this morning, and we now have access to the webinars we need to complete our training and homestudy! God is good. Thanks for your continued support!

Homestudy Paperwork

Since our pre-approval was postponed a month, we decided that we would throw all of our energy into completing the homestudy. We met with our local social worker at Catholic Family Center at the end of June to begin the process. We've been told that it usually takes 2-4 months.  So of course we decided to try to get it all done before that pre-approval meeting at the end of July. And we went on an awesome vacation to the beach the week of July 4th, so we basically had three weeks to complete everything.

A homestudy means filling out a bunch of forms; answering detailed questions about your past, your marriage and family, your parenting and discipline philosophy, etc.; a one-hour interview with each of us; a tour of our home; physicals from out doctor for all three of us, and 12 hours of training webinars.

We're praising God that somehow as of 10:30 last night all of the paperwork is in except for my (matt's) medical exam report (my physical is Wednesday next week)! It's been a few late nights, but we've done it. At the same time, we got a long autobiography form from Phillip's orphanage, which is just a few keystrokes from finished as well.

For our homestudy, my interview is this morning and Belinda's is tomorrow. The final piece is the home tour on Wednesday (right before my physical). And yes, we do have a few home improvement projects to knock out on Saturday to make sure our house is ready!

The most significant thing we have left for the homestudy is the 12 hours of classes, which we haven't been able to access yet due to a technical failure at our international agency.

Thanks for your prayers and support. We're nearing the end of the beginning.

Pre-approval Postponed

So this post is overdue, but we were out of town all last week, so here it is a week late.

We mentioned in our last post that we got all the documentation in for the pre-approval process. We found out right before heading out of town that the pre-approval meeting was postponed until the end of July. In one sense, it was disappointing, but in another sense, it was great because that means we have time to get our homestudy done before the orphanage makes any pre-approval decisions about "Philip". With our homestudy completed, we could not only get pre-approved, but we can also get matched, which would mean we could bring "Philip" home sooner. So that's what we're doing. It means a lot more paperwork, appointments, meetings and 12 hours of training, but we're pushing forward and going for it. Prayers appreciated!

Pre-approval?

One week ago, we officially decided to pursue adopting "Philip" and submitted the initial application. (Matt will share the anatomy of our decision later.) We found out that day that there's an optional pre-approval process at the orphanage "Philip" is in. What that means is that we do a bunch of paperwork upfront, submit it to the orphanage, and see if we're pre-approved. The paperwork is stuff we have to fill out anyway and it can be done while you're getting your homestudy done. The advantage? We can know much sooner if we aren't going to be matched with "Philip". If we're pre-approved, "Philip" would be placed on hold for us, and once our homestudy is complete, they will review that and make a final decision. If they still approve of us after the homestudy, then we are matched. At that point "Philip" is basically our son and it's just a process of finalizing it, raising money, and bringing him home.

So, we decided to do it.

Yesterday, late afternoon, we found out that "Philip's" orphanage is having a meeting this week to discuss prospective parents for their kids (this includes us pre-approval applicants). We were told it would be ideal if we could get the pre-approval paperwork done in time for this meeting. More specifically, we needed everything done by Wednesday. =O (I don't usually use emoticons in my blog posts, but this surprise face is appropriate.) We were surprised and overwhelmed. This is awesome, a meeting so soon means an answer sooner. This is overwhelming, there's a lot of paperwork still left for us to do...

So we made a plan to assess our paperwork needs and see if it was at all feasible to get things done by Wednesday. It seemed like we could probably do it, and so we plowed away. We did a chunk last night into this morning (1 am), another chunk throughout the day (any spare moment Matt had and during Liam's nap for me), and then more this evening. I am happy to report that we just sent an email with the rest of the paperwork we needed to submit! (Thank you Harden family for your prayers!) We may need to edit a few things, but overall, it's done.

We found out that "Philip's" file was given to other agencies, not just WACAP. We also found out today that other families are trying to get pre-approval to adopt "Philip" as well. This is a strange thing to find out. Are we competing with other families? My momma bear instincts say, well, I'll be the best contender I can be to bring him home. Yet, there's a fear. We are not the only good family in the world. Although God has really expedited this process for us so far, and He is clearly helping us (I mean, I'm still awake to even type this post after all that work...), I don't know what His ultimate plan is. I asked Him to help us know quickly if we are not to be "Philip's" parents. Now that the quick opportunity is here, I'm afraid of the results. I want "Philip" and I want what's best for "Philip". God's will is best, but if He decides that "Philip" is someone else's son, I will be very sad, at least for a while.

Please pray that God will do His will and that we will submit to it no matter what. I believe He will do what's best for "Philip" and for us. May we be firm in that belief.

Moving Forward

So, we were able to have the conversations with those "two more people" we mentioned before. The conversations were both encouraging and helpful!

Based on all the research we've done, the counsel we've sought, the prayer, and the thinking, we believe adopting "Philip" is something we should pursue. We think we can handle his physical needs, and we think God may want him to be our son. So, here we go!

There's still a possibility that he could be matched with another family, but we're going to pursue adopting him until the doors close. It would be sad if he isn't meant to be our son, but in another sense it would be encouraging because it would be more proof that God is working in our lives, including "Philips".

So, we've submitted all the initial paperwork we can right now, and we're moving forward. Please keep praying! Thank you for walking with us in this.

Email Subscribing

I just fixed the subscribe by email function. Sorry it didn't work before!

Feelings

So, I think we need more information to decide about Philip. I feel like I want to adopt him... I think we need more information to make a logical and rational decision and yet I have an emotional decision that I can give logical reasons to support. For instance: Philip is currently the only child available that is younger than Liam and is from a country we can adopt from. Another reason: I think about him often, although I try not to too much because I don't want to get attached just in case he's not our son (which is hard to do for someone like me, a feeler and a lover of kids, oh and someone who's impatient and wants another child...). Matt has said that this is difficult to think about. What parent chooses what condition their child will or will not have? If we gave birth to Philip, that means we could handle whatever conditions he has or doesn't. Since we have been connected to him in such a way, does that mean we can handle it?

I fear making the wrong decision, whatever that really means. I honestly don't like the idea of saying no to a child in need. I know we have our limits and we can't be everyone's parents, but I'm just speaking honestly and I fear that I would feel guilty not adopting him considering it seems more likely like this is something we can handle. I also fear adopting him because it's unknown. Partially why I feared getting pregnant and well, that turned out great.

What would make this decision easier for me? I don't know. An obvious Holy Spirit "adopt him" response that I heard clearly. Probably. God's not always into booming voice answers though. Something else? Maybe just more info on what we would be getting ourselves into? I don't know, but that may help.

We have two more conversations with people who can probably help us understand Philip's medical state at least a little better. I think I want to wait until then before diving in. But in the meantime, I did a little more paper work today.

Paper Work

So, we’re still doing research, but in the meantime, we’ve gotten started on some paperwork. There’s a lot that we’ll need to fill out to complete this process, so even though things are up in the air so to speak, we’ve decided to do as much as we can ahead of time. We’re mostly set with the paper work we would need to begin our home study. We plan to get another chunk of paper work in soon.

Philip

Philip is the name WACAP is using for the Taiwanese child to help keep some of his information private on online databases, but probably also to make it easier for us Americans to say and connect with. Philip turned one in May. That would make Liam and him closer in age than we were expecting. We've thought about it a lot, prayed about it some (...I know, we may have that reversed), but in general we think we could handle the closeness in age. It would be crazy for us as parents at times, but the we think we can do it, and the boys could have a blast being so close in age.

The harder to figure out is Philip's physical situation. They gave us some medical records which we did not understand. Gratefully, we have a doctor friend, and he was able to explain more to us. It turns out Philip has some fluid/swelling in his brain which can affect his motor development. According to his records, his upper body is weaker than his lower and he's been receiving physical therapy to help strengthen various areas of his body. He seemed to be showing improvement in that regard, but the last update was when he was eight months old. The fluid/swelling could be helped with a surgery that gets performed pretty regularly. What our friend did say was that it would be hard for him, not being a neurologist, to know how much of the damage is reversible with physical therapy, etc. He said, chances are, this child will not be a normal child. I know he was trying to warn us of the possibility, but I still don't know what that means. He doesn't necessarily either. He said Philip could end up being fine, but he could also have some irreversible effects. Not the news I was hoping to hear.

Matt tried calling URMC's neurology appointment, but they said that they were not allowed to talk to us about someone else's records. So, we're thinking we may try to talk to them again in general terms (what if someone had such and such, what would the worst case scenario be? etc), and if that didn't work, maybe our doctor friend could ask some questions on our behalf.

We're not really so sure what to think about all of this. I haven't really felt strongly "yes" about Philip. I'm not sure if what I do feel is "no". We still don't really have enough information I think. It's hard because I don't think I'm equipped to adopt a child that I know would die young, or would need me to take care of him or her for the rest of our lives, but what can I really handle, I don't know. And honestly, I hate wondering that with an actual child looking for a home. I keep trying to remember that God can provide and does, and just because we are connected with Philip now, doesn't mean we are the ones He plans on having adopt him. Just as well, we could be. So, all that to say, prayers would be appreciated.

That's where we are in a nutshell. I hope to keep you up to date as we go forward.

WACAP

In this waiting child search, we found ourselves looking into an agency acronym-ed WACAP again. This agency seemed to be very ethical, was one of the agencies Catholic Family Center partners with, and they were very easy to talk to and helpful when Matt called them on the phone. In that initial conversation, they mentioned that there was a Taiwanese boy that may fit with our family. We still weren't sure if we were committing to WACAP as an agency, but there have been no red flags and we thought if this boy is who God wants us to adopt, then lets do it. So we filled out a free pre-application and received some information about the boy.

Waiting Child

In the next phase of our researching, while we were looking into smaller agencies, Matt discovered that if we were to adopt a "waiting child", we could bring that child home even faster and some countries loosen their restrictions to adopt. That sounded great to me, but I had no idea what a waiting child was. Well, the term basically refers to a child that is in an orphanage or foster home waiting to be adopted. These children, for whatever reason, are unwanted, and haven't been connected with a forever family. If you're like me, that doesn't sound much different than what I would think of on my own when I think about adoption in general. I guess the biggest difference is that these children often have some sort of special need that makes it hard for others to choose to adopt them.

It turns out that some of these special needs aren't really that major. For example, birth marks can be a special need depending on the country. That's no big deal to us, but culturally that may be a big deal to someone else.

We found this website called Rainbow Kids that has a list of special needs, their definitions and what a child with that special need may need to become healthy or how their life may be like down the road. We were able to create a list of special needs we thought we were equipped to handle and decided to pursue a waiting child.

The Murphy's

In early May we were able to talk to the Murphy's about their adoption experience. They've adopted three children internationally; the oldest is now in about 6th grade and the younger two are in 1st and 2nd grades. It was so encouraging to talk to them! It was one of those meetings where you're overwhelmed feeling like you can't do this even though you want to, and then, right across from you on a couch is someone telling you that they in some ways couldn't do it, but did. God is so awesome! The biggest take away for me from that meeting was, We COULD Do THIS! God can provide the funds (which they too needed help with and they gave us some ideas). God can provide the agency (they shared about the agency they used which opened the door to a search with smaller agencies that would have faster process times). And God does provide the children. It was cool to hear how God has made the Murphy's, all five of them, a family.

We could do this!

Research, Research, Research

We've been trying to do a lot of research. It's hard knowing what to do and what to look for when we've never done this before. So, we thought, let's try to find an international adoption agency. Catholic Family Center had a list of agencies they trust and partner with. So, we decided to start there. Long story short, it was pretty overwhelming.

Each country has its own set of requirements for parents. Common ones are like you must fit in a certain age range, you have to be married for a certain amount of years and you cannot have more than a certain amount of children already in the home. It's kind of complicated, but for people like us who started the process pretty open to where we would adopt from, it really helped narrow things down, at least some.

It was a little disheartening to find out how long the process could take. For most of the countries we qualified for in this initial phase of research, it could take at least 2 years before we would have our child home with us. That's a long time for someone who would love to adopt a child now... I know that's not realistic, but I didn't really know what realistic was, and it seemed that was more realistic and I was not too excited.

One of the major overwhelming factors was how expensive it could be to adopt internationally. It can be as much as >$40k depending on the country you are adopting from and the agency you are using. That's a lot of money. I know children are priceless, but I still felt overwhelmed, and admittedly, I lost track of how much God is. More than $40k, that's for sure.

So, at the time, we didn't really know what to do with all this information. How do we make a decision?

We needed to talk to someone who's done it before.

Catholic Family Center

Back in April we were able to attend an informational meeting at Catholic Family Center. We went into that meeting just looking for information. The first of many meetings we thought. We received a lot of information there that was very helpful. Some of it so helpful, that we realized we may be needing to research other avenues.

We thought we would like to eventually adopt a ~1 year old from the U.S. At this meeting we found out that it's basically not possible to do that. If we were going to adopt a toddler, that child would most likely be part of a sibling group in foster care. Not what I expected...

So why a 1 year old? Well, we realized that all the babies put up for adoption in the U.S. (domestic infant adoption) will be adopted. A birth mom who wants to put her pre-born child up for adoption has many couples she can choose from. There are more couples waiting to be parents, than babies being born and put up for adoption. That isn't really a need in terms of the baby. So, that's why the domestic infant track isn't what we think we should really pursue. We don't mind having an older child. We do prefer the child to be younger than Liam, hence a ~1 year old.

Why the U.S.? Not very strong reasons either way. We just thought if there's a need here we can help fill it. Turns out that need is different than we expected and we don't think that need is for us to fill right now.

So, what do we do? Pursue adopting an international child.

And So It Begins...

Matt and I have always wanted to adopt a child. There were multiple reasons behind that desire.

• I was afraid to get pregnant... Not the best reason, I know, but a legit reason. As you know though, God conquered that fear and we now have a 17 month old.
• Matt was adopted and it was a blessing. That in itself is multiple reasons. We know how great it could be for both parents and children. I also like the idea of paying it forward, so to speak.
• It's a great picture of what God's done for us. He's adopted us as His children and co-heirs with Christ.
• It's a need. Unfortunately there are many kids needing a "forever family".
• I think God has equipped us to love an adopted child well. God's made me a lover of children. Liam is super friendly, often shares, and has become the cute little boy running over to kids and saying "hi". Matt is a super fun and patient man. I think God has and is equipping us well.

And so, the desire is still here. Back in March, a series of events has caused us to really start pursuing adoption. And so it begins... our Sones adoption journey.

I'll be writing a series of brief posts to just catch you up as to where we are in the journey. The hope is to use this blog as a way to keep family and friends informed, as well as a way to ask for support. We definitely need support in this. Your prayers are appreciated. Thanks for journeying with us!