Why do you want to adopt?
While adoption is the perfect example of Christ's love for us and our own adoption into His family, that's honestly not what drove us to adoption. Before I ever met Ryan, I had a dear friend that went through a very difficult time in her life. As I stood next to her and watched her heart-wrenching journey, I knew it would someday become my own. My friend selflessly gave her child a family and a life that she knew she couldn't at the time. The strength dignity with which she carried herself moved me so that I just cannot forget. I know she didn't feel strong and I know she certainly didn't feel dignified. But she showed me a side of adoption that very few get to see (and I know I only saw the tip of the iceberg). I remember watching her child being driven away and right then the Lord told me I would adopt. Since then, the idea of adopting is just as natural for me as the idea of getting pregnant. It's not a child out of condolence or pity or an attempt to "rescue" anyone. It really is a perfectly natural way to have children.
Why Taiwan?
We didn't have a specific reason for Taiwan. We were really leaning to Asia for various reasons and we just thought "hmm...Taiwan...you don't hear about that often. I wonder what that's about." As we looked into it a little more we just decided to pursue it and found a precious little guy whose smile made us smile.
Why an "older" child?
We have never been opposed to adopting an infant. If that's what the Lord had planned for us then we were ok with that. But when we talked about adoption or whenever it came up, the conversation always lended itself to an "older" child. Really anywhere from 3 years old on up to the age of our oldest child. (And in the adoption world, an "older" child is anywhere from 4 or 5 on up.) When we started looking at international adoption, we thought we would find a child that was actually closer to the 5 year old mark but apparently that's not what the Lord thought. :)
Why did you change from domestic adoption to international adoption?
This feels like it could be the longest answer ever to a question but to sum it up, I'll put it this way: When we decided to start the adoption process, we were open to both domestic and international. However, we had heard so much about the thousands of children in the foster system that were ready and waiting for adoption that we thought we would just start right in our own backyard. The Lord closed door after door after door - for years. We still very much felt like this was something God wanted for our family so we decided to look at the international options and here we are.
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
Questions
Some of the same questions are coming up in conversation over the last several days:
"What is the next step for you guys?"
"When are you going to get him?"
In the world of international adoption, there is a boatload of paperwork. You basically lay out your entire lives before perfect strangers and hope that they deem you worthy enough to be a parent (whether you already are one or not). Most of it is not a big deal and some of the questions can be more of a "you really want to know that?" kind of moment. Some of the questions feel downright intrusive. Especially when coming from a complete stranger. "Tell me what you and your spouse argue about." "What is your intimate life like with your spouse." Um...hello...none of your business, stranger. The best part is - that's the very beginning. It's sort of an immediate baptism into adoption.
Now, we are surrounded by so many people that are also on the adoption journey. And if you've ever met anyone else headed down this road, you've probably heard them talk about all the paperwork and fingerprints and dossiers and waiting and - finally - a referral! Then they travel a month or two later to actually go and get their new child. In our situation, it's a little different. In Taiwan, they work off a pre-approval process. That means that once you complete your homestudy, you request to adopt a specific child and then you wait. And while you're waiting, you basically can't do anything. Our agency wouldn't even talk to us about what it's like to adopt internationally or let us go ahead and apply for our immigration paperwork. Quite frustrating to be honest. I understand why. If we had been denied the pre-approval then we would be starting over looking for another child and, in the meantime, dated documents in our homestudy would be expiring. Some of these documents are pretty expensive and they don't want you to have to update anything if you don't have to. But to sit and wait when you know that, technically, you could be doing something isn't easy.
So...to sum the first question. This means that we still have a long way to go. Homestudy? Check. Pre-approval? Check. Applying for immigration documents and gathering other documents together for our dossier? Just starting.
Our case worker called a little over a week ago and let me know that we already have some items that are out of date so we are fixing that. Once all that is fixed, our immigration application should be complete and we can cross that off the list.
By now you can figure out the answer to the next question - when are you going to get him? Unfortunately, not anytime soon. It will likely be this time next year or just after that. That makes me sad. He'll be another year older. It's another year of him living in an orphanage. A good orphanage - but still. :/ Another birthday. Another Christmas. Another New Years. No one tucking him in bed at night. No one telling him about Jesus. No one sleeping in the same room that calls him "brother". No one that can hug him like his momma can. We will all survive and I have no doubt that even in the slowest of moments I will look back over the steps we've completed and feel like time has flown. But it will be awhile before we will travel to get him. Each step of the process takes "2-3 months". That includes translating our dossier into Mandarin and the 3 required court dates.
Regardless of anything above - I can't wait. I know his name. I know his face. I see his sweet smile everyday. I think about him and wonder what he's doing and I pray for him each night by name. I can send him letters or care packages if I want to. I think my favorite part is that he knows who I am too. He looks at my picture and tells people that I'm his mom. He has a photo album filled with pictures of us that he can look at anytime he wants. He knows he has a mom and a dad and two sisters and a brothers and two dogs and a fish waiting for him. Can't beat that. Really you can't.
"What is the next step for you guys?"
"When are you going to get him?"
In the world of international adoption, there is a boatload of paperwork. You basically lay out your entire lives before perfect strangers and hope that they deem you worthy enough to be a parent (whether you already are one or not). Most of it is not a big deal and some of the questions can be more of a "you really want to know that?" kind of moment. Some of the questions feel downright intrusive. Especially when coming from a complete stranger. "Tell me what you and your spouse argue about." "What is your intimate life like with your spouse." Um...hello...none of your business, stranger. The best part is - that's the very beginning. It's sort of an immediate baptism into adoption.
Now, we are surrounded by so many people that are also on the adoption journey. And if you've ever met anyone else headed down this road, you've probably heard them talk about all the paperwork and fingerprints and dossiers and waiting and - finally - a referral! Then they travel a month or two later to actually go and get their new child. In our situation, it's a little different. In Taiwan, they work off a pre-approval process. That means that once you complete your homestudy, you request to adopt a specific child and then you wait. And while you're waiting, you basically can't do anything. Our agency wouldn't even talk to us about what it's like to adopt internationally or let us go ahead and apply for our immigration paperwork. Quite frustrating to be honest. I understand why. If we had been denied the pre-approval then we would be starting over looking for another child and, in the meantime, dated documents in our homestudy would be expiring. Some of these documents are pretty expensive and they don't want you to have to update anything if you don't have to. But to sit and wait when you know that, technically, you could be doing something isn't easy.
So...to sum the first question. This means that we still have a long way to go. Homestudy? Check. Pre-approval? Check. Applying for immigration documents and gathering other documents together for our dossier? Just starting.
Our case worker called a little over a week ago and let me know that we already have some items that are out of date so we are fixing that. Once all that is fixed, our immigration application should be complete and we can cross that off the list.
By now you can figure out the answer to the next question - when are you going to get him? Unfortunately, not anytime soon. It will likely be this time next year or just after that. That makes me sad. He'll be another year older. It's another year of him living in an orphanage. A good orphanage - but still. :/ Another birthday. Another Christmas. Another New Years. No one tucking him in bed at night. No one telling him about Jesus. No one sleeping in the same room that calls him "brother". No one that can hug him like his momma can. We will all survive and I have no doubt that even in the slowest of moments I will look back over the steps we've completed and feel like time has flown. But it will be awhile before we will travel to get him. Each step of the process takes "2-3 months". That includes translating our dossier into Mandarin and the 3 required court dates.
Regardless of anything above - I can't wait. I know his name. I know his face. I see his sweet smile everyday. I think about him and wonder what he's doing and I pray for him each night by name. I can send him letters or care packages if I want to. I think my favorite part is that he knows who I am too. He looks at my picture and tells people that I'm his mom. He has a photo album filled with pictures of us that he can look at anytime he wants. He knows he has a mom and a dad and two sisters and a brothers and two dogs and a fish waiting for him. Can't beat that. Really you can't.
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