Moving on to the next step...

I hope you all enjoyed your Thanksgiving holiday. We weren't able to see our families on Thanksgiving, but had a good time with good friends.

We are so happy to tell you that our home study has been approved! Of course there are still many things to do, and periods of indefinite waiting, but this is one more box checked on our to-do list.

Our next step is to request permission to adopt from the Department of Homeland Security. I have the paperwork filled out already, so as soon as our official copies of the home study arrive, that request will be in the mail. This next step can take anywhere from 8 to 12 weeks. It is not until we have this approval from our country that we can send our dossier to China. So now we wait.

Miranda said the other day, "Mom, I'm glad we have school to keep us busy and to keep our minds off of the adoption. I think I would go crazy having to wait so long otherwise." I agree!

How You Can Help!

"I would love to adopt, but we could never afford it."

This is one of the statements we've heard many times, and we've even said it ourselves. In reality, very few people have a spare $30,000+ just sitting in a bank account. We sure don't. But we began this process in faith that the Lord would provide what was needed to bring one of his 'fatherless' children home. In the last couple of months, we've had some of you inquire about ways you can help, and that is what this post is about.

The girls and I have been sewing over these last few weeks and are finally ready to begin our first fundraiser! These hooded towels are great for babies and younger children since they are much larger than the baby towels you find in the stores. You can find more colors, dimensions, personalization information, and ordering instructions by clicking on our "Fundraiser" tab at the top of this page.

For those of you who have no need for the towels, but would still like to help, we are partnering with adopttogether.org to accept tax-deductible donations. You'll find a donate button at the top right of our blog. If you follow this link, you'll be able to see our story, a list of fees we have been or will be charged, as well as where we are in reaching our goal.

We know there are some who cannot afford to help financially. That's ok. You can still be a part of bringing our daughter home by praying with us on a daily basis that God will provide what is needed. Pray that government officials, both from the American and Chinese government, will be motivated to keep our paperwork moving. We pray every day for our little girl's safety and for the Lord to bring her comfort, though she may not know anything about Him yet. Join us in these prayers.

You can also help get the word out about our adoption by sharing these links and posts with friends on social media. We want to encourage others that adoption is possible!

Finally, we have decided to have some fun as we hit certain financial milestones. Our first milestone is $5,000 in donations, and when we reach this milestone, the girls will do their best to make Jason as pretty as possible. This will include the use of any makeup and accessories that they think are necessary, AND of course there will be a video of this posted online for your enjoyment.

What do the kids think?

So Mom and Dad want to adopt, and we have shared our heart behind it. But what do the kids think? Are they truly supportive of our decision, or are they just going along with it because that’s what Mom and Dad want to do?

As a mom, I have been so excited to watch each of our children, excluding Gwynneth of course, get behind this adoption in ways we never expected. Before Jason and I made our decision, we talked with the kids first to get their thoughts on this. We know that bringing another child into our family makes things tighter financially, and also takes up more of mom and dad’s free time. With their mouths, they affirmed that they truly did want to move ahead with adoption.

The biggest blessing we’ve observed though, is how the kids’ actions have backed up their words. I don’t say any of the following to boast in my childrens’ accomplishments, but simply to boast in how the Lord is working in their tender hearts. My prayer for my children is that they will bring God glory, in the biggest way possible for them, where they are right now.

When we began the adoption process, we froze all unnecessary spending. Of course we take care of our necessities, but outside of those all other purchases have been put on hold. No trips to the zoo. No more eating out. No impulse purchases on clothing or toys. There has been no complaining from the kids, and most of the time it is them reminding each other, “No, we’re saving money for the adoption, remember?” Miranda and I even talked recently about how easy it is NOT to spend money on things we don’t need when we remember there is a little girl waiting for us in China!

Another example is when Grant came to us willing to sacrifice playing Upwards basketball this year, because he knew that we could use that money to bring his sister home. (I love how the Lord blessed his willing heart. Someone else stepped in and paid for him to play!) We’ve had kids empty their piggy banks in our adoption change jar (in spite of our attempts to make them keep their money). The girls have sacrificed their free time to help me sew items for our upcoming fundraiser. All the kids have pitched in with chores and extra jobs around the house to give me more time to get paperwork done. Miranda is talking about doing a baking project so she can raise a little money herself. They have decided that the best Christmas present they could ever receive is their new sister, so we have opted to skip buying gifts this year. This adoption has even motivated the kids to keep steady, or even work ahead a bit in school so they are finished by the time we return from China with our new daughter. They want to be able to devote as much time as possible to helping her adjust and bridge the language gap.

As I mentioned earlier, my goal in this post is not to make the kids look good, because we know we all have flaws. I simply want to share how the Lord is working in our family. While some of these sacrifices could cause frustration and resentment, I am grateful up to this point they have only brought our family together in unity. As a momma, it is amazing to watch our family unite and work together to reach a common goal.

Homestudy Nearing Completion

Yes, we are approximately 2 weeks away from having our completed homestudy, and we could not be more thrilled. Cindy has done such an amazing job of completing form after form. We received our first draft of the finished study this week, approved it, and sent it on for final approvals. We started this process on September 28th, and God has been blessing already. We are approximately one month ahead of schedule and are excited to see how He continues to move.

We are asked all the time, “How long until your daughter can come home?” That question is hard to answer because there is so much of the process that we can’t complete until the previous step is completed. Here is a timeline of how long it takes based on the agency’s experience, and Cindy has broken down the approximate dates based on our initial application. Pray that God will continue to help us beat these estimated dates. We are ready to have our daughter home with us.

Once our homestudy is finalized, our next step is to begin filling out grant applications. We are praying for the Lord to provide what we need financially and are trusting Him to complete this adoption in His timing. We have also been working on a fundraiser to give some of you a chance to help--we’ll reveal that very soon!  

Choosing

When I started thinking about putting this post “on paper,” I felt a little strange. I mean, people don’t usually get to “choose” their children. And with so many children waiting to find homes, it is hard to select just one. Deep in my heart as I looked at bunches of little faces, known only to me by a tiny little snapshot and a short paragraph of generic information, I wanted to provide a home for all of them! Knowing that would be impossible, my heart was moved by the picture of our future daughter.

I am fully convinced, without a doubt, that the Holy Spirit has orchestrated every detail up to this point in our adoption process. When we had our first conversation about adopting again, neither Jason nor I thought we would move so fast. But we were open to the Spirit. So at every new decision point, or every new piece of information, we moved. We cannot look a year down the road and see everything mapped out perfectly, but we are at peace following the Spirit’s leading today.

I began the process learning as much as I could, asking tons of questions (Thanks, Rebekah!), and trying to be as informed as possible. I also began the process with stipulations in my own mind. I told Jason and the kids that I wanted to adopt a child that was Elsie’s age or younger. I also looked specifically for a boy since Grant has asked for a roommate many times. In the day or two after I looked through the list of pictures, one face kept coming back to my mind. What little I knew about her life story kept creeping into my thought process. I could only think about the possibility that this girl was abandoned because she looked different. Though she was not a boy, and though she was older than I had anticipated, the Lord opened my heart for her. I want this Chinese girl, with light skin and blonde hair, to know the unconditional love and acceptance of a forever family.

Anyone who knows me, knows I have trouble making decisions sometimes, especially decisions that carry so much weight. Through the events that happened in those initial first days, the Lord gave me confidence in our next steps. He put us in a situation where we needed to act quickly, and at the same time confirmed answers to a bunch of little decisions we would have to make. I am very much looking forward to seeing how the Lord brings things together. Though I would rush to China this very minute and sweep our girl away if I could, I know I’ve got to be patient as the Lord works out the details for His glory.

What Moved Us to Adopt

Many people have asked us why we decided to adopt again, so in this post, I’d like to explain how we came to that decision. There has never been a time in our 16 years of marriage that we weren’t open to adopting, but there were a few steps that led us take action now.

This year in September, I was listening to the book Counter Culture by David Platt. In this book, David Platt shares Biblical wisdom about current challenges to our Christian culture. One of the topics he discusses (along with many others) is orphans. While listening to David Platt’s words I was challenged in my life of self satisfaction to again remember the call of James 1:27, “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.” We are called to actively meet the needs of the orphans of the world. I had become complacent in that call.

The day that I finished the book, I couldn’t get adoption off of my mind again. I knew at that moment that I wanted to adopt again, but also realized that it might make more sense to support or help others adopt. Less than a year ago our fifth child was born, and I wasn’t sure that Cindy was ready to have another child running around the house.

That evening I told Cindy that I had been thinking about adopting again and asked her what her thoughts were. I have to admit that I was surprised, but I shouldn’t have been. I expected her to say, “Let’s give it a year or so.” Instead she was all for it. I told her that I was more interested in adopting internationally if possible, and she started researching agencies.

A week later on Monday September 26th on my way home from work, I get an email from Cindy with the message, “Is it too early to say I want her? :)”

In the next post, Cindy will share why this child was the one that stood out among the rest.

More Progress...

Guest Post! OK, maybe not a guest post, but this is my first post on this blog. I thought I would take a little time this morning and give you an update on where we are at in the adoption process. As most of you know, last week we received our preliminary approval from China to adopt our newest daughter, and I can tell you that this week has been packed full of crazy thoughts and excitement.

A few things have happened this week are:

• We received our passports. The process that normally takes 4 to 6 weeks, took only a week and a half!
• We received both our criminal  checks back from the state and FBI.
• We have both completed our physicals and medical evaluations.
• We have completed over 24 hours of required training for home study.
• We have submitted all required paperwork for the home study. (Here is where I tell you that it is really Cindy who submitted all the paperwork; I just signed and initialed a lot.)
• Our house passed the state’s fire inspection. So things are moving.

This week we also had an opportunity to work with the media department at Miami Valley Christian Academy. They are working on a video project that will give a short story of our journey into adoption. We are very excited about this and can’t wait to see this project completed and share with all.

Throughout the next few weeks, I hope to be sharing the process that we are now journeying through. My prayer is that through this, there might be some who don’t see the process of adoption as an impossible task, but a God given opportunity to love the fatherless. Not everyone is called to adopt, but everyone is called to love the fatherless, the widows, the poor and the helpless.  

If there are questions or topics that you want Cindy or I to write on, please let us know.

We Are Matched!

Two weeks ago, we submitted a Letter of Intent (LOI) to China. This is us providing basic information about ourselves to the Chinese government, and requesting permission to adopt a specific child from their country. We waited what felt like an eternity, but yesterday we received from them a pre-approval letter. We still have tons of paperwork to fill out, both for our country and for theirs, and tons of waiting while the governments run that paperwork, but as long as all goes well we will be bringing home this little girl in roughly a year or so! Please pray with us!

Time To Wake Up This Blog!

Yesterday was the beginning of our second adoption journey. Things have changed quite a bit in our family since the last time we posted here. We have a total of 7 people in our family now and this adoption will make 8! We are all buzzing with excitement around here, adults and children alike. It was an amazing sound to sit at my desk in the school room yesterday and listen to my older ones giving my younger ones a lesson in Mandarin!

We'll be posting here throughout our journey and we invite you to come along. Stay tuned for updates!

Finally HIV Free!

The 18 month tests are in! Both of the HIV tests have come back negative. As far as I know, there won't be a need to have any more testing done. Once they show negative for the virus, as well as the antibodies, they are in the clear. We're all very excited around here, though I didn't expect them to come back any differently. Maybe it was that mommy intuition, or just the fact that her health seemed completely normal, but I fully expected the tests to be negative.

So, with the announcement of these results, I plan to stop posting here. The adoption process is over and has blended into just life with the family. You can follow the family life at my other blog, dressesnmesses.com

Now, if we decide to adopt again in the future, we might revisit this blog.... :)

How Chocoholics Are Born!

Before

First Taste

This is awesome!

Give me more!

All cleaned up

Birthday Time

I cannot help but think back to this week in our lives in 2010. Then, the anticipation and nervousness was so painful that all we could do was keep ourselves busy while we waited and waited for a phone call. Now, I can look back on those diversions with fond memories.

I remember arriving at our bed and breakfast on March 4th, waiting all day just to find out we would not meet our birthmom before the baby was born. I remember waking up on March 5th knowing that we should get a call in the early afternoon letting us know the baby was born. So we drove downtown to the Tower City Mall and walked and walked. We went to see Alice In Wonderland in 3D. We had lunch. Finally, on our way back to the room we got a call that a healthy baby girl had been born. We were also told that we'd have to wait another day to meet her. So we started a game of Scrabble in our room and tried not to think about the fact that she was less than a mile away. We also decided then that we would name her Elsie, "consecrated to God". We were hopeful that March 6th would be the day, so we strolled through Wal-Mart looking at baby stuff. We ate lunch at Applebees, which is where we received our very first pictures of Elsie. The waitress also informed us that the building we were seeing out the window was her hospital. But today would not be the day. March 7th passed so very slowly. March 8th passed even more slowly.

But on March 9th, we got the call that we were to meet the birthmom at 3 PM. We'd talk with her for a while, then she personally wanted to hand baby Elsie over to us before we parted ways. We walked into the hospital with an empty carseat and sat down in the lobby. A few minutes later, our social worker met us there and escorted us to the birthmom's room. We chatted for about 45 minutes, both of us wanting to find out as much about the other one as possible. She was turning her baby over to us, and we wanted at least a few answers to the questions Elsie may one day ask. I can still remember every detail from the time I walked off the elevator onto the nursery floor. I remember it being very quiet...no babies crying. The lights were dim. I remember some puzzled looks from the nurses. But all happiness overcame us as we held her in our arms for the first time. I didn't want to let her go, but I politely passed her back to her birthmom to say goodbye. Then it was a buzz of paperwork before our trip home, all the while I held her and watched her sleep. The social worker kept having to prompt me to sign here and here. Finally, we walked out those hospital doors with a precious baby girl. The first night with a newborn is rarely full of sleep, but we tried. I remember wondering if she was a little frightened being in a new place with new people, new sounds, new smells. I couldn't wait for the day when she would feel comfortable in her bed and in our home.

A year later, I'm pretty sure I can say this is true. She knows her momma and daddy. She knows her crazy siblings. She even knows her slurpy little dogs.

This post may be too full of detail for some of you. I don't want to bore you, but I actually feel like this post is for Elsie herself. Someday I'll show her these posts and remind her how much we love her. Happy 1st Birthday Elsie!

Can She Be 10 Months Old Already?

I cannot fathom how fast time has passed since bringing home our 4 day old baby. Since the last post, we've had a few "firsts". First Thanksgiving, first Christmas, first UK hat...and the list goes on. :) As Elsie learns new things, like figuring out she can get places by placing one arm forward then using her toes to push her body a few inches forward (instead of just getting up on all fours and crawling), Mommy is also hobbling along with the lessons God is teaching. These lessons can sometimes be exhausting, but I'd rather be learning than not.

I know there are moms and ladies out there who just love babies. Any babies. They could walk right up to a stranger and want to hold their baby. Just because babies are babies. I'm not so easily smitten. I can remember being a teenager and wondering what the fuss was all about just to hold the newborn in the nursery. And since becoming a mom, I have discovered what that fuss is all about--for my own babies. And for my relatives and close friends' babies. It is kind of embarrassing to admit this here, but the Lord has had to nurture that affection between my Elsie and me. She was a stranger's baby. And while I knew and acted on my responsibility to take care of her, it hasn't always been easy to pour out sappy affection. And many times, frankly, it seemed that was the last thing she wanted. Elsie has a very independent personality, already. She fusses at the smallest sign of irritation or discomfort. She gets angry, extremely angry, about lots of things. And as a Mom searching for signs of approval from a baby (yes, I know that is as dumb as it sounds), I often felt/feel discouraged with my ability to mother her. There have been times I sat down to write a blog post only to erase it all and put my computer away. I honestly felt that I had no business sharing my experiences if I couldn't "get it together" myself. Lately, I have been very encouraged in this area. I think the "bonding" between myself and Elsie has taken huge steps over the last couple of months. The Lord has altered my natural thought processes to where I simply think of Elsie as one of "my own". I think it is finally sinking in that she really is mine and I won't have to give her back. She really is stuck with me. And I just have to figure out how to teach Elsie (and her character traits and personality), just like I still teach the other three. Even at the young age of 10 months, I have pegged several of her good traits, and several need-to-work-on traits. So, I have a piece of paper with four names on it. Below each name are some Scripture passages that we will quote over and over until some day they finally sink in. With the Lord's help, Miranda, Clare, Grant and Elsie will develop the individual personality He has given them to individually glorify Him.

How Can We Ever Afford An Adoption?

This is the question we asked when we first considered adoption. Then, once the adoption takes place, how can we afford to raise a 4th child? Finances are usually the biggest roadblock for those who consider adoption. We cannot tell you how God will provide for you, but we can share the ways He has provided for us. Just this morning, as I was preparing part of this post in my head, I began thinking back over the past several months. I realized there were numerous financial blessings God had provided for Elsie alone. Here are just a few.

#1 After we had Grant, we assumed we were done having kids. I gave away most all of my baby girl clothes, thinking I would never need them again. Then we began the process of adoption. Even then, we were so sure God wanted us to have a boy that we even considered turning down girl options. (We still had boy clothes; we thought he would share Grant's room; it would be a perfect 2 girls and 2 boys) And so our human line of reasoning went, until God convicted our hearts of selfishness. Had I become pregnant with a child, I would have gladly accepted boy or girl. So before we left for Cleveland, I went through all my baby clothes and picked 2 or 3 suitable outfits for a baby boy. I could not find 1 complete outfit for a baby girl. When we got the phone call that it was time to pick up our baby girl, we actually had to go shopping to pick out a couple of girl outfits! Here is where God provided this first financial blessing. When we returned home, a couple of friends were happy to share their baby girl clothes with us, providing for those first few months. Relatives purchased outfits to fill in some needed gaps. And we've been able to purchase anything else she needs by keeping an eye on the clearance racks. Just the other day, I walked out of Sam's Club with 3 complete outfits that cost $2.81 each!

#2 Formula and food. A formula-fed baby is an expensive one! Friends and family have helped keep this cost down by giving us their free samples and formula coupons. When I do have to buy it, the coupons take the cost down considerably! We started stocking up on jar baby food before we even knew Elsie existed. I'm just now getting to the end of that stockpile and have been finding lots of sales. Soon, she'll be eating our table food and I won't have to buy anything special anyway.

#3 If formula is expensive, diapers are even more so! Since Grant is not potty-trained yet, I have 2 kiddos in diapers. While I had to purchase some diapers early on, it has been a couple of months since I have paid a cent for diapers. Some of you know that I am in the database for diaper research studies for Proctor & Gamble. So over the last couple of months, not only have I been putting both kids in Pampers for free, I have also been paid to use them!

As if these financial provisions weren't enough for this post, God topped it off this afternoon when we checked the mail. Since we brought Elsie home in March, we have been paying off a $17,000 loan with interest. We were anticipating that the adoption tax credit would provide enough of a refund to pay off this loan in January. However, God provided in His way once again. In our mailbox today was a check. A check for $15,800--enough to pay off the remainder of this loan.

In summary, let us just tell you that the only way for most people to afford an adoption is just to rely on God. We did not have $23,000 last September when we plunked down our first $1400 for our home study. But we felt God's call to adopt. We made necessary adjustments in our budget and determined to do what we could. Even when Jason received a 10% pay cut at the first of the year, we prayed and kept going. Today, just 13 months from our first payment, Elsie's adoption is almost completely paid for. We plan to make our final $4,000 payment to Lifesong when we receive our tax return in 2011. Our God has supplied all of our needs, just as He promised.