Our Long Journey!!

I thought I would write a little adoption background. We began the adoption process in November 2005. I was super fast getting the paperwork completed and had our dossier(paperwork) to China in early February. Yeah Me!!! Of course it did not help since referrals slowed down almost immediately after I filed our papers. When we began the process we were quoted 6-9 months after China received our papers we should get a referral. (Getting a referral means we get matched with a child and they send us pictures and a medical report.) While I’m not going to discuss all the rumors but for some reason the referrals slowed down. China makes all the rules and of course they do not share much information with us. As of Sept 7th we will have been waiting for 18 months for our Faith.

There have been some emotional moments along the way. Sometimes we questioned should we continue on this path???? But God always gave us a resounding YES! So, we have had to renew our paperwork, some expired at twelve months, fifteen months, and eighteen months. We have had to renew family education credits which expire every 12 months, including child/infant CPR. Our agency has also had some ups and downs along the way. We have gone through one social worker, two family advocates, a special needs coordinator, and a travel coordinator. There are currently no remaining members of the AHH staff, with which we had direct contact with, from when we started in 2005.

During this long process we have reconsidered the option of adopting a child with a special need. There are so many families waiting for healthy children we began to feel that maybe we should consider adopting a child with a special need. Many of the children which are considered special needs are easily treated in the USA and do not have any further complications. China sends certain agencies a Waiting Children list (our agency happens to be one of them)which list children who have special health needs. Our agency allows anyone to apply for a child and then they review the applications and place the child with the most qualified family. Darren & I reviewed the most recent list and applied for two different children but neither child was placed with our family. The Special Needs application process has been difficult and emotional. We continue to rely on God to help us make the right decision for our family. We are currently waiting for the next list of Waiting Children to be released. We are approved to apply for a child with a congenital heart disease or a cleft lip and/or palette. Again we will review the list and pray for God’s direction on whether to apply for another child.

While we continue to consider the option of adopting a Special Needs child we remain on the regular waiting list in China for a healthy child. At this time the current projection for a referral is probably next spring or summer. Of course there is a chance that China will continue to slow down the referral process or even speed up which would change our projected referral time. We will keep you posted on our progress.