Summer of waiting

It's been a while since I've updated this blog, but that is because there hasn't been much to update about.  We have entered "the wait" where we've dotted all of our Is and crossed all of our Ts and all we can do is wait.

In the April we submitted the final pieces of our dossier to our placing agency.  It was later mailed of to the Dominican Republic for translation and in early June we were informed it was officially submitted to CONANI (the DR's government entity in charge of adoptions).  From there, CONANI reviews our dossier before we hear if we are approved.  We were originally told this would take 4-6 weeks, but due to political reasons beyond our control we are now told it will be more like 2-3 months.

Well, here we are two and a half months in from officially submitting the dossier and we continue to wait.  This is hard for me.  I am a doer and like to check things off of a list, but right now there is nothing more for me to check off.

As I wait, life goes on.  I don't want to lose sight of the here and now and the many blessings God has given me and my family.  But, I also continue to dream.  I dream of my future children and what they look like, what their names are, what life will be like when we move to the DR for 4-6 months (or more), what life will be like when we come home as a bigger family, and so much more.

Beyond the approval, we've also been told it could be up to two years before we are match or it would be a few weeks.  Somewhere between soon and not so soon, we'll meet our kiddos we've been praying for for so long.  I've joked that this is worse than waiting for the cable guy to show up.  A dear friend of mine said the other day it's like being pregnant with no due date.

The wait is enough to drive one insane.  Trust me, I've gotten close.  But then I remember this will all happen in His timing and His plan is so much more prefect than my own.  That is what keeps me sane.  So, when I'm feeling particularly anxious about the wait I've learned to turn to God to get me through.  These are a few of the verses that have helped me in this wait:

But you, God, see the trouble of the afflicted;
    you consider their grief and take it in hand.
The victims commit themselves to you;
    you are the helper of the fatherless.
~Psalm 10:14

Even to your old age and gray hairs
    I am he, I am he who will sustain you.
I have made you and I will carry you;
    I will sustain you and I will rescue you.
~Isaiah 46:4

6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
~Philippians 4:6-7

The wait may be hard, but I am so grateful we don't have to go through it on our own...

Here and now

I've been wanting to write this following post for a while now.  I've thought about the words to write many times in my head.  I've wrestled with guilt, anticipation, fear, excitement, unknown and all the other ups and downs.  This is by far not the first post where I talk about the roller coaster of emotions that is this adoption adventure, nor is it likely it will be my last.  However, in this post I want to focus on the here and now.  Specifically, the two blessings who I am privileged to be parenting here and now.

Lord, help me.  I cannot do this thing called parenting without you.  Adoption aside, being a mom has brought me to my knees more times than I can count, more times than I may want to admit and more times than I ever imagined possible.

It is so SO easy to think you know how to parent before you become a parent.  So easy to look at parents and say to yourself "that's not how I would do that".  Then, one day, you become a parent and find yourself in unknown territory.  Faced with decisions that effect not only you and your spouse, but your children too.  One thing I know for sure: no parent is perfect, despite how hard we may try.   There is - and will continue to be - regret, mistakes, raw emotions and desperation.  Try as I might to have everything in order, I am still learning how to parent every step of the way.

This adoption adventure has definitely taught be a lot about parenting - both my future children and the two I have now.  One (of the many) trainings we've done to prepare for adding to our family through adoptions touched on remembering that while Ben and I have been preparing, praying, hoping for these children for a long time it does not mean the same is true for the children we are bringing home.  They may not even fully understand the concept of adoption nor will they fully understand why they are being adopted.  While we know we are their mom and dad, it will take time for them to understand this and attach to our family.  I can remember thinking what a profound concept that was when I first heard it and have thought about it many times since the first time I heard it.

Really, the same can be said regarding my two girlies I already get to be mom to everyday.  Ben and I have gone to training after training, completed endless stacks of paperwork, dotted our Is and crossed our Ts, but our girls have not.  While we have been very intentional to have open and honest conversations about this adoption, this is not something they initiated nor do they fully understand it.

I've been thinking about this for quite some time now and wrestled with how to approach it.  Tonight it became abundantly clear.  It was no longer a hunch, it was laid right out in the open...

Part of the open and honest conversations have included talking about how things will change and how the way we parent our girls' "new brothers or sisters" will look differently than how we parent now.  And then everything bubbled to the surface.

My sweet Shannon is probably more like me than I admit.  One of the ways she is like me is her NEED to plan and uneasiness to change.  God has certainly been teaching me how to let planning be in His hands and trust in His changes, but it's still not easy.

Tonight, bless her little heart, through tears Shannon admitted she doesn't want us to adopt because she is afraid of how everything will change.  My mommy heart broke into a thousand pieces and in that moment all I could do was to pull her onto my lap and hug her tightly.  I rocked her and held her close.  I felt so lost at that moment.

In that moment I was so incredibly lost.  All I could do was to lift my eyes up to heaven and pray for the words to comfort my baby girl.  "Help me help her" was my prayer.  God brought me to the here and now and all I could do was to be in that moment with her.

1 I lift up my eyes to the mountains—
    where does my help come from?
2 My help comes from the Lord,
    the Maker of heaven and earth.
~Psalm 121:1-2

I am so grateful Ben and I don't have to have this parenting thing all figured out.  I know our help comes from the Lord and we are not in this alone.  Through His help, we were able to have a very raw, real heart to heart talk with Shannon about the adoption.  We assured her it is OK to feel the way she does.  I would have loved to been able to tell her things won't really change that much, but I can't.  Things will change - more than I think I know - but we also arrived at a good place and the night ended with some Shannon-mommy-daddy time and I know I was able to tuck my sweet girl into bed knowing she is loved and THAT will never change.

Friends and family, I humbly ask you to pray for my family. Pray for wisdom and guidance for Ben and me as we navigate this adventure of parenting and adopting.  Pray for us not to lose sight of the here and now as we prepare for the future.  Pray for the hearts of our two girls as we prepare for this big change.  Pray for those children who will be joining our family.  Pray for the things we don't know to ask for prayer for.

The Lord will keep you from all harm—
    he will watch over your life;
8 the Lord will watch over your coming and going
    both now and forevermore.
~Psalm 121: 7-8

Be still

Today we mailed in (what we think to be) the final piece of our Dossier.  This, along with the other documents we mailed in two weeks ago will now be apostilled and translated and then sent to the DR.

Today is exactly 2 years, 5 days from our "official" start to this adoption journey when we first sent our request for services to our home study agency.  Today also marks 3 years, 4 months and 6 days since that New Year's Eve conversation which started us on this journey.

We've moved to a bigger house, treaded through countless ups and downs of a home study that seemed to go on forever (but really only 20 months), been blessed beyond measure with financial gifts which cover the agency fees of the adoption, applied for services to our placing agency, attended training after training after training, dotted our Is and crossed our Ts on all the documents of our Dossier, gained friends in the adoptive community and in the DR we consider more like family, and encountered opportunities to share our story and, in turn our faith, in ways we never expected.

As we understand it, we've now completed everything we need to complete before we wait to be matched.  Now begins THE WAIT.  It is a weird feeling to have made it to this point.  Ben and I were talking about having made it this far.  We almost feel apprehensive.  While the paperwork is no walk in the park, at least it was something in our control.  The ball was in our court, so to speak.  Now, though, we sit and wait.  Dream and hope.  Pray and trust.

As I returned home from mailing off that final piece, I couldn't help but feel like there is something more I should be doing to help move the process along.  Then, once I had decided I really, truly just had to wait I searched my Bible for the word "trust" and landed on Psalm 37 where I found these few verses that went straight to my heart:

Psalm 37
3 Trust in the Lord and do good;
    dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.
4 4 Take delight in the Lord,
    and he will give you the desires of your heart.
...
7 Be still before the Lord
    and wait patiently for him

One minute, forty-one seconds

One minute, forty-one seconds - that was the duration of the phone call from my husband one Saturday afternoon.  The phone call that sent us into fast-forward mode, the phone call that brought news I've reflected back on for the past month now.

Let me back up a bit.  This phone call was completely unexpected on this particular Saturday afternoon.  I was at a birthday party for my daughters' friend who was turning five.  Ben stayed home to knock off elements on the honey-do list while I went to the party with the girls.

Forty-five minutes or so into the party, my phone rings.  I look at the screen - it's Ben.  Hmmm, I think to myself - curious as to why he'd be calling.

"You got a letter from Homeland Security," he says after I answer.

Instantly, my heart began to beat deafeningly inside my head.  My mind began a frenzy of thoughts:

What! It's only been a mere week and a half since we went down to USCIS for our biometric fingerprinting. Our agency told us it would normally be two to four months wait for our background check to come back.  There must have been a problem.  What could have gone wrong?

I could not help but mentally prepare for the worst.  This must be the end.  More than three years of preparation would all come to a halt if we were not approved.

"Do you want me to open it?" I hear Ben say from the other end.  I am brought back down from my frenzy.

Of course I wanted him to open it.  There was just no way I could wait another hour and a half before I returned home to open it myself.  I needed to know what the news was in that very moment.  What was likely mere seconds had already felt like a week in my worries.

I could hear the rustling of the envelope as he broke the seal. The whisper of the paper sliding out of the envelope as my mind kept playing various scenarios over in my head.  Tears were on the verge of emerging.  I was on the edge of losing it at a five year old's birthday party.

"We're approved for up to 3 children," Ben declared remarkably calmly in comparison to the mental state I had worried myself into.

I could feel a major adrenaline dump as I began to wonder at how I had possibly doubted the approval.  God has shown his own fingerprints in each and every step of this adoption adventure.  Why would I have allowed myself to worry in such a way that made that one minute, forty-one second phone call feel longer than the forty-five minutes of the birthday party prior to my phone ringing?

One of the things I have learned over and over again on this adoption adventure is that nothing - and I do mean nothing - goes according to the "normal" timeline.  After a grueling home study process which resulted in twenty months of back and forth rather than the "normal" four to six months, I guess I was taken aback by the speed and ease in which the approval had come.  This time there were no hiccups, no clarifications, no missing pieces.

Ben's voice echoed in my head as the waterworks sprung from my eyes.  However, this time they were tears of joy, tears of relief, tears of thankfulness, tears of hope.  The timing of this approval was nothing short of a miracle. 

Yep, I lost it at a five year old's birthday party.  I did not care. I wanted to shout it from the rooftops.  Having had the privilege to witness many of our friends go through their own adoption journeys, this was finally forward progress for my family's adoption adventure.  Those children we were approved for would become our children.

We're approved for up to 3 children.  APPROVED.  We're approved.

***This phone call occurred one month ago, yesterday.  Tomorrow, we mail in all but two of our Dossier documents to our placing agency to be translated, apostilled and sent to the Dominican Republic.  

Overwhelmed

Overwhelmed. Completely. Totally. Indescribably. Overwhelmed.

That is how I would describe my life, my heart, right now.  Ben and I attended our Crossings Training through Lifeline this past weekend.  While I am so thrilled to be one step further in our adoption adventure, I have never been so overwhelmed to the point of tears as I decompress and reflect on this training.

Crossings is meant for adoptive parents prior to traveling for international adoption.  While the vast majority of the content was not "new" to us, my heart broke during the 2 day training.  While I "knew" the effects of institutionalization on children in orphanages, this training left a lump in my throat that has been hard to shake.

We've heard all this before.  The malnutrition, the neglect, the abuse, the overall trauma.  Do a short Google search on orphanage institutionalization and you will know what I mean. For some reason, this training was different.  Maybe it was because we are moving so much faster on our adoption adventure right now.  More probable is God's hand on this and how he is preparing me, molding me, to bring home our DR kiddos.

We were told at the training about the need to prepare adoptive families "for the worst case scenario".  The two social workers who led the training told us while sometimes it almost feels as though they are trying to change our minds, the truth is they want to equip families.  "Yeah, yeah. Sure. OK. Let's get through this so we can bring our kids home." - I keep thinking this to myself.  It's so easy to let this whole process overwhelm you as a series of hoops to jump through.

Then it hit me. Hard...

"You have been called to be your child's healer"

Dear Lord,

I am so utterly overwhelmed.  Not the overwhelmed of life's daily demands.  It is more than that.  

I am overwhelmed at the thought of the probable trauma of my children I so long to bring home.  I am overwhelmed by the brokenness that led to their eligibility to join my family through adoption.  I am overwhelmed by the loss they have experienced.

I am overwhelmed that You would call me - ME! - to be their mother.  Overwhelmed by how You have so clearly called Ben and I together to parent these children. 

Overwhelmed by Your undeniable hand over this entire adoption adventure. Overwhelmed by the heart my daughters have for their brothers or sisters they have not yet met.

Overwhelmed by family and friends who have supported us in so many ways: in prayer, in care, in finances, in love.

Overwhelmed that You have called us to be these children's healers.  Overwhelmed by the heartbreak.  Overwhelmed by the beauty in Your plan for my family.

I am overwhelmed at the thought of what is to come and think I cannot possibly do this alone.  And then, I am overwhelmed when I am reminded, yet again, I am not in this alone.  I am overwhelmed by You.

Thank You. Thank You for humbling me, for calling me, for breaking me, for overwhelming me...

Plans, trust and hope

In the last post, we were so close to finalizing the home study, but were still in the wait.  I am thrilled to say we received our official, finalized home study on December 26th and we have entered a new stage(s) in our journey!

Three weeks have gone by since we rejoiced at finding that manila envelope in the mail containing our copies of the home study.  We were able to breathe a sigh of relief and start preparing for the next step.  My natural need to prepare kicked into full gear and I began to tackle the next steps.

Sometimes in the adoption journey it feels like a never ending series of "next steps".  I've heard other adoptive families use the term "paper pregnant" and can truly relate to that sentiment right now.  As soon as one document is signed, another one is waiting.  One training completed and another one in the works.  It is far too easy to get caught up in the checklist and lose sight of the big picture.

This morning I was sitting in our adoption small group at church and reflecting on how our group has changed since it began.  Families have brought children home, new families have joined, adoptions have been finalized and much more. It has been a privilege to see how God is working in these families.

Then it hit me.  My own family is building momentum in our process.  What has long seemed like a far off future time now may be THIS year.  God has brought us through the home study phase and we are feeling very grateful to be moving forward.

We've sent in our application to U.S. immigration and are preparing the required documents for our dossier.  In essence, we are in two stages at once.  We are in the two stages before the wait to be matched.  If things go quickly, there is the potential to be meeting our children in as little as 6 months.  Then again, it could be more than 4 years out.

To say we are on an emotional roller coaster is an understatement.  On one hand I want to believe this is OUR year we grow our family (as so many of our loved ones have said they are hoping for us).  On the other hand I know we may still have a very long road ahead of us before I can hug my children my heart longs for so earnestly.

Being on this roller coaster ride can make it difficult to plan for what lies ahead.  Regardless, God has been present through it all and I am thankful I can trust in His plan for my family.  He gives me hope through it all.

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. ~ Jeremiah 29:11

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight. ~ Proverbs 3:5-6

Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the Lord. ~Psalm 31:24

Things planned long ago

We've reached early December 2014.  Nearly three years since that unforgettable New Year's Eve where Ben and I realized we were both being called to adopt from the Dominican Republic individually and we decided to begin our adoption adventure.

In some ways these three years have gone by in the blink of an eye and in other way's they have gone by so... incredibly... slow.  Three years have past since God clearly asked Ben in a dream "How long will you make them wait?" (Them being our children who have yet to come home to our family).  Three years of dreaming, praying, hoping, preparing.

Dreaming of what their sweet faces look like, what their personalities are, what our lives will be like once they join our family.  Praying for God to protect them, for God to show them love while we wait for them, for them to someone know Him.  Hoping for the day I get to shower them in hugs and kisses, tuck them in bed at night, kiss their boo boos.  Preparing a bigger home to welcome them into, through trainings and fundraising, through conversations with our girls about our growing family.

Our adoption journey has not been easy and I know the hardest part is yet to come.  Most home studies take 4-6 months, but here we are 20 months since formally applying to our local agency and we are "approved to move forward" yet still waiting for formal finalization between our local agency and our placing agency.

Some of the delay has been simple checklist items on the seemingly never ending list of requirements, but we've also endured the retirement of our original social worker, being passed on to a 2nd social worker, a 3rd social worker taking on our file to lighten social worker #2's load, social worker #3 then leaving the agency, our agency merging with another local agency and all that entails, and finally, our local agency and placing agency coordinating requirements and in some ways re-doing trainings in order to align to both agencies specific lists.

The wait in adoption is hard.  We "knew" that before we began our adoption adventure and anticipated it to be hard.  We did not, however, envision the wait to be hard due to internal complications within our agency.  We've learned how to advocate and become the "squeaky wheel" in order to get things done - I imagine somehow this ties into God's great plan to prepare us for parenting these children we long for so dearly.  Preparing us to advocate for their needs and not to settle for anything less than what they need and deserve.

The planner in me would LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, to have answers to why our process has taken so long, but I don't.  What I do know is that HE knows and that comforts me.  Perhaps someday I will look back on our journey and see glimmers of the whys, perhaps I will not.

Today we received an updated draft of our home study for review after a series of communications to clarify misunderstandings, missing information and many other details that are lost when you transfer a home study file from one social worker to another.  I sat in our living room with the Christmas tree lit as I reviewed the draft.  My heart once again began dreaming, praying, hoping, preparing as it has daily since that memorable New Year's Eve three years ago.  I looked around the room envisioning a future Christmas where we will add to the two stockings that currently are hung over the fire place.

My heart feels like it is being torn in every direction.  On one hand I am thrilled to be so close to finalizing the home study and moving forward.  On the other hand my heart breaks for my children and their experiences in their lives that occurred in order for them to be eligible to join our family through adoption.  It skips a beat when Shannon or Amelia ask about our adoption journey or talk about ways to help bring them home.  It is also humbled that God would choose my family to welcome these children home and our hearts.

"Lord, you are my God; I will exalt you and praise your name, for in perfect faithfulness you have done wonderful things, things planned long ago" ~ Isaiah 25:1