Taiwan!

These last few weeks have certainly been trying. Throughout this journey thus far, I have realized how much I cling to control. When we first decided we were adopting internationally, my mom told me that adoption will test ones need for control and to plan to have plans changed. Having adopted my sister when I was six, my parents have been through this process. At the time I added her words to my bag of motherly advice I've received, but over the last few weeks it has rung especially true.

It almost feels as though our steadfastness was being tested. As if each layer of control was peeled away until all that was left was faith. The outer layer was our perceived time frame; that was peeled away as we found out the process would extend years beyond what we were told. The next layer was finances; we had to put our trust in an agency to decide the fate of our significant program fee. Next was our image of our family; we had begun to really love the idea of our family being partially Colombian and embracing our child's culture. Finally we came to our decision to adopt; as hard as it was we had to acknowledge that our intended outcome may not be God's plan. At the core of all of it, we were able to see that our lives are about so much more than just us and our journey. Maybe it took us really stepping away from ourselves for this journey to be able to continue. Maybe we needed to learn that time, finances and control are not so important. Or maybe this speed bump was meant to draw us even closer together and lean on one another more. Either way, we know it's not the last and we know that patience and faith will get us through it all.

So over the last couple of weeks we have continued to look into all of our options, even though it seemed like so many doors had closed. We researched, called agencies, had conversations. Yesterday, when we called our current agency to check on the status of the board approving our refund, they told us some unexpected news; they were able to get us into their Taiwan young toddler program. Not only is it great that all of our funds will transfer and we will be working with the same agency, but we are really excited about the Taiwan program! Here are the details:

The nursery our agency works with is St. Lucy Center in Tainan, and they have a long standing relationship with our agency. The center was created to serve the social needs of unwed mothers because of the society's prejudice toward these women. The center currently works with education and support for young women, job training and counseling, emergency shelter services, and adoptions. 85-90% of the adoptable children are adopted domestic, the rest is international adoptions. We will be able to tour the facility, talk with our child's caregivers, and possibly meet the birth mother. In Taiwan the process is different from other countries. You first complete your home study and then you are on the waiting list.  The agency and nursery works together to match the child with the best family for him or her. Once a family gets a referral (we were told this would be about 1.5-2 years), they begin their dossier preparation. After this, the court process in Taiwan begins. This can take about 4-8 months. During this time, we are able to send our child care packages, skype, and receive updated information. Once we have final decree, we will travel to Taiwan and stay in the country for about a week. Then, the 16+ hour plane ride home!

As always, we will share as more unfolds. While we now very much understand all of the uncertainties that go along with this, but we are also allowing ourselves to get really excited!

Because Taiwan is a small country that doesn't do many adoptions each year, we would love to connect with anyone who has stories to share! If you know of someone who has adopted from Taiwan, was born there or has visited, we would love to hear about it.

Peace,
Lindsey

Detour

First of all, apologies for the lack of update in a while! During the month of March there was no update because we were running around checking off our boxes left and right. Things were actually going pretty well with the whole process and we started to get caught up in thinking that the harder we tried, the closer we would be. We completed our part of the home study, each doing interviews and then having our home evaluated. We did our required hours of training, which was valuable beyond expectations. Our final visit with our psychologist was complete. The FBI fingerprints that usually take 3 months to arrive came after just 3 weeks. We created a photo book to send to our future child (who most likely isn't even born yet). We had friends and family support us significantly through kind words, prayers, donations and recommendation letters. Basically, we were feeling pretty good.

And then, last week, we received an update about the adoption process in Colombia. To preface the information that we received, we weren't naive that this whole journey would be quick or easy. Maybe we were a little naive in thinking that if we worked tirelessly, put in as much effort as possible, and tried to make ourselves the best future parents a kid could want then we would be ahead. But adoption doesn't work that way, and sometimes as much heart and emotion as you put into it, you are still just a number on a list. The news we received from our agency was that Colombia is in the process of going through their accreditation and therefore they are reshaping their country's adoption process. What this translates to for us is basically longer (and growing still) wait times as well as increased difficulty in being accepted by the ICBF.

The letter hit us hard. It made us face our unspoken hopes and brought to the surface the emotional pain we were already experiencing from an extended wait period. In our minds we had just accepted the fact that it could be as long as 4 years, even though our hearts still ached from this thought. But to extend that to possibly 6 years, possibly more... we couldn't do it. Add to that the fact that families were being scrutinized closer than ever by the ICBF and that we were still months away from submitting our application to Colombia.

The difficult thing about adoption is it's so front loaded. I don't mean just the paperwork and finances, because those things certainly put a stress on you from the get go, but emotionally as well. When we decided to jump into this, we had to jump feet first and blindfolded. We had to prove to everyone, our doctors, the psychologist, the Colombian officials, social workers and the FBI that we were qualified adoptive parents. In the process we opened up our hearts and allowed ourselves to be completely vulnerable. We were passionate, excited, somewhat educated... ready. Any parent out there can relate to this feeling of being so overwhelmed with love and joy for an expected child but with a complete loss of control.

Nate and I came to a point where we had to be completely honest about how sustainable this emotion was for us. We realized, as much as we loved the Colombia program, the country, the children, the culture, we couldn't do it. That was especially hard for me to admit. Often having the unspoken mentality that if you work hard enough anything is possible, I have been reminded this week that we have faith in a God that has complete and total control.

We currently don't have an exact plan for moving forward. International adoption is still where our hearts are and we are certainly not ready to give up on that. Being solution oriented, I have had to wisely listen to the many caring friends and family around us telling us to pause and be still. It's an unusual grief, one that we had never anticipated feeling, but we need to allow ourselves to heal from this loss. I wish I could say that we can clearly see God's plan through all of this and that gives us comfort, but that wouldn't be true. It hurts, and for now I think it's ok that we are hurting and confused.

One thing that's been very clear in the last week is what supportive and wonderful friends and family we have. I'm so thankful for the thoughts, prayers, hugs, comfort coffee, phone calls, inquiries, chocolate... we have amazing people in our lives.

In the next couple of weeks we plan to continue having conversations with our placing agency, trying to figure out if there is a country program out there meant for us and where to go next. We will keep everyone in the loop as things transpire, but never feel like you're invading by asking questions.

Until next time,

Lindsey

Paperwork, pin pricks and psychologists

A new entry, but not a whole lot of new information at this time! The past few weeks have been a blur of making phone calls, researching and answering tough questions. Here's an update about where we are at:

We are currently working with two agencies; our home study agency is out of Nashville, and our placement agency is in California.  The first big step in adoption is the home study. We have been compiling paperwork including information about insurance, health history, references, finances, autobiographies, perspectives on parenting and much more. We will be submitting this large packet shortly, which will be followed by several interviews with our social worker. Once we get approved for the home study, we will begin working more with our other agency to prepare our dossier for Colombia.

We have quickly learned that Colombia is very thorough in their adoptions! Some of the many things we will be doing in preparation includes many medical tests done, several fingerprints (state and FBI) and a lengthy (our initial visit will be 900 questions!) evaluation by a psychologist... and since all of that expires after 6 months, we get to do it all again before we travel.

As of now, it is looking like the time frame before we travel could be as long as 4 years. This week has been a challenging one for me personally as I wrap my head around waiting four years to become a mom. We keep trying to remind ourselves that once we meet our child, it will all make sense. The amount of work and wait will be entirely worth it because it will have brought us to that particular child at that moment.

With patience,

Lindsey

Here we go!

Welcome and thanks for taking the time to visit our blog. We're new to the blog-world, so we may stumble our way through this a bit. Check out our 'about' page to learn a little bit about us.

We've created this blog to have a place to update information and share stories throughout the adoption process. That's right, we're adopting! Having grown up with a sister who is adopted, it has always been a dream of mine to adopt. As Nate and I became involved in adoption-supportive communities, we decided it was something we would do...someday. After being married for four years and feeling fairly confident in our ability to parent, the dream of adoption began to grow stronger in our hearts until we decided to take a leap. We researched, read books, talked to adoptive families, and looked into different agencies. We now know that was just the very beginning!

Where we are at right now is in the middle of what I guess they call the 'paperwork pregnancy' (minus the pickles and ice cream cravings). We are writing our entire life stories, laying out every aspect of our finances, being checked for mental and physical wellness, FBI fingerprinted, attending parenting classes and being asked some very tough questions. But really, it shouldn't be any other way... parenting is not an easy lifestyle change and even more complicated when building a family through international adoption. Our hope is that in a few years (or four, or five, or six...) from now we will be welcoming home our child from Colombia, God willing.

As we progress in this potentially very long process, we will keep everyone updated through this blog. Thanks for reading the first page to our story, we're hoping it has a wonderful ending.