So. How this referral thingy works...

Okay. As I posted previously: WE GOT A REFERRAL! I have known that I wanted to adopt for most of my adult life. I, personally, have waited sixteen years for this phone call and it did not go down the way I had planned. I always thought I would have the camcorder rolling with a pen and paper in hand and a list of questions ready just the way I had seen and read about since the 90's!


That's not how it went at all kids. I saw that number on my caller i.d. and it was GO time.
No plan. No premeditation. ALL redial!
Lightning speed.
If they were keeping time for redial records somewhere, I broke the record. Promise.


My poor husband, Pete had no idea what hit him. I never gave him the chance. I blurted it out so fast: "holycrapit'sthewaitingchilddepartmentdoyouthinkit'sareferralwejust... Hello this is Holly Emory, returning you call...."
<grabbing scrap paper and making up sign language for: GET ME A PEN NOW!>


I did already blog about the phone call. Right now I want to I need to write about what comes after that phone call.


While on the phone call I was given some basic info. Her name (I can't share that yet.) Her age. (She just turned three.) Her diagnosis. ( Brain Damage Syndrome. Non-existent. This is not a known diagnosis in the USA. FYI)


The agency sent her file over later that night. The file consisted of four pictures. (All over a year old.) Some medical reports. (With a good deal of confusing and contradictory information, also all 18 months old.) Two completely normal CT Scan reports. Her developmental milestones and her story. Her story is where she was placed, when she was found, her age, D.O.B., etc.


After reviewing the information for 24 hours we determined that we definitely had some questions. We wrote an email to our rep at the agency. The email was addressed on Monday. The questions and subsequent request for more info were forwarded to our agency's office in China. The offices in China were shut down for one week due to Chinese New Year so we knew that we would not get a response quickly. I now know that the office in China received the request and it has been forwarded to the Orphanage Director for consideration. I am told that just because you ask for the info it does not mean you will get it. We wait now, we hope and pray that we will get something that will give us clear direction.


This is gut wrenching, This is the kind of stuff that will bring you to your knees and really make you question who you are and what you are made of. I have wallpaper on my iPhone with a photo of a child that sits on the other side of the world. In an orphanage. Her greatest special need: a family. We have to decide if we can be that family. We have to try really hard here, to make the right decision. if they trust us with a child's file then we have to really dig deep and soul search. This is a little girl in a really hopeless place. Before we can say "We are sorry we cannot be her family" OR "YES. We are her family." we will have to completely exhaust ourselves trying to sort this situation out. She deserves that. If we are worthy of adopting ANY child then we owe every child that much, that 100% of our consideration.


Several people in the adoption community and even at our agency told us it is okay to say no. We do not have to accept the referral. Boy, that is just not how I am wired. However, my husband and I have to be in agreement and we have to agree on a plan that works for all of our children. Current and future.


My eighteen year old son, who is such a good human being, said to me "Really though? If a child needs a home, how could you say no?" This is so very challenging. Not at all what I expected. We are going to church and we are praying hard. We are begging for a sign, any sign. So many of the adoption blogs that I have lurked on for years mention this part very quickly. Families blog that "God let them know that this was not their baby" There is so much more information out there about paper chasing, gotcha days, travel tips, etc.


How did God let you know?


I am not questioning any one's faith. I am asking for a road map. Just in case I am not asking God the right questions or I am not looking in the right places.


There is language in this little girl's file that scares me. It takes me out of my comfort zone. However, now that I know her face I do not know how to say "I can't be your Mama." No matter what you believe, it is much easier to follow a direction with the faith that there is a bigger plan in place than the plans you have made or that there is a greater purpose that will guide your decisions. It is both comforting and empowering.


In church this morning (and all day every day for the last week) I prayed for a sign. A clear and obvious direction. I hope beyond all hope that we will get the update this week and our path will be clear.


That is where we are. Please leave me a comment. Any and all words of wisdom will be so greatly appreciated.

<3 p="">

A file....

Last night we were running out the door. We had plans to go to dinner and maybe walk around the mall together. Pete said he had a surprise for me. I love surprises.

We wanted to go out early because it's Super Bowl weekend and the big party is here in town. It's also Chinese New Year and restaurants fill up. We wanted to beat the rush and have a fun relaxing evening. 

I had my jacket on and we were heading for the door when I looked at my iphone. Missed call. Colorado area code. The Agency. I asked Pete to give me a minute and I listened to the message. 

Hi. It's Sarah...helping out the Waiting Child Department...call me back when you can...

Heart pounding. Frozen in time. Call her back!

Hi Holly! I am helping out the Waiting Child ...a file for you guys to review...if you are interested...email in a little while. 

Say what!?!? We filed our MCC 8 days ago or something. Can this be real?

Pete is still mourning the file we didn't get. He wants me to check out the medical. He is afraid to get attached if it won't work out. I understand. I promise not to check my phone a hundred times as we walk out the door. I promise we will focus 100% on our much needed night out and I will wait until we get home to open the email on the computer. I lied. I checked. Like crazy. 

We had a great time. We didn't discuss the file. She deserved 100% of our undivided attention. 

That's what she is getting today. 

Whew. This is not an easy process. If you pray...pray for us and for her.

If you send positive energy and good vibes...do that. 

If you limit yourself to e-hugs with little parentheses: ((hugs)). Visit the comment section. We need it. This is tough. 

Updates soon. 

<3

Big Things...The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

There have been many changes in our Adoption Story over the last few weeks. Our China Adoption was a solid plan. We had Excel spreadsheets, budgets, timelines...a plan set in stone, it was solid!

And then there was a girl...

a very little girl in a red dress with the biggest eyes and the sweetest face we had ever seen.

She was on a waiting child list. She was not spoken for and the agency was sending her file back!

He looked. I looked. We agreed she was very cute and then we moved on or so it would seem.

Within a few days he said: "I know it's not what we planned but if we moved this money here and the kids agreed to this then maybe we could do this..."

Hmmm.

Was he saying what I think he was saying.

I confirmed what I though he was saying.

My heart was in my throat.

I inquired about the girl.

My hands shook.

We are doing this.

 I got an email response very quickly. I was told that our names were placed on a waiting list of interested adoptive parents and that there was very little time. I also learned that when you are going through the Special Needs Adoption Program the most important step is your

Medical Conditions Checklist. It holds your place in line.

I did not know this.

This was important information.

We had already submitted our family info sheet, which is like a brief summary with demographic, social and financial snapshots of your family. We did not, however, submit the MCC.

We were dreading that.

The MCC is a long list of medical conditions that an adoptive parent must consider when they are referred a Special Needs/Waiting Child.

We had to go down the list and check off "yes" or "no" to each medical condition.

This indicates to the placing agency whether or not we are open to adopting a child

with that medical condition.

Some conditions are very minor and easily correctable but they range from minor/correctable to Cerebral Palsy, Spina Bifida, Blindness, Major Heart Disease...these are heavy hitters!

There is a lot to consider and let me tell you it feels UGLY.

 It feels like you are rejecting a child that has already been abandoned, that has such a great need for a loving family, medical care, the basics. It feels heinous.

It feels even worse when you and your partner look at this list from two different worlds.

As a nurse, I have relative comfort with all kinds of things! I look at the list pretty readily and say Yes, Yes, Yes to a lot of things.  My poor husband works in an electronics lab and has little or no exposure to many of these things. It all terrifies him. He knows that my son had well over a dozen surgeries in his eighteen years and it makes him sick to think about it.

We sat down with this list and he braced himself for a battle.

There was no battle though. We both felt horrible.

We had to consider our home, our family (immediate and extended), access to community services, our lifestyle in general and we had to apply all of these considerations to this list.

We went to church, we lit candles, we looked for signs and messages in answer to our prayers.

We submitted the list and we felt pretty good about it.

Guess what happened? We were challenged.

We were told that the little girl in the red dress may have one of the heavy hitters that we said "no" to.

Know what? We didn't care!?! All of a sudden, it did not matter. We were saying "YES!"

We felt like she could be our daughter and we were willing to s-t-r-e-t-c-h way beyond what we thought we were comfortable with. I gave Pete an out. I said we can take our name off of the list.

He said "No we can't. She could be my daughter. We don't walk away from our kids if something is wrong with them. We get them help. We love them and make them better."

I really, really love this man.

We consulted with neurologists, child development specialists and therapists.

We got educated quickly.

We harassed the agency and we let them know we were committed. We didn't even have the official file but we did have enough info to know the worst case scenarios and we were ready for that.

We took another leap of faith.

We filed our official application and paid the fee. We wanted to be ready.

We started treading into dangerous water. We started showing people pictures and talked about her non-stop. We just really felt like things would fall in to place.

(The way a young girl is painfully certain that if she could just meet Harry Stiles he would be sure to fall in love with her and take her away to be his forever, or at least take her to prom....

yes we were that bad.)

Well flash forward, the little girl in the red dress has a family working to bring her home now.

It is not us.

She is matched to another family and she is not our daughter.

Heartbreaking.

She is, however, a very important part of our adoption story.

Because of her we got the ball rolling. Really rolling, like a snowball going down hill!

She was a catalyst for us to step out in faith and do the things that up until now we had only talked about. She will always own a little piece of our hearts. She will always be in our prayers. I truly hope her parents are present in the blogosphere and by some chance we will be able to see that she is doing well with her family. We congratulate them and wish them many blessings.

We prayed for her to have a family. Our prayers were answered.

Now we are on the path to completing our dossier, turning our house upside down and beginning our homestudy. It's not just a plan anymore.

Thank you baby girl for opening our hearts and our minds.

We wish you a life filled with good health, love, joy and unspeakable beauty.

<3 p="">

Holiday Happenings and a Very Special Gift

We had a wonderful holiday with family and friends this year. Our big boys were great. At 18 and 19 years old one would think they might shrug off much of the holiday traditions.

The 14 year old was kind of "too cool" for it all but our big boys got right in it. They visited Santa (twice!), cut down our Christmas tree, joined us at the town Winter Festival and helped clean and decorate! This alone was a tremendous gift!

 

 

Throughout the holiday season, as Pete and I shopped and wrapped and cleaned and planned we often let our minds wander to our plans for this year. There was plenty of "maybe next year we will have a little one here to.....".

The truth is, we don't know how long the process will take. I understand that with the Waiting Child Program it really depends on how open you are to the various special needs and the availability of kiddos with the needs you are comfortable with. Some stories that I read are very quick. One year or less. Many are 18 months to two years. So, it is probably unlikely that we will have our baby girl home by next Christmas. Though, one can dream...

With all of the talking and daydreaming and wondering out loud that we did we didn't really expect much thought or conversation from our family members about the adoption. We know it isn't real or tangible to many people yet. Not in the way that it is to us. 

Pete and I were very surprised and very moved (to tears) to receive the most thoughtful gifts you can imagine from a very special family member. 

First, I opened a small package containing the Pand*ra Globe clip for my bracelet. (ADORABLE!)

With the special explanation that right now I can look at this globe and find the spot where I am and then spin it and see that out daughter is just "right there" waiting for us. 

Don't you just love it?

I love it!!!!

Then Pete opened the most adorable book. It's a children's book, written in Mandarin and English. It has the sweetest illustrations. The back of the book has a glossary. It includes pinyin characters and western spelling. We love it. We are so excited to start our bedtime story collection with this beautiful board book. Check it out here:

I actually love it so much that I just ordered the other board book by the same author!

 

I can't wait to get it!

Thank you Betty!!!

Happy New Year to all!

Ummm. Because we are crazy...

...about these kids!

We just love our three boys (and our nephew Thomas too!)

We will be doing a FAQ post in the next couple of days 

because now that we are going full steam ahead 

with our plans to grow our family through adoption 

we are getting a lot of questions,

 tons of questions 

and our answers are starting to sound well rehearsed!

;)

We are noticing a trend though!

There is a pattern to your responses.

1. Look of shock
2. Half smile (you guys are kidding, right?)
3. Really???

WAIT FOR IT:

4. WHY???

Yep. The first question.

99% of the time.

A few people actually said:

"You guys are in the homestretch, why start over?"

<sigh>

 Here it goes.

First and foremost, we both had this adoption in our hearts before we even met. 

We inexplicably discovered this the first week of dating!

This has always been a dream for us, even before we met.

Call it fate, call it destiny better yet call it Gods plan for us.

In addition, we do not like "the homestretch" line...

We don't want to be in the homestretch 

and we also really believe that our grown children need their parents too 

and will continue to need (and receive) our love and support for quite some time.

We just love our kids. We are actually head over heels in love with parenting these kids. 

We really and truly like the young people that they are. 

They are good human beings.

 We are thoroughly enjoying our boys at this stage in their lives 

but we are also truly heartbroken that they are so darned big! 

We are not done yet! 

We want to do all of the fun stuff again.

This time knowing what we know now.

We still have the love, the time, the energy

 and probably more patience and understanding than we did when we were younger. 

There are too many orphaned children in this world that need the love of a family.

In fact there are an estimated 153,000,000 orphans worldwide.

We can decrease that number by at least one.  

One child that needs a family. 

One family that cannot wait to bring their child home.

Not If. WHEN.

My husband called me in the middle of the work day, oh, about a month ago. He calls me in the middle of the day all of the time but this day was different. 

This was a turning point day. This was a day to remember. 

He said: " I am following Little Flower Project." 

(Check them out here: http://www.chunmiaolittleflower.org/)

"Oh?"

He wanted to tell me that he was captivated by the beautiful photographs and how happy and beautiful all of the children were. He noted that many of them were obviously ill with blue lips and tubes taped to their baby faces. However, what he found really compelling was the prevailing feeling in each of the pictures that allowed the child to be seen before the illness. The children were opening packages, playing with toys and laughing together. He first took notice of the beauty and joy of childhood; he saw right past the obvious signs of illness. 

Pete didn't get much work done that day. He sent tons of pictures and text messages to me throughout the day. Lots of questions: 

"what is Tetrology of Fallot" 

"what is the tube in the nose for" 

"do they all need surgery" 

"how long does this take" 

"when  can we start" 

This adoption has always been a concrete plan for me. I am the one who hangs out on the blogs and message boards. I am the one that does all of the research and gathers the information. I am prepared for this adoption for real, for real. For Pete, on the other hand, this has always been a "someday" conversation that we started in October 2005. We knew we had to get married first. Then we had to be married the allotted amount of time...and of course the money! We can't forget the fundraising. He talked about adopting but it wasn't tangible yet. Something changed for him on this November day and we are now full steam ahead. 

According to our agency we cannot officially apply until February so we have more time to fund raise, research special needs and get paperwork in order. Perfect. 

This is a very exciting time for us. 

As my dear husband said to me: 

We are no longer talking about if we can adopt we are talking about when we will adopt. 

Tears. Of. Joy. 

Waiting Game

On my knees praying for guidance...I am so very impatient. I know in my head that we are not ready to begin the adoption process. We do not even meet the minimum length of marriage requirement yet!

However, my heart and soul so desperately long for the day we bring our little girl home.

I have read, researched, prayed, planned and prayed some more.

I am not a patient person by nature. I am, in fact, annoyingly impatient. I want everything...oh, yesterday.

So tonight I pray for patience and peace, I pray for guidance, I pray for wisdom and I pray for a little girl that may already be born and living on the other side of the world, I pray for her birthmom and I pray for her caregivers.

If anyone out there has any good ideas for passing the time while still feeling connected to the process, I would love to hear them. I would love to advocate for waiting children. Do you need special permission to do so? Are there any rules or restrictions associated with advocating? Can you post pictures from waiting child websites and link to the websites? I plan to start sharing links to other adoptive parents fundraisers. I would love to help waiting families raise the money to bring their precious children home.