Paperwork

Don't ever think that by adopting, parents are taking the "easy way out."

I know most people understand that it is labor intensive (no pun intended), but after conceiving and giving birth to 3 children, I can already tell you that adopting is harder.

Let me clarify: I had the easiest of all pregnancies - from conception to birth - so please understand that this is only my comparison and will not be true for all people. Many of my friends have had to work very hard to become pregnant, stay pregnant, and deliver babies. And to them I say, "I respect you more than you could know." But all I can do is tell our story - and for us, adopting seems to be harder.

The process:
For someone wanting to adopt internationally, the first thing you have to do is find an organization to work with. International adoption agencies have different countries they work with. For instance, Children's Hope International currently works with China, Colombia, Ethiopia, Russia and Vietnam. Jason and I initially looked into adopting from China, given the lost generation of little girls and the fact that Jason is Chinese and has been to China several times. However, the wait time for a healthy infant girl from China is about 5-6 years. We struggled with the decision to adopt an older child, or a child with special needs. This speeds up the process considerably, but ultimately, for us and our family, we decided that an older child, or one with special needs, was not for us. Before you judge this decision, remember, this is such an intimate and personal choice for parents, and there are untold factors that go into making this decision. We decided to investigate other Asian countries, as the shared cultural heritage was important to us.

Jason found an agency based out of Utah that works with placing children from Haiti and Taiwan. Technically, Taiwan is a "closed" country - meaning they only promote domestic adoptions. However, Laura, the woman who runs the organization with her husband, has a special relationship with the adoption agencies in Taiwan and works with just a select few to place children in the US. Their organization is called For Every Child. We had chosen them several months back and had written to Laura to obtain paperwork and get started with the process. Life got in the way, and our summer was extremely busy. Before we knew it, several months had passed and we had not done any of our paperwork. We contacted Laura again, only to find out that they were no longer accepting new families. I was very upset. I felt that God had led us to this decision only to shut us down. However, we received another email from Laura a few days later saying she would like us to get our paperwork to her and we scheduled a phone conversation. We spoke for over an hour and were overwhelmed with a sense of peace about choosing them. Long story short, Laura and her husband have adopted 7 children and had 2 biologically. I can't remember the breakdown, but 2 or 3 from Taiwan, 2 or 3 from Haiti, and 2 or 3 domestically adopted African American children from New Orleans area. Wow. They have adopted infants and older children and she was able to share her experiences, her goals as a parent, and how her kids are doing. She spoke at length about the country of Taiwan and their foster care/adoption process, and was able to answer our questions about how it all works. With our paperwork and initial check submitted (it's not cheap!), we were ready to focus on our home study.

Home studies must be done through a local organization. We chose Christian Family Services after a recommendation by two friends of mine (who independently recommended the same organization and social worker). We met with Susan a few months back to get our packet, and are getting started on the paperwork. Man there's a lot!! The initial application includes:
Pictures of the husband and wife, children, and home
Copies of birth certificates, marriage license, social security cards, drivers license, passport, income tax statements for last 2 years, and financial statement with monthly budget.
Autobiographies - mine is 4 1/2 pages, single spaced. They ask a TON of questions

That is just the application. Then they do their first visit, and after all that, you start the criminal background checks, fingerprinting, INS documentation, physician exam/paperwork, bank papers, health insurance verification, guardianship affidavit, and the 10 hours of required education. Most of this needs to be signed in front of a notary, which means Jason and I both have to be present.

None of this is to complain. I'm happy to do it, and frankly I'm glad they make everyone submit so much information. It's important that the people adopting children are screened so vigorously. But it is indeed cumbersome. Especially when I'm trying to accomplish all the other things that are needed around here.

Where we are: basically we need to get our home study done. I'm finished with my bio and all the copies are made, I just need Jason to find some time to sit down and write his bio. We can begin our visits after that.

So, we're plugging along. In the meantime we're hoping to start our foster care classes in October. Oh...did I forget to mention that? Oh yeah, we're thinking about fostering in the meantime! It's possible we'll be too overwhelmed to do much of that until after we've adopted, but we have put it off long enough and would at least like to get our classes out of the way so we can be prepared for whatever God brings us.

What a journey...

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.
James 1:27

No matter where you go in scripture, you cannot get away from the clear message of taking care of those that cannot take care of themselves. To be obedient to what God has for us, it is time for us to start taking this step. Please pray for us on this journey and I will try to update the blog from time to time (although most of the time this is a place for me to post pictures and brag about my kids!).

Until next time...