April 23, 2008:We received the April list of the children of promise last night from our new caseworker who said that as long as we have a log-in date in China, we are paper-ready to choose a child from that list. It's going to be really difficult. I feel such sympathy for all the children on the list who need loving homes--how do we choose some and not others?! The way it works is that we choose the children we're willing to adopt, our caseworker sends that list to the Michigan office, they prayerfully match up children with parents who chose them and then let us know if we've been matched with one of the children we said we are willing to adopt. Our final decisions, after researching the minor needs of each child and writing a letter explaining how we'd be able to deal with the needs, is due by this coming Tuesday morning--in a little less than a week! We are going to be busy researching needs and praying!April 12, 2008:people have been asking me for years now when we will get sophie. there are theories out there about why china is hardly adopting out children right now, such as them not wanting to be seen as a child exporter during the olympics; nonetheless, if they continued at this suddenly and suspiciously slowed down rate of adoption, we wouldn't get sophie until between 2010 and 2012. more like 2009 if they sped up again.
after looking at a blog of a friend of a friend who went to china to adopt an older child w/ a minor deformity, bob and i started to wonder again if we should look into adopting a child with minor needs. we had asked our caseworker if it's relatively easy to adopt a child with minor special needs months ago and she told us that those children are chosen just as fast as "healthy" children and that children who are easily available have major special needs. however, considering our caseworker's history of basically not knowing what she is doing and making many, many major mistakes, i decided to call another caseworker at our agency this time to ask her opinion. this other caseworker said she matched 4 families just w/in this year w/ children who had hardly anything wrong with them (example: one boy had a growth in his back--however, it's been surgically removed in china and now nothing is wrong w/ him except the fact that he's older now that adoptive parents have passed him up b/c he was what our agency calls a "child of promise"--so sad). there is a list of children of promise that comes out quarterly--it lists the children, their ages, and their abnormality. parents who originally signed up for a child of promise may have first choice, but we can choose the children on that list that we are willing to adopt and our choices go to bethany's michigan office. there, they pray over the parents, their choices and the children before they match up parents w/ children. so...if we chose 5 children from the list, we might be matched up w/ a child if they don't all get matched up w/ other parents first. we are thinking that if we went this route, we could hopefully adopt sometime w/in 2008.
now, the point is not to sidestep God's will. we both are certain that God called us to adopt from china. so it would be a big mistake to adopt a child of promise instead of just waiting for a healthy baby---if it's God's will for us to just wait. and...china could mysteriously speed up again after the olympics. so...after days of praying about it, bob and i feel at peace about adopting a child of promise.
God has brought to mind many things that only support that decision...Jesus said when you have a feast, don't invite those who can pay you back but instead invite the blind, lame, crippled...Jesus also said "'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.' Then the righteous will answer Him, "Lord, when did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?" The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine you did for me.'"
another thing i remembered was asking our caseworker years ago when we first began if we could sign up for a child with minor special needs if we knew what the special needs were. she had warned us that if we did that, we wouldn't be sure of what we were getting. not knowing the correct info., she didn't tell us we could sign up for a healthy baby and choose a special needs child from the children of promise list whenever we wanted if we wanted to change. when we found this info. out this past friday, thoughts started to flood my mind like we could be waiting for our 2nd child by now. while we were not open to a 2 or 3 yr. old when we first started b/c of attachment issues, we probably would have become open to it a year ago. however, God is in control of this situation b/c we have given it into His hands. whatever the difficulty of this situation, God will give us strength thru it all. perhaps, it was meant to be delayed so that Bob could start the adoption org. he has just started. God has His reasons and we must trust Him!
we continue to pray about our future child, who we are not even certain is a girl yet. don't fret, those who bought me stuff that says "Sophie" on it! :) we will have a daughter someday and she will be named sophie. we just have to pray and ask God who it is He wants us to bring into our home. all the chinese decor will fit either a girl or boy, but he/she might not be a one-year-old. our child could possible be between 1 and 4 years. we just don't know yet. i've been following a blog of families that have gone to china and have their 3 and 4 yr olds and they are surviving (thank you, stacie, for forwarding!). their children are all cuties and very near perfect health. one boy has a missing finger, another girl has an eye problem, etc. it is very precious that one little 4 yr old boy keeps reaching for his new daddy and always wants to be held by him--he has never had a daddy figure before. ironically, my brother supplied us with a toddler bed and clothes for many different ages already!
we feel very at peace about this decision. afterall, our intent was always to adopt a child who needs adopting, not one who will be adopted by someone else. if we just wanted healthy babies, we would obviously try to have our own, which would probably happen in one night, knowing the history of abundantly fertile genes in our families (not that you can predict if your own children will come out ok). why are we waiting for a quote unquote perfect baby when there are so many toddlers with minor health problems who need adopting?! i actually feel more at peace about this adoption now than i ever have.
Wednesday, Oct. 3, 2007There are rumors it could go past two years of waiting, which would mean it would go past this august of '08 since our log-in date is August of '06. Let's hope the rumors aren't true. The earliest we could get her is this spring, but like I said, at the rate China is moving right now to match up babies to parents, that won't happen. But I still hope it does!Thursday, September 28, 2006We finally received a "log-in" date for Sophie! China finally let our agency know our log-in date, which is the date our paperwork was logged in to their computer system. The date it was logged in is August 15. We are now one step further in the process. It'll probably be a year to a year and a half from that date that we go to China to pick up little Sophie.
