Spits and Wiggles

There is so much hurry-up-and-wait.

For three months, we worked as fast and as much as we could to gather paperwork and complete online training and meet our social worker.

And now … we wait.

I finally got the last piece of paperwork required for the home study over the weekend, and scanned and sent it off to Meredith (our lovely social worker). So now we wait for the home study report. Everything else is waiting on the home study report.

1. Next is the pile of paperwork that goes to the USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services), which is just waiting on a copy of the home study.
2. Then that pile goes in the dossier — the pile going to China — which also needs just a couple more things that will hopefully be finalized this week.

And the grant applications, of course, are also waiting on the home study.

So we’re waiting.

Home Study GIF Game

While we wait, I’m turning the home study into a fun game on Facebook. You get to answer some of the questions we had to answer, but — because I desperately wanted to do this, but couldn’t — you get to answer in GIFs (only).

Once question comin’ at ‘cha per week, which means we could keep this up for something like 57 years. Rough estimate. Follow the page and play along!  Read more…

We sold out of button sets during National Adoption Month last month, so we have a new little thank you for adoption gifts of $30 or more given in December!

C’mon. These guys are pretty cute.

They are hand-painted, glass ornaments. Which means each one has its own little personality, and that they are breakable. I only did 12 ’cause these will probably be for local friends.

If you’re not local and you really want one (I don’t blame you), pretty please consider adding a few more dollars for shipping and a prayer for divine protection. I will pack yours as carefully as possible (read: as carefully as I can afford), but – again – glass.

I also only did 12 ’cause I get that there are a lot of demands on everyone’s finances in December. Gifts aside, there are also a lot of charitable causes that offer tax deductions, and they’re all making their “end of the year” pleas to help us optimize our taxes for next April.

So if a dozen of these little dudes find Christmas trees to adorn this month, I’ll be pumped. (And if they don’t all find homes, Man Cub will be pumped, ’cause he really wants to keep all of them.)

You could consider it a Christmas gift given to a sweet little Chinese boy halfway around the world.

You could make it part of your Christmas/Advent tradition. Use it as a tool to talk to your kids about how adoption is laced throughout the nativity and the incarnation: A carpenter adopted a baby boy, and through that child our heavenly Father adopted us Gentiles into His family.

You could make it a reminder to pray for our persecuted brothers and sisters — in China and around the world — during the Christmas season. The Church often makes an extra effort to assemble for worship during Christmas and Easter holidays, and violent attacks and/or arrests often escalate as a result.

Or it could just be a super cute panda on your tree, smiling at you ’cause you helped save a little dude from a Chinese orphanage (and, probably – statistically speaking – a life of homelessness thereafter).

We’ll have these guys with us on Saturday at the movie night, or you can reserve one now via PayPal.

Merry Christmas!

We did it!

We asked if 30 people could gift $30 (1/day) in National Adoption Month, and you DID it! (And several of you gave more.) Thank you thank you thank you to everyone who prayed and shared and gave!

If you don’t have buttons yet they are either in the mail, or in my folder to bring to you in person.

Movie Night: Saturday, December 9

If you’re local, bring friends and family and come hang out for a super fun movie night next Saturday.

We’ll have Chinese candy and (American) popcorn. Donations for gift baskets to be raffled off are rolling in, and I’m super excited about all of this great stuff! Hand-lettered Christmas decor, Cambodian coffee, homemade soy candles, and more!

Movie will start at 6, so if you’re in the area, come a little early to get a snack and a seat!

And if you can’t make a donation at the door, don’t worry about it. Just come and hang out. Your presence is invaluable emotional support. Seriously.

We’re on the List!

Still waiting for the home study report. We need to submit a copy of a health insurance card, which we just signed up for November 1. The card went in the mail yesterday, so that’s one pile of paperwork almost complete!

And then we wait for the report.

In the meantime, the ONE thing that does NOT require a completed home study, is the application for the Waiting Child list with our agency. We finished that application over the weekend and it was accepted this week!

This means our family is officially on the list of families available to be matched with children ready for adoption!

(We’re on the bottom of the list, of course, but it still makes my stomach jump every time I think of it)

Every month, China releases a batch of files on children who are available for adoption. That list gets divided among the U.S. agencies who have relationships with China. Our agency takes their short list, and prayerfully compares it to the families on their list, to find matches.

As part of the application we identified the gender, age range, and any special needs/medical conditions we feel capable of parenting. Those are things they’re comparing to the children’s files. And, of course, lots of prayer.

But we don’t expect to hear about a match any time soon. We can’t even accept one until the home study, dossier, and immigration paperwork are all finalized and accepted, but the matching process takes so long that the agency lets us get on the list while we finish up paperwork.

Still though … we’re on the list. Something about it just feels so very real to me.

What’s Next?

Next, we finish the home study. Once that’s approved and finalized, we can start pushing the rest of the paperwork forward AND start applying for grants.

Which doesn’t mean the fundraising will stop. The buttons are gone, but I’m gonna have a new little thank you gift for anyone who feels like donating in December. Stay tuned on IG and Facebook.

How Can I Help?

You’re too much.

• Pray. Pray there’s no (more) hold ups with the health insurance card, and that the home study gets finalized without a hitch. And pray for our boy — wherever he is — and the people taking care of him for us.
• Movie Night. If you’re in the area, come hang out with us. If you’re in the area and want to help set up/clean up, hit me up and I’ll get you details. (Or … just show up an hour early or so.)

Thank you for going on this adventure with us!

Hey, friends. It’s been a while since I’ve shared a simple update. (I can always tell, ’cause I start to get more questions IRL. Ha.)

Physicals (aka Blood-Letting)

We all had to have physicals. Man Cub’s was easy and he aced it. All 41 pounds of him.

A week later, Husband and I went back for physicals and all the blood, disease, and urine tests.

And I passed out.

I knew I probably would (’cause I always do), but I was hopeful I could hold it together.

Dr. Paul knew I was a risk (to myself), so he laid the table all the way down. Husband held my legs up. I didn’t look. I took deep, calming breaths. Dr. Paul slid the needle into my vein and asked distracting questions like a pro, and then cotton-swabbed my elbow and I felt great!

And then he stuck me with the T.B. test. And that kind of hurt, but I was still conscious and feeling like a freaking rockstar.

And then I sat up. Which was the wrong thing to do.

I think I only actually lost consciousness for a fraction of a second, but they laid me back down. And got water. And held my legs.

And then I was okay.

I sat in the chair so Husband could have his turn, but then Man Cub was interested in what was happening (since it freaked me out so much). I curled up in the corner and pulled my furry hood over my head, but I could still hear them talking about needles and blood and then I wasn’t okay.

Different exam room. Different table. More water. Ugh.

In the end we’re totally fine. Low Vitamin D and Husband has a few too many lipids, but nothing drastic. We’re good.

Home Study Meetings

You read about how we messed up the first one. Fortunately the last two were at our house, so at least we couldn’t be late.  Read more…

There is so much uncertainty.

Which is ironic because just a few months ago I was reeling with the uncertainty of our general future — two or three roads were open before us and we didn’t know which way to go. When we finally decided international adoption was the right path there was an invigorating and energizing certainty.

For a minute.

Now, the idea of having only three uncertain futures before us seems like a cakewalk.

Which only serves to illustrate a lesson I should know by know: God will lead you down the right path, in His time, but it doesn’t necessarily mean it will be easier than standing at the fork waiting for instruction. In fact, it will almost certainly be harder.

Finances are a huge uncertainty. Where will the money come from? When will it come? What if it doesn’t come? What is the plan for finding it? What are plans B, C, and D for finding it? How do we know that Plan A is better than Plan B? What’s the contingency plan for when we don’t find it?

Timing is a massive uncertainty. Agency websites like to say 12 to 18 months. Some say 18 to 24 months. Some happen faster. Some take much longer. It depends on the country. It depends on the governments. It depends on the weather. It depends on the family. It depends on the medical conditions we can accept.

Let’s talk about medical conditions. There’s a five-page list (in two columns) of possible medical conditions. But things can also be misdiagnosed — for better or worse. Conditions can be missed completely. Developmental conditions could be long-term or short-term, depending on the child, the orphanage, the family …

Even the paperwork is really just a well-organized pile of uncertainty. We have all the right forms, but that doesn’t guarantee our home study will be approved. We can send all the right paperwork to China, but that doesn’t mean they’ll accept our application. We can submit all the right pages to the adoption program, but we have no idea if and/or when we might match a child available for adoption.

And, of course, the easy answer to is to keep our faith in God and his leading and his provision, and not worry about it, but the system kind of makes you worry about it. There’s no getting away from it.

We’ve filled out so many forms and signed so many pages acknowledging that we understand there are all of these inherent uncertainties and promising not to hold anyone else responsible for them. We’ve had so many conversations that seem to center around the phrase, “you just never know.”

And the invoices keep coming.

But the hope that anchors my soul in a perfect storm of uncertainty is something that came out of me one night — unplanned and unexpectedly — during a conversation about some of it.

I’m still not sure where it came from. It was not a premeditated concept; it actually caught me kind of off-guard. The reader may determine the level of divine inspiration that best suits him/her.

Husband and I were discussing some of the uncertainties, and as the questions piled up, with no answers rushing to their aid, I gave up altogether and more or less sighed, “I’m leaving room for God to do a miracle.”

And honestly, all the questions retreated to their strongholds.

Because the only way this is happening is if God does a miracle — a series of them, probably. He led us into this storm, so of course he will see us through it. I’m sure he will use people and natural processes for some, because he is gracious and humble like that. And for others, he will totally confound our logic and wisdom, because he is gracious and awesome like that.

And I’m looking forward to all of it.

Which means I have to leave room for it.

Because he can’t calm the sea if there is no storm.

I’m not looking forward to the storm. I hate the storm. I hate the uncertainty. But — while I still have a long way to go — I’ve survived enough storms, so far, to know that it’s worth it in the end just to be there when he gives the command, “Peace, be still.“