We had an interesting question from a friend recently. He was wondering just how a family who wants to adopt makes the decisions involved that leads up to a match. He specifically asked about location - domestic or international, and if international, what country? But I think the question also speaks to the many decisions an adoptive family must make as they embark upon this road.
In our case, we had always discussed adoption as something we thought was neat, interesting and maybe some far off possibility. In looking back, I'm still not exactly certain how we got from "how cool" to "let's do it" other than the fact that every place we turned God was bringing adoptive families into our world. Then we read "Adopted for Life". Then I told God "yes" if this what what He wanted us to do, I wanted to do it, too...and then I told my husband. He was caught a bit off guard and had to get up to speed before we could proceed. But even then, we were cautious.
Because we have 3 biological children and I have become quite accustomed to having children who are a bit more self-sufficient, I did not desire to return to the infant stage of life. Therefore, one of the first things we considered was whether we wanted to become foster/adopt parents to older preschoolers or early elementary aged children. However, because we are a military family and therefore could be required to move, we did not think that would be a good match. In addition, because we are a homeschool family, we want to be able to make educational decisions for all of our children and we would not have that freedom during the foster care stage.
So, we began considering international adoption, but as our friend asked, which country would be the right country for our family? Where did God want us to go? The first thing we did was obtain some recommendations for adoption agencies others had used for international adoptions. Then we looked at the programs they offered. Then I freaked out.
All the countries required more than I'd expected...more time until we could have our child(ren) home with us, more time in their country during the proceedings than I could ever envision spending, more trips back and forth and more money than I'd realized. About a month into the process, China became a strong contender and we began researching that. But I also felt strongly about adopting 2 children, preferably siblings. At one point I felt strongly that we were to seek 2 Chinese girls and name them Hope and Faith, only to find out that China made adopting two very difficult. I could not find possible ways to adopt 2 unless we were willing to take a chance on special needs that may be more significant, and finding known siblings would be almost impossible unless there was a set of twins.
But we pressed on and we contacted CCAI (the CC stands for "Chinese Children") at the recommendation of a friend who thought we could get our questions answered regarding our eligibility and available children. During that process we discovered that this agency that is highly respected for Chinese adoptions also had an adoption program with Haiti, and Haiti was the other country that I had highly desired for our adoption. Although we had never been to Haiti, we have ties in the Caribbean through our mission trips to Trinidad and we loved the area and the people we had met. Plus, after the earthquake of 2010 who didn't have a stirring for Haitian child? But Haiti has a law against parents with biological children in their home adopting Haitian children. And you have to visit multiple times, therefore leaving the child(ren) you have met and bonded with behind in the orphanage. I couldn't do that, or so I said.
First, we found out that while it involves an extra step and extra time, Haiti does allow parents with biological children to adopt with a Presidential Dispensation. It requires no extra work on the part of the adoptive parent, but does require added patience as there is no rhyme or reason to the timeframe in a Haitian adoption. Second, we found out that we could qualify to adopt 2 children with our current 3 biological children at home. And, third, the Lord impressed upon my heart that someone needs to be willing to go, fall in love with a child, and leave him/her behind for a time or no one will do it and adoptions from Haiti will cease. There were two children in Haiti who we had never met, but who we had prayed for, and who would be counting on our being willing to suffer great sadness in being separated from them in order to give them the forever family they needed.
There have been many times in these past 7 months when I have told myself that what we are doing is crazy, that I am ill-prepared, that this is a mistake. But my heart tells me otherwise. The message God gave me over and over again last summer was "Trust God", and every time I get fearful, discouraged or disheartened I consciously remind myself I am going to choose to trust God with this situation. Trust is a CHOICE! And I am choosing to trust that we are on the path God has set us upon and He will bring us through and use the trials to teach, stretch and grow us.
As for the names "Hope" and "Faith", our girls already have Haitian names and they don't seem to have any particular English meaning - no hidden "Hope" or "Faith" in there although that would have made a really cool ending to this story. We don't know if we will change their names, or simply give them American middle names - the choice will be theirs about the first names because we don't desire to take their identity away from them, only add to it. But I was drawn to a particular Bible verse recently. It's one I have been familiar with, but it took on new meaning for me..."Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1). It fits nicely to where we are as we hope for the future with all 5 of our children and we have faith that God will finish what He has started.
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Beginning to Catch Up
This will probably be a multi-day process because it's been a long time since I've posted and lots has happened since then. The last I posted, we were just starting the adoption process. I could just jump to where we are now (matched and we've met our children - stick around and there will be pictures in future posts), but I don't want to jump over the hurdles we've faced and evidences of God's work too quickly.
Right after my last post we began a great flurry of activity. There were legal documents to gather, physicals for each family member to obtain, bank statements to print out, forms of identification to copy, fingerprinting to do...the list goes on and on. Each foreign country has its own list of criteria and paperwork. The two things that Haiti required that added extra layers of appointments and paperwork were a letter from a psychiatrist (preferably, but none were willing to meet with us) or psychologist, stating that we were mentally stable to adopt, and my birth certificate had to match my other identifying documents.
Both of these added time to our process, time that we didn't want to be spending on paperwork, but that we now know were perfectly aligned with God's timing for our match. The letter from a psychiatrist/psychologist was very disheartening for a while. Because we have no prior relationship with either (except for the child psychologist who diagnosed our son with autism spectrum disorder), we had a very difficult time finding anyone who would even consider meeting with us. I understand that they want to be cautious, because it is their credentials on the line if they miss something significant, but no one even wanted to discuss meeting with us and doing a letter. We finally did find someone, and that meeting felt disastrous. It may have simply been nerves on my part, but it felt as if this psychologist was tearing us apart, viewing us as cultish, and dare I say it, crazy. I left that meeting feeling very disheartened. It was eye-opening and made me realize my world has gotten a little too closed off because everyone I know wholeheartedly supports adoption, homeschooling and our faith. I need some people in my life who are not totally like-minded so I don't get too complacent. But, that said, I also felt we needed to find someone else to do our letter.
Fortunately, as soon as we shared our concern among church friends, we began to get recommendations for other professionals who are Christian and who support both adoption and homeschooling. In the end, we met with someone who volunteered to meet with us, who had seen us in social settings and with our biological children, who has seen my husband in professional settings and who could give a well-informed opinion of our ability to parent adoptive children...and he even prayed for us before we left his office. God totally blessed us in this step!
The name spelling issue may come as a surprise to anyone reading this who has met me since middle school. That's about the time that I grew tired of the spelling of my name that was on my birth certificate and I began to use the "ie" form of my name. It's hard to believe that 2 little letters could cause such a hold up, but Haiti requires that all documents be identical, or a legal name change form be provided. While I had my driver's license, social security card, passport, all tax returns for many years, all property and legal documents in the "ie" spelling, I had never gone before a judge and paid the court costs to legally change the spelling. When I began changing these documents, I was in college and someone at one of the above offices let me fill out a name change form without problem and I thought it was no big deal...and it hadn't been until we started the adoption process. So, on October 3, I officially became "Stacie" rather than "Stacey"...much to my attorney neighbor's chagrin. He thought I should have taken this opportunity to select a much more interesting (crazy) name. I guess that's what I get for seeking free legal advise ;)
Right after my last post we began a great flurry of activity. There were legal documents to gather, physicals for each family member to obtain, bank statements to print out, forms of identification to copy, fingerprinting to do...the list goes on and on. Each foreign country has its own list of criteria and paperwork. The two things that Haiti required that added extra layers of appointments and paperwork were a letter from a psychiatrist (preferably, but none were willing to meet with us) or psychologist, stating that we were mentally stable to adopt, and my birth certificate had to match my other identifying documents.
Both of these added time to our process, time that we didn't want to be spending on paperwork, but that we now know were perfectly aligned with God's timing for our match. The letter from a psychiatrist/psychologist was very disheartening for a while. Because we have no prior relationship with either (except for the child psychologist who diagnosed our son with autism spectrum disorder), we had a very difficult time finding anyone who would even consider meeting with us. I understand that they want to be cautious, because it is their credentials on the line if they miss something significant, but no one even wanted to discuss meeting with us and doing a letter. We finally did find someone, and that meeting felt disastrous. It may have simply been nerves on my part, but it felt as if this psychologist was tearing us apart, viewing us as cultish, and dare I say it, crazy. I left that meeting feeling very disheartened. It was eye-opening and made me realize my world has gotten a little too closed off because everyone I know wholeheartedly supports adoption, homeschooling and our faith. I need some people in my life who are not totally like-minded so I don't get too complacent. But, that said, I also felt we needed to find someone else to do our letter.
Fortunately, as soon as we shared our concern among church friends, we began to get recommendations for other professionals who are Christian and who support both adoption and homeschooling. In the end, we met with someone who volunteered to meet with us, who had seen us in social settings and with our biological children, who has seen my husband in professional settings and who could give a well-informed opinion of our ability to parent adoptive children...and he even prayed for us before we left his office. God totally blessed us in this step!
The name spelling issue may come as a surprise to anyone reading this who has met me since middle school. That's about the time that I grew tired of the spelling of my name that was on my birth certificate and I began to use the "ie" form of my name. It's hard to believe that 2 little letters could cause such a hold up, but Haiti requires that all documents be identical, or a legal name change form be provided. While I had my driver's license, social security card, passport, all tax returns for many years, all property and legal documents in the "ie" spelling, I had never gone before a judge and paid the court costs to legally change the spelling. When I began changing these documents, I was in college and someone at one of the above offices let me fill out a name change form without problem and I thought it was no big deal...and it hadn't been until we started the adoption process. So, on October 3, I officially became "Stacie" rather than "Stacey"...much to my attorney neighbor's chagrin. He thought I should have taken this opportunity to select a much more interesting (crazy) name. I guess that's what I get for seeking free legal advise ;)
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