Special focus child and a little background

So yesterday we inquired about a special focus child. I never expected to inquire about a child because it means the child has more extensive needs, but I saw a child and wanted to know more. She was right around a year old and did not have a right hand. Her birth family abandoned her at 5 days old. Her history said that she was not yet crawling (not at all unusual for orphan care) and had some developmental delays. We were interested to know what type of developmental delays she had. The good news is that the little girl found her forever family last Friday but the bad news is that she is not ours.

In this journey we will not get a referral for a child until we have a LID. LID is the date our dossier is logged in to China. We have to complete our dossier (a long process that I talked about yesterday), complete our fingerprints and have them approved, have our dossier sent to China and then sometime after that we will have a LID. We are hoping to have a 2012 referral, but it could be sometime early next year. We will wait for a child that matches the special needs we feel we could accommodate in our family. Sometimes it happens right after your LID, sometimes it is many months later .  The good news for these children, but the bad news for us, is that waits are getting longer. Waiting families are more willing to take minor special needs so the good news is that there is less of a wait for these children to get to a forever family, but longer waits for families. The bad news is that children with more extensive needs wait a very long time. Once a child has not been matched and has waited for a certain period of time, they become a special focus child. You can request to review the file of a special focus child at any time in the process.

Recent updates

We have a ton going on in our adoption process, but none of it is that exciting.  I am working like mad on our dossier paperwork.  For those unfamiliar with the international adoption process, the dossier is comprised of all of our birth certificates, marriage license, employment verifications, physicals, vaccination records, budgets, passports and several other things that I am forgetting at the moment.  After I get certified copies of these documents, then they have to go back to the secretary of the state they came from and they have to be authenticated.  Then all the docs have to be sent to a US consulate...... oh and they can't be just any US consulate or the same US Consulate.  Each state is in a different US Consulate region, so Ohio docs have to go to one US Consulate, Georgia docs to another, etc.  And every place you send something charges a small fee (generally $15-$20) plus the cost for sending it certified, receipt requested and sending a return envelope, receipt requested.  Plus for the Consulates, you have to pay for a courier because they can't be mailed.  They have to be walked in, in person.  Then after ALL that, they have to be notarized and approved by the state of GA before our agency then approves them, translates them and sends them to China.  It is incredibly overwhelming, but it is what it is and I am trying to work through it all as quickly as possible.  I understand now why they say the dossier process can take up to 4-6 months.  After we get all our docs through this process, then we apply for our 1-800A, which is the application to adopt a child from a Convention Country.  When that is received and processed, we get our invitation to go downtown ATL and be fingerprinted. WOW, did you get all that? I can't believe that it is starting to make sense to me.  :)

The good news though is that we have had all of our home study appointments and our home study has been tentatively approved, pending the receipt of all the required documents that are part of the dossier.

An article about having a second child in China

This article talks about having a second child in China

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20111224/D9RQSRN00.html

Accepted to adopt from China

We have been accepted in to the Waiting Child program by CCAI- 

Chinese Children Adoption International!!!

What does that mean?  

Well, I attached the website, so you can get some details.

CCAI Waiting Children

But basically it means that we have decided to adopt a toddler or preschooler from China.  The child will have some sort of special need.  Since it will probably take about 18-24 months before we have our sweet girl home, we figure our baby girl could be being born right now.  She will grow up in an orphanage and maybe spend a little time in a foster home, if she is really a lucky girl.

Why did we choose China and this program?

To be honest, we originally said that we would not pursue an international adoption due to the extensive travel. It is hard to go to another country to adopt when you have children at home.  Most countries require 30 days in country and a lot of countries require more than one trip.  Our friends, Sandy and Jeff, volunteered to help my mom with the care of our boys, which opened the door a couple months ago for us to begin thinking about international adoption.

China requires a shorter stay than most countries.  We would be home in one trip of 14-17 days.  In the case we receive travel approval at a time of year when it would be very difficult for David to travel, I can bring a friend or family member with me.  (We are really praying this is not the case as David is a much better traveler than I am and we really want to do this together, but it at least gives us a safety net, if needed.)

When we originally looked at China, it was due to the security of the program and the moderate travel schedule.  To adopt a healthy child would take 5-6 years, so we looked at the waiting child program and my heart was stirred.

For a little background, David was born with club feet, I was born with amblyopia and Cole has autism.  If we were born in China, rather than America, we would have been less desirable and any of us might have been abandoned.  To think about my sweet Cole growing up in an orphanage because he was not wanted broke my heart.  You might say, but you didn't know Cole had issues until he was almost 2, but in China, that often doesn't matter.  With the one child law, and a society without social security, having a healthy boy is your retirement plan.  People often abandon girls right away in the hope that the next child will be a boy.  But sometimes children are not abandoned until a healthier child or a boy comes along.  Most times people can not afford the fine, at least a full year's salary often as much as 4-9 times the family's yearly salary, depending on the province and the whim of the local family planning official, to have a second child.  In other cases, as the child grows, they can not afford the fine and the medical expenses.  This does not mean these children are not loved.  (This has been hard for me to get my mind around.)

Often times parents will go to great measures to hide pregnancies to avoid being forced in to abortion if it is their second child and they will abandon their children far away from their homes, to avoid being caught, but in very public areas, to insure the child is found and cared for.  A special needs child does not have much hope for a future in China.  They are often hidden and are generally unschooled.  They look forward to a life of poverty and often begging.  Parents know that growing up in an orphanage is awful, but they have great hope of the child being eventually adopted and given a better life.  We decided that we can give a child that better life.  We are not rich, by any means, but we are blessed and with our insurance, resources and love, we can give an abandoned child much more than they had the hope for in their country.

After MUCH prayer, we feel this is where God is calling us and where our third child is.  It will be a long road and we will not have our child for a long time, but we are ready and on our way.  We start orientation this Friday, 4/27/12.

The end to that

Well, just a brief update.  The domestic situation that seemed like it might happen, did not.  It was a hard end due to the way it happened, but after a week, we are at peace.  Despite some terribly bruised emotions and maybe a little anger for the way it all happened, we know that God is in charge.  Who knows what God has in store for us, but we are at peace to see. God is good, ALL THE TIME!!  We are committed to praying for the birth mom and dad and the child that will be born soon, but it was not meant to be our child.

An email that opened the door to a possible domestic adoption

I want to say more about the possible domestic adoption possibility we have, without giving too much information, for legal reasons and for the privacy of everyone involved.

David had such a great year at his company, that he won a trip to his company's president's club. He has won every year that he has been in sales (a little bragging on one's hubby never hurt anyone) but this year the winners got to take their spouses. (Also due to my hubby pushing his bosses to let them take spouses!! Love that guy!!) This year the president's club was at Captiva Island.

So on the morning of March 24, we were hanging in our hotel room. We had a little time before we were supposed to meet our friends to go to the pool and decided to kill some time and check emails. I had an email from a sweet friend (K) that asked us where we were in the adoption process. She had a friend (C) that had adopted two of her four children and that friend was approached by a neighbor about a possible adoption situation. The neighbor was the mom of a teen expectant father, and the family was pursuing adoption for the baby. C was not interested in growing her family any further, but remembered that K had told her about us.

We gave our information to K and approved the family to call us. Then K delivered her third child, only hours after that, so we didn't hear back for a few days. (I guess that third one comes fast.) On Wednesday, I spoke with K's friend, C, and found out more about the family. On Thursday, I spoke with the mom of the expectant father. Over the weekend, we had several conversations and texts with the expectant parents and now we wait. They expect to make their final decision by the end of the second week of April. The expectant mother is due May 6.

At this point, it does not seem that this will be a match for us, although it certainly felt like it for a while. We are trying to put ourselves in the position that if we get a call, we can jump through the legal hoops that we need to, to take the referral, while at the same time, not get our hopes up.

This adoption thing is all about hurry up and wait!!

Introduction to adoption

For those who didn't know, we are hoping to grow our family through adoption.

As a little background, we have always faced fertility issues, but have been blessed with two wonderful boys and several babies in heaven. We have more love to give, but after our last miscarriage, of twins in the summer of 2010, we knew we were done. After a short while, we started playing with the idea of adoption. I felt that our family was not complete and although David tended to agree, the cost and process was completely overwhelming. For the next year I did a ton of research and in the spring of 2011, we decided to move forward with adoption. At Christmas, we sent letters to everyone we knew, hoping for a private referral. Due to our age, we gave ourselves a year.

In March 2012, we decided to pursue an international adoption, while still being open to domestic adoption.