Well, I have been silent for awhile due to changes and activities going on around here. Some of you have known but now the rest will hear of our changes in our family. Karl and I decided to look into adoption about two years ago. It is something that has been in the back of our minds for quite some time. We know many successes and failures through family and friends. We prayed about it and talked with clergy to help us discern this big step in our lives. We came to the first stipulation, we could no longer proceed until our house in CT was sold. With Karl traveling for work and this uncertainty of when things would need to be taken care of there or if unplanned trips and expenses would happen. So this would be our first road block that God would help us to lift.
After the house was sold, we began looking into how we would adopt. The kiddos busted us scouring over pictures of children we were privy to via free sites on the web, both domestic and international. Due to money issues, we were first looking into domestic, i.e. within the US. We began weeding through all the red tape and information in order to educate us on our options. At this same time, one of our close family friends began their adoption classes with Catholic Charities in Baltimore after having problems with a local program through a Protestant Church that would not help Catholics. Anton also had a new boy on his soccer team who was recently adopted from Ethiopia, this was the third adoption for their family. We felt God was leading us toward not domestic adoption as we were getting discouraged by our findings in domestic adoptions and seeing two families within our church who were having success with international.
Why not domestic? This is what most everyone asks us when we inform them of our choice, so I will try to summarize our long answer. First, we did not want an infant. Second, we have not been located in one state for a specific amount of years, it varies by each state. Yes there is a waiver for military families for this particular regulation but it only opened up the borders, i.e. most agencies only allow people in either their city or state to accept their children. We did not want to go the foster route. By fostering children we then open up our family to constant intrusion by every social worker within 100 miles to decide if we are a good family. Yes, most of you will say we are a good family, but it means our home schooling, family activities, social networks, religion, travel, sanitary/cleanliness, etc. would be under exam without notice every day we would be in the foster program; no two reviews would have the same standards either! We also do not relish the idea of opening our home and hearts to a child(ren) only to have them yanked away at anytime the courts deem acceptable. Some people are called to this and we pray for them, but it is not something we could do. Why did I mention fostering, well it opens up the options of getting a non-special needs child that we could take within our home. The children listed in the system not in the foster first system tended to have at least one if not more of the following requirements:
a.) Wheel chair Accessible/ Few if any stairs (Our house is three stories and all bedrooms are on the top floor.)
b.) Must be the only child (No need to explain).
c.) No pets (See b)
d.) Must be the youngest and the child listed is 12 or older (Isabella is 10)
e.) Must remain in contact with family and within the state (these would be in Florida, Texas, Iowa, Georgia, Michigan, California, etc.)
Some people are called to adopt these children and they are truly amazing people, but it is humbling to admit you are not given that much grace to deal with all those requirements. We accepted that adding adopted children to our family would create change, but it does not have to change us completely. We can not go from a horse back riding, scout camping, soccer playing, gardening, active church family who home schools to weekly therapy, doctor appointments, school assessment reviews, IEP's, no sports or outdoor adventure type of family. It would be too much change for our family and destroy who we had become. Gone are the days of Annie when the US had true orphans. The domestic adoption system is mostly filled with abused or abusive, severely handicapped, temporarily removed from parents or family members who want to have them around but not actually raise the children. Movies like Annie and Stuart Little are set within the depression era for a reason, that was when orphanages did exist. Now the children are placed in foster homes or temporary shelters (used between foster homes or courts).
Yes, there are a few that do not fall within the above description. I would see them pop onto the system only to be gone before the week ended. So yes, we could have went through the domestic system, but we just did not feel we were capable to deal with this type of adoption.
On to International adoption! Yes, it does have its issues also, but not the same as domestic. In the International system, you truly have orphans or children who have been abandoned so they can be given food, shelter, and schooling. People in our country do not comprehend the idea of either having enough money for school or you do not go. Our country has the highest literacy rate due to public schooling, even with all the bad reports out there on test scores and international rating. One of the things we learned in our adoption classes was to expect all children adopted from over seas to be at least two years behind their age group for US schooling standards. You hear that in class but then you read it in reviews of children and it really hits you. The world is filled with people who do not know how to read or write, not just on an elementary level but really do not know letters. This is shocking to a country that the majority of people know letters and numbers even if not at a higher level. OK, I digressed here! I will get back to our journey!
We went to Catholic Charities and began the mountain of paperwork and inspections to be deemed passing by first the Agency, which amounts to the state as they have state inspectors do the inspecting. We spent months cleaning, organizing, and preparing for inspections. All floors must be baby proofed, something I had not worried about for quite some time, but since we were open to age two and up, we had to be deemed prepared. We still hate the child safety locks on the doors, cabinets, and stove knobs, but it does give us a greater peace when our friends come over with their young children. Once we passed the Home Study, which was the agency and state approval, it was on to the National. This meant Immigration and Home Land Security. This did not require anymore inspections but more money, paper work, and finger printing to verify we were who we said we were and no criminal records. Once this and our photo books were completed, photo books are visuals for the Foreign Adoption Board and also one for the child(ren) who we would be matched with., it was sent to our country of choice. We chose Philippines. Basically, when we went to our first meeting at Catholic Charities, we told them we were open to siblings. They responded quickly with Ethiopia or Philippines. Since we already have very close family friends who are Filipino, have Polynesian Background from living in Hawaii for two tours on submarines, already make the food, and the country is 85% Catholic, we thought it would be the easiest to incorporate into our family.
So ICAB, Inter-Country Adoption Board, received our dossier (the packet of specified paper work, photo books, etc.) via the Catholic Charities' contact person in the Philippines. They reviewed the material, and asked for a couple more things. Those items were created and faxed over. We were approved on June 9 to be put on their list. Thus would begin the waiting game. Our social worker who was assigned to us from Catholic Charities told us it could take up to three years to be matched. So we started to move on and begin saving for the next chunk of expenses we would be facing. We were fortunate enough to not have to borrow any money to cover the expenses in the beginning, there seems to be a large chunk in the beginning, then a waiting time till matched when the expenses for retrieving the child(ren) would start mounting.
OK, let me explain the expenses myth. No we are not purchasing or buying a child(ren). The expenses in the beginning was to cover our social worker/agency fees(this is a non-profit agency but they still have running expenses), state inspections (the state collects money to pay those salaries and to produce paper work), background checks (more paper work), copies of birth/marriage certificates, immigration/finger printing fees, photo book printing, the Filipino contact's fees (a portion of her salary as an employee of Catholic Charities), and filling fees to ICAB (another state run program that requires fees). Some of these fees were as needed; state inspections, different states for back ground checks, etc. Some were in one lump sum, Social worker/ Agency Fees, Filipino contact, and filling fees with ICAB.
Our next set of fees are to place the children with us and go get them. This means health inspections, visas, transportation related to these agencies for the Filipino contact and our children, a good will donation to the orphanage that has been raising the children (helps to cover food, clothing, supplies, and salaries to run the orphanage), travel expenses, country travel fees, legal fees to temporarily place Catholic Charities as legal guardian (The children must be in the states for 6 months before we can legally adopt them in court as per the Hague agreement with the US and Philippines. The children will be in our home with inspections at one month, three months and then six months to make sure we are blending.), etc. So we figured we had time to save up for these expenses.
Imagine our shock when our Social Worker called last week to say we have a match. We were being offered two children to see if we thought they would be a match for us. One of the children is close to Isabella's age, loves card making/art, sweet, ready to help take care of the house chores and smaller children. The second is seven, loves adventure, climbing, and playing Lego's. Both are in excellent health with no known medical/psychological problems. The younger needs some dental work and when the older is frustrated she might talk back (err sounds normal for a pre-teen). Both are girls who were abandoned to the orphanage because their family could not take care of them. They are looking for a family to love them, and take care of them. They want stability. In the orphanage they have been given enough food, clothing, and shelter along with some schooling. They are in an American Christian Orphanage where they are taught in both Tagalog and English. Tagalog is the base language (like how the Amish all speak Penn Dutch) but then learn English for all legal and business transactions. Both girls can speak both and can write some in both. They have been in the orphanage for less than two years.
Karl and I are looking at our finances very carefully. We know we are getting ready to have to find some large sums of money fast and minimizing the amount we borrow or charge. We have some options. One thing you will notice is the button on the side bar of my blog for Amazon. I am asking you to click on the button to link you into Amazon when you are making purchases. If you do this, then Amazon will pay us a portion of the transaction as Advertising fees. This will allow us to come up with some money to off set the expenses with no real effort on your part other than clicking the button BEFORE you shop. You must complete your transaction through the link in order for us to get credit for it. I know I shop a lot through Amazon, so I was hoping you could help us by clicking before you purchase what you were already planning to purchase. Thank you for your trouble. We hope to bring the girls home before Christmas, but it all depends on the finances! If we are able to do this, then we will be able to legally adopt them in Mid to late Spring!
So get your Back to School, Birthday and Christams Shopping started! Just a friendly push for a good cause!
