Happy Friday, friends!
So, remember that time I thought we were home study approved? Yeah, so we technically were not yet. This actually IS my first rodeo in the adoption world, and I misunderstood our social worker when she told me that "this part was done" in her email. What she actually meant was HER part was done...but this is international adoption, and if I've learned anything in the past several months, I've learned that there are always MULTIPLE approvals that have to happen for every single step, so were not in fact home study approved then. We were a few approvals shy...
But, as of Tuesday, we are NOW approved. For real this time. ;) So, let's celebrate again! We should be receiving the actual report from our social services agency any day, and then we can mail in our immigration approval. That should take somewhere between 6 and 12 weeks to get back, and that'll be the final piece to our dossier puzzle. I have my fingers crossed that our dossier will be sent to China sometime in January, but that depends on how quickly USCIS (aka the immigration people) give us our approval.
My life right now...this made me laugh. :)
The crazy thing about now having our "official" home study approval from Holt is that we've been added to their family list! This means we could get "the call" any day now to review a child's file! Because we are open on gender, we have been told our match could happen, at least unofficially within the next couple of months. (They say a "long" wait time to match a family who is open on gender is four months...) For those of you unfamiliar with the process, the adoption agencies do all of the matching and referrals for China adoptions; the government in China does not get involved at all until the agency and family have agreed to the match, so it's possible that we could submit our dossier to China already matched. EEEEK! SO exciting!
So, with that shared, I have a two prayer requests to share if you are the praying kind...
1) Financial Provision: I know, the icky part. :( If I'm going to paint an accurate description of the international adoption process for you here, there's just no way to sugarcoat this part of it. Typically a fee is involved with all of the exciting milestones that happen in the process, and we are being hit with some big ones right now. Would you continue to pray for us here? We are absolutely humbled by the generosity of those who want to see us grow, and we are blown away by the support we have received already. (Side note: A huge thank you to my brother and his wife who held a garage sale in our honor last weekend and to my amazing friend, Laurel, who is donating half of our Rodan + Fields proceeds to us from her November sales. If you are interested in trying her products, shop her website HERE.)
2) Wisdom on Travel: After discussing travel with our social worker and several friends, we are really leaning toward taking the kids with us to China. Adoption is a family event, and we feel like we should go there and return as a family unit. We really feel like the transition for all three kids will be easier if everyone is included in the process...HOWEVER, that means flying all four of us there, bigger hotel rooms, AND flying all FIVE of us home. (I get an eye twitch just thinking about that part...) But, this child is getting a WHOLE family, not just a mommy and daddy, and I think Carter and Kate will feel less resentment if they experience the adoption with us. It's a huge decision, so prayers for wisdom and clarity here would be so appreciated.
Thanks for continuing to follow us in this journey. And stay tuned next week...I've gotten countless questions from friends about how I "convinced" my husband to adopt (spoiler alert: I didn't...), so I have asked him to share HIS side of this journey with you. I've done all of the talking up until this point, so it's about time you heard from HIM how we got here! :)
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