Getting Closer :)

We received our official LOAs (letters of approval) in June and after more paperwork, we are now on Step 13! Our Article 5 Drop-Off was today, so it will be picked up 8/23 and then we will begin our wait for Travel Approval.

The girls and I went to Greensboro last week and Anna Grace and I drove to Charlotte to hit Ikea one day to get some furniture for the boys' room. We came home with 2 cribs and a dresser. :)

Thank you for continuing to pray for us as we prepare for our growing family and for the sweet hearts and health of our boys.

LID 5/31!

Our dossier has been received and officially logged in! 

Step 8 Complete! :)

We are DTC!!

We're on the next step: DTC (Dossier to China), which means all of our adoption documents have been sent to China. One step closer to Gabriel and Samuel! :)

China Adoption Timeline

China Adoption Timeline

 The chart above gives you an idea of the steps involved in our adoption. It doesn't include everything- like all of the paperwork involved with the homestudy, etc., but it's a good chart for the process overall.  As noted below, we are on Steps 6. Hope this chart is helpful in giving you an idea of what is involved! 

11/01/15 LOI sent for Gabriel

11/11/15 Pre-Approval received

12/10/15 LOI sent for Samuel

12/17/15 Pre-Approval received

Began Paperwork:
Ordered birth, marriage certificates

Financial Forms

Medicals for each family member

Employment letters

Request reference letters from friends

Begin Parent Education Course 

Step 1                             1/4/16   First Homestudy Visit

                                         2/26/16 Last Homestudy Visit

Steps 2 and 3             3/1/16   Homestudy complete and sent to Wasatch for review

                                         3/7/16   Homestudy Approved

Step 4                            3/10/16 I800A application mailed

                                         4/4/16   Fingerprint appointment for I800A in Raleigh

Step 5                            4/26/16 I800A Approval to Adopt

Not listed on the chart above- Send all documents to be authenticated 

(State level, US State Dept, and Chinese Embassy) 

Step 6                Waiting for authentications to be complete and sent to agency
                 

Saying Yes- Samuel Theodore

A few weeks after beginning the paper chase for Gabriel, I sent my agency an email asking for information about adopting two children at the same time. I wasn’t sure why I was asking them about it because I honestly didn’t think there was any way we could or should consider it, but I couldn’t dismiss the feeling that we had two children waiting for us. Chip and I talked and prayed about it, and I tried to step back and allow God to confirm it through him.

About a week later, our daughter, Anna Grace, and I were up late the night before Thanksgiving. As we were talking about Gabriel and the adoption, she asked if it was possible to adopt two children at the same time. I stared at her and felt my heart race. I told her that it was and we were actually praying about it. She shared that on the drive home that day (she lives about 5 hours away), she couldn’t help but think that we were supposed to adopt two children.

The next morning (Thanksgiving Day), Chip posted this as his Facebook status:

I am grateful for my Savior and the grace and peace He gives me daily. I am grateful for my wife and children- to include the one(s) we haven't met yet. I am grateful for friends, whether recent or lifelong. I am grateful for family, near and distant, living and passed. I am grateful for warriors and patriots.

The (s) was his way of letting me know the answer was yes. :)

I first saw Samuel through an advocacy group on Facebook and I asked his agency to see his file. I won’t go into the details, but his needs are complex. I was able to speak with another adoptive mom whose son had similar needs and she was incredibly kind and gave us a lot of information. (I can’t say enough about how incredible it’s been to be able to connect with other adoptive families in various Facebook groups. It's been such a blessing.)

Samuel Theodore

Samuel’s file was with a different agency and we needed to request it be transferred to ours. We were told to wait a week and inquire again because they wanted to try to place him in one of their families, if possible. Some agencies won’t transfer files at all, so we were thankful we at least had a chance. We waited a week and asked again, but within hours of the agency letting us know they would transfer the file, they received notice from China that an agency in Italy wanted the file. It was a roller coaster day and night of emotions- we had no idea if we would be able to get the file or not, but we prepared a LOI (letter of intent) to be submitted immediately in case we were. I cried a lot that day- I thought we were Samuel’s family and I thought we were going to lose him. During one of my teary prayers, a verse came to me:

I prayed for this child, and the LORD has granted me what I asked of him. 1 Samuel 1:27

I knew at that moment that if God did allow us to receive his file, his name would be Samuel. I sent Anna Grace a text and told her that I felt his name should be Samuel, but I accidentally sent her the wrong reference. For some reason, I typed “1 Samuel 1:17.” Out of curiosity, I looked up that verse- just to see what it said. It reads:

“Eli answered, ‘Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant you what you have asked him.”

Our agency sent us an email around 9:30pm telling us his file was ours. Our LOI was sent the next day and we received pre-approval for Samuel Theodore about a week later. So very grateful God's answer to our prayer was yes. 

Two sweet boys ~ so loved.

Saying Yes ~ Gabriel Michael

Sometimes it's a blank stare.  Sometimes, it's a dropped jaw.  The reactions differ, but most express surprise and wonder at the news our family is growing by 2 toddler-aged boys. At our age, most couples are pretty close to having an empty nest- and the only toddlers they see in their future are grandchildren. Until late summer of last year, that described us, as well. We completely understand the somewhat confused and "Are you crazy?" looks.

While we live in a community in which international adoption is fairly unusual, we have the privilege of knowing several families that have adopted children and, through social media, we've been able to keep in touch and watch these families grow. Watching one of these families head down the path of adoption (for the fifth time) was instrumental in opening our eyes and hearts to the possibility of being called to adopt again. That family's repeated "yes," caused me to ask myself some hard questions and led us to pray and seek God's will for our family.

I prayed that if this was a call by God, that he would confirm it through Chip. I didn't want my emotions to cloud my thinking, and I knew if this was part of God's plan for us, Chip would pray and come to agree.

One evening, I did an internet search for China adoption agencies to research the changes in the adoption process from our last experience ten years ago. One big change to adoptions in China is that it is now possible for adoptive parents to identify a specific child versus waiting for China to match a child to your family. Most adoption agencies have a "waiting child list" in which you can view profiles of children that need families. These profiles give information about the child and describe what kind of special need they have. All children adopted from China now have some kind of special medical need.
 

Over the next several days, I kept going back to one little boy's profile. I read his information and watched his videos over and over. I'd turn off the computer and try not to think about it, only to pull up his page again the next day (or 15 minutes later). I questioned and prayed.

Gabriel Michael

I sent his information to Chip and he questioned and prayed. We were understandably shaken. Could God really be calling us to be mommy and daddy to this little one? At our age?? Could we handle his needs? Could we really do this? Perhaps more importantly- if not us, who? How could we not? Over the next few weeks we prayed and sought God's guidance and he answered our prayers and gave us direction.

We submitted our Letter of Intent (LOI) to China on November 1, 2015, stating our desire to adopt a specific child. Ten days later, we received Pre-Approval from China, and the journey to Gabriel had officially begun.  Well, in the eyes of the world it had begun- for we know our path to him was known to God long before the foundation of this earth was laid. 

The Beginning~Chloe Mei

Where it all began-

We don't really fit the "typical" (there's really nothing typical about any of us) mold of adoptive parents. We have 3 biological children. As children, we didn't dream of adopting when we grew up. We never discussed adoption when we were dating. The reality is, neither one of us ever gave adoption a second thought before a deployment to Haiti in 2004 shattered our comfortable little world in which orphans existed for the most part in television, movies, stories, and articles we read- where they were kept a safe distance from our hearts. The months my husband spent in Haiti changed all of that. He came face to face, hand to hand, and heart to heart with the faces of the fatherless and motherless. It changed him (and us) and as the months went by we found ourselves praying about adoption. We didn't know who, what, or where, but we knew God had a plan.

When he returned home, we discussed the possibility of adopting one of the boys he had come to know in Haiti. He was an older child, and ultimately he expressed a desire to stay in Haiti so he could help other children when he grew up. We thought perhaps God's plan was simply for us to pray and obey. We prayed, we were obedient by asking about this child, the child said no thank-you, so we were finished. Right?

Not quite. It seemed like every time we read a magazine, turned on the television, or listened to the radio we heard about China and their one-child policy. One night, as we flipped through the channels,  we saw a documentary called China's Lost Girls. At some point, we looked at each other and Chip said, "I really do not want a baby!  I do not want to have to deal with diapers again!" I wholeheartedly agreed. And so, the slow drip from newspapers, magazines, television and radio continued, growing to an information avalanche over the next few weeks.


Chip's words- "The final straw came one day as I was on my way home from work.  As I sat at a stoplight listening to Focus on the Family, Dr. Dobson came on and said that he was pre-empting his regularly scheduled show that day to talk about something that was weighing heavily on his heart.  I remember thinking to myself, "he's going to talk about the little girls in China"- and sure enough, he did.  At that point, I literally said in my "enough-already" tone of voice, "Okay, God, I got it!"

That night after dinner, Laura and I went for a walk.  I told her that I thought that God was telling me that we should adopt, that it had to be the message He was sending through all of the stories about the China girls.  It was then that she told me through sobs of joy that she knew we were supposed to do something and that she had been praying that God would show me exactly what that was.  We didn't know the first thing about what to do or how to do it, but we knew from all of the stories that we absolutely could not afford it.  But we resolved to do it anyway, certain that if we were wrong about this being God's will for us, that He would close the door and keep the adoption from happening.  Basically, we just decided to get out of the boat and trust God to buoy us up through the waves that we knew were sure to come."

 
11 months later, there was one less orphan in China. We readily admit that when we began the adoption process, we felt thankful that God was using us to help her. We would be able to offer her opportunities, give her love, and provide for her in ways she would never have in China. We felt good about that. And while that is true, within days of having her in our arms we realized she blessed us and our family in ways beyond what we could ever do for her. So very blessed. God has been so gracious to us. Words fail.