Musings of a Whimsical Realist

The wall will not be moved.  Although we have not received official confirmation from the agency due to a vacation absence, Child A is no longer listed on the waiting child list and Child B is "On Hold" as we were warned would probably happen.  It seems that our path does not lie in this direction. And so we take another path.  I have begun an inquiry with a third agency regarding a potential match (the other little girl I referenced in my last post).  A positive to beginning again the process of acquainting ourselves with an agency is that this agency is also a Christian agency.  There is a good measure of peace in knowing that we are working with fellow brothers and sisters in Christ for the placement of these dear little ones! As we wait for word from the new agency, please be lifting Child A and Child B up in prayer as they are in process to meeting their forever families.  The most difficult part of that whole process was not knowing the type of ho...

After spending a day and a half emotionally processing the fact that Child A (the little girl we were pursuing) was on hold with another family, I realized that I had more questions for the agency.  As I mentioned before, our information is on file if something falls through with her adoption.  Now I have a few more specifics.  It was one of the first two families reviewing her file that decided to go forward with the adoption.  The agency estimates that there is a 75% chance that they will get the approval from China for the adoption.  We should know for certain in 2-3 weeks.  IF (note: BIG if) something were to happen to prevent that adoption moving forward, we would get to review her file and would be second in line for pursuing her adoption. Also, as we were initially waiting to hear about Child A for over 3 weeks, I was continuing to look at other waiting children listings online.  There were two other girls that seemed like potential matches....

This is not the blog post that I wanted to be writing.  I rather detest writing it, to be exact.  But after two weeks of waiting and praying, we found out officially today that the little girl we were hoping to pursue is now ON HOLD with one of the families in line ahead of us.  This means that her file is locked for them as they begin the official paperwork for adopting her.  While our information is still on file if something falls through, the much, much more likely scenario is that this path is not ours. This is miserably hard.  For me, the emotions that must be processed fall somewhere between how you feel when the pregnancy test is negative after months of trying and how you feel when you find out you are miscarrying.  I am glad that this little girl is going to have a forever family and the chance to become whom God wants her to be.  But let’s be honest – I wanted this family to be ours. Please pray for peace.  Pray for healing.  T...

So after several weeks of calm on the adoption front (I even got a call from our case worker just to check in with us since we were in a small holding pattern), everything went crazy about two weeks ago.  I was online perusing some files of Waiting Children in China, trying to get a glimpse of what many of the special needs look like apart from a black and white text.  In the midst of viewing so many sweet faces and hopeful children, I came across a little girl who quickly captured my attention.  Because of strict guidelines about sharing information about Waiting Children, the information that I can share will be vague for now (eg. no name, just pronouns).  She is in our age range (0-2 years), and her special need is significant hearing loss.  I felt my heart leap at the possibility!  While we have a fairly expansive list of special needs that we will consider, hearing loss is still at the top of our list.  BUT her file belongs to another agency. ...

Bringing the school year to an end (cheers for finishing homeschool 1st grade with Firstborn!) and preparing for our spring dance performance AND finishing our backyard project (woohoo!) have kept us very busy for the last 2 weeks, which is how long it has been since I’ve posted an update.  And things have not been quiet in the area of adoption either! First, the “bad” news.  On Monday June 2nd, I got a call from our adoption agency, All God’s Children International . . . there is no child currently meeting our parameters on the Waiting Child list.  Our case worker did assure me that the China director was pleased with our Medical Conditions parameters and what we are open to accepting.  The largest two factors making it difficult to match us with a child right now are gender (girls make up less than half of the Waiting Child list) and age (10 months or more younger than the twins, so 2 ½ max). In the meantime, our application was preliminarily accepted, and I ...

It’s hard to believe that my last blog post was only 8 days ago – they have been busy, emotional, crazy, exciting days! Roadblock #2 As I mentioned in my last post , we didn’t met a criteria for adopting from China – the net worth requirement of $80,000.  So we knew that we would need to be willing to adopt from the Waiting Child list to even have a possibility of adopting from China.  Well, no sooner had I posted that blog, then roadblock #2 arose via a question that I put to our case worker.  A part of my journey in 2013 was recognizing a need for some medical intervention due to stress-related symptoms.  I began taking a low-dose prescription, which has been very successful for me.  However, ANY type of medication for anxiety/stress/depression in China is considered a mental health issue.  So we had just failed another requirement. This was not an easy thing to hear.  Feelings of inadequacy and being “broken” flooded me, as well as fear that o...

While financial wrangling was a huge part of our process last year, we also found ourselves “making life-changing decisions.” That particular aspect continued into this year, the last month seeing us putting down some roots into those decisions. Part 1 of this post was written at the end of April -- even since then, things have progressed! The biggest decision that Hubby and I have been praying over and discussing is whether or not to adopt from the Waiting Child list. This list includes minor to severe medical and/or mental issues and older children; some of the medical issues are correctable with better treatment options in the States. This is a daunting, challenging, VERY personal decision to make! I have to admit to struggling with myself for months about this. Thoughts flew through my mind, including: “Can I take on the extra challenge that a Waiting Child will bring?” “Am I a horrible person for thinking that I can’t handle certain issues?” “Will the extra needs of a Waitin...