Musings of a Whimsical Realist

I get to write this blog post!  We have submitted the paperwork with our new agency to request our waivers . . . which you may recall means that WE HAVE FOUND A MATCH! After reviewing and returning the file for little girl “Iy,” I had come to two realizations.  1. That Hubby and I were both feeling strongly and persistently drawn to the idea that our next daughter would have hearing loss.  2. That in this part of the process, the main “currency” is timeliness.  So I began a new routine . . . every morning, I would sit down to breakfast at my computer and go through my bookmarked lists looking for new listings that might meet our parameters. On Thursday, September 18th, I was looking online yet again when I saw a new listing.  Less than 12 hours after it appeared online, I called the agency to request to review her file.  Late that night (after much extra effort on the inquiry specialist’s part to get us the information after their internet went down!), we m...

It has been almost 4 weeks since I’ve blogged . . . and what a crazy 4 weeks!  We finished off summer with a family vacation to the coast and then started 2nd grade with Firstborn and preschool with the twins.  Along with a bunch of new teaching opportunities and the fall re-start of extracurricular fun.  In the midst of all that, things have NOT been silent on the adoption front.  In this instance, though, I am going to tell you the end of the story first . . . we are basically back where we started, although a little more experienced from the detour. Again, I want to stress, we are not the norm when it comes to the beginning of this journey.  Most of the time, you complete mountains of paperwork for a country from which you qualify for adoption.  But since our hearts are still with China, we are reversing the process to find the child BEFORE the main bulk of the paperwork.  No easy task indeed. To make the new information a bit less confusing, ...

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 ...