Busy Beginnings

Besides deep cleaning and completely reorganizing the house, I have jumped head first into the paper work for the home study. Here's what I've done so far.

• Sent a request for Tim's birth certificate. I'll get mine when we go home for Christmas.
• We'll also make a short road trip during Christmas for our marriage certificate.
• Made copies of our last 3 years of tax returns and our W2s.
• Proof of car insurance.
• Proof of home insurance.
• Proof of life insurance for each of us.
• Copies of driver's licenses.
• Made a list of people who will be references. (Still waiting for the okay and mailing info from a few.)
• List of all past residences since the age of 18.
• Passport pictures taken. Forms filled out. Waiting for birth certificates to submit.

That's half the list! The other half, though, won't be as quick to complete. Letters from employers, police clearance, fingerprints, education hours, just to name a few.

Then, for the placing agency, I have their paperwork almost completed, and we had our family picture made today to include. Once that is submitted, they send us the contract, we sign it and return it, and they send us the dossier. Then the DEEP paperwork begins.

All of this plus Thanksgiving, Christmas preparations, extra Christmas choir practices, resumed homeschooling, Eli sick (only one day, "Thank you, Lord!"), and on and on and on. So I guess I'd better get back to cleaning now...

Woo-Hoo! We're Official

Okay, all you veteran adoptive parents, laugh at me if you want. But I feel we have finally made it to the first mile marker in a decathalon...I mean that as an accomplishment. The boys and I went by the local adoption agency (our home study agency) and turned in a lengthy application complete with autobiographies and our first check of many. We have already scheduled our first visit from the agency. Now I begin collecting birth certificates, marriage certificates, references, tax returns, medical forms, proof of insurances, background checks, fingerprints, etc., etc., etc. Right now as we begin, I am bound and determined to do this as quickly as I am able while not getting frustrated when we are delayed by others who do not feel my sense of urgency. : )

I have received the official application from the placing agency, and we'll be working through that over the Thanksgiving break.

Tree of Life

Last night we had a wonderful phone call/meeting with Kay from Tree of Life adoption agency. They are going to be our placing agency. This was our chance to "meet" her, get information, and ask questions before officially committing to this agency. We came away from that call feeling VERY comfortable with her and their Bulgarian program. Kay, herself, has 3 children from Bulgaria, so I feel that she has a very personal interest in this program.

I think Tim and I both got a boost in our excitement and committment to moving forward. He is going to try to finish those last items today or tomorrow so we can get everything notarized Monday and maybe turned in Tuesday or so. There is so much to do, and with his Christmas break coming up soon, that will be a great time to try to tackle as much as we can at one time.

After the phone call, we continued our discussion over a wonderful dinner for just the two of us at Red Lobster. I LOVE seafood, but I don't get it often because it is expensive. But my wonderfully talented husband was able to pack 11 large marshmellows in his mouth at a recent Sunday School party and won a gift card to Red Lobster. We won't dwell on the fact that he got a marshmellow for every question we didn't answer or the fact that there were 11 questions asked.

As for the kids, I've started talking to them a little more about how they feel about the adoption. I figure I need to prepare them a little for any questions they have to answer during the home study. One of the things agencies point out for us to make sure WE are ready for is the fact that we are adopting transracially. These kids will be Roma (or gypsy) with darker skin and black hair. (Kay said people have asked her children why they don't speak Spanish. She said often others think her kids are from Guatemala.) When I asked Colton if he was okay with their skin being a little darker than ours, he looked up suddenly at me with a confused look on his face and said "sure". But he looked at me as though I had asked one of the dumbest questions he'd ever heard. He is WAY more concerned over the fact that they will be girls. He and Eli aren't sure how they feel about finding pink stuff or dolls left in their room. That's my boys!

Ready to Apply

Thanks to everyone who gave me feedback on my last post. It was very helpful. I've actually sat down several times to update my blog, but things have just been so busy. So, hold on...here we go.

Costa Rica is now off of our consideration list. They are requiring a 6-week stay. We simply can't do that. The two little girls from India appear to still be available, but the agency will not respond to my emails. So the girls and that agency are off of our consideration list. We are back to Bulgaria.

We have also made a 99% commitment to choosing Tree of Life as our placing agency. We previously were going to go with Christian World Adoption (and I still feel good about them), but Tree of Life has a bit of an edge in their experience with Bulgaria. They also come with glowing reports from their referral list.

Last night we attended another informational meeting at Heaven Sent Children (HSC). We went to one a long time ago, but we felt is was a good time to go again to meet the staff and get a few more questions answered. Tim is about 98% finished with his autobiography, and I have redone the rest of the application to update it. So, when his is completely finished, we just need to have everything signed and notarized to send it in to HSC and get our homestudy officially started. At the same time, I will send the pre-application to TOL (Tree of Life) to get started with them. TOL says that we should work on both at the same time and strive to finish everything at the same time. My head is already swimming a little trying to figure out what do to first.

In fundraising news, we have finally had our final 2009 yard sale. Our total last weekend was $533.65. That brings our yard sale total for 2009 to $1524.77. Since we began fundraising 2 years ago we have raised $2110.47 just on yard sales! Not bad. Of course, if anyone out there would like to send us a check for $20,000, I would not mind forgetting future yard sales. ; )

As always please pray for us during this process. We want to make sure our boys are prepared, and I don't want Tim stressed more than he already is with work for school.

And (as always) I am open to any fundraising ideas you may have. Better still any income ideas you may have would be helpful. Fundraising is great for now, but more income would help much longer.

Question for Adoptive Families

First, I'm going to assume that some of the adoption folks whose blogs I follow might also read mine. Next I want to ask you a question. How did you choose your country?

I've been asked numerous times, "Why Bulgaria?" I followed up with several reasons and a gut feeling. Now, I'm not so sure. Of course, knowing myself for as long as I have, I know that it is entirely possible that God let me feel settled on Bulgaria so I could focus on fundraising. It wouldn't be the first time He focused me on something just so I wouldn't wander off somewhere in the wrong direction. Later He breaks my focus when He is ready to show me what He really wants me to have or do. (Sound familiar, Cindy?) It's kind of like having a hungry baby, but the bottle isn't ready. You give him a toy to hold his attention. When the food is ready, you take the toy (probably causing him to scream all over again like "Well, why did you give me that in the first place!") and give him the food that is finally ready for him. Does that make sense? Bottom line is I'm trying not to throw a fit saying, "But I thought You said Bulgaria!" I'm really trying to keep an open mind and open emotions to see if there is a better fit for us now that we are so close to committing. (Yes, Tim has worked on his paper work today. Yea!)

Now in the last post, I told you about a new opportunity in Costa Rica. I have yet to hear any more information about that, but I was starting to get more and more comfortable with the idea...especially the language. This week, though, I saw a picture of two sisters (ages 7 and 5) who are currently available. Perfect! The seven year-old is even still younger than Colton by 2 months. Perfect! They are in India. Whoa! I haven't really given India much thought. I had to email the agency just to find out their country and got the response very quickly. I replied right away requesting more information about them and have waited over 30 hours with no reply. I even emailed again today. No response. It's Friday now...I'm not likely to hearing anything until at least Monday. It's frustrating. Maybe they are already taken. Good for them. Confusing for me.

So now I feel like we're back at square one. Picking a country--which determines which placing agency we will use--which can affect which home study agency we choose--which could mean we are in the paperwork stage of our homestudy, or it could mean we will have to start all over with someone else.

Any advice?

A New Twist

Not a lot has happened since the last post...at least not with the adoption. School has been crazy for Tim, and he has started co-teaching RAs at church. He is planning to hit the home study paperwork hard during Fall Break.

There is a new twist in our plan. As you know, we long ago selected Bulgaria as our chosen country. Along with that choice, we then were able to choose our placing agency which led to our choice of home study agency. Last week I received a newsletter that told about Costa Rica reopening their international adoption program. They haven't been open since 1984. I have already contacted several agencies for information, but the decision to add the Costa Rica program is so fresh, they don't have any information put together to give out yet. And what little info I'm getting has some conflicting points. For example, one agency says the travel time will be two weeks for the first trip and one week for the second trip. That's doable. But another agency says that both parents will be required to stay in the country for 1 trip that is 6 weeks long! That's a deal-breaker. The preliminary info looks like the adoption fees might be less than Bulgaria for one child, but we don't know about for two since Bulgaria is really good about more than one at a time. CR would be closer than B which would be both easier and possibly cheaper. And don't forget that CR speaks Spanish! We started studying that last year. I'm not very confident that I'd learn any Bulgarian, and it would be cool if we could communicate even a little right off the bat. The kids are adorable from both countries. Wait times for CR is uncertain so far, but it might be a little shorter than B.

The biggest problem in even considering a country change is the domino effect. The placing agency we had chosen doesn't have plans for a CR program, so we'd have to pick another. Add to that the fact that some placing agencies will require a specific home study agency (usually not the one we have started the paper work for). It seems there are so many decisions that hinge on each other. It's hard to know where to start.

If you have room on your prayer list, please pray that we will be able to push through the paperwork and make clear, decisive, and correct choices all along the way.

Exhausted and Overwhelmed

Okay, I am totally exhausted and overwhelmed. Let's start with the exhausted part.

We had a BBQ sandwich fundraiser at church tonight, so my story begins on Friday. Friends from church purchased and smoked the meat for us. I picked it up from them about 8:00 Friday night. After getting settled in for the night, Tim and I got busy pulling the meat. We didn't get started until about 10:00. Tim had to quit about 11 or 11:30 and tend to the boys who were set for a "camp out" in the living room. (No tents. We just all sleep in the living room. They love it.) I finally quit pulling at 1:30 and got in bed by 2:00. We slept in Saturday morning, but I got started again on the pulling about 8:30 and pulled for another couple of hours. This was followed by a rushed trip of shopping for the dinner and picking up crockpots from my mother-in-law. Once home, I inhaled some lunch and took the boys to back-to-back birthday parties from 2:45 until 7:00.

I was so ready to catch up on some sleep, but I didn't make it to bed until about 11:30. Next, Colton woke me up about 1:30. He can't stand to be stopped up and unable to breathe. We moved to the couch where I slept sitting up beside him for about an hour. I later slid over enough to lie down on the couch and finally moved back to my own bed about 4:45. Whew! Finally, sleep.......NOT! Eli comes in at 5:30. "Can I have a drink of water?" "Can you get?" "Yes." and off he goes to get a drink from his water in the fridge. At least I didn't have to do much that time. Next my alarm goes off at 6:00, but I don't hear it until about 7:00.

Sunday arrived. Sunday morning service. Bro Jason preached a wonderful sermon connecting earthly adoption to being adopted into God's family. Hopefully hearts were stirred, and we won't be the only ones adopting for long. The afternoon is filled with last minute preparations. I got to church a little after 4:00 to start setting up. Choir practice was at 4:30. The concert was at 6:00. After cleaning up, we left the church at 8:00.

Now for the overwhelming part. When we got everything put away, I finally emptied our donation bucket to begin counting. By the time I finished, I was in tears. We needed around $500 to meet our self-imposed Phase 1 goal ($6000). Instead of that goal being met, it was crushed. After expenses, we cleared just over $2000!!! Praise God! Not only are we ready to start sending in paperwork, but I really needed that boost of support.

WOW! What a Weekend!