Adopting Again!

I am excited to announce that after much thought and prayer, we have decided to begin the process to adopt from Ethiopia again. We applied to our agency 2 weeks ago, and received a call on Thursday that we were accepted into the Ethiopia program! Soon we will begin our Home Study and the paper-chase for our dossier. We plan to request an infant (0-18 months) of either gender. This most likely means that we will be matched with a boy, because the waiting list for girls is much longer than for boys. We prayed about adopting an older child this time, but in the end we felt it would be best for our family to stick with the already established birth order. That doesn't mean that we won't be open if God should lead us in another direction as we move forward though.

Here are some questions we have heard that I will try to answer, in case you have the same questions:

1) How long will it take? The whole process will probably take about 2 years this time. It will take 4-6 months to get our dossier together. Once our dossier is in Ethiopia, our agency estimates that we will wait about 10 months for a referral. But my experience is that the wait time always increases as we go through the process. So I'm guessing we'll wait about a year for a referral. Then we will need to travel to Ethiopia twice. The process has changed since we brought Jonas home, and now families must be present for court in Ethiopia. So we will travel once for court, and then a second time for an embassy appointment and to bring the baby home. The wait time between the court date and bringing the baby home will depend on whether or not we pass court (it is very common not to pass at first. If that happens, they can pass us later without us in-country).

2) Will it be easier for you since you have already adopted from Ethiopia? Well yes, I guess knowing what it takes to get the dossier together and the roller-coaster of emotions that goes along with adoption could make it a bit easier for us this time. But no, we get no special favors from our agency or from the government of Ethiopia to speed the process along. We have to jump through all the hoops, just like everyone else.

2) Have you tried to get pregnant again? No we haven't. To be honest, this one was tough for me. I wanted to adopt again, but I also wanted to get pregnant again and I couldn't figure out which I wanted more or first. I struggled with choosing adoption over pregnancy right now. Not because I feel a stronger bond to Ava than to Jonas, but because in my experience pregnancy was so much easier than adopting. Sure, I remember feeling tired and overly-emotional through much of my pregnancy, but for the most part I had it pretty easy. But adoption is expensive and the process can be so hard. ****First the dossier**** running to and fro collecting our life on paper (this time with 2 kids in tow), notarizing it and authenticating it a million times, and getting fingerprinted and then fingerprinted again (as if the prints change). ****Then the wait for a referral**** living every day wondering if our child is out there somewhere. Is he conceived yet? Has he been born? Is he getting the nourishment he needs? Is he with family or in the orphanage? Is he loved? When will the agency call us to tell us about him????? ****Then the wait after the referral**** Staring at a face in a picture trying hard to imagine the personality that goes along with the image. Wondering if he is OK, healthy, and loved. Hating that every day that goes by is another day that he will be cared for in an institution instead of with his family. ****And then coming home**** Teaching this baby we already love so much that it is OK to trust us and love us back. Feeling the rejection every time he pushes us away. Wondering if certain behaviors are his natural personality, just a developmental phase, or some emotional residue of his abandonment and lack of attachment in his first months of life. One adoptive mom I spoke with said that she feels like she needs to be a psychologist on top of being a mom. I have definitely felt that way at times.

So, now you might be wondering why we decided to pursue adoption instead of trying to get pregnant. Well, here's why:

- We believe that one of the reasons God created us and brought us together as a couple was to adopt children. Seriously.
-We believe that God does not want us to wait, but that He wants us to pursue adoption now.
- We want Jonas to have someone in the family that looks like him and with whom he can share the experience of being adopted.
-We know that the path of adoption isn't always easy, but that the blessings that come from adopting are so great they can't even be measured.

So we're jumping in with both feet, feeling absolutely certain that we are doing the right thing. Let the journey begin!