the hubs and i talked about adoption on our first date: how he was adopted, my experience working with vulnerable and orphaned children, and both our desires to adopt (we decided to keep the conversation light for the first date ;)), so when our first anniversary approached, we had already been little prayer warriors for the precious faces and souls on reece's rainbow, and saw the sweet soul we knew would be OUR daughter.
the country she lives in has LOTS of requirements to adopt a child from there, one of them is to be married for at least two years (or be able to prove you've known each other that long). we did not meet this requirement--since our first date was June 28th, 2012, we were engaged on August 4th, 2012, and married on January 19, 2013. we were determined to walk by faith through this anyway, and signed on with the agency and began our home study. this wasn't the best time to begin the process if you are impatient or fretful (--i am fretful, but not eeyore fretful or chicken little fretful...more like "ye of little faith" fretful), as chinese new year was approaching. chinese new year is like our new year, only on steroids, magnified, a week long, and the whole country pretty much shuts down. it's awesome. unless you are waiting on the approval issued from a governmental office in regards to your adoption. we hoped we'd hear back before the year of the horse was welcomed in on January 31, but no; and governmental offices would not reopen until February 6th. surely we'd hear back the next day or so. nope. my mind raced and heart fluttered, and fretted, i was approaching eeyore level.
febuary18th, a terrible invader attacked my stomach and i was rendered helpless. i could not work and spread the viral intruder to my cute little preschoolers so i called out. one moment i was outside with our new pup, pleading with him (gnarls barkley) through pains so severe i thought surely my stomach was being torn into by invisible giant hands, and the next i was on the phone with our adoption liaison hearing that they had ISSUED OUR WAIVER!!!! (i shouldn't have capitalized that for you skim readers...).
before we had heard back regarding our waiver, we took a step of faith and began our home study (where it is confirmed you have the emotional, mental, and spiritual strength to raise a child).
we also began saving money and fundraising. goodbye whole foods, and even trader joe's...hello aldi! her room furnishings are all picked out on www.landofnod.com, and we're staring at a rosetta stone for mandarin hoping for a gift of tongues (in mandarin) to be imparted to us so we can communicate with our sweet DAUGHTER from the beginning.
we can't publicly share her picture yet, maybe in a few more weeks-but until then, just know that she is the sweetest, most precious, created perfectly in His image 10 year old girl you can imagine!
after being held in captivity, my heart can beat again.
until then, here's a picture of a dinosaur asking noah why he didn't tell him about the ark (i think T means "ark" though, the "arc" is a totally different thing, unless he was really concerned with holiness).
the country she lives in has LOTS of requirements to adopt a child from there, one of them is to be married for at least two years (or be able to prove you've known each other that long). we did not meet this requirement--since our first date was June 28th, 2012, we were engaged on August 4th, 2012, and married on January 19, 2013. we were determined to walk by faith through this anyway, and signed on with the agency and began our home study. this wasn't the best time to begin the process if you are impatient or fretful (--i am fretful, but not eeyore fretful or chicken little fretful...more like "ye of little faith" fretful), as chinese new year was approaching. chinese new year is like our new year, only on steroids, magnified, a week long, and the whole country pretty much shuts down. it's awesome. unless you are waiting on the approval issued from a governmental office in regards to your adoption. we hoped we'd hear back before the year of the horse was welcomed in on January 31, but no; and governmental offices would not reopen until February 6th. surely we'd hear back the next day or so. nope. my mind raced and heart fluttered, and fretted, i was approaching eeyore level.
febuary18th, a terrible invader attacked my stomach and i was rendered helpless. i could not work and spread the viral intruder to my cute little preschoolers so i called out. one moment i was outside with our new pup, pleading with him (gnarls barkley) through pains so severe i thought surely my stomach was being torn into by invisible giant hands, and the next i was on the phone with our adoption liaison hearing that they had ISSUED OUR WAIVER!!!! (i shouldn't have capitalized that for you skim readers...).
before we had heard back regarding our waiver, we took a step of faith and began our home study (where it is confirmed you have the emotional, mental, and spiritual strength to raise a child).
we also began saving money and fundraising. goodbye whole foods, and even trader joe's...hello aldi! her room furnishings are all picked out on www.landofnod.com, and we're staring at a rosetta stone for mandarin hoping for a gift of tongues (in mandarin) to be imparted to us so we can communicate with our sweet DAUGHTER from the beginning.
we can't publicly share her picture yet, maybe in a few more weeks-but until then, just know that she is the sweetest, most precious, created perfectly in His image 10 year old girl you can imagine!
after being held in captivity, my heart can beat again.
until then, here's a picture of a dinosaur asking noah why he didn't tell him about the ark (i think T means "ark" though, the "arc" is a totally different thing, unless he was really concerned with holiness).
