Lux et umbra vicissum…

We got the letters from the doctor supporting the birth date change yesterday, made it to the notary yesterday afternoon to sign the petitions, and I ran them plus all of the Ethiopian court document photocopies and copies of the birth certificates from Ethiopia to the court house this morning! Hurray!!! It’s a great feeling to have that ball out of my court. 🙂 Now we wait…

The law in Virginia says that the clerk of courts has to send all of the petitions received in the previous month by the 10th of the next month. So our petitions will go forward from there no later than March 10th. The clerk sends copies to various places, one of which is our social worker’s agency. Our social worker then has 60 days to send them her in-depth post-placement report. She told me to give her a heads-up when I filed (which I did) so she could start getting things together, so hopefully it won’t take the full 60 days. (She indicated that she didn’t expect it to.) Once the court gets her report, then we’ll be assigned a court date. So really it could take anywhere from a few weeks to a few months.

But in the meantime, I got a bunch of home study update forms by email this morning that I’ll need to take care of. *sigh* Off to fill out more paperwork!

Side note: If our petitions go through, I’ll post them in some form here so that others in Virginia can have something to use as a sort of template. It was hard to find directions for writing them!

You can’t stop time. It’s funny how a mother (and a father to some extent, I’m sure) experiences a mix of pride, joy, and grief with each new accomplishment of her child. The pride and joy are pretty obvious, I think, but that little tinge of grief is usually hidden in the background, a sorrow that you’re losing your little baby. [Read more →]

Wow. We’re only in the beginning stages, and I’m already feeling lost in the paperwork! In some ways we don’t have as much this time since we don’t have to have a full home study done, just a home study update, but since we also have to finalize our first adoption we have some things associated with that that we weren’t dealing with before. Granted, there aren’t nearly as many papers needed for the finalization, but it is something else to try to keep straight. [Read more →]

… of laundry, that is.

A load by any other name would smell as stinky. Sometimes it’s a literal stink (I mean, we’re dealing with small children here remember). Other times it’s more of a figurative stench. You know, that “Didn’t I just wash these same clothes a couple days ago?” smell. The “Whoever crossbred dirty laundry with rabbits should be shot,” odor.

Yesterday I dealt with both kinds of stink, literal and figurative. But… and I would put this in huge red blinky letters if I didn’t realize how incredibly annoying that is… yesterday, in just one day, I put through nine loads of laundry! Well, almost. Load eight is in the dryer and load nine is in the washer. But loads one through seven are washed, dried, folded, and PUT AWAY!! This, my friends, is a huge accomplishment.

Of course, in a few days we’ll be right back to square one. That’s what I hate about housework. In so many other areas of life, you can accomplish something great – a work of art, a well-done bit of computer programming, etc. – and on bad days you can look back on it and say, “I did that. Wow. That’s cool.” With housework, looking back only makes you feel tired. “Didn’t I just do that?” Completely different feeling.

But today, the laundry is clean. Except the sheets. And Joel’s and my clothes. And a bunch of hand-me-downs that someone gave us that smell like smoke.

Well, you’ve gotta start somewhere. And, really, nine loads is pretty darn impressive!

One of Desta’s favorite phrases which the others have picked up now is “I’m not happy with you.” Of course, when they say it to each other it’s a terrible tragedy. They don’t get quite the same reaction from me.

The best response I’ve come up with is, “That’s ok; I love you anyway.” However, being human, sometimes the best I manage is, “I don’t care.” 😛 Oh well. I’m hoping this will be one phrase that dies off eventually.

Back to house cleaning…. When the girls’ quiet time is done they’ll be helping me again (though they don’t know that yet). And this time, I’m going to tell them that after a certain amount of time (probably an hour or so), Mommy’s going to come through with a trash bag and throw away toys that aren’t put away. I have a feeling they won’t be happy with me. 😉

Adoption, by nature, is one of those processes that you question any number of times along the way. Well, at least a lot of people do. Whether people approach adoption from the point of infertility and question whether they should have just kept trying, or whether you approach it as we are from a point of loving children and wanting to follow God’s calling on our lives, there’s always room for questions.

The first time we adopted, we had a very broad base of support. Our families were wonderful, our friends were excited, and our church family was overwhelmingly positive.

It’s funny how things change when you’re adopting older children not long after adopting the younger ones.

Our families haven’t been against it, but there’s perhaps a touch more apprehension than there was the first time. Our friends (even a few from the adoptive community) are openly saying we’re nuts, and having recently changed churches due to moving we don’t have the in-depth relational support of a church family yet. (The church we’re attending now does have a good number of adoptive families, so I think they’ll be supportive over all… we just need to get to know people better.)

I guess what I wish I could really communicate to people – communicate in such a way that it makes sense to them – is that, big picture, we’re not doing this for ourselves or even directly for the kids. We’re doing this because we feel a strong calling in this direction from the Lord. Does this calling make much sense to us? Well, no. We haven’t parented teenagers, we’ll be adopting out of birth order even more so than we did the first time, we’re adding a child that’s just a year older than our oldest which could cause adjustment trouble, etc. etc. Honestly, it scares me when I think about all of the what-ifs. But what I keep coming back to is I Corinthians 1:25 – “For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength.” We can think of as many reasons not to do this as we want to, but if this is where God wants us to be, it’s the absolute best place in the world to go. That’s where I’m finding my peace.

One friend told me that she takes comfort in the fact that we’re still praying that God would close this door if it isn’t His will. We’ll certainly keep praying that throughout the process. As my good friend Rona Steinhoff said, I’d rather be out some money than out of God’s will. 🙂 So that will continue to be our prayer. I just hope that our Christian friends will realize that if this adoption does go through, then that’s an affirmation of the Lord’s will in our lives. I’m sure we’ll need their support and encouragement after we bring the kids home, and having a bunch of people saying, “See? This may not have been the right thing to do!” really won’t be what we need.

All that to say, if anyone wants to post encouraging comments (thank you Craig!) or send us encouraging emails along our journey, they would be much appreciated! Though we rest in knowing that we’re seeking God’s will first, it’s always nice to hear some kindly words from folks along the way.

Pardon me if this entry goes in circle. Eli is standing next to my chair saying, “Mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy…” It’s a little bit distracting. Oh, now he switched to, “Up up up up up…” So now he’ll be helping me type. 🙂 Here he is looking out from between Daddy’s knees:

Anyway, back to my original post. Before we can do a whole lot in our second adoption, we need to finalize our first in Virginia. We were told by several people that it’s not hard to do it on your own and it’ll save you hundreds of dollars in lawyer fees. Great! The only problem is, no one seems to know exactly how to do it. You turn in some paperwork to the court, then they send something somewhere, and then you get a court date. Um… right.

Well, we found someone in our area (thank you so much Pastor and Mrs. Creech!) who recently went through this same process and were able to help us out a bit. They sent us the petitions they used to get a court date. Hallelujah! It can be accomplished! All I had to do was wade through the documents and change the information that was specific to their family into info for ours. Not too bad, huh? Except that by the end my eyes were going crossed over all of the “according to the statute” and “in compliance with Virginia law 4.9762.6583 7/8”. Oh well. We’re still in a much better place than we were a few days ago. 🙂 Now we just need to get them notarized and pull together a few other random papers, and we’ll be able to submit them to court!

It seems like things have changed a bit since our last adoption. I’m guessing part of that is because of the Hague Convention, and part may just be because the process was so young when we did our first adoption. The agency has been working in Ethiopia longer now and has ironed some things out, which is good. There’s more papers to sign, though! I have a whole pile of things here to read through, sign, and send in. And that’s before we even start with gathering clearances and such on our end! Crazy stuff. When people ask me if adoption is difficult, I usually tell them I don’t think of it as difficult so much as being very loaded down in paperwork. Most of the paperwork is fairly straightforward, there’s just a lot of it.

We found another family who finalized an Ethiopian adoption in our area and they’re helping us a bit as we prepare to finalize Desta’s and Eli’s adoptions. It’s so much cheaper than going through a lawyer, and with a second adoption in the works we can use as much cost savings as possible!

Speaking of which, I’ve been working on my jewelry that I’ll be selling. I’m very pleased with how it’s turning out! I got a few tips from the proprietor of a local beading store, too. I should have my first pieces ready to sell within a couple of weeks. Now I need to set up a spreadsheet where I can keep track of my sales, and I need to figure out what software I want to use for a store-front and payment method. (I may end up just using PayPal, but we’ll see.)

I also had a psych appointment today. I’ll probably need a letter from him saying that he thinks I can parent two more children. I don’t think he’ll hesitate to write it since his reaction when I told him the news today was very positive. In the midst of the conversation, he made one of the fairly typical comments that adoptive parents talk about how to respond to… he said, “You and your husband are phenomenal people to be doing this.” That type of comment always makes me (and most adoptive parents) feel awkward. This time I actually liked the response I gave, though. I told him that I didn’t think of it so much as us being phenomenal. Rather, I think we’re all called to care for people who can’t care for themselves (such as widows and orphans as mentioned in the book of James), and for some of us that calling takes the form of adoption while for others it might be helping other people adopt, donating or volunteering at a food pantry or pregnancy care center, etc. It’s not that one calling is better than another, it’s just a matter of following your calling once you get it. I didn’t mention that I do think some people ignore their calling, but that probably went without saying. 🙂 Doesn’t make us any better people, but it means they’ll be missing out on some blessings in their lives.

Off to make some more jewelry! I’ll post pictures of some of the pieces when I’ve gotten a little farther. 🙂

Yes, we’ve been accurately diagnosed. We suspected as much before, because we showed all the symptoms. First of all, we experienced heart palpitations and sometimes even breathing difficulties when thinking about orphaned children. Then we felt a strange magnetism towards Ethiopia from which we had gotten our first adopted children. Then we started feeling drawn to specific orphans in Ethiopia…

We have adoption addiction.

😉

So now we’re beginning round two. No, it’s not just because we love to adopt. We do love to adopt, but we hadn’t been planning on doing it again quite this soon. Rather, there was a girl we were incredibly drawn to before our first adoption was complete, but at the time we felt like God was saying no to adopting her…. and we recently discovered that she still needs a family; and not only does she need a family still, but now she has a younger sister also up for adoption!

Joel & I prayed about it for about two months pretty intensely, and we finally decided that God was leading us toward adopting these two beautiful girls. Due to some pretty strict rules, we can’t disclose anything about them until they’re legally ours (after the court date), but I’ll say that they’re beautiful, bright sisters who are older than our current children. Yes, this will be a bit of a struggle, but we trust that God will be in the whole thing with us if He leads us down this path.

We would love it if you would pray us through this process. God is so good, and He does respond to the prayers of His people. Here are a few prayer requests for now:

1) For God’s perfect timing. This process can take a long or a short time, and many of the factors that determine that are out of our control. Please pray that God would work the adoption along the best possible time-frame for everyone involved.

2) For God’s financial provision. We don’t have another grand piano to sell like we did last time, and this adoption is shaping up to be more expensive than our first. We believe that God will provide if this is His will. Please pray that the funds would come in as they’re needed. I’m going to be selling some handmade jewelry to try to help and we’ll probably set up a Cafe Press site for t-shirts and such, too.

3) For a new vehicle. Our minivan is maxed out. I wouldn’t mind just figuring that we had to take two vehicles when we go places as a family (that’s mainly on Sunday mornings), but as it is I wouldn’t even be able to take the younger of the two girls without having to remove car seats each time. (She’s not big enough to be in the front seat, but too big for a car seat.) We’re praying for a 12 passenger van.

4) For a smooth, healthy adjustment for all. Our oldest is laid back and adventurous, which will help, but she doesn’t understand fully (and won’t till it happens) how her life and role will change when her new sisters arrive. Our second child very much wants these two new sisters, but she doesn’t adjust easily. I’m praying that her desire for her sisters will help her adjustment to be quick and relatively painless. The younger ones will probably do fine. The oldest girl we’re adopting is very bright and is driven to succeed, so I think that’ll help her. The younger sister… we just don’t know. She seems bright as well, but she didn’t have quite as good a start in life as the older one. Please pray for her as she’ll be going through a lot of turmoil in the next year or so.

5) Huge praise!!! We’ve found a home church, which in and of itself is a wonderful thing. As a fabulous bonus, there are several adoptive families there, and one of them has adopted six children of varying ages from Ethiopia! Hallelujah!!! That will allow for some community that our girls may not have otherwise experienced. 🙂

Thank you for all of your prayers! When I have a small stash of jewelry made I’ll post a link to where you can buy it if you’re interested. I’ll also post a link to our Cafe Press site once it’s up and running.

A couple more prayer requests. I’m sure I’ll be adding these regularly…

– For a bunk bed and two dressers. Our dressers are maxed out right now – we have two that all five kids share and then a few under-the-bed rubbermaid things and still some of the clothes don’t have a home and end up having to be piled neatly somewhere on the floor. Adding two older girls, we decided we really should try to get two more dressers. And the bunk bed, while I’m not terribly picky, will have to be sturdy enough to support older children and not scare me every time someone climbs up it. 😛

– For girls clothing in larger sizes. I’m guessing it’ll be 10-12’s (which we have a few of, but not many) with maybe a few of the bigger 7-8’s, and then juniors size small? I’m so not used to figuring out these sizes! Anyway, we probably have a few things for the younger girl, but nothing for the older one. I’m hoping to meet them in April (praying for the chance to go on a mission trip with AWOP) at which point I can get a better idea of sizes. If not then, I’ll get more measurements when they’re moved to the agency care center.