A New Journey for Our Family

We want to share with you some exciting news--and to ask for your prayers. Our family has officially begun a new journey to adopt a baby from Korea!

We have always been open to adoption in addition to having more children biologically. We actually started this adoption journey last year when we completed a preliminary application. We were then put on the list to start the process this year, 2009. At the beginning of the year, however, we were hoping to conceive another biological child. At that time, we were hesitant to move forward with adoption plans because if you are expecting a baby during the adoption process, then your case is put on hold. For our program, you cannot adopt a child until the youngest child in your home is at least a year old.

In the meantime, we received a phone call from our adoption social worker, who encouraged us to go ahead and move forward with our process. After praying about this, I decided I would wait for Tanna to bring this up without any prompting from me. And he did! So we started the formal application process.

Not too long afterward, I found out I was pregnant. But I was waiting to tell our social worker out of fear of having another miscarriage. I kept stalling and didn't respond to her e-mails a couple of times, trying to wait as long as I could (because this news would halt the process for the time being). Finally, my stalling time had run out, and I had to tell her that we were expecting a baby. This was after we had seen a heartbeat, but before we had even told our family that we were expecting. Of course, we were then put on hold for adopting--and our spot was given to another family.

Then we had the miscarriage.

The next week, I contacted our social worker and explained that the very thing I had been fearing (and why I had hesitated to share the news of our pregnancy) had happened. She expressed her condolences, of course, and told me that we would be put on the waiting list for 2010.

Then, the NEXT week, when I was at the beach, she called me completely out of the blue. She said that for reasons unknown to them, a family had dropped out of the program, which is very rare. She also said that we could take the open spot, if we were ready to move forward. And WE ARE! We had to hurry and get our formal application completed ASAP after I got back from the beach, and earlier this week we had our first big meeting with our social worker, going over all of our home study documents and requirements.

And so here we are--we are starting our home study process, which includes a TON of paperwork and background information, individual interviews, doctor visits, and (toward the end of the home study) a home visit. After this is complete, all of our documentation will be sent to Korea. And that's when the real waiting begins. Typical post-home study wait time for our program, we were told, is about 12 to 16 months (not as long as I was thinking, actually) for a referral ... and then, if the referral is accepted, another few months after that for placement. (But we also were told to be flexible--flexibility and patience are MUSTS--and to understand there are no guarantees on the wait time, etc.)

We are hoping to complete our paperwork and home visit by the end of July--so this will be a very busy month for us. We sure appreciate your prayers as we begin this journey!

P.S. The photo was taken after we got back from our meeting with the social worker. I meant to take a picture at the agency office, but I forgot.

Whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me. --Matthew 18:5, NIV