Rethinking the way we say things....

As we are going through this adoption process I have been reading lots of blogs from other adoptive mommas -- amazing women who share what they are learning about their Ethiopian children.

One of the blogs I have found is Babe of My Heart. Andrea has three biological children, and brought home their little guy earlier this year.

Today she had a great post about how parenting an adoptive child is different that parenting a biological child because of the effect early life trauma has on a kiddos brain. She highly recommended the book Parenting your Internationally Adopted Child, and gave several concrete examples of how parenting Isaiah is so different than parenting her other three.

This idea of rethinking the way we think is something I have been thinking about. Needless to say, there is lots of thinking going on here! :)

Last night I was thinking about my nephews and taking them shopping. There are times I have taken them shopping and told them we cannot buy something because we cannot afford it. They have grown up hearing those words. While they might be disappointed to hear them, there is no long term effect on them. For the children we bring home those words may have a completely different effect.

It's entirely possible that the children God has planned for us are living with their Ethiopian parents right now. It's entirely possible that those parents are struggling to provide for their children, and are struggling to make a decision about what is best for their children. It's entirely possible that our children will be given up for adoption because their parents cannot afford to take care of them. For my nephews hearing the words "we cannot afford that" means just that -- we don't have enough money to buy that right now. For our children that same comment may be traumatic. It may mean that we cannot afford to continue to care for them and that they will be giving them up the way their Ethiopian parents did.

Like I said, there is LOTS of thinking going on here....

Paperwork and timelines

When Scott and I started the adoption process we were told that there is lots of paperwork. They are not kidding! I have slowly been working on paperwork since it arrived in the mail, and I am more than halfway done. Today we spent some time at Kinko's making photocopies so that we can mail in part of it on Monday.

The paperwork doesn't have to be turned in yet, but it does play a part in our timeline. After we finish our autobiographies we will meet with our social workers to clarify the things we wrote about. Our social workers will come for our home visit once all of our other paperwork is done.

My goal is to have all of our paperwork done at the same time we turn in our autobiographies.

Today...

Today I woke up before my alarm clock. With the room spinning….

Today I called in sick to work because I didn’t think it was safe to drive if I was so dizzy.

Today, for the 7^th time, I called the local police station to make an appointment to get fingerprinted for our state required adoption background study.

Today, for the 7^th time, I was told by the one person who could fingerprint me that she just didn’t have time, wouldn’t make an appointment, and that I should call back tomorrow to see if she had time.

Today I was frustrated and crying when I called my friend, K.

Today I praised God for this amazing friend, who offered to take time out of her day to come and get me and drive me to my county courthouse.

Today I was fingerprinted by a nice police officer, who made me laugh with his complaints about fingerprinting technology.

Today I am one step closer to completing our adoption study.

Beth

Today’s that didn’t make the cut…

Today I stayed in my pj’s until noon.

Today I ate too many corn candies.

Today I wore jeans on a week day.

Homestudy process -- Autobiography

One of the things we have to do for our homestudy is write an autobiography. Normally a social worker gives the autobiography format to the clients but we asked the secretary of our agency if we could get it earlier and start working on it.

We spent hours working on the autobiography, describing the relationship we have with our siblings today and listing weaknesses of our spouse and challenges of our marriage. Questions about our health and the type of child we are interested in adopting. Questions about jobs and finances and how we will work to keep the Ethiopian culture a part of our children's lives.

We were so excited to submit our autobiographies last week. We were disappointed when our social worker emailed me back and said that we must have gotten the wrong form. I prayed a lot the day I got the new form from our social worker. I am not mad at anyone for the error, but am frustrated that we have a LOT more work to do. The new form has 119 questions on it. 119. One hundred nineteen. I just keep plugging away at it. One question at a time.

I had hoped that we could be done with our part of the homestudy process by Thanksgiving. Now I am hoping for Christmas. I need to remember that God knows the children we are meant to parent. Although I have a time frame in my mind, most likely it isn't His time frame. All I can do is pray that he is caring for our children and helping them to know they are loved.

Have to go. I have more questions to answer.

So Many Decisions to Make

I would have never believed that there were so many decisions to make when it comes to adopting. Some have been easy to make. Others have required a lot of thought, discussion and prayers. Some are already made. Others will need to be made in the near future.

Decisions we have made:

• Home study agency -- Hope Adoption Services in Oak Park Heights, MN
• Country -- Ethiopia
• Number of children -- more than one

Decisions to make:

• Child finding agency -- CHFSF, Holt, WACAP, or ???
• Number -- 2 or 3
• Age range -- this decision will determine how long we will wait for our referral

I know there will be more decisions to make along the way. We are relying on guidance from God to lead us to the children he has chosen for us.

Thanks for stopping by. See you soon!

Welcome...

... to our adoption blog. Please check back often to see where we are in the process!