The Waiting Game

When we first looked into adoption, we knew that there would be a lot of waiting. Waiting on approval, waiting on documents, waiting on medical exams, and waiting on our referral. We never expected to be waiting on the Department of State's proposed legislation. The feeling of devastation still lingers. There are days when I will cry quietly at my desk and seek the comfort of someone hundreds of miles away and my husband's warm hugs. There are days when I am angry, angry to know that there are people working against international adoption. There's nothing we can do outside of advocating against the changes. Comments on the docket close on November 7th. We know that there will be second and third readings as well as approval through the house and senate. We, very well may be, in the process of collecting documents for our dossier by the time this makes it to capital hill.

There are a lot of unknowns right now. Our agency has told us that we may change countries if the Samoa program closes. We're hoping this is not the case, but we are preparing ourselves, just in case.

As we wait, I am working on our next fundraiser, which will be very exciting. I will be giving more information as I have it. Stay tuned!

Yard Sale Success!

Saturday morning I was up at 5:15, coffee in hand and ready to bust a move on the yard sale. I got to my parent's house bright and early, before the sun was even awake. The setup took about an hour and a half. All of the items had been sorted by likeness and staged in the garage. We setup all the tables and started dragging stuff out. I broke a sweat before 7 AM! We even had people come in to look 30 minutes before we were even officially "open."

I wish I had taken pictures of all the stuff we had. There were 3 8 foot tables were full of nick-knacks, kitchen wares, holiday items, crafting stuffs, and a multitude of other things. 3 smaller card tables with glass ware, plates, table clothes, towels, and other linens. Our clothes table was overflowing and we had a whole line dedicated to hanging clothes and jackets. All of it was donated.

Saturday proved to be both fun and stressful. All of the hard work put into the yard sale was well worth the end result. Over all, the yard sale went smoothly. We received a few donations in our 'Bring Home Baby' jar. Lots of people wanted to talk about the adoption, which was cool.

So, the question I keep getting is 'how much did you make?' All I will say is that we made more than half of our home study fees. I was really impressed and never thought we'd make that much. I'm so very grateful for all the help my amazing aunt and my parents gave me. Without them, it wouldn't have been possible!

If there's any interest, I can certainly put together another post, outlining what we did for our yard sale.

We're already looking forward to the next fundraising event! More details to follow.

Lots of Love,

Answering Questions

As mentioned in my first post, we'll try to answer as many questions as we can. It's a lot for some people to take in, ourselves included. There are a lot of things we do know, but almost double that in what we don't know.

Why now? - When the hubby and I first started talking about adoption, there didn't seem to be any urgency in the process. When we took a closer look at the referral times (the wait period between submitting your paperwork and the agency finding you a match child) and how long the process would actually take us, we realized that we were looking at a 4 to 5 year process all together. This is the case for most international adoptions, but potentially longer for Samoa due to the newness of the program. We had an idea of where we wanted to be in 5 years and we knew we needed to start the process sooner rather than later.

Why adoption? - Hubby and I don't want to go through the natural birthing process. It's something that we spoke about at length and decided that it's just not for us. There are enough children in this world that needed their own forever family. So, that's why we decided to adopt.

Why international adoption? - There are over half a million kids in the foster care system. So, why didn't we go with foster to adopt? In America, the foster system is flawed and has more red tape than an international adoption. The trouble and heart ache that come with a foster to adopt program is not something we wanted to go through with our first child. While saving any child's life is important and key, we want to sleep at night knowing that someone isn't going to try to "come get" their baby. With international adoption, we know that won't happen. When we land in Samoa to bring Tiny Human home, he'll be ours. We're not knocking the foster system, we're actually giving major kudos to anyone who can do it! As first time parents, we knew it wasn't for us.

How long does it take? - This is a tricky question and a lot of our wait time depends on payments and paperwork. Home study takes 3-6 months, filing of that paperwork can take a few weeks, and the government side of things can take another several months. We have to be approved by both the home study agency and the government. 3 different agencies have to prove that we'll be fit parents. We know that from the time we're approved by the US government till the time we're matched with a child is between 36-40 months.

 Why does it cost so much? - Unlike a normal pregnancy and birth, a lot of birth parents don't really "see" the cost of having a baby. Rather than stretching the dollar amount over several months or years, our fees come very quickly over a short period of time due to the large amount associated with the various attorney fees. Health insurance takes care of most of the medical fees with a pregnancy, but with adoption, there are no medical fees. We have to pay everything up front.

Boy, girl, age? - Tiny Human is going to be a little boy and that's the only parameter we have. He could be months old or he could be as old as 5. He could be a perfectly normal child or he could have mental and/or physical health concerns. As long as we can can bring him home, we'll be content. We can tackle those concerns once we get settled back in the US.

Will you have to travel? - Yes. We'll spend up to a week in Samoa, getting to know our child and filing whatever paperwork needs to be done in the country. From there, we'll fly to Auckland, New Zealand and will stay there for up to 3 weeks. This is where the adoption paperwork is finalized and to obtain Tiny Human's orphan visa.

Are you both excited? - Yes, we're both very excited about this journey! We're trying not to get too excited because we know we're in the very beginning of the process and that things can and will go wrong at some point.

Is there a way that I can help? - There's always a need for help! As we work through the process, we'll need help from friends and family as we do fundraising events. We'll need people to help us put events together and bring more awareness to our cause. Share our posts for us! If you see a blog link post on my Facebook, please feel free to share it. If you see me on Instagram, please re-post it! The larger the audience we can reach, the better! A lot of people don't know or understand the process of international adoption, so we're here to share our story. If you have a little boy and you would like to donate hand me downs, we'll be needing those as soon as we get our referral.