adoption

i continue to hear about more people who are reading this blog. thank you all for following our journey.

i spent most of the afternoon today gathering up adoption papers. they call this stage the "paperchase," and i can see why. i made copies of driver's licenses and health insurance cards; sent a request to topeka, kansas for 2 certified copies of jamie's birth certificate; made copies of our I-600A form so we can send one to our social worker; filled out our homestudy application; and called to insure a notary would be at the bank tomorrow so we can finally get all our forms notarized. yesterday, i ran down to the register of deeds to get certified copies of my birth certificate and our marriage license. and tonight, i'm going track down our tax statements from the previous 2 years. we have 17 days until we close on our house, which as i've been saying, means that we can finally (God-willing) write some checks for the adoption and really get this show on the road.

we've been going back and forth about the maximum age we'd consider if siblings were referred to us. this has to be decided way in advance because the government has to approve you for a certain age range. since we made the decision to say that we would consider adopting 2 children, an infant and an older sibling, we have said we would prefer the older child be no older than 2. however, we decided to up the maximum age to 3. if any of you had the chance to watch the video i posted a couple of days ago, you might have noticed the picture of 3 toddler-age boys sitting on the ground. that picture really pierced my heart because i wondered who would adopt them. i've been having this battle within myself for awhile now about 2 children and the maximum age of the oldest, so it wasn't just the picture that made us change our minds. the reality is, many people want babies, and there's nothing wrong with that because obviously we want a baby. but our hearts are big enough to also take a child who might remember more about his birth mother, who has been more cognizant of the pain he has endured, who might have more language difficulties at first, who might not bond to us as easily. we can do that. we're not responsible for any other human beings right now but ourselves. considering that, it seems like we can and should be willing to open our hearts and home to 2 children rather than just one. this adoption has already taught me so much about giving freely and generously, and so our hearts are open...

i told jamie last night that when i imagine the day we, like the lady in the video, walk through the doors of an orphanage on our "gotcha day," i see 2 children. i imagine someone putting a baby in jamie's arms and then a little toddler waddling up to me, lifting up his hands to be held, perhaps having been told that his mommy has come to take him home. and i will not be disappointed at the end of this journey if there is just one baby boy to welcome into our family. we will rejoice no matter what. but right now, i pray for 2. a lot of people probably think we're crazy, and that's OK. i don't pretend to think this all doesn't sound a bit insane. i mean, we've never had kids before, and suddenly we're talking about a baby and a toddler at the same time. and to confess the obvious, jamie and i aren't the most organized, neatest people around, and that's going to have to change. but we're committed to that because the reality is, once this journey is over, once the anticipation is gone and the child(ren) are home, we are responsible for a life (or 2). we don't take that lightly.

one last confession: jamie and i are still in need of funds to get us over this first monetary hurdle. our goal is to send off our dossier to ethiopia by the end of 2009-beginning of 2010, given that the processing of our government paperwork will take 3-4 months. to send off our dossier, we owe a second $2500 fee to our adoption agency and about $8000 to the ethiopian government. we need to be saving for those fees now, though we are hoping we will qualify for some grant money that will help us cover some of those costs. we still have not paid the first $2500 to our adoption agency, and that's what we really would like to raise and get sent in ASAP. as of last week, we had $200 in our hands from donations, $100 of that which we plan to put towards the $830 we owe the government for our USCIS paperwork. if you can help us or know someone who can, please let us know. you can donate directly to our adoption account through CWA (see the link and info on the sidebar). you can also continue to pray that our stuff on craigslist sells. we were sure last week that we had sold jamie's rowing machine for $900, but we haven't heard from the prospective buyer since then, so now that looks like a disappointment. if there are any of you who have old stuff that you'd be willing to sell and donate the funds to our adoption, we could host a big yard sale if we got enough stuff together. lots of people do this to fundraise, so let us know if you might be able to help us there. please just know that, as corny as this sounds, you are investing in the life of a child by investing financially in our adoption. now, back to the paperchase...