As someone who is waiting to bring a sweet little girl home from China, I'd like to offer encouragement to others who are praying about adoption or in the process themselves. I've heard many prospective and adoptive families express concern over the length of time an adoption can take. I know that it CAN take a really long time, or sometimes it just FEELS like a really long time, and sometimes, you get to the end when you're about to bring your child home and you start freaking out because it's all happening so fast! (I'm in the freak out stage right now!)
When we adopted our son from Russia in 2011, the process from start to bringing him home was about 18 months. To some, that may seem like an incredibly long, grueling timeframe. To me, that's just how long it took. When you think about it, the length of time between when a man and a woman start trying to have a baby and when they actually have a new human to care for, this can be a relatively quick process of roughly 10 months (if you're lucky!), to any number of years, to never. Adoption happens this way also ~ everything is in God's perfect timing!
The adoption process starts with a home study in which a social worker visits your house several times over a few months. During that time we were busy completing background checks, passport photos, parent training, local fingerprints and gathering copies of our birth and marriage certificates. We were also simultaneously working on something called a Dossier (a group of documents that includes a home study, citizenship and immigration approval, medical reports, and a bunch of other stuff) that gets sent to the country where you are adopting from. Having your Dossier sent to the country is a BIG DEAL and reason to celebrate…. now the waiting to be matched with your little one begins!
We began the adoption process for our daughter in March, 2013 and plan to travel this September (woo-hoo!!) to bring little sweet cheeks home. We sailed through all of the initial paperwork (some people in the adoption community call this period a "paper pregnancy"), submitted our Dossier and then my husband deployed for 7 months. A deployment happened after submitting the Dossier for our son's adoption as well. Our agency worked with us to complete our paperwork before the deployments, and in both cases it worked out wonderfully!
This was the only time in the process that I felt the wait. There was no paperwork to do, no social worker visits, just waiting for that sweet phone call telling us that we were matched with our little girl. Our agency has a really informative Facebook page, but seeing others being matched quickly made me a little…oh, what's the word…impatient??
I remember talking to my husband (whom was overseas) the day before we were matched with our Mei. It was about 4 1/2 months into the wait, and it was expected that this period could last anywhere from 3 to 6 months on average. We were waiting for our agency to match us when a child became available, but I was also looking into other waiting children programs. I complained. I whined. I uttered the words "ugh, why is it taking so long?". My husband, whom was on a satellite phone somewhere in the Middle East, likely with bigger problems at hand, gave encouraging words like always and reminded me that when it happens, it'll happen. And boy, did it happen!
The next day a storm like I'd never seen came our way. Wind flew and rain crashed down from the sky. A friend I hadn't seen in years was visiting in the next town over, and despite the crazy weather I set out to see her. After pulling over on the road a few times from falling debris, rain, and water rolling over the car like waves that made it impossible to see, I found myself in a hospital parking lot, debating whether I should go in for shelter.
While sitting in the car a familiar number blinked on my phone. Could this be it? Is it the call? Now? Here? And after all that complaining I did yesterday? YES! I found the familiar and cheerful voice of our social worker on the other end, telling me that we had been matched with a sweet little girl, and could view her file now. Technology is a wonderful thing, folks. I was able to email my husband the file right then, and he called me so we could view our girls' file "together".
When you see your child's sweet face for the first time and your heart skips a beat, all of the time that you were waiting for this moment fades away. We knew that this was our little girl before we even looked at her file, really. It was just knowing that God had orchestrated this moment for us, and that He has a sense of humor indeed for this moment to take place where and when it did.
We are now in the exciting stage of waiting (yes, still!) for approval to travel to China to bring our daughter home. This is a four step process, starting with submitting I800 paperwork, an Article 5, then receiving travel approval and lastly receiving a Consulate Appointment. When we know when our appointment day is, we will then be able to book our travel arrangements around it. If you asked me to explain any of these steps, I don't think I could. We rely on the expertise and experience of our social worker to guide us through everything, and she's wonderful at it!
We also applied for our visas during this time and worked at getting everything together that we will need to travel. (If you're an organizing junkie like I am, you've really been working on this since last year, when you did your application….) And then, of course, there is a little girl's room to get ready! Oh, the burst of raspberry and pink that has exploded in her room! Then clothes, sippy cups, stroller, let's just say a lot of shopping has happened during this time. Instead of focusing on the wait, our family is trying to educate and prepare ourselves for bringing a child with special needs.
So, yes, the whole adoption process does take a bit of time. But, honestly, there is so much mental, emotional, financial, and physical preparation that goes into it, I can't see how it would or should happen any faster. All throughout this process there have been stages, and the joy that comes with graduating to the next stage. We are so happy to say that our next stage is welcoming the newest member of our family!
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By: Sarah Plevinski
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