So What's Up With The Adoption?

People keep asking me this so I figured I'd write a little update. The adoption has still been crazy. A lot has happened since I last wrote about it in the beginning of January. As you recall, we had just had our first home study visit. It went well but she let us know that the former social worker hadn't started our background checks. The new social worker got started on it right after our meeting and schedule our second home visit on February 10th. Ironically, come to find out, because we had switched to a non-Hague country, we didn't actually have to have the background checks. So, she did them for nothing. Oh well. We could have had the home study done a little sooner but it's done now.

I had also mentioned that after realizing that we couldn't adopt from China, we had switched to Kyrgyzstan. Well, as I said, Kyrgyzstan was doing some restructuring and trying to figure out where they wanted to go with adoption. At this point, it is completely on hold. I feel terrible for people who had already gotten referrals of their child but have now been waiting until Kyrgyzstan decides to let them come and take them home. Normally that happens within a few weeks of getting a referral, but because of the changes with the government, there are people who got the referrals early last Fall who still have not been able to bring their baby home. So, since we're not able to adopt from Kyrgyzstan, we had to look for another country. Our agency told us we qualified for Kazakhstan. However, a few days later when we were looking over the paperwork, we noticed that the laws had changed a few months ago, that you must own a home. The agency director tried to find out if there is any exception for this, but there isn't. This is one of the ways international adoption is ridiculous. They set these random standards that really have no bearing on how well you can raise a child. What makes a person who owns a house a better parent? I think the salary standards are silly too. Believe me, a person who makes $40,000 in DC will be struggle way more than someone who makes $30,000 in some small town where the standard of living in much less. Anyway, all that to say, we are limited in our choice of country. It seems like many countries have two standards that we are having we don't meet: owning a home & and making at least $50,000/year. There are some countries that we qualify for, but we just don't want to adopt from because the wait time is crazy long! Haiti, Columbia, India and others would take over 2 years. Some countries won't let us specify that we'd like a girl so those are out too. Two of our remaining choices are Russia and Thailand. Thailand can be very unpredictable. We'd also have to have our home study changed quite a bit because it is a Hague country. The wait can get very long as well, but you just never know what will happen. Russia's process is very complicated from what we've been told. So, with the advice of our adoption agency, we'd decided on Russia, for now. I say 'for now' because who knows what will happen. It may change again tomorrow. Unfortunately, the agency we're with, who recommended we do Russia, doesn't do adoptions from Russia, so they suggested we use one of their partner agencies. So again we're changing agencies. We LOVED the agency we were with. They were so helpful, responsive, and easy to get in touch with. We hate to change. But we filled out another application and mailed another application fee. It will be a couple of weeks before we know if we qualify and are accepted so we can start our Dossier. But we talked to the agency and they seem to think we shouldn't have any problems. We'll see though! I'm feeling fine about things now. Not because I necessarily think they will work out (I don't think I'll believe that until I have a child in my arms and the judge says that she's mine). But I'm comforted in knowing God's plan is in motion (and has been in motion this entire time). Some days (like a few weeks ago when we found out we couldn't do Kazakhstan) it's been more difficult emotionally than others. But as long as I remind myself it will happen in God's timing, I'm able to take things as they come. The more I try to be in control of it, the more I worry. So I keep trying to let go of it and let God work.