The reason we chose to adopt

I saw this on someone else's blog and I just had to steal it (Thanks Jenny). I haven't really written a statement as to "why" we have chosen to adopt, but I think this sums up our feelings pretty well.

YOU KNOW YOU'RE AN ADOPTIVE PARENT IF ...
1. The fact that there are 143 million children without a parent to kiss them goodnight has made you lose sleep.
2. You realize DNA has nothing to do with love & family.
3. You can't watch Adoption Stories on TLC without sobbing.
4. The fact that, if 7% of Christians adopted 1 child there would be no orphans in the world, is convicting to you.
5. You spend free time surfing blogs about families who've experienced the blessing of adoption.
6. It drives you crazy when people ask you about adopted child's "real" parents.
7. You've been "pregnant" with your adoptive child longer than it takes an elephant to give birth.(2 years!)
8. You'd no idea how you'd afford to adopt, but stepped out in faith anyway, knowing He'd provide. (& He does!)
9. You've taken an airplane half-way around the world with a child you just met.
10. You believe God's heart's for adoption.
11. You realize that welcoming a child into your heart & family is one of the most important legacies you could ever leave on this earth.
12. You know what the word "Dossier" means & you can actually pronounce it correctly!
13. You've welcomed a social worker into the most private parts of your life.
14. You shudder when people say your child's so lucky that you adopted them, knowing full well you're the blessed one to have him or her in your life.

We are officially expecting!!

I just got a call from our adoption social worker that our application is approved for adoption in the Philippines. Then she sent us a copy of the e-mail that our agency received from the Philippines.

Greetings of Peace!
This has reference to Mr. and Mrs. Crafton's adoption application received by this office on December 27, 2007.
We are pleased to inform you that the Inter-Country Adoption Board (ICAB) has approved the above adoption application on January 24, 2008. Mr. and Mrs. Crafton are now listed in our Roster of Approved Applicants. Your office will be duly advised as soon as the proper determination is made as to which child's needs will be responded to by Mr. and Mrs. Crafton.

So now we are in the waiting phase. In the adoption world when you are approved it is like you just found you are pregnant and that is what it feels like. I called Ryan already and we are both excited that it is so real now!

Are we Crazy?

When I tell people that we are planning to adopt a sibling group of 3 children we often get the reaction of "are you crazy?" After watching 3 of my friend's kids this week, I am beginning to ask myself that question. The kids we are watching are wonderful kids, I love their parents and they respect me and play with my boys, however it is soooo much work. I have only had them 3 days this week from 8am to 5pm and then I get a week off, I won't get a week off from my own children when we have 5 and they won't go home at 5pm. I have to question what were we thinking a little when we said three more would be a good number.

But just like any time I read or think about something that makes me question the adoption, I think about what we are doing and why we are doing it. People have 5 kids all the time and survive, heck there are people out there with 10+ kids and doing fine. Yes, it is more work than 2, but the rewards will be greater also.

I am excited about adopting 3 children and it will be fun, challenging and rewarding. I think the first year will be extra difficult, just like adding anyone to your family would be, but I know in the long run we will all be better for the experience. Just don't think I'll call or write that first year, I'll be so tired!

Adoption Update

We finally completed our dossier (application to Philippines) and our agency has sent it off to ICAB (the government agency in the Philippines that decides who gets to adopt). Now we are going to start the waiting game. At this point we first wait for approval. This is when the Philippines accepts our application and puts us in the pile of people that want to adopt. After our approval we wait for our referral, this is when we find out which kids will actually be part of our forever family. The time between the approval and the referral can be as short as 3 months or as long as 3 years or anywhere in between. We will travel to the Philippines 1-3 months after our referral. We stay in the Philippines for one week and bring the children home with us.

So now we wait. We have a lot to do to get prepared for our new children. We have things to physically rearrange in our house and have to prepare mentally also. Thank you everyone for your support.

Adoption Update

I just got a call from our adoption agency and they have received all of our paperwork for our dossier and it looks complete. All we are missing is our psych eval report. We have our appointment with our psychologist this Sat. then he will take a week to write the report. We should be ready to mail in our dossier to the Philippines right before Christmas. Then it will sit at ICAB (Philippines Inter Country Adoption Board) for a few weeks. Hopefully we will have an approval from ICAB around Feb.1st. After our approval, we sit in a pile waiting to be matched with our children.

What this all means to me is that I am no longer responsible for filling our paperwork, gathering documents or requesting letters from others. In other words, I'm free for a bit.

Homestudy finished!

Today we met with our adoption counselor and we got to read our home study report. It was very interesting to read a 9 page story about ourselves. We had to fill in a few blanks on things we had left out of our 20 page paper we wrote to her. It also included a few quotes from our confidential reference letters written by friends and family. Thanks for doing those everyone, they were great. We are going to have to be billed for the $2100 and she wasn't excited about that, but they have us because we can't go on until they get their money.

We did get the instructions for our dossier though, we just can't turn it in until we have the last payment paid. Plus the dossier includes another $800 payment. In this step we need more reference letters, a letter from Lance, answer more questions, police reports and psych evaluations. Plus some other stuff that I can't remember now. We were told it should take us about a month to complete. Then we mail it to our agency, they finish it and mail it to the Philippines. After that we wait for notice that the Philippines got it, it takes about a month for that.

So, we are moving along. We are just taking each step as it comes. It will all work out at some point, just not as fast as we had hoped. We'll keep you updated.

Creative Financing

I admit that I lack creativity, so I am asking for help. On Tuesday, Oct.30th, we have our final meeting for our homestudy. However, to actually make our homestudy complete we need to pay our next fee of $2100. Ryan works on the side for his friend and this is how we save the money for adoption fees. However, business has been slow for his friend and Ryan is lacking time since he started his new job. Needless to say, we don't have the money for this payment. Now,you could say, well, just wait the money will come. And yes, we will have the money someday, but I want it now.

I've checked into different grants and loans already and the paradox is...they require you to complete your homestudy before you can even apply. I'm not begging for money, I just need some serious advice of how to do creative financing. This is already such a long process and to drag it out more is hard on the spirit. Plus, there is always a chance that a country could close their adoptions (case in point Guatamala in January). Or that adoption laws can change.

So, just think about it please and post comments. Even if you don't have a real idea, a funny joke will be accepted because humor helps.

10/29 Update: Tomorrow we have our meeting with the adoption agency and we won't be giving them a check, however we are at $900 right now. They don't mind billing us, it just delays the process. Ryan has been working a little for his friend and we hope to pay the money soon. Thanks for all of the great ideas!!

Adoption Update

We have turned in our huge paper about ourselves and it was only 15 pages long! I guess we don't have much to say about ourselves. Our next step is meeting with our adoption counselor to complete our home study and to start our dossier. We are going to meet her on Oct. 30, pay a lot of money and we're off to the next phase. We currently don't have any homework, so that is a nice break. I have been in contact with someone that works at the orphanage we want to adopt from. We have been discussing by e-mail some possible matches. We are so busy these days that the waiting hasn't really hit anyone, but I'm sure after we have been matched it will be hard.

Adoption Update

Just a quick update on our adoption process for those of you that have asked. Currently it is going very slowly and that is our fault. We have homework to do right now and have not found the time to do it. We have to answer 7 pages of single spaced questions about ourselves and we are not talking yes/no questions. I don't even know the answers to some of them, so I have to search within myself to think about what to answer. I have to give a plug to the Passport people! I mailed mine in for renewal expecting 3 months of waiting and it was sent to me a week later.