About 6 weeks ago we encountered another adoptive couple as they were in the midst of a bit of drama. This being their first time adopting I hit them with this pearl of gracious wisdom:
"We will continue to pray for your adoption process. Having adopted once already I can honestly say there's more drama to come for you but it's so worth it."
I knew we had some more dramatic moments to come as well but I didn't necessarily appreciate the degree to which I was prophesying our own future. This has been that week...
Last weekend we were at my parents' house for a family reunion. We decided to go ahead and kickoff one of the few fundraisers we intend to do to raise money for our adoption (more on this in another post). I wasn't sure how it would go and I felt a little awkward about hitting up my family for money. I'm just not a fundraiser kind of guy. As we were packing up to leave we counted the money they donated, it was more than I had hoped for by a wide margin. What a blessing they are to us. Ecstatic!
Sunday/Monday we drove the 1,000 miles home with the three little ones in the car. That'll cause anyone to have second thoughts about adding to their family. Frustrated and tired!
Monday we found out that we have been pre-approved by China to adopt our son. Ecstatic!
Tuesday we got our USCIS approval to adopt. More ecstatic!!
Wednesday I spoke to our social worker and was informed that we won't be approved to get two kiddos in one trip. Disappointed and a bit confused but a little relieved that we can just focus on our son.
Thought about the Wednesday conversation some more... Something fishy about this so I asked a few more questions. 14 emails and a lengthy phone conversation today, we're not getting two children in a single trip. Frustrated and a little heartbroken.
Drama week...prophecy fulfilled.
On the bus-ride home this evening I was thinking about this. Why would God lead us so far down the path of getting two children at once only to yank the rug out from under us in such a fashion as He did? This led me to think about Abraham. God led him down a fairly dramatic path (sacrifice your son) only to stop him at the last second. It was a test of Abraham's faithfulness. Is that what He did to us? The more I thought about this the more I considered the last 18 months of our life, how God has called us to do the ridiculous and how we followed Him right along. Perhaps today was an act of mercy and grace. He showed mercy and grace to Abraham by not actually making him sacrifice his son. Perhaps He's showed us mercy and grace by not exposing us to the potential problems that two children at once can bring.
I'm still disappointed, a little frustrated, and heartbroken. But I know God is sovereign and I know He is trustworthy. If He thinks getting one child at a time instead of two is the way for me to best glorify Him, then let's do it, it'll be so worth it!
Friday, July 11, 2014
Wednesday, July 9, 2014
Our LOI has been PA'd by the CCCWA
!Grrrreeeeaaaatt!" he says while looking around to see if he's the only one that doesn't have a clue what this means...
Not sure who introduced the secret language of acronyms to us all, likely the military, perhaps capitalist corporations. Either way, all they really do is increase the opportunity for confusion while promoting a certain kind of verbal laziness in the interest of getting more from less.
We use acronyms all the time at work because we have this idea that it saves time to use acronyms instead of saying what we really mean. What we do instead is spend just as much time, if not more, explaining what the acronyms mean and explaining what a particular acronym means in this context vs. what it would mean in another context. Yesterday I actually had a 30 minute discussion with two others about what was the best acronym to use to describe a particular activity we do. Colossal waste of time...
All that aside, the adoption world uses many acronyms. I get lost in them all. Our social worker, bless her heart, uses them so fast I can't keep up with what she's saying even though I've heard them all before.
In the event you don't have a clue what the title of this post mean, let me break it down for you so you can legitimately celebrate with us.
LOI = Letter of Intent. In short, we submitted a package of information to China to say we would like to adopt a particular child. This is referred to as our Letter of Intent, or LOI.
CCCWA = China Center for Children's Welfare and Adoption. This is the Chinese government agency responsible for the welfare of children who are in the custody of the state. This is the government agency we will deal with for our adoption.
PA = Pre-approval. Think of it as a provisional approval to proceed with whatever has been proposed.
So, put it all together and what do you get? China has officially said that they are willing to handle and process our adoption case so that we can have the boy we selected. He's going to be ours!!!!!
On a side note, I've gone on a kick of using less and less acronyms at work. I'm trying to re-enter the normal world where people use actual words to communicate with each other. It's revolutionary.
We use acronyms all the time at work because we have this idea that it saves time to use acronyms instead of saying what we really mean. What we do instead is spend just as much time, if not more, explaining what the acronyms mean and explaining what a particular acronym means in this context vs. what it would mean in another context. Yesterday I actually had a 30 minute discussion with two others about what was the best acronym to use to describe a particular activity we do. Colossal waste of time...
All that aside, the adoption world uses many acronyms. I get lost in them all. Our social worker, bless her heart, uses them so fast I can't keep up with what she's saying even though I've heard them all before.
In the event you don't have a clue what the title of this post mean, let me break it down for you so you can legitimately celebrate with us.
LOI = Letter of Intent. In short, we submitted a package of information to China to say we would like to adopt a particular child. This is referred to as our Letter of Intent, or LOI.
CCCWA = China Center for Children's Welfare and Adoption. This is the Chinese government agency responsible for the welfare of children who are in the custody of the state. This is the government agency we will deal with for our adoption.
PA = Pre-approval. Think of it as a provisional approval to proceed with whatever has been proposed.
So, put it all together and what do you get? China has officially said that they are willing to handle and process our adoption case so that we can have the boy we selected. He's going to be ours!!!!!
On a side note, I've gone on a kick of using less and less acronyms at work. I'm trying to re-enter the normal world where people use actual words to communicate with each other. It's revolutionary.
Monday, June 23, 2014
Prayer is the way...
For anyone out there, we could use your prayers. We have some decisions to make about our chosen son and a potential second child. Want to do what's best for the kiddos but ultimately want to do what most glorifies God. Not always easy to know what that is...
Friday, June 6, 2014
It's a Boy!!
Our prayers have been answered and we are matched with a child!! (To be fair, the process is not completed yet but barring the unforeseen, he'll be ours.) Praise God!!
As you might imagine, selecting a child to be part of your family forever is an emotionally charged process. True to form, it was definitely emotional for us and at the end it was just downright bizarre. Looking back over the process it's easy to see God's hand at work. Here's the story in case you want to relive it a little... If not, you can skip down to the ******* and see the conclusion.
----------------------------------
5/9 - We got an email from our agency announcing they had 2 new children in their system. These emails come about once a month or so as new children become available for adoption. Anyways, both children looked like candidates for us so we requested their files later that day.
5/12 - We received the requested files. I (Micah) read them first. Based on their medical conditions I figured one of them would be a really good candidate for us. After reading his file, I just wasn't that interested. Meh... I read the second file. He has a heart problem but I didn't understand what it was. I was drawn to him, so much so that I even mentioned to Heather later that morning that I just felt drawn to one and not the other.
Heather reviewed his file later that day, we did a little casual internet research about his heart condition and decided we would like to take a closer look. In the meantime we put a hold on his file. This is something the agency lets us do. It effectively takes him "off the market" for a week while we consider him. The hold would end on 5/19 - time is ticking.
In the meantime, we sent his file to the kids' pediatrician (she's an adoptive mom as well, she's very helpful). The Dr. gave us a little info about his condition but couldn't answer all our questions. We decided we were interested enough to make an appointment with Texas Childrens (they have an international adoption department in their retrovirology group, not a word I use every day).
We prayed and fasted hoping to hear from God whether this child was for us or not. We went through many cycles of saying "yes we want him", to saying "I'm scared", to saying "this is crazy, we can't take care of him", to saying "we're just being emotional", etc... ad nauseam. Perhaps meeting the Dr's would help us decided...
What we really wanted was to hear from God. We knew then and we know now that if God calls us to adopt this child God will make it work, even if it's hard. Where is our answer to prayer???
5/16 - We met with Texas Childrens. The Dr. had consulted a pediatric cardiologist and was very helpful in explaining his condition, the risks, etc... She also helped us draft some questions for the orphanage. His file left some questions unanswered about his present condition which could affect his ability to travel home.
We left the Dr. with many questions answered but also with many new questions, unanswered. More praying, more cycles of want him, scared, emotional, etc...
In the meantime we were requesting many more files to look at. This boy stayed on our hearts though.
5/19 - Our "hold" on his file would expire today. However, our social worker extended the hold to 5/22 in the hopes that we might get a response from the orphanage by then.
tick, tock, tick tock... More praying, more cycles.
5/22 - No response from the orphanage. We wanted to adopt this boy but we felt like we needed to make sure we knew what we were getting in to. We let the hold go (which means other families can now put him on hold or choose him). This made us a little nervous about loosing him but at the same time we weren't totally sure he was for us. We offered to share what we learned from the doctors with anyone else that might be looking at him. The social worker told us that nobody else was looking at his file, we felt OK about that. Either way, we wanted him to have a home so if someone chose him that would be OK.
5/28 - Still no response from the orphanage. Can't get this kid off our minds though. We got an email from the agency saying someone else was looking at him and wanted to know if we were still willing to share the information we had from our doctors. I contacted the family immediately, they said they would love to have the information. They had an appointment with their doctors the next day.
I came home and told Heather about all this. We started getting second thoughts about helping someone else adopt this boy...that means someone else might choose him... We decided to honor our offer but be as forthright as possible with this other family about the fact that we were still trying to decide if we wanted him or not.
5/29 - I emailed the information to the other family first thing in the morning. I included an explanation that we still wanted him but were waiting on more information to make sure. We encouraged then to go ahead and meet with their doctors. If they chose him then that was our answer to our prayers - he's not for us. They were not aware that we were still interested.
They emailed us back and said (paraphrased) "Oh wow! Are you saying you want to adopt him? Definitely?" How were we going to answer that?
Heather and I talked at length about how to respond. In short, we couldn't stand the idea of someone else adopting him. Without realizing it, God had already started knitting our heart to his. We already loved him. This was our answer to prayer!!!!
I returned to my computer to respond to them. In the meantime they had sent another email. It said (paraphrasing again) "We want this child to have a home. If you want him, we will release our hold and you can have him. We would be excited to do this so that we can be a blessing to this boy and your family. We will pray for you as you make this hard decision and celebrate with you if you choose him." WHAT!??!?!?? I didn't know they had a hold on him.!.!!.. And who says stuff like that at a time like this? Is anyone really that spiritually mature, I guess so. We were humbled, excited, crying, and relieved.
I replied (summarized) "We want him."
The replied later that day "We've officially released the hold on him, he's yours."
Shortly after, the agency emailed and said "He's yours."
******************************************
So that's that. We have a son on the way! We're excited, to put it mildly.
Hindsight being what it is it's pretty evident that he was for us all along. Here's what I mean:
5/12 - We received the requested files. I (Micah) read them first. Based on their medical conditions I figured one of them would be a really good candidate for us. After reading his file, I just wasn't that interested. Meh... I read the second file. He has a heart problem but I didn't understand what it was. I was drawn to him, so much so that I even mentioned to Heather later that morning that I just felt drawn to one and not the other.
Heather reviewed his file later that day, we did a little casual internet research about his heart condition and decided we would like to take a closer look. In the meantime we put a hold on his file. This is something the agency lets us do. It effectively takes him "off the market" for a week while we consider him. The hold would end on 5/19 - time is ticking.
In the meantime, we sent his file to the kids' pediatrician (she's an adoptive mom as well, she's very helpful). The Dr. gave us a little info about his condition but couldn't answer all our questions. We decided we were interested enough to make an appointment with Texas Childrens (they have an international adoption department in their retrovirology group, not a word I use every day).
We prayed and fasted hoping to hear from God whether this child was for us or not. We went through many cycles of saying "yes we want him", to saying "I'm scared", to saying "this is crazy, we can't take care of him", to saying "we're just being emotional", etc... ad nauseam. Perhaps meeting the Dr's would help us decided...
What we really wanted was to hear from God. We knew then and we know now that if God calls us to adopt this child God will make it work, even if it's hard. Where is our answer to prayer???
5/16 - We met with Texas Childrens. The Dr. had consulted a pediatric cardiologist and was very helpful in explaining his condition, the risks, etc... She also helped us draft some questions for the orphanage. His file left some questions unanswered about his present condition which could affect his ability to travel home.
We left the Dr. with many questions answered but also with many new questions, unanswered. More praying, more cycles of want him, scared, emotional, etc...
In the meantime we were requesting many more files to look at. This boy stayed on our hearts though.
5/19 - Our "hold" on his file would expire today. However, our social worker extended the hold to 5/22 in the hopes that we might get a response from the orphanage by then.
tick, tock, tick tock... More praying, more cycles.
5/22 - No response from the orphanage. We wanted to adopt this boy but we felt like we needed to make sure we knew what we were getting in to. We let the hold go (which means other families can now put him on hold or choose him). This made us a little nervous about loosing him but at the same time we weren't totally sure he was for us. We offered to share what we learned from the doctors with anyone else that might be looking at him. The social worker told us that nobody else was looking at his file, we felt OK about that. Either way, we wanted him to have a home so if someone chose him that would be OK.
5/28 - Still no response from the orphanage. Can't get this kid off our minds though. We got an email from the agency saying someone else was looking at him and wanted to know if we were still willing to share the information we had from our doctors. I contacted the family immediately, they said they would love to have the information. They had an appointment with their doctors the next day.
I came home and told Heather about all this. We started getting second thoughts about helping someone else adopt this boy...that means someone else might choose him... We decided to honor our offer but be as forthright as possible with this other family about the fact that we were still trying to decide if we wanted him or not.
5/29 - I emailed the information to the other family first thing in the morning. I included an explanation that we still wanted him but were waiting on more information to make sure. We encouraged then to go ahead and meet with their doctors. If they chose him then that was our answer to our prayers - he's not for us. They were not aware that we were still interested.
They emailed us back and said (paraphrased) "Oh wow! Are you saying you want to adopt him? Definitely?" How were we going to answer that?
Heather and I talked at length about how to respond. In short, we couldn't stand the idea of someone else adopting him. Without realizing it, God had already started knitting our heart to his. We already loved him. This was our answer to prayer!!!!
I returned to my computer to respond to them. In the meantime they had sent another email. It said (paraphrasing again) "We want this child to have a home. If you want him, we will release our hold and you can have him. We would be excited to do this so that we can be a blessing to this boy and your family. We will pray for you as you make this hard decision and celebrate with you if you choose him." WHAT!??!?!?? I didn't know they had a hold on him.!.!!.. And who says stuff like that at a time like this? Is anyone really that spiritually mature, I guess so. We were humbled, excited, crying, and relieved.
I replied (summarized) "We want him."
The replied later that day "We've officially released the hold on him, he's yours."
Shortly after, the agency emailed and said "He's yours."
******************************************
So that's that. We have a son on the way! We're excited, to put it mildly.
Hindsight being what it is it's pretty evident that he was for us all along. Here's what I mean:
- As noted already, we were drawn to him from day one even though we saw several kids with lesser or more familiar medical needs.
- He has a heart condition requiring surgery. We happen to live in the Mecca of heart surgeons, much less pediatric heart surgeons.
- Heather's good friend (who is also an adoptive mom via China) is the Nurse that schedules the heart surgeons at Texas Children's. She can personally ensure we get the best there is when it comes to pediatric cardiac surgeons.
- His birthday is on the 14th of the month. Lora's birthday is on the 14th of the month. Joshua's birthday is on the 14th of the month. Scott's birthday is on the 14th of the month. Apparently we're only gonna have children with birthdays on the 14th...
- He's in Chongqing, the same city that Sonia is from (Sonia is our exchange student). We never even heard of Chongqing until we met her. When we go pick him up we'll get to see her, her parents and grandma, her home, her city, her favorite places, etc... She's actually tried to volunteer at his orphanage in the past (before she came here).
- Sonia's birthday is not on the 14th. But the day that he became ours (5/29) is Sonia's birthday.
So we have another son and we met some very nice people that said exactly the right thing at just the right time. God is sovereign!
Monday, May 19, 2014
Goodbye Old Friend
My work colleagues ask from time to time how Joshua is doing, how his language is coming along, how he's adjusting to life in the U.S. etc... They're curious in general. Today, someone asked me such a question and without even thinking about what I was saying I responded:
"Great! His language is good for his age, his behavior is typical for his age, he's doing great except his finger is about to fall off."
They were taken aback, a little.
At this time I realized what I just said and how it probably sounded so I felt the need to explain. I'll explain briefly for you as well.
Joshua is missing his left hand but he did have a little finger-nubbin on the outboard side of his wrist (like a tiny pinkie). It's been hurting him for a while because it takes some abuse. Last week it started to get purple and swollen, then darker and more swollen, then darker and less swollen, then black and hard. Today it fell off. :(
It was lost for a while but then Heather spotted it on the carpet upstairs. No random mini-digits floating around our house, no sir.
A little later Heather told Joshua to clean up his mess. He wanted to see his hand (he interchangeably refers to his finger as his hand, you can imagine his confusion since he's missing both now) so she told you "you can't see your hand until you clean up your mess." That's not really a phrase we use in our house but if the shoe fits...
During dinner we discussed what to do with Joshua's finger. Here are the options that we came up with:
In memoriam, I thought I'd share a few pics of Joshua with his finger.
One last thing. I struggled with how to title this post, being that it's a little odd. Here are a few alternate titles I considered:
"Great! His language is good for his age, his behavior is typical for his age, he's doing great except his finger is about to fall off."
They were taken aback, a little.
At this time I realized what I just said and how it probably sounded so I felt the need to explain. I'll explain briefly for you as well.
Joshua is missing his left hand but he did have a little finger-nubbin on the outboard side of his wrist (like a tiny pinkie). It's been hurting him for a while because it takes some abuse. Last week it started to get purple and swollen, then darker and more swollen, then darker and less swollen, then black and hard. Today it fell off. :(
It was lost for a while but then Heather spotted it on the carpet upstairs. No random mini-digits floating around our house, no sir.
A little later Heather told Joshua to clean up his mess. He wanted to see his hand (he interchangeably refers to his finger as his hand, you can imagine his confusion since he's missing both now) so she told you "you can't see your hand until you clean up your mess." That's not really a phrase we use in our house but if the shoe fits...
During dinner we discussed what to do with Joshua's finger. Here are the options that we came up with:
- Throw it in the trash. Nobody liked this idea that much.
- Plant it in the back yard so it would grow a new Joshua. Joshua didn't like this one because he doesn't want another Joshua.
- Save it forever. The jury is still out on this one.
- Put it in under his pillow so the finger-fairy could buy it.
We had to stop because some of us were getting turned off by the conversation. After dinner we discussed it some more and Joshua chose #4 but only after Lora explained that the finger-fairy would take his finger and give him money for it. Everyone here knows that daddy is the tooth-fairy (we don't promote belief in such things as a real tooth-fairy) so that means mommy gets to be the finger-fairy. The hard part now is figuring out is how much the finger-fairy pays for fingers. Not sure what the going rate is for your child's finger. Parenting is hard...
In memoriam, I thought I'd share a few pics of Joshua with his finger.
One last thing. I struggled with how to title this post, being that it's a little odd. Here are a few alternate titles I considered:
- Giving the Finger
- I Make Blood (this is a Joshua-ism, perhaps I'll share on that another time)
- Watermelon Seed
- The Five Finger Discount
- Dude, Have you seen my finger?
- One more Reason Joshua will Never be Left-Handed
Tuesday, April 1, 2014
Home Study
We finally got enough paperwork done and fees paid that they kicked off our home study. We can't use the same social worker that did for our last home study, that would be too simple. We are using the same agency though so they've been able to recycle a lot of our paperwork.
There are three main purposes for a home study, as far as I know:
There are three main purposes for a home study, as far as I know:
- Educate the prospective parents about adoption.
- Evaluate the fitness/readiness of the family and home to support [additional] children.
- Gather information about the family that will aid the agency in placing a child that "fits" the family.
For these reasons, and others I'm sure, home studies are a legal requirement in every state prior to adoptive or foster placement.
I suppose that some people get rejected for placement as a result of the home study, as they should. There is little risk that we would be rejected but the process is kinda stressful anyways - you feel like you're being put under a microscope a little and you never know what the kids will say while the social worker is here.
We heard from our new social worker and scheduled our first appointment for Sunday (3/30/2014) afternoon. 30 minutes after she was supposed to be here she called to say she would be a little late and would be an additional 30 minutes before arriving...wrong first impression. She was real sweet though, easy to work with and she is making a clear effort to get us through the home study as quickly as practical. God is good!
By the way, a typical prerequisite for adoptions loans, grants, and other non-profit based support is possession of a completed home study. It's an important milestone.
I suppose that some people get rejected for placement as a result of the home study, as they should. There is little risk that we would be rejected but the process is kinda stressful anyways - you feel like you're being put under a microscope a little and you never know what the kids will say while the social worker is here.
We heard from our new social worker and scheduled our first appointment for Sunday (3/30/2014) afternoon. 30 minutes after she was supposed to be here she called to say she would be a little late and would be an additional 30 minutes before arriving...wrong first impression. She was real sweet though, easy to work with and she is making a clear effort to get us through the home study as quickly as practical. God is good!
By the way, a typical prerequisite for adoptions loans, grants, and other non-profit based support is possession of a completed home study. It's an important milestone.
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Manna from Adoption Financing Heaven
I think I mentioned in one of my previous posts that we delayed submitting some of our paperwork until after Christmas because we couldn't exactly write the check that was supposed to accompany it (It's not as if I'm gonna look back to see if I actually told you this. Besides if I didn't tell you, now I did). This was a little tough for us. For one reason, it only slows down the already slow process of adoption. The other reason this was tough is a little harder to describe, but I'll try.
We believe that if God calls you to do something, He'll make it work. In the case of adoption, we believe God has called us to adopt. As such we believe that He'll make it work, including funding it. As such, it's not for us to worry about where the money will come from but to just do what He's called us to do. However, there's a chance that we're just mistaken and God hasn't called us to adopt at all but rather we're just doing what we want to do. If this is the case we can't expect Him to fund it. Taking this into consideration we continually keep an ear to the ground in regards to how and where God is moving just to make sure we aren't out in left field.
With Joshua's adoption, we felt called to adopt so we did. When it came to the money we just kept writing checks and trusting that the money would be there. This wasn't too difficult since we had some savings to fall back on if money got really tight. In the end we did fine even though we did have to use some of our savings - that's fine, that's what it's there for.
With this adoption we still feel called to adopt. However, this time we don't really have much (any) savings to fall back on, for a handful of reasons. So when the money gets tight we find yourselves asking "is the money tight and God just wants us to trust Him" or "is the money tight because God is saying this isn't what I called you to do?" Well this is the dilemma we were in around Christmas time.
We prayed about it quite a bit, still felt called to adopt, and so as soon as the money was available we wrote the check and sent in the paperwork. Since then, there has been more checks to write and we've been writing them just trusting that God will see us through. We've also been looking under every couch cushion for more lose change...
Last week Heather opened the mail to find a check for $60 from the insurance company. Payback from our flexible spending account. Forgot all about our FSA, that's sweet. The next day she opens the mail to a check for $591 from the hospital where we delivered Scott. No explanation provided, there must've been an accounting error somewhere? The next day Heather goes into Ace Hardware to mail a package (they have a mini US Post Office in there) and they're having a spin-the-wheel-and-win-something day. She wins $77.
For sure, these amounts don't go very far in terms of paying for an adoption. But for a couple of people that were feeling some doubts about whether God was with them or not, this was a glorious reminder that God can make money come from anywhere he wants to in order to accomplish His purposes.
Poor for His Glory,
The Shanks'
We prayed about it quite a bit, still felt called to adopt, and so as soon as the money was available we wrote the check and sent in the paperwork. Since then, there has been more checks to write and we've been writing them just trusting that God will see us through. We've also been looking under every couch cushion for more lose change...
Last week Heather opened the mail to find a check for $60 from the insurance company. Payback from our flexible spending account. Forgot all about our FSA, that's sweet. The next day she opens the mail to a check for $591 from the hospital where we delivered Scott. No explanation provided, there must've been an accounting error somewhere? The next day Heather goes into Ace Hardware to mail a package (they have a mini US Post Office in there) and they're having a spin-the-wheel-and-win-something day. She wins $77.
For sure, these amounts don't go very far in terms of paying for an adoption. But for a couple of people that were feeling some doubts about whether God was with them or not, this was a glorious reminder that God can make money come from anywhere he wants to in order to accomplish His purposes.
Poor for His Glory,
The Shanks'
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