Category Archives: Adoption

I haven’t meant to ignore my blog but I also haven’t felt up to posting. I still feel like I’m trying to get my feet back under me after having our first adoption process cancelled and my grandfather dying. I’ve been plugging away every day, trying to find joy again.

Yesterday I was praying that God would make His will known in our family, if we are supposed to keep trying to adopt. I’m frustrated that we’ve been working on adoption paperwork for almost a year and a half and still don’t have a child. I thought I had heard God’s voice clearly last year that adoption is the path He laid out for our family.

Well, I picked up my Bible and started reading where I last left off. The very first story I read was about Abraham and how God promised Abraham “I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you” (Genesis 17:6). Abraham had to wait for years to see God’s promise fulfilled. Years! God didn’t promise Abraham and then immediately open Sarah’s womb. No, Abraham had to wait for 14 long years to see the fulfillment of God’s promise of children.

To be truthful, the story is both encouraging and discouraging. It’s discouraging because Abraham and Sarah had to wait so long for Isaac to be born. But it’s also encouraging because God promised them children and did give them children. Granted, it wasn’t in their timing. Both tried to find ways to force God’s promise to come about. But God eventually did grant them a child. He followed through.

I do believe that God intends for us to adopt. I am trying to hold fast to my faith and pray that God will bring it to pass. I hope that I don’t have to wait years and years like Abraham did. But I will try to have faith that God’s way is ALWAYS best, even when I don’t understand.

I was surprised this morning with an email from our agency. A five page update on the girl we’re applying to adopt! It took less than a week for them to send us the update. And it even included two fairly recent photos.

I wish I could share more but don’t feel comfortable doing so because we’re not formally matched with her. As soon as we receive our pre-approval, I will be sharing her photo! She’s beautiful.

Today was a very busy day.

We rolled out of bed, ate a quick breakfast, and headed off to the health clinic. On Tuesday we started the skin TB test. Today we went back to have the results read. Neither of us showed a reaction to the test. We emailed the test results over to our doctor so that she could finish up our medical clearance.

This afternoon, we heard a delivery truck pull up in front of the house. My first thought was, “please let that be the Fedex guy!” Sure enough, there was a knock on the door. By the time I got to the door, he was already in his truck but I was able to wave thanks. Our paperwork from Taiwan arrived!

After a quick email with our new agency to make sure I was scanning the right documents, I scanned in all 39 pages of our home study and the Mandarin translation. After emailing that to the agency, I received confirmation that it has been forwarded to St. Lucy’s in Taiwan. Our pre-approval process has begun! The agency said they expect it will take about six weeks to receive our pre-approval. I’m praying we’ll have good news by Christmas. That would be a wonderful present.

Yesterday we had a nice surprise. I emailed the agency to ask about St. Lucy’s schedule in providing updates on the kids. Our coordinator said she would email and request an update with photos! We only have one photo of Jenny and would love to see more. She sent over all of the updates she’s received since the agency started advocating for Jenny. There was one update in the batch that we hadn’t seen before. It was old, from November 2013, but it still had a few tidbits of information we hadn’t seen before. That was a really nice surprise. Then we found out this morning that the coordinator in Taiwan had already requested the update before our agency had sent the request! It’s already in the works!

I’m slowly getting more excited about this adoption process as we make forward progress. I’m still guarding my emotions as we are not guaranteed to receive pre-approval. I expect we will since we have received pre-approval before to be matched with a child. But it’s not guaranteed. I don’t want to start getting attached to the idea of adopting Jenny before we’re officially matched. Once we’re matched, I’ll throw my heart into the adoption and prepare for the Skype call and our first care package.

I haven’t posted much about our new adoption process because I’m really struggling with it on an emotional level. I’m having a hard time letting my heart get invested because I am so afraid that this one will fail as well. We have no reason to expect it to fail. St. Lucy’s (the agency in Taiwan) knows about us already and seems interested in our family. Jenny still wants a family. But I expected the last adoption to succeed and my heart was broken when it didn’t. At some point in the process, probably when we receive pre-approval, I will get excited. Until then, I’m just following my husband’s lead, praying, and filling out paperwork.

We’ve had a lot of progress this week.

Thursday – Both of us were fingerprinted. I received my results back while hubby was still being fingerprinted! Unfortunately, it looks like his fingerprints didn’t “take” and he will probably have to redo them. We also notarized our financial statement for the home study and dossier.

Sunday – We have a visit with our social worker. She’s coming over for a short visit (around an hour) to get an update on our family.

Monday – We have appointments to start the medical clearance. We received permission to use our naturopath this time! Last time, the Taiwan agency (a different one) told us that our naturopath couldn’t sign our clearance because she’s an ND instead of an MD. But St. Lucy’s gave us the ok to visit our naturopath, since she’s our primary care doc. Hurray!

Once hubby’s fingerprints get sorted out and we get the medical clearances completed, we’ll just be waiting for our social worker to update our home study. She’s only charging us $250 to get our home study updated and new copies printed! Such a blessing!

We also found out that our paperwork is on its way back from Taiwan and that the translation was included. We were afraid we would not be allowed to have the translation, even though I insisted they return it to us since we paid to have all of our paperwork translated. This is such a relief. Once the paperwork is here, we can scan a copy of our old home study with translation and email it to St. Lucy’s. They will use the old home study to review us for pre-approval since it will save a bunch of time and money. Eventually, when we get the new home study, it will be translated and inserted into the dossier for use in court.

Our new agency told us that the approvals process will likely take 1-2 months starting from the time they receive our home study. So we are hoping to be formally matched with Jenny by the end of the year.

If anyone wants to chat about agencies, I’d be happy to share our experiences. Our old agency was Wasatch (in Utah), who works with Chung Yi in Taiwan. Our new agency is Heartsent (in CA), who works with St. Lucy’s. And we have a fabulous social worker here in the Seattle area! If you live in this area, I’d recommend her in a heartbeat.

Way back, our social worker suggested that she approve us for two girls on our home study. We applied and were matched with Z. We kept looking for that second girl and found her in January. We asked for permission to add Jenny (not her real name) to our adoption but the agency in Taiwan said no. We decided it wasn’t God’s will for us at the time but prayed that God would find her a family if we weren’t supposed to bring her home later as our second daughter.

When we received news that our adoption had been cancelled, we contacted the agency who is advocating for Jenny. “Has she found a family yet?” She has not. “Does she want to be adopted?” Yes! She has asked if she has been matched with a family yet.

Well, today we signed with her agency to try to bring Jenny home. We’re praying that God will continue to open doors if this is His will or to let us know if we’re on the wrong path. I can’t wait to see where He leads. If Jenny does get matched with our family and agrees to be adopted, we’ll have quite a story to share with her someday.

The last 24 hours have been rather rough. Yesterday morning I received a call from my grandmother that my grandfather passed away. He was almost 88 years old and had Alzheimer’s. I call my grandparents almost every single Saturday so was not surprised to hear the news. He was a believer in God so I hope to see him again someday. My grandpa’s funeral is on the 13th so I’ll be flying to Wyoming next week.

We also received news this morning that our girl has decided to stay in Taiwan. Our adoption process has been officially terminated. I’ve been crying a lot today over the realization that she won’t be our daughter. I will continue to pray for her and hope that she finds a happy future in Taiwan.

My feelings are much too raw to talk about this in any more detail but I may post more in the near future. I’ll just keep praying that God will show us what to do next and for Him to heal my broken heart.

Today marks 15 months since we found our girl’s photo on Rainbow Kids.

We still have not received any news from our agency. We don’t know if she has agreed to be our daughter or if our adoption will end any day now. It’s a hard place to be but I’m trying to hold tight to God. Only He knows what will happen.

Every day I pray for my daughter. I know she’s not legally my daughter, but she holds a special place in my heart. I pray that she will accept our offer of a family. If she says no, I pray that she’ll be able to find her way to a happy life in Taiwan.

I’m hoping and praying for news this week. I’m ready to know what’s going to happen!

I found another wonderful Bible promise this morning.

Cast your burden on the Lord,
And He shall sustain you;
He shall never permit the
righteous to be moved.
Psalm 55:22
I’m so glad that I have a God who can sustain me. Without Him, I’d feel so hopeless right now.