Today Howie and I took half of a personal day from work in order to attend a Waiting Child conference call with Cindy, our adoption specialist, and Elisabeth, the woman at the regional Bethany branch who will do our matching with a child from China. What a wonderful experience this is! We were fully prepared for the types of questions that we would be asked, thanks to Howie's brother and our sister-in-law who have three adopted children (not from China).
Here is the official information:
We are open to adopting a child of either gender, ages 0-18 months with the following special needs: a missing arm or hand, missing digits (fingers and toes), limb difference (deformity of the arm, or a shortened arm), club feet, and a hernia.
After thoroughly discussing the special needs and stating what we would accept together, we were given a little bit of exciting news. Elisabeth told us that they are currently working with nine families who are adopting from China and that we are the tenth family (not that we are really numbered). Out of those, so far, we are the only family that is open to either gender, so we will most likely receive a match with a boy. That means that when they see a boy, ages 0-18 months with one of the orthopedic needs we have described, they are going to rush to lock him in for us. She even gave us an estimated time frame! She said that she thought it was pretty likely that we would receive a match within six months-- and definitely within a year. That's so exciting!!!!! It's nice to have at least a timeframe to look at now. Now it's up to God to do the rest. We can't wait to see what He has in store. :)
Please continue to keep us in prayer, as we are now officially "in waiting" and will also soon be trying to raise funds for all things China-related: the airfare, hotel and food expense for two weeks, orphanage fee, and so forth.
This is definitely an exciting journey we've been on so far, and it's about to get even more exciting hopefully in the not-so-distant future. :)
Thank you all for your prayers and support!
Many blessings,
Jenn and Howie
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
Thursday, August 15, 2013
LID- Time to Celebrate with GREAT news!!
Hey everyone!
No depressing news on this blog tonight!! This part of the rollercoaster is over!! Praise God, literally!
Tonight we learned that our home study glitches are going to be fixed within a week and sent to immigration to be on the safe side. Also, our adoption specialist submitted the necessary paperwork we had been waiting for, and today we received news that our dossier is LID-- logged in dossier!!!!! For those new to adoption lingo, this is HUGE news!! With all the paperwork in and with an LID, we should soon have our special needs conference call with the China team at Bethany and be eligible for matching-- hopefully starting in September!! We also have a neat history of matching birthday dates in our family, and though this isn't a birthday, we will still always remember that we had our LID on my mother-in-law, Marilyn's, birthday. :)
Also, we learned that we received a grant from the Sparrow Fund which will cover the cost of a medical review of our child's health profile. Things are definitely looking up. What a difference a week can make.
Thank you all for all the prayers, chats, cards, etc. They have encouraged us more than you could possibly know. God's timing is everything, and we know He'll wait for the right time to match us with our little one, too. The match could be next month or a year from next month, but hopefully sooner rather than later. Please keep praying for us and our little one as we await the match!! Time to celebrate!!!!! :)
Thank you, everyone, for your support! We love you!!
Blessings,
Jenn --and I speak for Howie, too. :)
No depressing news on this blog tonight!! This part of the rollercoaster is over!! Praise God, literally!
Tonight we learned that our home study glitches are going to be fixed within a week and sent to immigration to be on the safe side. Also, our adoption specialist submitted the necessary paperwork we had been waiting for, and today we received news that our dossier is LID-- logged in dossier!!!!! For those new to adoption lingo, this is HUGE news!! With all the paperwork in and with an LID, we should soon have our special needs conference call with the China team at Bethany and be eligible for matching-- hopefully starting in September!! We also have a neat history of matching birthday dates in our family, and though this isn't a birthday, we will still always remember that we had our LID on my mother-in-law, Marilyn's, birthday. :)
Also, we learned that we received a grant from the Sparrow Fund which will cover the cost of a medical review of our child's health profile. Things are definitely looking up. What a difference a week can make.
Thank you all for all the prayers, chats, cards, etc. They have encouraged us more than you could possibly know. God's timing is everything, and we know He'll wait for the right time to match us with our little one, too. The match could be next month or a year from next month, but hopefully sooner rather than later. Please keep praying for us and our little one as we await the match!! Time to celebrate!!!!! :)
Thank you, everyone, for your support! We love you!!
Blessings,
Jenn --and I speak for Howie, too. :)
Friday, August 9, 2013
DTC: Good news, bad news
This has been a crazy week in the journey of adoption. Let me preface this by saying that Bethany is a great agency, but because of a home study that had lots of mistakes by our adoption specialist (some that weren't found by us until later), we've been on quite a ride.
At the start of the week, we received a document from our specialist that we had originally asked for two months ago. And here began another problem. The document stated our marriage date as Sept. 19, 2010-- not Sept. 18, 2010 as is stated on our marriage certificate. (All documents and facts have to match for a dossier, we have been told.) I immediately thought, "Oh, I hope this is just a typo, but I better check the home study." Yeah... Sept. 19 on the home study document, too. This was not good-- not at this stage in the process. "But," our specialist said optimistically, "at least your dossier isn't in China yet. Then it could get really complicated."
Well, today it got complicated. We told the regional office several times that there had been a mistake in the home study, hoping that if our specialist had to correct it, it would be corrected before it left the states. However, we never heard a reply, which was understandable, since this was a busy "matching" week for the China team.
Anyway, today, after no response about the mistakes, we saw the message "DTC-- Your dossier was sent to China today." How I had longed to hear those words just a week ago, but after what my specialist said, I said, "Noooo-- not yet!!" Frantically, even though I was at school for our teacher day, I tried calling two different numbers at the regional office while Howie, who was off to get a haircut, called our adoption specialist who had seen the news just before we had. She, too, sent the emails, made the calls, etc.
Finally, a couple hours later, just before parents and students would come for "Meet the Teacher Night" at my school, I received a call from the regional office. This woman-- I'll call her Jane-- told me that they had read all the previous posts but that they decided it was necessary to send the documents onto China (with the first stop being the Bethany office in China). Why it was so necessary to send them off immediately, I didn't ask. I figured at this point, it was better not to know. Jane told me that she was sure our specialist would be busy preparing our changed documents for immigration. I thought, "Oh no... not immigration again!" This was the place that had made us wait about two months-- most of the summer-- to process our original home study. And my response was, "Our adoption specialist doesn't know what she's supposed to do!" That's why she was asking them on the portal earlier in the week. My cell disconnected just after I learned that this might or might not cost additional money-- depending on what immigration thought about the changes-- and that Jane might be able to contact our specialist's supervisor to let her know what needed to happen.
Then it was Meet the Teacher Night-- a small break from the chaos to see some old students and meet some new ones.
While cooking dinner, Howie made a call to our specialist who had made contact with Jane shortly after my talk with her. Jane told her what to do, and our specialist is going to talk with her supervisor about whether or not they really need to run these minor changes past immigration again. She also told Howie that we would likely have to re-file immigration in another 14 months or so when our immigration approval expires. She said most people even in the special needs program in China have to do this. Anyway, she said we might just be able to update the changes then-- at least we think that's what she said. We're going to clarify tomorrow in writing. I'm hoping we don't have to wait another 14 months, especially since our specialist had originally told us that she was hopeful we would have our child within a year of our homestudy beginning, which began sometime in February. We already know that won't happen now due to all the home study corrections that had to be made earlier and then the long wait for immigration. That of course will cost more time and more money.
The good news in all of this is that Jane mentioned to our specialist that she didn't think it would delay the process that much. So... right now, we are once again in wait mode to see whether or not things have to go through immigration again and how long it will take to get LID (logged in dossier in China), which would make us eligible for a match.
I hesitated to write this blog, because I hate to dwell on the negatives of the adoption process. All the bumps and rollercoaster rides will be worth it in the end. Still, it's a reality for us right now and helps me to write about it. I still believe that with God, nothing is impossible. But it doesn't mean that it hurts any less when things don't go as I originally thought they would.
I liked the entry on one of our favorite adoption sites, Show Hope, tonight. At the end, it said, "Are you in the middle of an adoption process that seems to drag on forever? Are you struggling to trust the Lord while you wait? Be encouraged! Our Almighty Father hears every prayer you utter and is able to attend to their every need, providing people, songs, and sunlight to sustain your little one. Take heart! He hears your prayers."
Please continue to pray for our little one and us as we continue on our journey and he continues on his wait.
Blessings,
Jennifer
At the start of the week, we received a document from our specialist that we had originally asked for two months ago. And here began another problem. The document stated our marriage date as Sept. 19, 2010-- not Sept. 18, 2010 as is stated on our marriage certificate. (All documents and facts have to match for a dossier, we have been told.) I immediately thought, "Oh, I hope this is just a typo, but I better check the home study." Yeah... Sept. 19 on the home study document, too. This was not good-- not at this stage in the process. "But," our specialist said optimistically, "at least your dossier isn't in China yet. Then it could get really complicated."
Well, today it got complicated. We told the regional office several times that there had been a mistake in the home study, hoping that if our specialist had to correct it, it would be corrected before it left the states. However, we never heard a reply, which was understandable, since this was a busy "matching" week for the China team.
Anyway, today, after no response about the mistakes, we saw the message "DTC-- Your dossier was sent to China today." How I had longed to hear those words just a week ago, but after what my specialist said, I said, "Noooo-- not yet!!" Frantically, even though I was at school for our teacher day, I tried calling two different numbers at the regional office while Howie, who was off to get a haircut, called our adoption specialist who had seen the news just before we had. She, too, sent the emails, made the calls, etc.
Finally, a couple hours later, just before parents and students would come for "Meet the Teacher Night" at my school, I received a call from the regional office. This woman-- I'll call her Jane-- told me that they had read all the previous posts but that they decided it was necessary to send the documents onto China (with the first stop being the Bethany office in China). Why it was so necessary to send them off immediately, I didn't ask. I figured at this point, it was better not to know. Jane told me that she was sure our specialist would be busy preparing our changed documents for immigration. I thought, "Oh no... not immigration again!" This was the place that had made us wait about two months-- most of the summer-- to process our original home study. And my response was, "Our adoption specialist doesn't know what she's supposed to do!" That's why she was asking them on the portal earlier in the week. My cell disconnected just after I learned that this might or might not cost additional money-- depending on what immigration thought about the changes-- and that Jane might be able to contact our specialist's supervisor to let her know what needed to happen.
Then it was Meet the Teacher Night-- a small break from the chaos to see some old students and meet some new ones.
While cooking dinner, Howie made a call to our specialist who had made contact with Jane shortly after my talk with her. Jane told her what to do, and our specialist is going to talk with her supervisor about whether or not they really need to run these minor changes past immigration again. She also told Howie that we would likely have to re-file immigration in another 14 months or so when our immigration approval expires. She said most people even in the special needs program in China have to do this. Anyway, she said we might just be able to update the changes then-- at least we think that's what she said. We're going to clarify tomorrow in writing. I'm hoping we don't have to wait another 14 months, especially since our specialist had originally told us that she was hopeful we would have our child within a year of our homestudy beginning, which began sometime in February. We already know that won't happen now due to all the home study corrections that had to be made earlier and then the long wait for immigration. That of course will cost more time and more money.
The good news in all of this is that Jane mentioned to our specialist that she didn't think it would delay the process that much. So... right now, we are once again in wait mode to see whether or not things have to go through immigration again and how long it will take to get LID (logged in dossier in China), which would make us eligible for a match.
I hesitated to write this blog, because I hate to dwell on the negatives of the adoption process. All the bumps and rollercoaster rides will be worth it in the end. Still, it's a reality for us right now and helps me to write about it. I still believe that with God, nothing is impossible. But it doesn't mean that it hurts any less when things don't go as I originally thought they would.
I liked the entry on one of our favorite adoption sites, Show Hope, tonight. At the end, it said, "Are you in the middle of an adoption process that seems to drag on forever? Are you struggling to trust the Lord while you wait? Be encouraged! Our Almighty Father hears every prayer you utter and is able to attend to their every need, providing people, songs, and sunlight to sustain your little one. Take heart! He hears your prayers."
Please continue to pray for our little one and us as we continue on our journey and he continues on his wait.
Blessings,
Jennifer
Thursday, August 1, 2013
Time to Relax and Prepare for School
Today is the day that the Chinese Consulate in the US has to approve our soon-to-expire dossier documents-- or else we'll be delayed the four months it will take to receive Howie's birth certificates from PA, have those state sealed in PA, and then sent back to the Consulate. Yes, that's right. Birth certificates can expire. How strange is that?
Anyway, we're going to assume that everything will be taken care of, and our dossier specialist at our agency told us that we can take a break from paperwork (aside from grants) at the moment. Once these documents arrive back to the regional agency, altogether, they will be sent to China, which is called DTC in the adoption world-- dossier to China. Right after that, we'll receive a call from the Special Needs Coordinator who will ask us detailed questions about the special needs to which we are open. Shortly after that, we will be LID (logged in dossier), which means we will be eligible for matches. Slowly, but surely, we're getting there! We're hoping that the wait for a match doesn't take long, but there's no telling. Everything depends on the age we're willing to accept, the special needs that are available, and the list that China gives our agency once a month. The angel Gabriel, our son's namesake, stated, "With God, nothing is impossible," so we'll focus on that and trust that we are matched when the time is right.
For now, the break is good, because the summer is quickly coming to an end, and it's time to prepare for school! Howie is already attending meetings, and I'm busy gathering together material to teach my newest class: ninth grade Honors English. The nice part is that I know my honors kids already, since I had them last year as seventh graders (who did both seventh and eighth grade work). Then, school will be in session, which will help our waiting moments pass more quickly, since we'll have plenty of work to keep us busy. I'm welcoming that, actually-- at least for now.
Well, that's the update for this week! I'll continue to keep you posted as the process moves along. Thanks to everyone who is praying for us. I think we're starting to develop a little bit of patience. :)
Jennifer
Anyway, we're going to assume that everything will be taken care of, and our dossier specialist at our agency told us that we can take a break from paperwork (aside from grants) at the moment. Once these documents arrive back to the regional agency, altogether, they will be sent to China, which is called DTC in the adoption world-- dossier to China. Right after that, we'll receive a call from the Special Needs Coordinator who will ask us detailed questions about the special needs to which we are open. Shortly after that, we will be LID (logged in dossier), which means we will be eligible for matches. Slowly, but surely, we're getting there! We're hoping that the wait for a match doesn't take long, but there's no telling. Everything depends on the age we're willing to accept, the special needs that are available, and the list that China gives our agency once a month. The angel Gabriel, our son's namesake, stated, "With God, nothing is impossible," so we'll focus on that and trust that we are matched when the time is right.
For now, the break is good, because the summer is quickly coming to an end, and it's time to prepare for school! Howie is already attending meetings, and I'm busy gathering together material to teach my newest class: ninth grade Honors English. The nice part is that I know my honors kids already, since I had them last year as seventh graders (who did both seventh and eighth grade work). Then, school will be in session, which will help our waiting moments pass more quickly, since we'll have plenty of work to keep us busy. I'm welcoming that, actually-- at least for now.
Well, that's the update for this week! I'll continue to keep you posted as the process moves along. Thanks to everyone who is praying for us. I think we're starting to develop a little bit of patience. :)
Jennifer
Thursday, July 18, 2013
Wonderful news!!!!
As I've done once a week for the past several weeks, I once again called the Hague adoption office to find out if our I-800 A petition to adopt from a foreign country has been approved. This meant approving our homestudy, too, without requiring additional or changed wording. I called, and the secretary said, "You have been assigned an officer, and her name is..." Then she said, "Let me transfer you." She told me that we were approved on the 16th and that it is on its way through the mail! That is GREAT, since our other dossier documents went to the Consulate earlier this week. Now when Bethany receives THEM back, we won't have to wait extra long before the immigration comes back from the Consulate either, and they will all go off to China together. :) God is great!!
Thank you so much for all your prayers. God must have known my patience was wearing pretty thin, given the wait for that and the wait for my husband's car to be fixed, because it looks like-- we hope-- that is on its way to a fix now, too (after being to several car shops that find something else to charge us for). The next wait is our initial approval from the Consulate, but I don't think that's supposed to take too long.
Also, I guess I can tell you now, that if we like our son's given Chinese name, we will keep it, but if we don't think it would sound right or if it would be hard to pronounce over here, we will change it to Gabriel, and his middle name will be Song. That's if we get a boy, and chances are we will, according to everyone we've spoken with. :) (If we are matched with a girl, we'll happily accept that referral too, but we'll be starting the name search over then! Gabriella is out of the question.)
Things are moving right along, and so am I for now!
Until next time,
Jenn
Thursday, July 11, 2013
Paperwork to Michigan and then to Chinese Consulate
Good evening!
This week has been a busy one with grants being mailed and some new things potentially in the works involving widows and orphans and our church. More on that to come... if it takes off as we hope it does. We were the ones who introduced it to our Respect Life committee. :) If it works for us, we would be working with an organization called "Both Hands Helping," which would allow our church to create a fund for adoptive parents while helping widows at the same time. Google it if you want to know more. Otherwise, just wait. We should know more about what will happen in the next two or three months (I hope).
Today the big news is that our dossier and its two copies were mailed to Bethany Christian Services Global and sent to the China Team. Here's a picture of our documents that had to be state-sealed, but don't let the picture fool you. This was not even half of the paperwork we had to fill out!
We had to send in everything now because certain documents expire after six months of being done, so they need to be sent to the Chinese Consulate ASAP. We were so eager to get this adoption moving that we did a lot of it early, knowing that timing could be an issue but also hearing that immigration moved really fast after fingerprinting. Unfortunately, we are still waiting for immigration to come through. We called a few days ago, and we have still not been "assigned an officer," and they really can't tell us more than that. I asked if they were running behind, since I know some people who have received approval letters within a week of fingerprinting, and the secretary told me that they were and that it depends on where we live. That seemed odd to me. We're not that far from the processing center in Missouri-- at least no further than anyone else in Indianapolis. Oh well. There's no rushing the government.
We also trust God that there must be some reason for this delay. Maybe our son is not yet old enough for the waiting child list. Whatever it is, we will trust God's timing.
The other big news for today is that it is the fourth anniversary of our first date. We will be going to see the Indianapolis Symphony at Ellis Park-- and we have to leave right now! :)
Please keep us in your prayers as we wait for immigration to come through. We thank everyone who continues to read our blog, and we enjoy being able to share each step along the way.
-Jennifer and Howie
This week has been a busy one with grants being mailed and some new things potentially in the works involving widows and orphans and our church. More on that to come... if it takes off as we hope it does. We were the ones who introduced it to our Respect Life committee. :) If it works for us, we would be working with an organization called "Both Hands Helping," which would allow our church to create a fund for adoptive parents while helping widows at the same time. Google it if you want to know more. Otherwise, just wait. We should know more about what will happen in the next two or three months (I hope).
Today the big news is that our dossier and its two copies were mailed to Bethany Christian Services Global and sent to the China Team. Here's a picture of our documents that had to be state-sealed, but don't let the picture fool you. This was not even half of the paperwork we had to fill out!
We had to send in everything now because certain documents expire after six months of being done, so they need to be sent to the Chinese Consulate ASAP. We were so eager to get this adoption moving that we did a lot of it early, knowing that timing could be an issue but also hearing that immigration moved really fast after fingerprinting. Unfortunately, we are still waiting for immigration to come through. We called a few days ago, and we have still not been "assigned an officer," and they really can't tell us more than that. I asked if they were running behind, since I know some people who have received approval letters within a week of fingerprinting, and the secretary told me that they were and that it depends on where we live. That seemed odd to me. We're not that far from the processing center in Missouri-- at least no further than anyone else in Indianapolis. Oh well. There's no rushing the government.
We also trust God that there must be some reason for this delay. Maybe our son is not yet old enough for the waiting child list. Whatever it is, we will trust God's timing.
The other big news for today is that it is the fourth anniversary of our first date. We will be going to see the Indianapolis Symphony at Ellis Park-- and we have to leave right now! :)
Please keep us in your prayers as we wait for immigration to come through. We thank everyone who continues to read our blog, and we enjoy being able to share each step along the way.
-Jennifer and Howie
Friday, June 28, 2013
Waiting on immigration... and a bit of hope, too.
We do not have much to update right now, except that we are waiting... and waiting...and waiting on immigration approval. According to others' past experiences, this should have happened a week or so after our biometrics/ fingerprints-- even if we had our fingerprinting done early (which we did). We called immigration and were told that they are allowed to take up to 90 days, so we might have to wait an additional 60 days-- maybe more. We're hoping that doesn't happen.
I want to make it clear that this is not just an annoyance that we wish things would move faster. In adoption, timing is everything, and we have documents that are soon to expire if immigration doesn't come through. If that happens, we have to pay an extra $90 to have a portion of our dossier (we have everything done except immigration approval) sent to the Chinese Consulate and then send our immigration approval as soon as that arrives. We're sure this has happened to others before, but there's a bit of a worry for us that documents may not find each other. After all, the entire dossier was supposed to go over there together as a group. We have until July 11 for immigration to come through and make the move so that we can send all of it at once. If that doesn't happen, we will just continue to trust that everything will come together as it is supposed to. In the meantime, we're keeping busy by filling out adoption grants-- not exactly a fun step, but very necessary so that nothing else has to be delayed.
Despite this unexpected delay, we know that God's timing is everything, and we are still very hopeful and very excited that things are moving along, and we saw a beautiful sign of hopefulness tonight on our soon-to-bloom Rose of Sharon-- a beautiful black swallowtail butterfly. It was hanging on to the plant for dear life for fear of being blown away with the gusty wind outside. Here is a picture of it for you to see--
Please continue to keep us in your prayers as we continue along our journey. We hope to have some good news to deliver to you soon!Saturday, June 15, 2013
Fingerprinting Fun
On Monday, just before we left Indy to visit Howie's parents in Ft. Wayne, we travelled downtown to have our electronic fingerprints taken. They have quite an operation down there! We thought we'd be in and out-- no problems, right? Well, hopefully no problems. We have to wait and see to be sure.
Howie had his taken first, and I saw the lady talking to him about something. Then, he had to leave the room, and I had to get my fingerprints taken. That proved to be a little difficult due to my hand eczema. Actually, my hands look pretty good once the weather starts to warm up, but apparently, my fingertips were drier than what was required for the biometrics to be taken, so I twice had to rub in cornhuskers lotion that they had ready for me to use at the facility. I think that finally turned out fine, since she was told electronically if it was acceptable or not and kept redoing them until they met the standard.
Afterwards, I met back up with my husband, and we got in the car, ready to continue our journey. I asked him out of curiosity what they were talking about when he had his prints taken, and he said, "She asked if we were adopting from Uganda" because that's what was stated on the screen that she was working with. He said that we were not and were adopting from China. She then deleted Uganda and typed in USA. I said to Howie, "Why didn't she type in China?" He didn't know, so that's where the mystery lies now. I called a number that we had on our fingerprinting form (a national number for homeland security questions about fingerprinting), and I asked if they had the number for the place where we received our fingerprints, and they said, "No, they have no phone number. If you have a question, you'll have to go there in person to ask them." Our secretary at Bethany said that she had never heard of a situation like Howie's happening but that she wouldn't worry too much about it; she thought it was fine, so we're not going in person to ask-- at least not yet. Hopefully everything gets figured out where Hague is concerned (China is a Hague convention country) and we receive our Immigration Approval sometime in the next week or so.
Then, we'll copy and send off our dossier!
We'll keep you posted!
Jenn
Howie had his taken first, and I saw the lady talking to him about something. Then, he had to leave the room, and I had to get my fingerprints taken. That proved to be a little difficult due to my hand eczema. Actually, my hands look pretty good once the weather starts to warm up, but apparently, my fingertips were drier than what was required for the biometrics to be taken, so I twice had to rub in cornhuskers lotion that they had ready for me to use at the facility. I think that finally turned out fine, since she was told electronically if it was acceptable or not and kept redoing them until they met the standard.
Afterwards, I met back up with my husband, and we got in the car, ready to continue our journey. I asked him out of curiosity what they were talking about when he had his prints taken, and he said, "She asked if we were adopting from Uganda" because that's what was stated on the screen that she was working with. He said that we were not and were adopting from China. She then deleted Uganda and typed in USA. I said to Howie, "Why didn't she type in China?" He didn't know, so that's where the mystery lies now. I called a number that we had on our fingerprinting form (a national number for homeland security questions about fingerprinting), and I asked if they had the number for the place where we received our fingerprints, and they said, "No, they have no phone number. If you have a question, you'll have to go there in person to ask them." Our secretary at Bethany said that she had never heard of a situation like Howie's happening but that she wouldn't worry too much about it; she thought it was fine, so we're not going in person to ask-- at least not yet. Hopefully everything gets figured out where Hague is concerned (China is a Hague convention country) and we receive our Immigration Approval sometime in the next week or so.
Then, we'll copy and send off our dossier!
We'll keep you posted!
Jenn
Saturday, June 8, 2013
A Little About Our Family
Hi, and welcome to our blog. Here is a little information about our family of two-- as of now.
My name is Jenn Fischer, the official author of the blog, but my husband, Howie may write a blog post from time to time as well. I'm not sure about that at the moment. :)
We met online through Catholic Match just about four years ago, in 2009, and we quickly moved our relationship from an online one to an "in person" one. Each weekend, either I would travel to his hometown of Ft. Wayne, IN, he would come here near Indianapolis, or we would meet for a day in between our two homes in Muncie. We soon found out that we had found the love of our lives in each other, and Howie proposed to me in January of 2010. I, of course, was thrilled and immediately said, "Yes!! I will!!" We celebrated right afterwards by eating lunch at Bucca de Beppo with our parents. What a wonderful day to remember.
By September of that same year, we were married, and we spent a lovely honeymoon in Story, Indiana. Quite an appropriate place for two teachers to spend their honeymoon, wouldn't you agree? At that time, Howie was still in graduate school, completing an intensive program to earn his master's degree in teaching mathematics, and I was in my tenth year of teaching English at a local middle school, so our honeymoon was short, but it was something I will always hold dear in my heart.
After another year passed, we began trying to start a family. Things didn't turn out the way we had assumed they would, but we still deeply longed to have children of our own, so we began to consider adoption in the summer of 2012. We thought about local, domestic adoption, but something just didn't feel like it fit for us in that regard, and we soon knew why. We were being called to international adoption in China.
In December of 2012, Howie and I watched a video produced by Show Hope, which showed a teenager who was adopted from China. She explained how there were many babies still in the orphanage that she had left behind and that many of them had special needs. By the end of that video, Howie and I were sobbing. We sought out more information about adopting from China, and each time the end result was the same. How could we ignore these precious children who so desperately needed parents? Our mind was made up. We would adopt from China.
Still, despite our minds being made up, I wondered if this was what God really wanted, or if it was just Howie and I who wanted this to happen. God knew my doubts, and He knew that music was the way to calm my fears and reassure me of His will. On a day that I had to leave early to go to an education convention, I turned on my usual radio station, K-Love, and the station played the song "Merry Christmas" by Third Day. For those who aren't familiar with the song, it is an adoption song about a little baby girl who was abandoned in China. I began to cry, and thought, "Okay, God, is this you?" Then, immediately following that song, K-Love played "Kings and Queens" by Audio Adrenaline. That, again, has a message of adoption. By the end of that song, I was openly weeping, knowing that this was God speaking to my heart and letting me know that He wanted this and that we were to trust Him in our journey.
And so our journey began.... We started our home study shortly afterwards, finished and approved that, completed all of our dossier paperwork and had it state sealed, and applied for immigration. Here is where we are now: We are going to have our fingerprints done this Monday, June 10. Our dossier will be ready to go by the time we receive final approval from immigration, and then, once our dossier is logged into China, the first big wait begins, the wait for a match, otherwise known as a referral, otherwise known as notice of the potential child who will bless our lives beyond anything we could ever imagine.
Please join us in our adoption journey and feel free to comment on anything you read. Also, please be patient with us. We are new to blogging, and we welcome any feedback or suggestions on how we can better improve our layout. :)
Thanks,
Jennifer Fischer
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