For those who have asked for updates, our current adoption status is
WAITING FOR TIAIWAN APPROVAL. Here's the order of recent events: 1. June 8 - Received the "referral" for 2 siblings from Taiwan 2. June 9 - We accepted - which means we want to pursue them! 3. June 11 -We had a medical consultation with the Univ. of Washington Center for Adoption Medicine. A very helpful pediatrician specializing in adoption medicine looked over all the files and pictures we received of the kids, and interpreted their needs, risk factors, and strengths for us. 4. Our photo pages (family activities, house, bedrooms, etc) and Home Study were translated into Mandarin and sent off to Taiwan! 5. Now, we wait. Expected wait is 1-5 months to find out if the Taiwan adoption agency picks us or not. There is 1 other family in the U.S. also pursuing these kids thru a different agency. Taiwan will have to choose between us.
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OH MY GOODNESS Y'ALL! Our house has been all a-flutter and full of happy tears and phone calls to family.... Remember when I said in my last blog, that we would now wait 6-12 months to receive a child referral? Drumroll please..... We got the call!Guys. Our Home Study was approved 7 days ago. THIS. DOES. NOT. HAPPEN. Pardon all the caps lock, but I HAVE BEEN DOING A LOT OF YELLING AND CRYING! This feels like such a huge, wholly unexpected, way over the top, answer to our prayers. I have always believed confidently that God is powerful and capable of great miracles, but I really struggle with faith that God will choose to do so... at least for me. (Despite His demonstrations! Curing my grandfather of cancer many years ago, giving me a wonderful Christian husband, answering many other 'insignificant' prayer needs in my life). For whatever reason, I struggled to believe He WILL. That is why this is one of my favorite verses: Now to him who is able to do above and beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us-- to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. Ephesians 3:20-21 And then, there He goes, putting a referral for 2 perfect siblings right in my lap. SIX DAYS AFTER OUR HOME STUDY WAS APPROVED! I am not allowed to share pictures or names, but I can tell you it is a sister & brother (eek!) that are younger than our 2 kids - which is called maintaining birth order - but not by much! The big sister is 4.5 months younger than J and her little brother is exactly a year younger than her. They are both summer birthdays! We are flipping out with excitement over here! Our excitement is only ever-so-slightly mitigated by the knowledge that this is not set in stone yet. Next Steps
.Ahhhhh!!!! FINALLY!!!!!!!!! This strangely feels like after months of trying to conceive (which yes I know is nothing), finally being pregnant! WE ARE DOING THIS! || PauseWe updated you a couple of months ago that we were SO CLOSE to being done with our Home Study. And we were! It was all typed up by our social worker, proofread, updated, checked again, and all we needed was Robert's background check from Colorado to come through. (Where he lived for one teeny summer after moving to the US at age 18 before college started.) Well.....I got excited and started filling out our USCIS application . I then realized that my dear adult nephew, James, who has been living with us for his gap year after high school, would of course need to be included in our USCIS application because he was included in our Home Study as an Additional Adult in the Home. That would mean an addendum and more finger printing in Idaho. The trouble was, he was planning to move back to Texas at the end of May! So getting finger printed in Idaho as a legally-reported resident of our home...who was no longer living in our home...would get complicated to say the least! I called our wonderful social worker to tell her my dilemma. We were soooooo close! She lamented with me but confirmed my suspicions that our USCIS application was going to be real complicated if he moved out soon. We might as well wait 6 weeks to finalize our Home Study the day after he left (Memorial Day) without him in it. (Sorry James! Thanks for supporting our adoption! ;P ) > PlaySo here we are! After 6 weeks of telling all our sweet friends who asked for adoption updates that we were doing NOTHING at the moment (ok, we were finishing some training too), we are Home Study Aproved!!!!! >> What's Next?1. As soon as we get our hard copies of our big ol' Home Study, I get to send off that USCIS application! (and nearly $1000) Being the awesome planner that I am, I already requested new copies of our Birth Certificates and Marriage License months ago so I would be ready for our Dossier! I'll let you know when I find out what a dossier actually is. :P
2. We get to pay $2500 to our Local Agency and $3000 to our international agency for all the hard work they are doing. Yes, I said GET TO! We have been saving and saving, so it's pretty exciting to right some fat checks! 3. We get to start applying for Grants!!!!!!!!!! 4. We are officially WAITING FOR A MATCH! This typically takes 6-12 months for families waiting for sibling groups. Eeeeek!!! |
AuthorAll posts are written by Robert or Rebecca. Maybe you can guess who's who based on the number of emojis and exclamation points!!! CategoriesArchives
February 2023
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