Fast forward over three years. We no longer watch "Gotcha Day" videos. We pray for our child, but rarely bring up our adoption in conversation. With every passing month, we realize that our dream of bringing home a child through adoption hasn't happened. We are a little more aware of the difficulty that adopting parents and adopted children go through. We see first hand the ways the system is broken.. ultimately because we live in a broken world.
Our story hasn't been written the way we would have planned. God has written it in ways we would have never imagined. We've experienced heartache, moves, pain, loss. For multiple reasons, we've been treading through the waters of the hardest season of our life.
Through every turn, we've been asked the same questions--- Are you are still adopting?... When are you bringing your child home?... What's the update with your adoption?
When you've waited 40 months, the questions become just a little more painful. They are just a little deeper reminder that your child is still not home. We thought we would be home in 18-24 months from the beginning. Who knew that 40 months in, we would have still never seen the face of our child.
So... Ethiopia adoption. Since we began, things have been steadily slowing. First the wait for a referral. Now there's not only significantly increased wait for referral, but also post referral. We are praying with our Ethiopian adoption community as it is taking 12-24 months to bring these babies home after their referrals.
Knowing this has been the pattern and not seeing any reversal in the pattern at this point, we made a decision a few months ago to purse an adoption from INDIA! We didn't tell anyone because honestly, we still didn't know anything. We still couldn't answer any questions...And we still had a lot to learn! After all the ways we had fallen in love with Ethiopia, we knew that God could still lead us down new paths that may not look as we had planned.
The process in India looks TOTALLY different than the process in Ethiopia. We chose India because their government put several laws into practice last year that have lead to more ethical and timely adoptions. We began the paperwork process and just got *cautiously* excited.
There are 2 ways to receive referrals in India. One way is through CARA, their government agency that issues referrals. They typically provide 2 referrals and the family choses 1. Another is through CARINGS, in which special needs children can be reviewed and accepted as referrals. We decided that we were open to minor special needs and would wait for a referral for CARA, but would also review any children provided to us from CARINGS. We knew a referral from CARINGS could come at any point.
Well, last week started out rough. Last Monday was one of those days that you want to just push the re-do button and hope things turn out differently. So.. once again, God hasn't written our story the way we thought it would be written. In these times, we trust God is sovereign and choose to remain faithful, even though our flesh still feels pain.
When Thursday rolled around, it was time to regroup. We planned individual date nights with our kids. I had planned to wear a dress and let my 4 year old take me on a real "dinner" date. So.. I begin getting dressed. I put on a dress, walked out of the closet and my son said, "Mommy, you look like a princess! You're beautiful!" It wasn't that I at all looked like a princess, but it was the sweetest reminder in a hard place that I am still loved. And God still looks down on us with favor, even when our story isn't written the way we planned.
I'm finishing getting dressed and my phone rings. Everyone is just running around the house. My husband is giving Noah all the tips about how to treat a girl on a date and slipping a $20 in his pocket to pay for my dinner. Micah is excited about a bowling outing with his daddy. I ignore the call. I'm passing by my phone when I get a text message from a lady that works with our adoption agency saying "Call me ASAP."
When I call her she answers the phone with, "Have you checked your e-mail in the last couple of minutes?" I said "no."
The words came out quickly..."Go check it. You have a REFERRAL!!"
WHAT?!?!?
I immediately started crying and called my husband in the room! He said "Where are they from!?" Since the sweet woman who called me typically works with the Ethiopia program (and as I couldn't get the attachments open fast enough), I said "I bet it's an Ethiopian BOY!"
Well.... it was a BEAUTIFUL little 13 month old GIRL from Bihar, India!!!
I wish I could share the sweetness of her eyes with you all!
{After the shock and tears, we continued with our dates and celebrated our sweet daughter! Noah decided she was a great excuse to treat me to ice cream after dinner, too! }
So what now?... we now begin a whole lot of paperwork to get this girl home to us! I don't know the timeline at this point. I hope to get better at updating our blog to keep you all updated on specific timelines and prayer requests.
We need 1 thing from you all... A LOT OF PRAYER for things to go seamlessly to get this sweet girl home to us ASAP! In the meantime, we will be learning about Indian culture, catching up on adoption books and trying to prepare our boys for a little softer, more feminine side to our home. :)
Thank you for all the prayers for the last 40 months! We can't wait to have our girl home and officially become a family of 5!!!
And yes... God is STILL writing our story!
