Adoption Journey Story update

Hello all! You are long overdue for a longer explanation of the Twins post! We are in process to adopt both boys, born 05/2009 and 07/2009 and we intend to treat them as twins. 🙂 We are thrilled, excited, terrified and most of all, we are leaning on God’s promises to us.

First things first. We are thinking of changing our name plans. We’re thinking James Edward and Jordan Scott. Some people hide their kids’ names. Some people like me, let you see the name even as it is still evolving.

God’s Word says that He loves us. That’s agape. Jesus dying on the cross was an expression of agape. If God had that much love for us, how much more will he express His agape towards us! We believe He is leading us on each step of this journey. The more we surrender our former man, our selfish hearts to allow the “new man” in us to live (the new man that God made alive in us at our salvation), the more confident we are in His purpose and our path. We only see our path about one step ahead at a time. That’s faith! The Lord is directing our paths.

Some time ago, we hoped to adopt two children. We had a number of motivations. It would “rescue” an additional child. It would add another child to our family by adoption without having to go through the entire adoption process twice. It is financially easier on our family AFTER the adoption tax refund compared to adopting one child. We could get a large chunk of exhausted “baby days” time “over with” so that we could move on to big kid stuff that doesn’t involve as many up-all-nights. I just plain wanted to! We even saw a little girl, Kaydee, who is just precious and reminds me SOoooo much of our girls. Oh, my heart loves that child! Brian even felt like God was stirring his spirit, leading him and pushing him to surrender and say, “Yes, God; I will surrender my fear of adopting two children and agree to adopt two.”

If all that was going for us, why weren’t we adopting two children a couple months ago? Well… quite simply, we didn’t feel at peace about it. We looked at the children. We prayed. We imagined adopting them. Nothing. No nudge of the Spirit, nothing except an empty feeling “I wish we could.” We didn’t have the confidence to say “yes.”

There are many orphanages in the country we’re adopting from in Eastern Europe. Hundreds and hundreds of children. Very few children with Down Syndrome who are listed that are as young as James is. Both Brian and I said something along the lines of, “Well, if God were to bring our agency partner the file of a child with Down Syndrome who was also very young and in the exact same orphanage… well, that is the ideal situation and pretty much impossible.” Yep, it was unlikely enough that we easily called it impossible. See, our agency partner can request files of children with Down Syndrome, but they have no idea what orphanage those children are in.

Fast forward to last week. Our dossier was in Eastern Europe, it had just been translated and they were about to submit it to the MOJ for one child (after which point, we could not have changed to adopting two children without paying a LOT of money.). We were very much at peace about adopting one child. We felt very patient. We were excited about traveling in May sometime! And then… then, we got the email. It said something like this:

“We know you’re comfortable adopting one child, but we thought we ought to let you know about this child’s file before making it available to other families. The little boy has Down Syndrome, is about the same age and lives in the same orphanage.”

I didn’t know what to think. I thought, “What?” and I thought, “Huh?” and I thought, “now what do we do?” and lastly I thought, “Well, Brian will know what to do about this and I doubt he’ll take long before saying, ‘no, that’s not a good idea.'” I forwarded the email to Brian. He emailed back with, “Well, that throws a monkey wrench into things!” When he got home that night, I had no decision on my heart. I had prayed and thought hard, but just wanted to hear Brian. He said that he was thinking yes! Jeepers! I hardly slept that night as we waited for his translated file. Would it show major health concerns? Would he be healthy? Two children plus major health concerns would have closed the deal for us.

Next morning. Healthy. Brian went to work and I prayed and cried and made lists of pros and cons. I wanted to go back to my peaceful place where we were adopting just James, not teetering on the edge of jumping into the deep end. Finally, Brian was home from work again. “Yes,” he said. He said a great deal more about how he came to that decision, but that is a post of his own. I felt about exactly as I felt when I found out I was pregnant each time, about how I felt when we found out the gender of our daughters… “I am pregnant with twins!!!!” I wanted to shout! The usual excitement and panic kept me running higher on nerves than usual for the next few days, for sure! 🙂

Some things people may wonder about:

How will they fit in our two-bedroom house? – We won’t be the first family tucked snugly into a small house with four children! We’re going to get a futon for the living room in case we have to sleep out of our own bedroom for any extended periods of time. We do hope to sell our house and move sometime after the adoption.

How much will this cost? – It will only cost about $2000 more to adopt the second child, spread out between the two trips. After a tax refund for each child, we will have spent less net money for adopting the additional child. Our budget has lost its wiggle room. Grocery: $200/month. Household supplies: $80/month. Dining out: $30/month. Clothes: $20/month. Considering the conditions orphans live in around the world, we still feel our wealthiness.

How will manage with four young children, two probably not walking? – Honestly, the first year or two with four children so young are going to be grueling. I’ll just say that right up front. Brian has weeks of vacation and sick time he can use after our adoption. But I anticipate “baby blues,” extended fatigue, stress of multiple doctor and therapy visits and overall just taking parenting up several notches at once.
But I haven’t answered the question of how. Two ways: One, I have been developing a long list of relatively inexpensive mama’s helpers who will be able to come be my extra hands and energy now and then. Two, I will accept help when it’s offered. I’m revving up my humility right here and now!

What’s the holdup with the adoption paperwork? – Our immigration approval was only for one child. It was supposed to be for more. However, we only received it for one child and now it will take maybe a month to get it updated to show for two children.

On other news, we’re doing a month of beans and rice. I hope it’s more fun than I’m imagining it to be. We’ll let you know how it goes.

I also have a letter I want to share that responds to many of the worries and concerns people may have about us adopting two. Obviously, other people would have made much different decisions than us about this! That’s ok! We recognize the validity of 95% of your concerns! (Saying things about how people with special needs are not as valuable or good for a family are gonna be chucked.) You can talk to us about your worries. Do try to remember that we consider these two boys our sons, and let your tone be tempered by that knowledge. We love you!