Finally! SOMEthing to tell.

So this week I'm volunteering at Camp No Limits.  It's been such a great experience, it's totally worthy of a long post of it's own.  Which I started to write but am so exausted it was completely incoherent, so I'm starting over.

After being at the point, for quite some time now, of hanging in there but feeling like absolutely nothing is happening, we arrived home tonight to a message on the machine from our caseworker and an update e-mail from Holt.

The phone message threw us for a bit of a loop.  Our homestudy agency wants us in for a meeting at the beginning of the week so that they can write a child specific home study, which has either been requested by the country of Thailand, or by Holt's Thailand program (our caseworker didn't know which).  It seems that our home study agency has been super proactive and has been e-mailing back and forth with Holt over the last four weeks, trying to get our homestudy finalized (which has been held up because we don't know yet if we're going to be accepted to the Thailand program, which we don't know yet because we don't know if Thailand will accept us to adopt "Chloe".  Yes.  We like to do things backwards.).  So now Holt is asking our home study agency to send a child specific home study, which, again, is really backwards from the way things are normally done- usually a home study would be submitted, then you'd receive a referral, then you'd accept the referral, then you'd submit a child specific home study.  According to our case worker, this is beyond the realm of her experience, so she's pulling in a higher up at our agency, who not only has a lot of experience with special needs adoption but who also says in her 20 years hasn't approached an adoption this way, either.  It just wouldn't be fun if we didn't make things interesting.  Yeah.

So the fact that I'm receiving this news while I'm already physically exhausted just makes it so much more draining.  But encouraging.  They wouldn't be asking for this if they weren't still considering us.  Right??

THEN I checked e-mail.  Chloe turned 20 months old today.  The last info we got about her was from 4 months before the update we received today.  We got 4 new pictures (is it possible that she got even cuter??) and an update on her health, development, etc.  She's healthy and developing well.  She was described as "cute", "sweet", "spoiled", "strong will", "smart", and shows signs of worry when separated from familiar caregivers.  It stated that she is so cute and lovely and that is why she is spoiled by everyone around her.  (I pretty much just want to squeeze her and kiss her already.)

In many of the photos we have, including those we received today, there is another sweet little girl.  The report today stated that the other little girl and Chloe have become best friends, like sisters.  I wish I thought Thailand would let us try for two...

Um, and then the report closes by stating that the orphanage staff are so glad to learn that she has an adoptive family of her own??  Jeesh.  I would so love to know exactly what is happening in Thailand right now.  (As much as I would totally love to get my hopes up through the roof, the last contact I had with Holt a couple of weeks ago said that there was another family who was interested but hadn't made a decision.)

So are you getting a picture of where I'm at right now?  I am too tired to do my usual 100% mercurial response, but I still can't help but try to analyze it all, am so glad to finally hear some news, wish we would finally hear THE news for pete's sake, glad that there's again something we can do to try to help our case (meet to work on the child specific homestudy), glad that there's a sort of forward step in motion while still realizing that every time we take what seems to be a step forward we still somehow seem to manage to maintain the same holding pattern, drained, just want to DO this already and bring this child home so she doesn't have to wait in an orphanage any longer, SO excited to receive new pictures and an update, feel like crying over the fact that I'm receiving photos and an update instead of holding this little person, still realizing that we have no clue what the outcome of this will actually be- it all seems to point to her joining our family, from my perspective, but I'm not the one with the big picture here.  We just don't know.  Etc., etc., etc.  And so on.

There.  That's the long, rambling, inconcise version of where we're at.  Hope you can at least get the sense of what's going on, if not the details.  Thanks for your patience, and for listening!   

And the Roller Coaster Ride Continues

Last Monday, the roller coaster was UP!  Our home study was submitted to Holt!  Now we're getting somewhere.

Nine days later, with not a peep, the roller coaster is dowwwwn.  Maybe we've been forgotten?  Pretty sure we're not going to hear anything.  Ever. 

(Am I starting to sound like a broken record?  Don't answer that.)

Dreams

Today I came home from church overwhelmed by life and came this close to cancelling my own birthday party which was scheduled for 5:30 this evening.  Ramsey sent me to bed for a nap.

I slept for two and a half hours, which was great except for all the weird, vivid dreaming. 

Here's a snippit.  Ramsey and I were on a plane.  In fact, we were the only ones on the plane.  No pilot, no one.  For some reason, this fact didn't seem to be concerning us at all until an automated plane voice came on with an announcement.  Something about the fact that the plane was low on fuel and so would be--- the rest of the announcement wasn't very clear.  I ran into the cockpit to discover that apparantly the fact that the plane was running out of fuel meant that it was going to be crashing.  I yelled for Ramsey to come land the plane, he yelled back something about not knowing how to fly planes, I started trying to tell him to reconsider that ("it's easy, you lift the thing  up to do one thing, and lower it to do something else---") but really didn't have time to finish persuading him when it became obvious there just wasn't going to be time to figure it out.  A gigantic skyriser was looming in front of us- there were levels of balconies on the outside and we were so close to the building that I could see the shock registering on the faces of the people standing on them when they saw our plane flying at them, then the people turning to run away.  I thought something like, "so this is what if feels like just before you crash a plane", then I closed my eyes, grabbed the armrests of my seat with both hands, and prayed (fervently!), "Jesus, the only possible way this plane can not crash, is if You land it!"  I felt the front of the plane lift straight up, then loop backwards, roller-coaster style.  I kept my eyes closed even when it levelled out, and kept them closed as I felt the wheels hit tarmac.  When I opened my eyes, we were sitting on a runway.  My hands were still clutching the armrests.


Take from that what you will.






Here's the latest-  Holt (our international agency) asked us to fill out some very detailed questionnaires, and also have our home study agency submit a draft of our still-being-completed home study, for their and Thailand's consideration as they decide whether or not to allow us to move forward with adopting Chloe.  We booked it to get our questionnaires completed, then learned that our home study agency's protocol doesn't allow for submitting incomplete home studies.  So our case worker diligently continued working away at our home study as we waited on one remaining document (a letter from our health insurance) to come in.  Last week our case worker gave us a copy of the home study to review for factual errors- so close to the end!  Then she submitted it to the agency for review, and the insurance letter arrived.  Last night she called us to get a few final details nailed down, then was going to be sending the home study in to our agency.  It will get one final review there on Monday, then will be forwarded to Holt.

I think last night somehow the weight of the impending decisions just sank in all the more.  As soon as this week or next, or as far away as who knows when, we'll be getting real answers as far as whether or not we can adopt Chloe.  Another dream- I dreamt last night that I answered a phone call from Holt, and, as I began to realize the direction the phone call was taking, I began to wake up.  The dream continued in that fog-like mid-way between sleep and wakefulness state until I realized, "I don't have to dream this," and shut it off.  Nice to be able to shut off news that you don't want to hear. 

I go back and forth between thinking of all the positive things that we have going for us and why they really should say yes, and realizing all the things that they will be counting against us.  When I'm in an especially low place, I wonder if they would be right.  Part of me can't wait to hear the answer.  And if the answer is no, part of me doesn't want to ever hear the answer.

I told God that if we can't adopt her, to please, please give her another family.  Then that reminded me of the story of Solomon and the two women with the one baby- so I asked God, "Doesn't that make me her real mother, then?"

I could babble on and on, because that's pretty much where I'm at right now.  But, ultimately, God knows.  And, ultimately, we trust God.  We are praying, praying, praying.  We are watching videos, and looking at pictures, and reading the write-up, for the 37 millionth time, and falling more and more in love.  This is hard. 

My Mini-Venture

I got up my nerve this afternoon to visit a local Thai restaurant and ask how to pronounce Chloe's real name.  It's quite pretty...  Wondering how it would sound pronounced with a Maine accent... 

Our Questionnaires for the Selection Committee Meeting are Finished--

we submitted them via e-mail at the end of the day today.  Now we wait (and pray!) to hear the decision.  I asked when the Selection Committee Meeting will be held, I'll let you know when I hear.

Selection Committee Questionnaires...

We submitted "Chloe's" info to an international adoption clinic at Tufts on Wednesday (they move fast- when I called on Wednesday afternoon, the woman asked me if it would be ok if they didn't get back to us with results until Friday since one of them would be out of the office on Thursday.  "Um, sure, I guess we can live with that.") and got their results on Friday.  Glad we bothered, they pretty much told us everything we already know.  Well, she did bring up things that we may want to have ruled out in the future, so that was helpful, I guess.  It was pretty much a formality on our part to make our agency happy anyway, so fine.  After I heard back from the clinic, I told Ramsey the results, then e-mailed Holt to say, "Yes, it's official, we definitely want to pursue this adoption, please send us the questionnaires."

So that begins our committee selection process.  We are working our way through the questionnaires (really hoping to get those completed this evening) then will send them in to Holt.  Holt will use those, and the draft of our home study, to assess whether we will be a good match for Chloe.  No pressure.  We are being asked how we came to the decision that adopting this particular child is the best decision for our entire family, how we will know when our family is complete, how we plan to help this child cope with racism and "white privilige",  how we will prepare this child for adulthood when she will not have the racial buffer of her caucasian family's presence, and what difficult behaviors we feel especially equipped or unequipped to handle and how we would deal with them.  We are being asked what experience we have with children with this special need (um, what are we supposed to say to that?  There aren't a lot of kids around here missing multiple limbs...), what services and support groups are available to help us meet this child's needs, what anxieties and concerns do we have about adopting this child, what are our hopes and dreams for this child and how would we feel if she never acheived these things, and so on, and so on, and so on... 



Prayer request update-  Ramsey has submitted a bid on a job that, if he gets it, would make a significant dent in our adoption fees. We'll hear sometime after the 18th if he gets it.  It would be a huge answer to prayer if he does, so please be praying!

Not THE News, But Still GOOD News! : )

This morning I was thinking things like "No news is no news" and I felt like we would just never hear anything.  Ever.  That somehow our whole adoption would just fizzle into nothingness because we would never, ever hear anything.

At mid-day, I took the kids to the library and when we came home I checked the phone to see if anyone had called.  Nope.  I checked e-mail, expecting the same.  Wait- two e-mails, from the Waiting Child Program manager!  (And more followed!)

Here's the news- the Thai government still needs more information about our family in order to make a decision.  She asked that our social worker send a draft of our home study.  (So we went out on a limb and told our social worker to please go ahead and write our home study for Thailand- they have to write a country specific home study but we had been advised against making ours specific to Thailand until we got an answer.)  They also have a set of child specific questionnaires for families to fill out in preparation for their selection committee meeting (the process in the WCP is that when you have identified a child that you want to adopt, Holt has a selection committee meeting to decide if it will be a good match for the child.).  In order for us to be able to move forward with the questionnaires and their selection committee meeting, they decided to send us "Chloe's" information! 

We now have her full informational write-up, almost a hundred photographs, and about 30 minutes of video of this sweet girl who has, until now, been living in our hearts on the basis of two photos and two paragraphs of information.  This is like a gold mine!  We spent half of the afternoon looking at pictures, reading through her info, and watching videos.  (The other half of the afternoon, I spent e-mailing and phone calling family, our social worker, Holt, and the clinic.)  Watching the videos was amazing.  It was so awesome to get a sense of her personality.  She is such a sweet, patient, easy-going little person...  And so beautiful!  Can you tell I'm in love?  : )

They also asked us to have her information reviewed by medical professionals, then get back to them to let them know if we want to proceed with the process.  Well, we already know what our decision is, but we've gone ahead and sent in our info to an international adoption clinic- they specialize in evaluating the medical information provided.  We should hear the results of that evaluation on Friday, and will give them our "decision" then, though I already e-mailed her to tell her to feel free to send us the questionnaire any time.  There's pretty much nothing that would make us decide not to try to adopt her.

So, in summary- we're still waiting to hear a "yes" but we are extremely encouraged that things are now also moving on the Holt end.  This means that they will be working on things simultaneously as we wait on the Thai government, instead of waiting to hear Thailand's answer and then getting things going with the agency.  If Thailand says yes, we will be that much further ahead in our process.  It also encourages us to see that the agency thinks it's worth pursuing right now.  And it is a blessing beyond description to get to see this little girl- who could become our daughter- in so much more detail, and definitely the boost we needed in the middle of this wait!  (And it feels so good to again be able to be proactive in moving things along.)

(P.S.  Along with all the excitement about this, there is also other good news- the option that we came up with for private health insurance is both acceptable for our home study AND affordable!  Woohoo!)

Thank you, Lord!  And, pray-ers, please keep praying!