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.)
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Sunday, June 5, 2011
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.
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.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
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...
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
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.
Monday, May 16, 2011
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!
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!
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
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!
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!
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Health Insurance
I got a call from our caseworker last night, right in the middle of trying to fend off five hungry kiddos while I cooked supper and waited for Ramsey to arrive home.
She had news. Not any news I was hoping for, of course. Turns out that what we currently have for health coverage will not be sufficient. The word "dealbreaker" was used, in fact.
This was discouraging news, to say the least. I did not shoot the messanger but I have to admit that, when I hung up the phone, a few innocent bystanders may have barely escaped with their lives.
Ramsey is self-employed so we've never had private health insurance because, for a family our size, it would cost the equivalent of three mortgage payments every month. Thankfully all we will need to have covered at this time is the child we will be adopting.
God has a plan, of course. I see-saw between "what are we going to do??" and "can't wait to see what You're going to do!" Adoption is Trust God Boot Camp if there ever was one.
I will be spending the rest of the day online and on the phone, letting health insurance companies duke it out over who gets to cover one very special waiting child. Lowest bidder wins, of course.
She had news. Not any news I was hoping for, of course. Turns out that what we currently have for health coverage will not be sufficient. The word "dealbreaker" was used, in fact.
This was discouraging news, to say the least. I did not shoot the messanger but I have to admit that, when I hung up the phone, a few innocent bystanders may have barely escaped with their lives.
Ramsey is self-employed so we've never had private health insurance because, for a family our size, it would cost the equivalent of three mortgage payments every month. Thankfully all we will need to have covered at this time is the child we will be adopting.
God has a plan, of course. I see-saw between "what are we going to do??" and "can't wait to see what You're going to do!" Adoption is Trust God Boot Camp if there ever was one.
I will be spending the rest of the day online and on the phone, letting health insurance companies duke it out over who gets to cover one very special waiting child. Lowest bidder wins, of course.
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