"What are you thinking?!" "Are you nuts?!" "Why?!" These are only a few of the reactions we have received so far. Not quite knowing how to respond to these loaded questions, I told a very close friend that I needed a good come-back. She suggested we reply with the simple response, "We have always wanted to travel!" I thought that was a lot better than the suggestion, "We just love Chow Mein!" that another friend offered. (Nice try Shauna :)
Since this blog is only open to our close friends and family, we will assume that if you are reading this, you deserve a more thoughtful explanation so here is the condensed version.
It all started with the adoption of our sweet little guy last year. At our final home visit by our social worker, 6 months after bringing William home, she asked us, "Would you be open to adopting again?" David surprised me and answered "yes". Later, after the thought simmered for another few months, I started peeking at the adoption updates I had subscribed to from the beginning of our adoption journey with William; not really believing it would actually end up with another adoption. After a few weeks of looking at the hundreds of children among the millions that need families, it wasn't long before I started deleting the email updates before even opening them. I had seen enough children's faces to make me feel completely overwhelmed by the very thought of adoption.
In the meantime, my sister, who is in the process of adopting two children from China, sent us a link to her agency's blog and told us to "check out the Asian Ashton" they came across. We found Ashton's look-a-like and had to laugh when we looked at the similarities. Anyone who knew Ashton at this age would see what we all saw. I am pretty sure we have a picture somewhere of Ashton in this very same pose.
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| Jake the "Asian Ashton" |
Out of curiosity we continued to look through the blog and even watched a few videos of these children who are in an orphanage in China. There was one particular boy that stood out to both David and I. He was nothing that we had originally pictured when discussing adoption as an option. He was older and had an ongoing medical need, so we moved on, but not before taking note of his American name; Charlie.
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| Charlie with the Occupational Therapist |
The more we thought about the challenges and sacrifices another adoption would bring, the more we distanced our thoughts from the idea. We were questioning: Could we still offer all of the time and attention our current children needed? At our age, could we handle it? Could we sacrifice the large amount of money the initial adoption would take, let alone the ongoing needs of another child? Do we have the energy to do this again? What if there are bonding issues? What if our children have a difficult time adjusting? Do we have the knowledge, patience, and love to handle the emotional damage that will surely come with an adopted child? etc. etc. etc.
After another month of avoiding the eyes of the children that haunted me on my computer screen and were so easy to delete, we decided we must make a final decision and not look back. After weighing all the pros and cons and praying for guidance, we took an evening away from the distractions of our children and brought our dilemma to the Lord. Long story short, we came away with our answer; not only were we to adopt, but knew we must bring Charlie home. In spite of the fears and "what ifs", we would not deny the spiritual reassurances we received.
We contacted the agency and told them that we were interested in seeing the file of a boy named Charlie. It was clear that the individual on the other end of the phone knew exactly who I was speaking of by her audible "Ahhh". She instructed me to fill out the initial application to see Charlie's file, which would include all of the information they had on him. We sat on the file for our allotted week without much discussion; we were both still timid and fearful. It was a slow beginning as we worked through our fears, but now that we are almost through the month of July, we can't hurry the process along fast enough.
We have been busy collecting, signing, notarizing, and overnighting paperwork. Although we wanted to keep our decision quiet until we were actually approved by both governments, when Jordan informed us that most of his buddies knew because they had accidentally seen the paperwork I left on the table or the information up on my laptop, we knew we needed to bite the bullet and let our family and friends know.
We are at the beginning of a very lengthy process and figure we have around 10 months to go before we can bring him home. In the meantime, we know we will have many questions to field from the notary to our neighbors, but for now we will use our friend's suggestion and stick with the answer, "We just love to travel!!!!" Perhaps we will add, "And we might go to Russia next year!" just for kicks. :)
