Traveling in October!

October is the time of year for hay rides, pumpkins, apple cider, and taking walks in the crisp fall air and crunching leaves under your feet. This year, October will also be when we finally get to meet our children!

We got our official referral for M. in August and we could have traveled in September to meet him. But we decided to adopt E. too and had to file more paperwork. Wednesday, October 17, we got a call from our agency with our "verbal referral" for E.. Our request to adopt E. along with M. was approved by the Bulgarian government. It will take a week or two longer for all the documents to get translated and for us to have the "official referral" in our hands, so we don't have firm travel dates yet. Our adoption agency told us to expect to travel for our first trip in October.

Surprise! It's a...

...Sister!

Yesterday, I posted on Facebook that we were adopting a 2nd child along with M. and asked whether people thought M. was going to have a brother or sister.

We ended up with 4 boy votes and 18 girl votes. The girl votes got it right! We are going to have "Sugar and Spice, and Everything Nice" along with our "Snakes, Snails and Puppy-Dog Tails!"

Meet E.!

Our daughter's name is E.! She is 11 years old. She has a huge, beautiful smile and cute, black, curly hair that she wears in pigtails or a ponytail! She also has Cerebral Palsy. And she has been waiting for a family for a long time. Too long!

Here's the scoop on how we decided to adopt E.:

A friend who works for an adoption agency (not the one we are using) saw her waiting child profile and emailed us about her because she thought E. would be a good fit for Andrew and I, and because she knew we were hoping to adopt a 2nd child. 

E.'s report described her as a bright, sociable, happy child. She has cerebral palsy, but the report described her as determined. She worked hard to overcome her difficulties. We were taken with the description of her personality. We thought that E. might be a good fit for our family and that our family might be a good fit for her! However, at that time, the most recent information about her was from 2012 - two years outdated. There was an even bigger problem. Our adoption agency didn't have her file, so we couldn't get any updated information about her. For months we urged our agency to find out all they could about her and to try to get her file. It was a long shot really. During those months of hoping our agency could find out more about her and get her file, we prayed daily for E. We prayed that she would receive family, whether it be us or someone else. We prayed for wisdom in making a decision about her.

It took several months, but our agency was finally able to get her file, and updated information. We prayed all the more. But after months of praying for her and looking at her picture, my heart was saying yes already! We wanted to adopt E.! The big question was, could Andrew and I meet E.'s needs? Cerebral Palsy is a incurable but treatable disability. We would be committing to years of speech therapy, physical therapy, and occupational therapy.

A second big question loomed in our minds. Can we handle adopting 2 older children at once? Make that two children who have never met each other? Could we not only handle it, but could we thrive as a family? Would this be a good situation for both M. and E.? We considered the pros and cons, and decided to say yes to adopting E.!

Not a Blank Slate

For Andrew and I adoption = happy excitement and not-so-patient waiting, as well as some new-parent jitters. But happiness is not the only emotion that comes with adoption. With all adoption there is loss. Adoption is a solution to give parents to a child who is parentless because of death of parents, a mother not able to parent a child, children being removed from their birth family from neglect and abuse, and child abandonment. Well meaning people tell children how lucky they are to be adopted. And in a sense, I know what they mean. They mean that the child is lucky or blessed they aren't still in the orphanage or in fostercare or living on the streets. Because for every child that is adopted, there are thousands who don't get adopted and continue to struggle living in fostercare, orphanages, or on their own on the streets. I don't consider a child who has suffered the loss of birth parents for whatever reason (death of parents, choice of birthmother to make an adoption plan, abandoment, neglect, abuse) to be lucky or blessed.

Listen to these stories of adoption and fostercare and hear the real loss that these children have gone through:

As I think about M., I feel empathy for him. He isn't coming to us as a blank slate. He has a story. A story that involves the loss of his birth family, living in 2 different orphanages and even loss from when he left those orphanages, and now a foster family. When M. comes to us, he will suffer more loss. The loss of the familiar, the loss of his birth culture, the loss of his foster family. It will not be easy for him. I want Andrew and I to be understand of all the emotions he may feel as he joins our family. He could feel overwhelmed, confused, sad, angry, misunderstood, and so much more. We continue to prepare for the emotional needs of our son when he joins our family.

Listen To Our Hearts: Why from Tapestry on Vimeo.

Short Update!

Our updated homestudy and immigration approval are on there way to Bulgaria! Yay!

Once our paperwork reaches Bulgaria, it will be submitted to Bulgarian Minster of Justice for approval. The Minister of Justice will then give us the official referral for M. and extend an invitation to travel and meet M. We aren't sure how long this process will take! We still hope to travel in late summer or fall.

I have started buying a few little things to take with us when we visit M. I hit the dollar bins at Target this week and found bubbles, sidewalk chalk, a squishy ball, a slinky, and coloring book!

Happy Father's Day

 Happy Father's Day to the Fathers I am thankful for!

My Daddy

Andrew and His Dad

The Man Who Will Be "Daddy" to my Children

Crawling Forward

Our adoption process is crawling forward. Everyone has been asking how long it will take until we can bring M. home. The short answer is we don't know. We hope to travel in the late summer or fall for trip 1 and early in 2015 to pick up M. and bring him home. The long answer is below.

When we signed the papers to pursue adopting M., there were 2 documents that needed updating since we were only approved to adopt children up to the age of 6 and M. is 10. We needed to update our homestudy approval and our immigration approval.

We had already scheduled meetings with our social worker for the homestudy, because we were planning on updating it anyway. That helped the process go a little quicker! We received our signed notarized homestudy update May 13, and mailed of our application to update our immigration permission to the Department of Homeland Security (for those of you who understand the legal side of our adoption, form I800A, supplement 3) on May 14.  The next step was fingerprinting for immigration, but we had to wait until Homeland security sent us letters in the mail with an appointment. That finally came. We just had our biometric finger prints done by the Dept. of Homeland Security this week. For now, we are just waiting to get our immigration approval back. Hopefully soon, though it may take a few more weeks.

When we get back our immigration approval, we will have it and our homestudy apostilled (fancy seal put on it from the State Secretary's office saying that these documents are real, legit, not forged, etc.) and mailed to Bulgaria. (We already scanned and emailed our homestudy on to Bulgaria so that translation work can be done and ready when the hard copy arrives!) Then those documents will need to be approved by the Minister of Justice in Bulgaria. After we get that approval we can get travel dates for the first trip.

The second trip when we can pick up M. and bring him home will be 4-6 months after the first trip, depending on how long more red tape takes, specifically how long it takes for court in Bulgaria, travel visa for M., article 5 and signatures by important people.

Mother's Day (Exciting News and Notes of Thanks!)

First, I have to share some exciting news that I have been trying to hold back!

We are going to be...

 Yes! We have a son!

Here is the story of how we found our son:

We first found out about M. on our agency's waiting child photo listing at the beginning of  March and inquired for more information. We received a few page description and 1 rather blurry photo taken 2 years ago. We found out M. was 10 years old and physically healthy. We  wondered if M. might be our son. We asked for updated information, photos, and videos.

After a month, we finally received the update with 5 video clips, and recent photos, and another page of updated information about him. We were scheduled for a homestudy update. (My thinking is Perfect Timing! Is this meant to be?) In our meeting with our social worker, we discussed the possibility of adopting M. with her. What would it be like to adopt a 10 year old? Our previous homestudy had approved us to adopt up to age 6, so this is an age adjustment. Did we feel like we could meet all of M.'s physical, emotional, social, academic needs? What support system could we have in place to support us as we parent an older child?

After thinking and praying and discussing it with each other and adoption professionals, we have decided to pursue adopting M. instead of waiting for the Bulgarian government to issue us a referral for a child. (I have always advocated for waiting kids and older child adoption for those who feel capable of parenting an older and or waiting child! Now I am taking my own advice!) On April 15, Andrew and I signed and had notarized a letter to the Bulgarian government requesting that we be matched with M.! On April 30, we received the news that the Bulgarian government had accepted our letter and placed M. on hold for our family while we update our homestudy and immigration to be approved to adopt a 10 year old! Now we are working as quickly as possible to get updated. We hope to have the official copies of the updated homestudy in our hand this week and file for immigration update!

I know you probably want to see his handsome face, and I would love to share. But Andrew and I are still deciding if we want to share M.'s picture online publicly. Come up to me in person and ask! I will be happy to share his picture with you!

This year I can't help but hope that by next Mother's day, there will be a son in my home. I little boy whose laughter will be the most beautiful sound, will be in my arms. He is already in my heart!

Now, after that exciting news, the other important part of my blog post! Today is Mother's Day. I must celebrate the Mothers for which I am thankful!

My Mother: Thank you for being a wonderful mother! You gave me life and a beautiful childhood! Thank you for dyeing Easter eggs with us, baking and decorating birthday cakes for me, and for so much more! Thank you for being the good friend you are now!

My Grandmothers:

My Mother's Mother: I barely remember you, you died when I was quite young. But I am thankful for you!

My Father's Mother: Thank you for the hugs, and laughs, and funny stories!

My Husband's Mother: I have you to thank for my wonderful husband! You raised your son into a strong and gentle, loving man!

My Son's First Mother: (I am choosing to use the name "First Mother" but some people say Birth Mother or Biological Mother) I know so very little about you. I have never met you and probably never will. I will probably never even get to see a photo of you. But I appreciate you this Mother's Day! How I want to thank you! I wish I could tell you "thank you" forgiving life to this child to whom we are both a mother.

My Son's Foster Mother: Thank you for being "mommy" to my son until I can come to him and bring him home and be his mommy. Thank you for your time and energy, for opening your home and heart, for giving of yourself when he needs someone to love and care for him. (We originally though M. was in an orphanage, but found out he has been in a foster home for the past year. He was in an orphanage for several years before being in a foster home.)

Easter, Bulgarian Style

In Bulgaria, Easter is the biggest holiday of the year. Bigger than Christmas. I have heard that the government and business shut down for a whole week.

Bulgarians are Eastern Orthodox and sometimes their Easter falls on a different Sunday than our Easter in the US. However, this year Eastern Orthodox Easter was on the same date as we celebrate Easter. We decided to add a little Bulgarian culture to our celebration of Christ's resurrection. We attended an early Easter service at our church. We though about going to a Bulgarian/Eastern Orthodox service too, just for a cultural experience, but we couldn't find a Bulgarian Orthodox church near us.

In the afternoon, we went to a Bulgarian Easter celebration. (How cool is it that the city where we live has Bulgarians living here?!) Some friends of ours who have adopted from Bulgaria also came. It was great to see them again!

Andrew enjoying some traditional Bulgarian dishes as well as American food. Lamb is traditionally served at Easter in Bulgaria. Andrew had some and liked it. I have had lamb before and didn't care for it, so I didn't try it. But I did try most everything else and thought it was all delicious!

I found a recipe in my Bulgarian cookbook for Kozunak, a sweet bread made at Easter in Bulgaria. I made it and brought it to the Easter celebration. I didn't know there would be a Kozunak competition! There were a lot of places and prizes, so most of the bread won something. My bread won a prize for taste!

I also brought another Bulgarian dish, Tarator, a cold cucumber and yogurt soup, seasoned with fresh dill and sprinkled with chopped walnuts. The recipe for this was also in my Bulgarian cookbook. It was the first time to try this recipe. Tarator is delicious! I am sure I will be making it again!

 Thank you to everyone at the Easter celebration for welcoming us with open arms! We loved experiencing a little of our children's culture!