Tag: Adoption Page 23 of 24

With Grace, this “labor” stage (from approval to bringing her home) took 4 months. However, our lawyer has told us that we beat all the records…no one else ever had to wait that long.

Regardless, finding out that it may take longer than “a couple of weeks” to bring home Josiah isn’t all that surprising. I’ve found that with adoption, it’s best to keep your expectations really, really low. Then you can’t be disappointed.

One social worker has been transferred to a different city. Another one has been sick for a week. And today we found out that all the social workers are going to some 16-day conference beginning August 4th. Which means that if our baby’s paperwork isn’t completed by August 4th (which isn’t looking likely), then we wait until everybody gets back from the conference.

Such is life. For now, I will just enjoy the simplicity of having one child instead of two, and pray for God’s protection over my little boy’s heart and mind. In God’s sovereignty, when the time is right, Josiah will come home.

….and that I will give birth in just a couple weeks!

Except that the baby will be 8 months old.

And Tanzanian.

Okay, so the analogy is breaking down. But you get the idea.

We did choose a baby! His name is Christian. He is one of 5 available babies at this orphanage, ranging from 2 months to 9 months old. Christian is about 8 months old.

Very sorry to disappoint my readers, but we’re not going to post pictures of him yet. Or give the reasons why we chose him. We have learned the hard way that things are still uncertain and we don’t want everyone to get attached to him only to have it fall through. Our social worker still needs to collect some paperwork on him. Best case scenario, it could take as little as two weeks. Pray that we will be able to proudly introduce him to you soon!!!

Thanks so much for your prayers! We are definitely excited but guarded…and still feeling kind of “twilight-zoneish.” But did I mention that we are excited???

…getting your adoption approval letter in the mail!!!

Yep, we got it. Finally. Actually, from the way things have been going, I am pretty shocked. It seems like the social worker kind of skipped over a couple steps that I was expecting to take longer. But I’m not complaining.

We have been approved to adopt a baby from the Mburahati Orphanage in Dar. According to our lawyer, there are at least 4 available baby boys at this orphanage. On Tuesday we will go there with her to check things out. Please pray that God makes it very clear which baby should be ours, because it could come down to us “choosing”…how do we do that? I have no idea.

Once a baby has been chosen, it could take as little as two weeks for us to bring him home. 🙂

Hooray!

I’ve been thinking a lot about my baby boy lately. He is still nameless and faceless to me, but we are far enough along in the process to guess that he has most likely been born by now, and is in an orphanage somewhere. I wonder what he looks like, what his personality will be like, how he will grow up to be. Probably similar to what most pregnant moms think about.

The main difference is that I can’t help but also think about his birthmother. She chose life for her son. But is she struggling right now? Is she dying of AIDS? Was she raped and deserted? Is she so poor she can hardly feed herself? Does she think about her son and wonder what will happen to him?

I often think about Grace’s birthmother too. We know absolutely nothing about her. We never will. There aren’t some “sealed documents” somewhere that Grace can open when she’s 18. I love my daughter so much that it hurts. I can’t imagine loving a child more. It’s not until I am out in public and getting strange stares from people that I remember that not everyone can tell she is my daughter. But I often think about how my joy is another woman’s sadness. I see Grace laugh and play and run and sing and dance and I’m sad for what her birthmother is missing. What an amazing gift I have been given. How precious is God’s Grace.

What would her life be like if she was still in the village? 1 in 9 Tanzanian children die before their 5th birthday. One in nine! Over 10% of Tanzanians are dying of AIDS. Over 50% live in poverty or below poverty. It’s hard for me to even fathom my daughter growing up that way. It’s one thing to think about nameless, faceless children growing up in poverty. It’s another thing when one of them is my daughter. And even harder to think that the woman who conceived her and gave her birth is still living that way—if she is still living. She will never know how amazing her daughter is.

Will Grace ever realize what God has saved her from? Probably not until she is much, much older. She is still selfish and foolish and demanding–like any other child. Do I ever realize what I have been saved from?

“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!”