I-171H is here!

It's official - our I-171h is here! This is the legendary piece of paper that takes months to get and means that the US government finds us "able to furnish proper care to an orphan". While we are still waiting for our latest FBI prints in order to finish our dossier this is still a moment to celebrate - thank you God! Precious baby, we are getting closer to you!  :)

Timeline...so far

I guess I'll post this permanently down the side one day but for now, here is what our timeline has been like...


2009
Aug - heard a "now" from God about adoption! - started researching agencies and countries
Sept 1 - researching countries - heard teleconference on Bulgaria (with LMI)
Sept 1 - decided to go with LMI
Sept 4 - selected Kazakhstan
Sept 12 - sent initial application in to adoption agency
Sept 15 - listened to Kazakhstan teleconference
Sept 21 - received notice of our acceptance to LMI and the Kaz program
Oct 4 - sent our signed contract to LMI
Oct 8 - first meeting with our social worker for the home study
Oct 9 - received the LMI "binder" - the big info pack on adoption and Kaz
Oct 12 - fed-ex'd the I-600A to USCIS 
Oct 22 - 2nd visit with social worker for home study
Nov 8 - spoke at church about our adoption calling for Orphan Sunday
Nov 10 - dreaded home visit from social worker - house very clean!! :)
Nov 12  - to Jacksonville for USCIS fingerprints


2010
Jan 13 - found out I was pregnant
     (adoption process temporarily paused because baby and adoption were going to happen at the same time - Sept)
Feb 7 - lost the baby
Feb 23 - received the final home study report - FINALLY!!!
     (still paused for several factors...)
April 6 - got the go ahead for dossier work and received all of the paperwork (our agency helps with the prep!)
April 7 - fingerprinted for FBI (again)
April 7 - fed-ex'd home study to USCIS and prints to FBI
April 12 - dossier teleconference in which paperwork was explained
April 13 - dossier prep paused to wait for FBI certification (again)


To most of you this is probably super boring, and a few months ago I totally would have agreed with you - but now I am obsessed with other people's timelines. I know that what happened to other families isn't exactly how ours will be (or even close?!) but I still can't help myself. Guess it's human nature to want to know 'how long'...and when there is no answer to that question, particularly when you are talking about something as huge as a child, you go a little nuts. :) I know God knows every little detail down to the nano-second, and as He reveals His timing to us I will keep updating the list.


Hopefully this timeline will be helpful to other families, and if I've lost you, well...maybe someday when you're adopting you might feel differently! :)

Something more interesting than lists of paperwork

All of this paperwork is SO boring so I've decided to show you some of the photos we have to include with our dossier.  When all is said and done we will need photos of the main living areas of the house, the outside and neighborhood, family shots, and the all important Kaz kid's room. For the past few days I've been snapping away (after carefully moving all the clutter around!), and here is what it looks like...

Home Sweet Home

And now for the more interesting ones.....

guest room/office/kids room - and Lego's favorite rug in the whole place :)

Wow - now wasn't that exciting?! :)

waiting...waiting...waiting...

Well, we thought we'd be able to rush forward with the dossier but we were wrong. Seems we are now waiting for the FBI to do our fingerprints...again! Since their clearances are taking about 13 weeks we need to wait for that to come in first, and then get all of our other stuff done so the documents have as much time as possible before expiration - a big deal when you have to send a dossier to Kazakhstan. On the other blogs and groups that I have read the only recommendation is to have someone you know with the FBI call to push your prints through quickly, so we are working through all of our friends and acquaintances to do just that. (Please let me know if you have any thoughts or suggestions!!)

I know that it's all in God's hands and He has the perfect timing already worked out. I know that I have to be patient and hand over all of my own fears and desires. But still...it is so frustrating at times because each day that we are delayed is another day that our precious little one is left in the baby house. This child is so real to us! But instead of becoming bitter and angry, through it all God has continued to grow my reliance on Him...and my faith in Him - and for that I am so grateful.

Dossier work starting

We had to take a pause in the adoption process because of the pregnancy, and then in order to grieve for the precious baby that we lost, but things are finally speeding up again and I am thinking in terms of toddlers once more! 

USCIS approval is still pending, but documents for our dossier are starting to be compiled now. Whohoo - another set of FBI fingerprints for us. Our fabulous adoption agency does the hard part of the prep for us which is a huge relief to this homeschooling mom but there is still plenty to do. I'm really not sure how long this will take, but once our dossier is compiled and approved (nowhere near as simple as that sounds!) it goes to Kazakhstan!! 

For those of you non-international adopters... we have to have tons of paperwork (including fingerprints, medical reports, financial statements, etc.) all in perfect order, notarized, apostilled, approved by endless agencies and translated into Russian. Once our dossier heads to Kaz, their government agencies review it and, God willing, assign us to a region and send us an invitation to travel. The exciting part of the process! 

Where do I begin...

Without a doubt, this is the hardest thing for me to write. On January 18th we found out we were pregnant, and on Sunday, February 7th, at about 8 weeks along I started to miscarry. We decided not to share the news of the pregnancy before we were in the second trimester in case something like this happened. We really didn't want to have to go back to everyone and explain that we were no longer expecting a baby, but now, on the other side of it we have changed our minds. In spite of our pain we really wanted to glorify God and we figured that the best way to do that was to share what we have been going through, what He has loved us in spite of, and what He has done through the process.

When I first found out I was pregnant we were over-the-moon, beside ourselves, elated! Here is my post about it.... (that I was saving until our second trimester)

Our family has some very happy news to share with you...

On Monday, January 18th, we got the most amazing and unexpected gift - I am pregnant!

It came as a complete suprise to all of us and we still can't believe it ourselves. We did not go into adoption because we believed we could never get pregnant 'on our own', we did it because God called us to it and these precious children touched our hearts, but I truly didn't think God would bless us with more 'home grown' kids either. When I had Matt 12 years ago it was extremely difficult to get pregnant. I can't tell you how many pregnancy tests I've taken in my life...and there was always just the one lonely line. I'd stare at that line really hard and imagine that I could see a really faint partner for it there, but it was not to be...until now. In God's perfect (although seemingly crazy to me at the moment) timing, the new little soul He intended for us is on the way!

And yes, we are still adopting! :)

Obviously we have been devastated - the pain and loss has been so intense I can't even begin to describe it. I know we are not alone in this, so many families feel the pain of losing a baby this way, but that doesn't make it easier at the moment - just like the joy of giving birth isn't lessened because it happens every day. At times I have felt like the world was collapsing around me and that there was no way that I'd ever feel better, and to watch your husband and son so hurt as well just becomes unbearable. At times I pulled out of my grief long enough to be angry...with God. I was still praising Him with my lips and I told Him that I would no matter what, but there were moments when I yelled at Him with my heart and wanted to know why He was doing this to us. I was crying out to Him, desperate to feel His presence, but all I felt was alone and empty. I'm not proud.
 
But through it all God has been with us. He has tenderly picked us up and dried our tears, quieted us with His love, and filled us with His peace. It is this peace that has impacted me the most. His peace is always there for us and it is totally sufficient. Jesus' peace, the peace that passes all understanding, and the same peace that carried Him through all of His trials and suffering, is the same peace that we have access to. Even in the midst of something so painful it is enough. It doesn't make sense for us to be at peace now, but we are...and that is a gift from God.
 
"Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful." John 14:27

A look back at our story

 I'm having trouble blogging right now because there is so much going on that I can't share just yet and my heart and mind are all jumbled. So instead of telling you about what's going on right now I thought I'd share a bit of our story....

As a little girl I can remember hearing about children who didn't have a family and my heart went out to them. I didn't even know the word 'orphan' yet, but I knew that one day I wanted to help one of those kids and give them a family. The way I saw it then was that I wanted to bless one of these kids in some way, but what I didn't realize then was that God intended to bless ME through adoption!

In my head I can understand that God calls us all to get involved in the lives of orphans. James 1:27 says "religion that God accepts as pure and faultless is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress." Not to make this a selfish endeavor, but when we do this He pours His blessing out on US...can you believe how amazing our God is?! Several months ago we clearly heard God's call to adopt, and since then we have had a front row seat to His work! I can't tell you the exact moment that I knew we were supposed to do this...it was more like a gradual awareness of it, and a peace...but at some point Clint and I looked at each other and said we're going to adopt...and we're going to do it now, aren't we?! Maybe that seems anticlimactic but that's how it happened.

Let me back it up a little....  When Clint and I met we felt a spark - a certain something that I couldn't quite figure out. I fought it for a long time but decided to keep praying and seeking God's will for us. Meanwhile, Clint was praying too...we both knew we had to get this right. We were both adamant that this was it...marriage is sacred and there will be no reversing it. I was divorced previously and had seen how devastating that can be first hand. Plus, there were kids watching us...and not just Matthew, but all of the students that both of us were involved with, and we knew we had to be a testimony to God's plan for marriage. Thankfully we both realized that the only way we could do that was to give it completely to God...and so we prayed...and prayed...and prayed...for 6 solid months! I am SO grateful for this time. It not only laid the foundation for our marriage (which is more incredible than I ever could have imagined marriage to be), but it prepared us to hit the ground running. Clint works tirelessly for our students which is a big job. This is a huge blessing to both of us...but it also makes for a crazy life!

Apparently we like 'crazy' though (Matt will quickly agree!), because we found ourselves praying fervently for more kids. Our students are amazing, and they responded by bringing friends to youth group activities and we saw so many new faces at church on a weekly basis...but after 6 months of praying these prayers God threw us a curve ball. He told us that He had even more kids in His plans for us - we just had to go to Kazakhstan!

Obviously this was exciting news! God wanted us to add to our family quickly, and He was doing it in such a super special way. We were thrilled, but we were hit with doubts...and lots of them. How will we be qualified to do this? We've only been married a year. Where are we going to get the money? No adoption agency will want to work with us. Would our families, friends and church support us? We don't speak their language...how will we be able to communicate? And the worst was whether or not we'd be able to love them the same way we love Matt. I'm not proud to admit those things.

The verse God kept bringing me to was this... God will make this happen, for He who calls you is faithful. -1 Thessalonians 5:24... and the reality of it hit me. We can't, but God can...and will. Not because of our goodness or merit, but because He is faithful and wouldn't call us to do something and then leave us hanging. We are flying blind, living day by day in total faith...because that's the only way we can. God intended for us to be up against something so huge that we had to admit there was no possible way that we could make even half of it work - that's the only way that we, as stubborn and sinful humans, would rely on Him completely. And I'm here to say that there is a lot of FREEDOM in that! :)  So here is my probably lame analogy...  I used to be the director of a department that created and ran a big international, multi-million dollar program (my successes had absolutely nothing to do with me, and everything to do with God). While it was awesome to see God work through me that way, it was also an incredibly heavy load to carry - I was the boss and everything that happened (or didn't happen) was my ultimate responsibility. If you've ever been 'the boss' you know what I mean...you don't sleep well, and chances are you have ulcers too. The good news is that it's  not like that with God -- we can find peace in knowing that He ultimately takes responsibility for working out all the details, and whether it goes the way we want it to or not, we don't have to lose sleep over it! Yes, I still have to do my part, but at the end of the day I'm not the one truly carrying the load. Thank you God!!

Through our one little step of faith - saying okay to God's calling - we are seeing, in a whole new way, how faithful, loving, sovereign and merciful He really is. He has answered our concerns and quieted our fears with amazing quickness and tenderness. The adoption agency accepted us within hours of receiving our application. Our family, friends and church were thrilled for us...and we found out that God had also called our friends to adopt as well. When the bill for the first big chunk of money arrived we couldn't pay it, so we prayed quickly about it that morning...and by the afternoon more than enough unexpectedly arrived. And the best part was that our hearts quickly began to ache to be able to meet and hold our child!

Faith isn't always easy! In fact, it can be really tough, and it often comes with a cost. But God says "I will give you treasures hidden in the darkness - secret riches." (Isaiah 45:3)  He wants us to do the hard thing and look in the dark and dirty places that aren't easy to get to, because that is where He is at work - and where His treasures are! He may not be calling you to adopt, but He is probably calling you to do something hard this very day, and it is my prayer that you will say yes to Him and receive the treasure that He has for you.

Much love,
Lauren