Merry Christmas

I hope that everyone had a lovely Christmas.

I know that for some, Christmas is a difficult time for various reasons. Often that can come from a feeling of loss of those loved one that are no longer with us. It can be difficult as well for those of us who are trying hard to add new family members and knowing that they are spending yet another Christmas away from family. Jason and I could certainly feel that sense of "something is missing" this year. While I am confident that our children across the ocean are being well taken care of, and even having Holiday celebrations, I can't help but wish they were home to celebrate with us. I pray that this is the last Christmas they have to spend without a forever family.

We spent Christmas Eve with Jason's parents and Grandmother.  It was a nice, relatively quiet evening.  Christmas morning we lazed around the house, well, at least Jason and I did... Claudia has been a whirlwind of energy this week.  We spent Christmas afternoon with my parents, sister, her fiance and my nephew.  Claudia did great at dinner although gift time was a bit much for Claudia.  I think she was all gifted out! 

 

I have not posted videos in a long time, so enjoy our silly Christmas morning videos below!

Don't mind Claudia telling us she has to go potty!

Our Christmas Tree 2014

Christmas Eve at Jason's parents

Silliness!

Really did not want her pic taken :)

 

Moving Forward

It has been about a month since I last blogged, to be honest, I have not had the energy or motivation.

Just about a month ago, Jason and I got some upsetting news regarding our adoption.  When Chance and Callie's government was working on approving us to adopt the children, they found out that Callie was not available for adoption.  This came to a huge surprise to us, as she has lived in an orphanage for nearly her entire life and to our knowledge has never been visited by biological family.  I won't go into detail with the specifics, and to be honest, a lot would be speculation on our part.  To put it simply, there was a paperwork error over 11 years ago and Callie was never made available for adoption and no one has been serious enough to want to adopt her to catch the mistake.

Our adoption agency has been fantastic through everything.  They were quick to let us know of this situation and lay out our options for us.  Our in country representative thought the situation could be rectified but it would take a minimum of 4-9 months before Callie would be made adoptable internationally.  We had 3 choices:

1) Wait it out and see what happens, this would delay our adoption of the children by at least 4-9 months, but at least we would still be working towards adopting both of them.

2) Pursue the adoption of Chance only (we really never considered this an option, as we believe Callie is meant to be our daughter)

3) Adopt Chance now, then submit a new Dossier (start a whole new adoption) for Callie once Chance is home with us and Callie is available for adoption.  This alternative would mean that Chance would spend less time in an orphanage and come home sooner, but it would also mean that Callie would have to wait at least another 18 months before having a family.

The agency asked us to give them and the in-country team one month to work on the problem and see where we were at the end of that time.

3 weeks after we learned about the paperwork issue, we were notified that Callie is now available for adoption, but there is a catch.  According to the laws of the children's country, a child must be made available domestically for 3 months before they will be eligible for International adoption.  So now we wait.  The chances of Callie being adopted within her country are slim to none, no one has stepped forward for the 11 years she has been an orphan.  Yes, it is silly that she has to wait the 3 months, but that is the law. 

In the beginning of March, we anticipate that Callie will be made available for International Adoption and that I will FINALLY get to meet the children and sign the paperwork saying "YES!  We want to parent Chance and Callie!"  March seems like such a long way away, but at least I now have something concrete to look forward to.

If I am able to travel in early March, that puts my second trip towards the end of the summer and means the children will likely be home by the end of summer or in the early fall.  Please pray with us that things will go smoothly from here on out and that the finances will be available when we need them.

If you feel led, please consider making an end of the year, tax deductible donation towards our adoption HERE.  Every penny counts.

We're on our way!