Hey everyone!
We are ADOPTING from China!
In some ways it still feels surreal since we are in the stage prior to being matched with a child. We are in the paperwork, education, and home study phase now.
Adoption Prelude
We (Casey and Scott) got married in 2010 and pretty quickly became pregnant with our oldest daughter, Sophia. Sophia is now a vibrant 6-year-old who is an avid reader, loves anything art, and running around barefoot with neighbor friends. About a year after Sophia was born though, we experienced our first miscarriage. This was a very difficult time in our lives and marriage. We didn't know then just how common miscarriages are. Being common does NOT make a miscarriage less painful, but not really knowing anything about miscarriages we felt completely blindsided when we heard the words "there's no heartbeat."
In 2013, God blessed us with our second daughter, Juliana. Holding her in our arms after she was born reminded us of God's redemption in that he had now brought joy to a painful area of our lives. Juliana is an enthusiastic 4-year-old who has an infectious laugh, loves to dance in ridiculous outfits, and is a little mommy who brings her baby doll everywhere we go.
More recently, about a year and a half ago, we experienced our second miscarriage. Once again, this experience was a difficult and painful time. We felt alone and depressed for a little while. A few months after that miscarriage we began talking about the idea of adoption again and considered if adoption was how we would grow our family next. Adoption was not plan B for us because we know it has always been part of God's plan for our family. We talked about adoption while we were dating, and it was something that we were united in as we thought about marriage and having our own family. Adoption is a messy, expensive, and a challenging way to grow a family but is a beautiful picture of the depth of God's relentless love and mercy towards us.
Some may ask why we are adopting internationally. We prayerfully considered all different avenues of adopting. We thought about the heroin epidemic in our own city that has left many children and babies vulnerable. We also know the foster system is overflowing with children who need loving and safe homes. Our hearts do break over this, but our desire is to bring a child into our family permanently and recognize one of the goals of the foster system is for children to be reunited with their birth parents. With International adoption we felt like the dots connected for us when we thought back to first meeting and how our hearts connected in being passionate about people in other countries (especially vulnerable women and children). We both shared experiences serving children in orphanages and would love to open our home to a child who has been orphaned or abandoned and needs a forever family.
Current Phase
As said above, at this point in our journey we are in the home study phase and are building our dossier. The home study consists of an assessment of our family life and supports us in our education about the special issues in bringing a child into our family through adoption. The dossier is a compilation of paperwork that represents our family to the CCCWA (Chinese Center for Children's Welfare and Adoption) who will review the documents and approve us for adoption. This phase involves a lot of work and preparation but is also lovingly called the "paper pregnancy" or "paper baby". We hope to have the dossier complete by the end of the summer of 2018. Adoption is expensive, and our program estimates a total of $30,000+. We are trusting God with each step of this process and believe He will provide all that we need in His timing. Our family has made intentional decisions and sacrifices to save money for this adoption. Even so, we are also humbled to know that we cannot do this alone. We would like to invite you into this process and hope you see yourself as part of the story that brings one orphan into a forever family.
