This winter, we had the immense joy of hosting "Annie" (name changed for privacy reasons) in our home for four weeks. We spent the month of December together, seeing Christmas lights, baking cookies, learning about Colombian holiday traditions, and getting to know this sweet and goofy teenage girl. One of our favorite moments was the morning she hopped out of bed HOURS earlier than normal and ran to her window because she knew it was supposed to snow all night. It was her first time seeing snow, and we could hear her from her bedroom gasping and saying, "Me encanta!" She lit up our world from the moment she entered it with her giant smile, and the more we got to know her, the more we loved her. She instantly became part of our family, and now we want to make it official! She has waited far too long for a home and family to call her own.
It might surprise you to hear that adoption-related expenses can quickly and easily add up to $35,000 or more. On top of that, hosting had its own fee. That fee helped pay for the kids' passports, Visa, flights, etc. Then there was travel to pick her up and the things she needed while she wintered in Ohio! (Do snow boots even exist in Colombia?) But we knew hosting was well worth it, and now we aren't going to let the cost of adoption deter us from bringing this girl HOME! That is why we've set a goal of $25,000 to help with all the adoption expenses. Some is paid to our agency, but more is paid to other things needed: immigration, a psychologist, a social worker, and many other little things you might not think about. On top of that, when we finally get to go get our girl, we'll have to spend about a month in Colombia. It will all be worth it when we get to finally hug her and see her big smile once more. She is worth it!
We have been so humbled and grateful for all the support we have had during all the ups and downs of this journey so far. It has given new life to the saying "it takes a village," and we are incredibly thankful to have you all as part of our village! Your support and prayers mean more to us than we will ever be able to adequately express!
It's been a while since we've updated because the last several months have included loooooong waits for just a couple things. But now, those things are done and the hurry up and wait has just turned into HURRY UP! As it stands now, all we are waiting on is the green light from Colombia to travel! This could come any day now, so we are furiously packing and trying to get everything in order! We've also started to have biweekly video calls with our soon-to-be daughter, and it has been SO GOOD to see her face again! Unfortunately, things didn't happen quick enough for us to be there before her birthday, but we were able to have flowers delivered to her as well as a cake, and we were told she really enjoyed her celebration. We can't wait to update again with official travel plans, hopefully we will have those in the next week or less!!!
We got some good news last week! After hosting was over, we submitted a Letter of Intent to Colombia, letting them know we plan to move forward with "Annie's" adoption. The letter itself had a lot of requirements (I think ours ended up being 8ish pages?), plus we had to do a walking video tour of our home and submit a photo document with pics of our house and family. On Valentine's Day, we got a letter saying our LOI had been received and reviewed! Although this doesn't hold any weight in an official match, it's still a great feeling to know Colombia knows we are working to bring "Annie" home! They still have to wait for our dossier (our whole file) and review that before hopefully approving and officially matching us with her, but at least they know it's coming.
The other good news update is that our parts of the dossier are done! We are waiting on a few more documents from states/agencies/other people, but everything WE can do is done. We're still looking at about another month to receive immigration approval, and the last few documents should come in during that time. But that means that once we receive what we need from immigration, our dossier will be good to go to Colombia for the translation process!
Things are moving quickly, though it never feels quick enough! Have I been "borrowing" a couple shirts from our girl's closet on days I'm really missing her? It's possible... So if you know me in real life and ever see me rocking a penguin sweatshirt stained with different colors of paint, just know that that's why ;)
Hosting has come and gone, and what a joyous but fast month it was! From the moment "Annie" greeted us at the airport with big hugs and that amazing smile of hers, we adored her! Our house is not the same without her, and we miss her like crazy. We had so much fun with her this winter. She told me (Megan) one day as we were taking some family photos that she'd shared so much with our family in such a little time. She said it was never like that with any of the places she lived back home, and she told us all the time how happy she was to be here with us. The day she left was hard. She was happy to see her friends who had also been hosted when we got to the airport, but after the novelty wore off, she just clung to me and cried. I sat outside the airport and just sobbed after she left.
We are waiting on our home study to be finalized which should happen any day now (really we expected it months ago based on what our social worker initially said, but here we are). As soon as we have that in hand, we can send immigration paperwork in and then submit our dossier to Colombia when that is complete. We are PRAYING this all happens quicker than we anticipate, but wait times are long and the waiting is just difficult when there's a kiddo you love waiting on the other end of things!
My mom had the idea to do a pie fundraiser before Thanksgiving, and thanks to her amazing baking skills (and lots of people who love pie!), we raised enough to cover the immigration piece coming next! In fact, we raised EXACTLY enough. How wild is that!? When we are finally able to submit our dossier to Colombia, we will have a couple big fees due along with it, totaling around $6000. So that's our next goal.
If you're wondering about the emoji covering "Annie" in the photo, we aren't allowed to show her face anymore until the adoption is finalized. We also aren't allowed to have any contact with her until our dossier is approved by Colombia and we are officially matched with her. Thankfully we have an incredible adoption agency who is working hard to get us to the point of being able to talk to her again. We can't wait for that day!
This week we had our home study visit with our social worker where we handed off a STACK of paperwork that we've been hard at work on for the last month. Today we also had a two hour assessment with a psychologist for our psych evaluation. It's been a busy week! Now we just have to wait on the psychologist and social worker to write up their reports so we can finalize them and add them to our dossier (the massive file that gets sent to Colombia from us... it's basically EVERYTHING we've done). It feels good to have those big things behind us and to be able to shift our focus from paperwork to grants and fundraising. When those reports are complete within the next month, we will owe another $2200, part to the psychologist and part for our first immigration filing! Then once we get that immigration approval, two big fees are due at the same time. In total, we have around $10,000 over the next couple months that's due to different people/agencies. We're thrilled with the progress we've made in the process, but it's hard not to get nervous when you see big fees coming up. As of today, we are officially only 6 weeks away from meeting Annie, and we know it will be worth all the hard work and stress/worry in the end. We also got to sign up for a time to have a video call with her the week before she's here, so we are looking forward to that! Her room is almost all set up thanks to some decorative input from the teenage girls I work with, and we are just ready to have her here!!
We are BLOWN AWAY by all of the support to cover winter hosting fees! I sobbed on and off all night as donations rolled in to make winter hosting possible. "Annie" will age out next year, and it's ESSENTIAL she comes this winter for hosting to give her the best possible chance at being adopted into a family, so THANK YOU for playing a part in giving this girl that opportunity! It really would not have been possible without you, and we were just shocked by the fact that SO MANY were/are willing to play a part in that! At this point, we have enough for hosting fees AND flights to pick her up (assuming the kids aren't coming to a close airport which is highly unlikely). If we're right in that assumption, we'll also have to pay for flights back at the end of the hosting period and a hotel, so any additional hosting donations will go toward travel and things to make her feel at home while she's here.
Additionally, we are still raising funds for our adoption process. We need to schedule our psych evaluation soon which is an additional $1000. After that, we aren't looking at any major fees until after the new year! I am raising our goal back up from just covering hosting expenses to help cover adoption expenses as well. As you may or may not know, adoption costs can easily add up to over $40,000! Most adoptive families don't have that kind of money saved up. We certainly don't, but we firmly believe older kids deserve the love of a family and a place to call home just like everyone else, and we are more than willing to do everything we can to make that happen.
Thank you for being part of this adventure. We truly are beyond grateful for each of you!
