Provisional Approval & Pictures!

Great news!  We were just informed that China granted us our Provisional Approval (PA) on January 29.  That means they accepted our LOI for our little girl.  That also means things are officially semi-officially-official, and we can share pictures publicly. 

When we received our little girl's referral package, there were three pictures included.  These were from the November 2011 timeframe, so she was about nine months old.  We don't have much more to share at this point, so enjoy the pictures of this beautiful little one.

Surprise!

Well, life sure does bring big surprises from time to time.  Remember that first prayer request from our last blog post?  The one asking that a match would happen sooner than we expected?  Yeah, that one.  We're humbled and blessed to report that this prayer has been answered!

On January 17, only six days after being logged in with China, we received a child referral from our adoption agency.  We had 24 hours to review her file, and on January 18 we officially submitted our Letter of Intent (LOI) to the China Center for Children's Welfare and Adoption (CCCWA) .  This means a new little girl is in the final stages of becoming a member of our family!  She was born in February 2011, so she's only 11 months old.  We'll share pictures once we receive our Provisional Approval (PA) from China, which may be as early as next week.

Because everyone knows that we are adopting through China's special needs program, we know we'll get asked what condition she has.   This does not define who she is as a person, so all we'll share is that she is a hereditary carrier of a genetic condition.  Because she's only a carrier, it doesn't cause any symptoms.  This is the only reason she was placed on the special needs list.

So, next steps...  Now we must wait to receive a Letter of Acceptance (LOA) from China, followed by a final request to the USCIS to bring our daughter home.  More paperwork ensues, and long story short, a bunch of documents will eventually be sent to the US Consulate in Guangzou for processing.  Once the US Consulate completes their tasks, they will notify the CCCWA, and they will grant our travel approval. 

Given recent wait times for other adoptions, it looks like we'll be traveling to China to get our daughter in the summer of 2012.  The time cannot come soon enough!!!

Our prayer request is that all of the remaining tasks & paperwork outside of our control will be completed quickly.  Pray also for patience, as the wait is even more difficult now that we've seen this wonderful little face.  Ella and Myles can't wait to introduce you all to their little sister!

One Step Closer!

After several weeks with no news to report, we're happy to say that our dossier has officially arrived in China!  All those months of compiling and certifying paperwork came to a close in December, and our agency found no errors, praise God!  The dossier was mailed on January 6, and we received confirmation that we are "logged in" with the China Center of Adoption Affairs (CCAA) as of January 11.  This is a huge milestone!

Next step:   We will be matched by our adoption agency through China’s monthly release of special needs children when they find a child matching our profile.  This process could take anywhere from one to several months.  Once the match has been initiated, we'll be notified within 24 hours.  Within the next day the child's information will be compiled and shipped to us overnight.  We then have to review all the information and sign a letter of acceptance.  And then more waiting begins: waiting for one final USCIS approval; waiting for an appointment to be scheduled in China through the US Consulate; waiting for our travel approval.  After all that, we'll have two to three weeks' notice to prepare for our departure to China.  The adoption will be finalized in China, so this child will have a forever family before we even get on the plane home!

It's both amazing and heart-wrenching to know that our little girl is already born and out there just waiting for us!  Your continued prayers are very much desired:

- Pray that our child match occurs even sooner than we could have expected.

- Pray for the safety and health of our little girl. Because we're in the special needs program she will have some correctable medical condition, but we won't know if it's cleft lip, a heart defect, or something else until the match is made.  Pray in advance that the surgery (or surgeries) she will have to go through will be as minor and uneventful as possible.

- Pray for wisdom and discernment when we do finally receive a file to review.  Pray that it will be completely clear whether or not she is the child God has planned for us and that we will feel confident in the decision.

Hurry Up and Wait

We're consistently being asked for an update on the adoption process, and any of you that have gone through this before know the drill.  You scramble to get a bunch of paperwork together, send it off, and wait.  You have some official appointment, and wait.  If nothing else, our journey so far has been teaching us the virtue of patience!

The biggest event that's happened in the past several weeks is that we were officially added to our agency's waiting list to be matched.  This means that, even though we're not formally approved yet, the agency is watching the list of children in need for our family! 

We traveled to Des Moines for our USCIS fingerprinting on October 7.  It was actually a very uneventful appointment.  We went in, got fingerprinted, filled out a "how did we do" comment card, and left.  We were hoping that they would have at least asked us a few grilling questions to make the trip seem worthwhile. :-)  Now that the appointment is done, we wait yet again.

The most common question we're asked is "how long until you bring your baby home?"  It could be anywhere from one to eight months (or longer, but hopefully not!) before we're matched with our child.  It's likely another five to eight months after that until we travel to China for the "gotcha day" to bring our little girl home.  In parallel, we were told to expect 30 to 90 days before the USCIS approval is granted.  Once we receive this approval, we will prepare our final round of dossier documents.  The dossier will then be completed by our agency and sent to China for approval.

Your prayers throughout this process would be awesome.  Specific items to pray for at this point in our journey:

• We've been on our agency's official waiting list for about six weeks.  Pray that God will bring clarity to the agency for the child He is preparing to join our family.
• Pray that USCIS approves our paperwork faster than we could imagine so we can finish all of the paperwork effort very soon.
• Pray for a timely approval of our dossier by China with no complications.
• Pray for our daughter's health, as we don't yet know what special needs she will have.
• Pray that she'll be as young as possible when we're matched.  This not only means less time in an orphanage, but also earlier access to medical care when we bring her home.

We're thankful for each of you walking alongside us in this journey and for your prayers.

National Pride & International Ignorance

Here's a sensitive topic that's difficult to address. 

A few months ago, I (Steve) was reading an online forum where a simple question was asked. "A friend of mine is looking to adopt a child from Haiti. Any advice?"

One of the first responses was "Buy low, sell high."

Ugh.

My initial reaction was anger, which then turned to disappointment and sadness. It's sad that there are people out there that are so insensitive and ignorant about adoption.

Another response was, "What's wrong with adopting from the US?  Take care of those in need here and let other countries take care of their own problems."

Below is an excerpt of what I posted on the forum.

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I'm usually just an occasional lurker around these parts, but I felt compelled to throw in my two cents.  My wife and I have recently started the process of adopting from China, and we are often asked this same question (in some instances in an accusatory overtone): "Why don't you take care of the needy kids in your own country first?"

Granted, our scenario is slightly different than the original post as we're hoping to adopt a baby.  It's a very different process for adopting babies in the US than from overseas, and my wife and I personally are not interested in the domestic process because of these very differences.  A common reaction is that we're being selfish and ignoring the problems in our own back yard.  However, a little known fact is that there are actually people waiting in line to adopt babies domestically.  The need is simply not as high for babies in the US as it is for other countries.

Regarding older children, people are correct in saying that there are many in need in our own country.  According to the latest data I saw, there are more than 115,000 older children in the US that are living in foster care. However, there are 15 Million orphans worldwide, many of whom will never be adopted for various reasons.

I'm curious why the topic of international adoption tends to spur this reaction of national pride.  For anyone that makes this argument, I'd ask, "Have you adopted from any country, including from your own?"

On a side note, I have to get this off my chest:  On behalf of those with a passion to give hope to a child without a family via adoption, regardless of the country of origin, I find absolutely zero humor in suggesting that orphans are some "thing" to be "bought" and "resold".


James 1:27 - Pure and undefiled religion before God the Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their misfortune and to keep oneself unstained by the world.
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What are your thoughts?

So, What's This Journey All About?

After the prompting of some friends, we're starting this new blog.  The title "Adolphs Family Journey" may seem vague, but that's exactly what we've always been on as a family...a journey.  This journey began on our wedding day, May 31, 2003.  We fully believe that a husband and wife are the fulfillment of the definition of a family in God's eyes, and that children are welcome additions.  We're guessing that anyone reading this already knows us, but just for the sake of completeness we'll introduce ourselves.  We're a family that currently resides in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.  Steve is employed at Rockwell Collins, and Heather is a stay-at-home mom.  God has brought two very welcome additions into our lives so far.  Ella Lorraine joined us on September 2, 2007, and Myles Robert came along on October 9, 2009. 

Why a new blog?  At this specific time in our family's journey, we are in the process of bringing a third welcome addition into our home.  Just like the first two times, we don't know anything about this baby.  What will her favorite foods be?  How chubby are her cheeks?  Will she like music as much as her parents?  Is she going to be a good sleeper?  The key difference this time around is that this baby isn't growing inside of Heather's womb.  She is growing somewhere in China. 

God put a desire in each of our hearts for adoption even before we were married.  This passion was confirmed during our two mission trips to Kenya in 2005 and 2006.  When each of our two babies came into the world, we never lost the desire to add a sibling from far away.  We looked into adopting from Kenya because of our obvious ties there, but the country's laws and processes made it pretty infeasible for a family with young children at home (namely a requirement for at least one parent to live in country for many weeks or even months).

So, why China?  The country itself was of secondary importance to us.  Our first priority was giving a forever family to a child out there who has none.  China is a very stable program, and we are partnered with an adoption agency that is very established with the Chinese government.  While the waiting time under the standard adoption process through China is now up to five years (yikes!), we are pursuing a special needs adoption.  This process from start to finish should be more like 12 to 18 months.

So, why now?  We became Dave Ramsey "weirdos" and made a lot of sacrifices to pay off debt.  Between the time we started in June 2009 through the time we finished in January 2011, we paid off about $44,000 of vehicle and student loans.  As we neared the end, we kept wondering "what's next?"  Would we get newer cars?  Should we take a big family vacation?  Having the frugal mindset so ingrained in our heads, we had no desire to start living a more spendy lifestyle.  So, we crunched the numbers and decided to trust God to help us fund an international adoption without going into debt.  We saved our pennies that were previously dedicated to Sallie Mae and her colleagues and submitted our initial application in April 2011. 

We see adoption as such a wonderful picture of God's plan for humanity.  For those that receive the gift of salvation, we are brought into His family.  We hope that as we share our journey through this blog, you will remember us in your prayers.  Who knows, maybe God will plant a passion for adoption into your own heart!