Our Adoption so far

I realized that the back story of our adoption is nowhere in writing. I also realized the process has been fragmentally documented thus far. Is "fragmentally" a word? Anyway, I'm going to attempt to recap everthing that has happened so far.

In August of 2011, after 6 months of trying to get pregnant, Kristen and I started talking about adoption. We had always said that we’d love to adopt one day. We weren't frustrated with not getting pregnant (or at least I wasn’t), but we were ready to at least consider adoption. After a phone call with a lady about domestic adoption, we decided we would wait. I don't recall our reasoning for that decision.

Then, we went to Orchard Hill Church's "The Gathering" on the University of Northern Iowa's campus in Early September. The entire service was about how we are adopted into God's family through Christ. There were multiple people who spoke on this aspect of God's love for us. There was even an interview with a family who adopted a little girl. Kristen and I were nudging each other the entire service. It seemed that God was speaking to us through the entire time. While this may be the most highly attended service of the year, it seemed like we were the only people in the room. Afterwards, Kristen and I decided that God wanted us to look into adoption further. We decided to look into international adoption. Kristen contacted an Agency in Des Moines called About a Child.

Immediately, they hit it off. Kristen talked about wanting to adopt a child from Russia (our preliminary research led us to believe that this was the only place we could adopt from because we're only 24 years old). After talking for an hour and a half about our faith and love for kids, the lady mentioned an adoption pilot program for adopting from Uganda. She mentioned to Kristen that there were two little girls (ages 3 and 2) that had been on the waiting list for months. The agency was thinking of splitting the sisters into separate adoptions because they'd been waiting so long.

We decided that we'd be interested in looking into (emphasis on the looking into part) adopting the girls. Kristen was thoroughly excited; I was nervously weighing pros/cons and working my way through my analytical mumbo jumbo. I don't make big decisions quickly. When we talked to About a Child again, and learned of some of the qualifications, we were dismayed that it wouldn't be possible for us to adopt the girls.

However, the lady from About a Child was persistent.

She still wanted to know if we were interested. I was confused. In my mind, rules were rules and this was a done deal. However, we said we'd be interested if an exception could be made. This is conversation ended around 9 p.m. That night, Kristen and I prayed that if God wanted us to do adopt the girls, that he blatantly show us. At around 9 a.m. the next morning, the same lady called Kristen and said that the "situation" had been resolved. What?? How? Overnight?

Yep. Overnight.

The lady from About a Child managed to call Uganda and get a hold of the About a Child Rep. Between the two of them, the situation was resolved. HOLY CRAP. This was huge to me. I couldn't believe that God had resolved such a huge hurdle in only 12 hours.

From then on, (well, I still took a few days to come around to the idea of being a father of two) we knew that God wanted us to adopt the girls. We talked to wonderful friends of ours who recently adopted four siblings from Poland, arranged paperwork, got fingerprinted, started the homestudy process, and praying for our girls!

We learned that Faith (3 years) and Stecia (2 years) were living with their grandmother. Grandma is elderly and also looks after several other children. We got pictures, medical information, and other details. We also get periodic updates from About a Child. We also learned that a man (from Uganda) would be going to Uganda to adopt his niece and wouldn't be far from where Faith and Stecia live. He graciously took made the extra trip and took some pictures for us while he was there.

After finalizing the homestudy, sending some funds, raising some funds, and paperwork, we're patiently (or at least trying to be patient) for our court date in Uganda. If court goes well, we'll be the legal gaurdians of Faith and Stecia! When I think of the impact we will have on them and the impact they will have on us I can hardly contain myself. I’m constantly telling Kristen “I want to go to Africa! Why can’t they just call us!” We’re keeping busy and anxiously anticipating “the call.” When that happens, I’ll update the blog. Until then, enjoy record breaking temperatures :)