Waiting, sadly waiting.

Here’s the short version: we’re still waiting for a possible bit more information from Bethany; at this point we are probably going to turn down the referral with the three kids, unless we can get some more information about them. A longer explanation of what’s happened follows.

(Linda's comments are in blue)  In mid-April, as we learned about these kids, we were happy to learn that they were from a region right next to the region in Russia where we had spent several months in the early ‘90s and where we still have dear friends.  As we thought about their ages, we realized these kids are very similar ages to many of our friends’ kids and many of the kids in our small group.  These seemed like special added blessings.  We were excited!  Our friends and small group rejoiced with us.  A couple friends told me I glowed like an expectant mother, and a colleague of Andy's told me he looked like an expectant father.  

We began to work hard to prepare in many ways.  So much to do, so little time…yet excitedly anticipating adopting within a few months.

In mid-May we received photos of the kids.  As we spent time over the next days and weeks looking at their pictures and praying for them, our desires grew to bring them home and love them. 

We got medical information in mid-May, and we forwarded it to a team of doctors at the University of Minnesota’s International Adoption Clinic. These physicans specialize in evaluating this sort of thing and telling prospective parents what it means that the child is XXcm tall and weighs YYkg and has a head circumference of ZZcm, and a lot of other medical data that we don’t understand.

The docs said, in effect, “we’re concerned.” The photos and info suggested that one or more of the kids might have FASD—fetal alcohol spectrum disorder—and they suggested we ask for more details about the kids and also about their family history, which had not been provided. We asked our caseworker to pass these questions along to the Russian side and see what we could find out.

In our parenting class at church the next day we sat next to an adoptive mother with adopted kids with FASD.  She spoke with us at length about the challenges they face – behavioral, cognitive, social, and other lifelong challenges.  It was very sobering.  We questioned whether we could handle such a situation.  

After a couple of weeks, we were given more info that we again passed along to the IAC, and their response was not encouraging. Of particular concern was the fact that the children were taken away from their mother by a court for neglect, and that their mother and both their fathers were known to have been using alcohol. This, along with other info that the docs saw, led them to conclude that all three children were at high risk for FASD, and that unless we were ready to deal with the worst-case scenario, we should decline the referral.

Their early life experiences are heartbreaking.  Our hearts went out to them even more.  

We agonized over this for a few days.

On June 7^th we sat in church and heard a message from Matt. 11:28-30, in which Jesus says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy burdened, and I will give you rest.”  God knew we were heavy burdened.

Just after noon that day, we received an e-mail from the International Adoption Clinic.  Although they could not determine for sure whether or not the kids have FASD, the likelihood is high enough that the doctor wrote, “I’d expect that all three children were exposed to alcohol use during pregnancy.”  That was very hard to read.  It was the answer we were waiting for, yet it was the answer we hoped so much not to receive.  We began grieving not adopting these kids whose faces we’ve been looking at the past three weeks and who we’ve been praying for by name.  

Eventually we decided to decline the referral, but when I called our caseworker I explained that if we could more precisely determine whether the kids in fact do or do not have FASD, we would be willing to reconsider the referral. Our caseworker agreed to try to find out if this could be accomplished, and so we are waiting to hear if there’s a way to do this.

If you want to pray for us, we’d appreciate wisdom and guidance as to how to move forward, and prayers for these three little kids. We really wanted to adopt them, and we’ve very much open to pursuing them if we are somehow able to eliminate FASD as a likely diagnosis.

Thanks for reading. We’ll post more when we find out.

Waiting...

We are waiting to hear from our caseworker, having decided that we would pursue adoption of the three kids that we were told about (see prior post for the few details that we have so far about them). This week is supposed to be the time when these three kids are officially becoming available for an adoption referral. The way this works now should be:

1. The Russian government formally approves matching these kids to us as adoptive parents, and informs Bethany's central office in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
2. Bethany contacts our caseworker here in Minneapolis.
3. Our caseworker contacts us.

As of right now, none of these have happened yet, but we are hopeful. Our caseworker is asking the central office to check with their partners in Russia to see how things are going.

A is travelling to Dallas later this week for a conference. It would be a little sad to have official word of an approved referral arrive while he's down in Texas.

Whoa

Today we got a call from our new caseworker; above are the notes we took during the call. She told us that there's a trio (!) of children, a brother and two sisters, who are going to be coming available soon for adoption. We have been asked to decide whether we wish to move forward with adopting them. The boy is 6, the sisters are 4 and 3. According to the doctor in Russia, they are healthy and "good kids", whatever that may mean. We need to think through whether we're open to adopting three instead of two like we had originally planned, but as of right now we're thinking we might do this.

If we do say that we want to move forward, we are pretty much committing to adopting all of them, provided we don't find out later on that they have more significant problems with health or behavior. Of course, we're not the only family open to adopting a sibling group, and there are a hundred other things that could prevent this from going ahead. But still.

We're excited, but we are going to pray and think about this.

One more document...

We're back to our helpful notary, since last week we missed one document that we had to get signed: Statement of Risk.

This is a four page list of everything that might not go well in our adoption process: higher costs in travel, the Russian or US government deciding to decline our request to adopt, undiagnosed illnesses or conditions in the children that we discover later on, etc., etc. It's a long list, and sobering.

At the end of the list, we make an agreement not to sue Bethany should any of them happen, since none of them are the kind of things that an adoption agency can really guarantee or do much about. I wonder if people having children born to them biologically have to sign any releases like this...

It's a good reminder of just how much we are in God's hands in this process. Many things can, and sometimes do, go wrong. We need to keep praying for wisdom and protection, always, and trust that whatever does happen, we will be given grace and strength to bear each day as it comes.

New Caseworker

Today we have been reassigned to a new caseworker, since our original (Sara) has had a baby. We will be stopping by Bethany soon with our paperwork to get it looked over before we send it off, so we'll hopefully have a chance to meet the new one. We've already done almost everything that required a lot of interaction with the caseworker, so this doesn't really affect things much.

Notarized!

Linda's smiling because we're getting our dossier documents notarized. These are the documents that are going to Russia to formally request the permission of the government to adopt children.

Next, we take them to the secretary of the state of MN to get them apostilled (kind of a super-notarization that makes them legal documents internationally).