Where are we at in domestic adoption?

We have finished our paperwork for domestic adoption and are waiting to finalize our homestudy. (It had expired because they are only good for a year!) Our information has been shown to two birth moms so far, but they picked other families to raise their children. Our agency is currently in a "slow" period, and are currently doing outreach in different areas to let birth moms know of their services, should they decide they want to develop an adoption plan for their babies. Our case manager assured us that this is normal - sometimes they are really busy doing outreach, sometimes they are busy helping new moms because their outreach has yielded results! She said that she has talked to the agency she used to work with, and they are in a slow time period as well.

Though it can be hard to wait sometimes, we know God is faithful. He has, and continues to promise us a family so we cling to Him! We can't wait to meet our kids when He knows it's the right time to bring them! :-) Thank you for praying!

Our first snag in the adoption process!

Yes, it's true. An adoption wouldn't be an adoption without some snags along the way!

Eric sent our paperwork to the Vietnamese embassy in San Francissco August 23rd. YES! We finally are ALMOST DONE!! After this - send to our agency to send to Viet Nam!

The following Monday, our cell phone rang with a call from California. It was the Vietnamese embassy! They explained that not all of our paperwork was certified by the State of Florida, and that we only sent $50 for the whole dossier (the portfolio of all our paperwork), instead of $50 for each document. So, they would send it back to have it fixed, then we could send it back to them with the right amount of money.

We were really confused! We thought we had done everything correctly. I emailed our social worker at the agency to explain what happened. She called me right back to talk it through. She looked at the copy of our paperwork that we'd sent her, and was very puzzled as to why Florida didn't certify everything. She asked what we received back from Florida, and I explained that there was one certificate (it looked like one of those achievement awards you get in high school!) attached to our home study. She said, that is really strange because there's supposed to be one for each document. All of a sudden, the lights went on, and I asked her if I was supposed to send $10 for each document, just like I was supposed to send $50 for each document for CA. Mystery solved!I couldn't help but laugh at how silly it was! We had sent them all of our stuff, it was obvious that we wanted it all certified, yet they sent back just the one - with no note saying "By the way, if you want the rest of these done you've gotta send some more money!"

SO, we are hoping to drive to Tallahassee on Wednesday to hand deliver our paperwork, have it certified, then overnight it from there to San Francisco in order to save a few weeks of mailing. Our hope is that it will come back to us by 9/14 so that Allison can send it to the adoption agency to send to Viet Nam before she leaves for Turkey! Keep praying for us and our sanity! ;-)

Our paperwork is almost finished!

We have finally completed all of the needed paperwork and received the clearance from the background checks! Our Home Study report should be here any day, and once it is, we will mail all of our paperwork to Talahassee for state approval!

We are very excited that the process is moving along. Once we receive the paperwork back from Talahassee, we will send it to Washington for federal approval. Then, it is being sent to Vietnam!

Once it is there, we will wait to be matched with a child. :-)

We will continue to kep you posted. Please keep praying that:
1. The process will go quickly and smoothly
2. The needed funds will come in for the adoption expenses
3. That we will be good witnesses in the process.

Feel free to email us anytime at fosteremail@bellsouth.net

Thanks for your p[rayers and support! We appreciate you!

Moving forward

Dear friend,

Vietnam is NOT Eric’s next overseas trip, but it is where we will go in about a year to bring home the baby that the Lord has picked out for us! When we last wrote about our adoption, we shared that we were pursuing adoption in Taiwan. Unfortunately, our application was rejected by the adoption office in Taiwan. As you can imagine, we were heartbroken. Our contact person at the adoption agency suggested that we apply to adopt from Vietnam. (See map)

Reluctantly, we said yes, fearing that they would also reject our application and we would need to abandon our dream of adopting internationally. Less than a week later, she called with the great news. She talked to the program director in Vietnam who said that our health issues would not be a problem! We are VERY excited! We feel the Lord opened the door to Vietnam for us and are confident that we will bring home our child from there, even though he or she might not even be born yet!

Once we received our acceptance, things began moving quickly. A few days after our acceptance, we received our home study paperwork to complete. The home study is where a social worker visits your home and interviews you to see if you will be a safe family for the baby. That week we set up our home study visit and we attended an adoption class on bonding with our child soon after. Finally, it is starting to feel real that we will be PARENTS!

We are currently in the “paper chasing” stage of the process, trying to gather a long list of documents for our "dossier"—this is the packet of paperwork to be sent to Vietnam. I (Allison) consider myself to be a detail oriented person, who strangely enough, enjoys doing paperwork, but this has even been a challenge for me. We had to re-start our dossier paperwork because I missed a few important details and did some of it incorrectly. It is a frustrating process sometimes, but we remind ourselves often that GOD is in control and He will allow us to be united with our child at the right time, despite the setbacks and mistakes.

Our home study went very well and we are getting the rest of our paperwork together. When it’s finished, we will send it to Tallahassee, FL and then to Washington DC for approval. Finally, we will send it to Vietnam where they will review it and approve us. The total approval process will take about three months. Then, it will take 6-10 months for Vietnam to match us with our child and send us a picture and biography. Prayerfully, picking him or her up will be a 10th wedding anniversary present for us! (August 2008). But, we know that God is sovereign and will get him or her here in His time.

We are starting to meet many new people along our journey. We began attending a monthly dinner for parents in the process of adopting from Asia a week ago, and have joined an online community of those specifically adopting from Vietnam. In addition, we have started this adoption blog on our new and improved website (www.ericandallison.org) this month, to keep you updated on our progress. We would love to hear from you!

Thank you so much for your prayers for us and for our child. We covet your continued prayers for him or her, and for us as we wait. Please pray that God will be glorified in us, especially as we meet other adoptive parents — that we will be good witnesses to them, and be able to share Christ with them if they don’t already know Him!

Thank you again for your friendship. You are a blessing in our lives.May God bless you!

In His love,
Eric and Allison

Our adoption journey begins!

I hang up the phone and smile. Another friend had called to tell me the good news - she is pregnant. Although I am genuinely happy for her, my smile quickly fades as I think about how another month has gone by and I have not become pregnant. My thoughts begin to drift as I hang up the phone. I think about the emotional rollercoaster of excitement and disappointment that Eric and I have been on for the past several years. “When will it be my turn?” I ask.

Half a world away, a little girl sits in a room full of other orphans just like her. Each one is wearing all the clothes that they own. Today is just like every other day – sitting on a “potty chair,” a wooden box with a hole cut out for her legs. She sits there, along the wall for hours at a time, waiting for the worker to arrive with her food. Occasionally one of the workers will pick her up, change her, hold her briefly and then place her back on her seat. She hasn’t known anything else, but somehow her heart aches. It feels empty inside. What would it be like to have a mommy and daddy all to herself?

We met Cassie at a fourth of July barbeque in 2004. She was petite and adorable! She had two little pigtails sticking straight up on top of her head and a smile that melted your heart. She clung to Lisa, her adopted mother. Though she’d been in the States for 7 months already, the memories of the orphanage in China were fresh and she was still afraid that she would have to go back to that lonely place.

A year later, we visited Lisa and her family again. This time, Cassie ran to us, played with us, and even called us by name. This little girl captured our hearts and we continued to pray and dream about adopting a child from China ourselves someday. When would it be? How would we know the time was right?

Over the past few years, you have faithfully journeyed with us through our struggles with infertility and for that I am so grateful. Thank you for your words of encouragement and all your prayers. They mean so much to both of us. During our infertility journey, we have continued to be open to adoption, but the timing never felt right.

That changed on September 27th, when we attended an adoption seminar. We heard the stories and saw the precious children, looking up lovingly at their parents as if to say “Yes, I belong! This is MY mommy and daddy.” These childrenwere not conceived in their adoptive mother’s womb, but in her heart.

After years of praying, we feel it is the Lord’s time for us to adopt a precious child from China! In response to God’s leading, on October 2nd we applied to adopt our child! We are now in the waiting process and will soon talk with a social worker. We look forward to the day when we receive a picture and a biography of our child. We can’t wait to share it with you!

The process will take up to 14 months. The adoption agency calls it a “paper pregnancy” and it makes us smile every time we think about it! Our hope and prayer is that our new little miracle will be here by next Christmas. Please pray for us as we begin this exciting journey- that He would give us wisdom and continue to supply for all our needs.

We have always been encouraged by the angel’s words to Mary about the miraculous birth of Jesus in Luke 1:37, “For nothing will be impossible with God,” and are claiming this verse over our own little miracle. We covet your continued prayers for us on our journey. God bless you abundantly this Christmas season.

God bless you! We love you!

Allison and Eric