We received exciting news yesterday! Our dossier has been "logged in" by the China Center for Children's Welfare and Adoption (CCCWA) and is now being translated!! That means that now we are able to be "matched" with a child at any time!!
This process can be SO consuming and we make a big effort not to talk incessantly about it to everyone we come into contact with! We don't want you guys to see us coming and be like "Quick! Hide so we don't have to hear them drone on about adoption!!" However, we get asked about it a lot and we have noticed that we get asked the same questions over and over again (which we don't mind at all!!), so we thought it would be a good idea to post some answers to those FAQs!
1) Why did you choose China? Why not adopt an American baby?
Friends, there is not a simple cut and dried answer to this question. In its simplest form, the answer is simply that China is where God led us. I know some of you have no idea what I mean when I say that and some of you secretly (or not so secretly!) think we have a screw loose for doing this. I will do my best to explain.
First, we are not adopting for reasons of infertility, so newborn domestic adoption was not something we really considered. So many couples and dear friends of ours have gone that route due to infertility and it is a beautiful thing, but as a fertile couple with two healthy biological kids, that doesn't make sense for us!
Secondly, although growing our family is important to us, we also wanted to adopt to live out the Biblical command to care for "the fatherless" or "the orphan." There are so many precious "orphans" in the foster care system in the US. Half a million in fact - and they all need homes!! Davion Only recently made headlines when he went before a church in Florida and begged for someone to adopt him out of foster care and give him a family. My heart breaks for him and all the others like him!! Foster care and resulting adoption are so very needed in this country and it is something we definitely have a heart for and may very likely do in the future. However, when we began to research adoption we found that at this time with the children we have and the needs they have, foster care is not a good fit for us right now. If foster care is something you are interested in or have a heart for, you can read an excellent blog post about foster care FAQs here. There are orphans all over the world, and they are all God's kids. His heart breaks for every single one of them!! When we researched programs for international adoption China was the best fit. We prayed for three straight months about our decision with more fervor than we have ever prayed about anything else and we both felt very strongly that China was where we were being called.
Part of the reason for this is that China is currently mostly adopting out kids with "special needs." This term does not mean the same thing in Chinese adoptions that it means to us here in the US. It simply means that a child is not considered 100% perfectly healthy. These needs can range from "minor, correctible" category to severe. A baby born prematurely with low birth weight, a child with a minor speech delay, a child who needs glasses, minor heart defects, a missing finger...all are on the "special needs" list!! Two of the most common special needs in China are cleft lip/cleft palate and heart conditions. Steve was born with severe bilateral cleft lip and palate and has always felt a calling to help kids with facial differences. I am a cardiac intensive care nurse. We are not guaranteed to get a child with either of these needs, but we are most definitely open to them and that is one of the ways we felt God leading us to China.
2) How old will your baby be?
We are approved for a 0-3 year old. We have requested "as young as possible." Typically children are 18 months to 2 years old at the youngest end of Chinese adoptions. This has to do with all the processing it takes on the Chinese end to get a child ready to be adopted. Once that child's file is ready to match with a family, he/she is usually at least 6-8 months old, often the child is closer to a year (this also depends on the child's age at abandonment. Sometimes kids are abandoned at birth, sometimes later.) That coupled with the 4-6 month processing time it takes for a family to complete an adoption after being matched means that kids coming home are 18-24 months at the youngest.
3) When will you go to China? When will the adoption be complete?
We don't know. On average, Chinese adoptions take 12-15 months to complete. We started the process January 2013. So far, we have taken longer than average every step of the way with the exception of being logged in so quickly after our dossier was sent to China. Once you are "matched" it takes 4-6 months to process all the paper work for you to go to China and bring your child home. Our agency estimates that we will be matched within 3 months or so. It could be sooner or it could take longer. If everything takes the maximum time frame, it could be July before we go. If it happens quicker, it could potentially be as early as April or May. We have to go with the flow and we have very little control at this point over how slowly or quickly it happens. Such is the nature of the beast of international adoption.
4) It will definitely be a girl, right?
Wrong. There are actually more waiting boys in China now than girls!! The orphan crisis in China is a very complex societal ill. Their government only allows people to have one child per family. This has led to one of the highest abortion rates in the world (13 million per year!) and a majority of them are gender-selective abortions. The sad reality is many girls aren't living long enough to be born!! Sadly, it is illegal to give a child up for adoption in China, so many children are abandoned and when found, are placed in orphanages. There are likely a wide range of reasons children are abandoned....because it is done anonymously, we don't know all the reasons. It could be due to an infant's special need; it could be simply that the parents are unable to care for the child; it could be a young unwed mom, it could be that the child's parents are dead or any number of other possibilities. The reality is that there are both boys and girls in orphanages in need of homes. We are not requesting a specific gender. We have been told that if we are willing to take a boy (which we are) it is more likely to be a boy that we are matched with.
5) What if they try to match you with a child that has a severe special need?
First, we filled out a checklist of the special needs we are open to. This was one of the hardest things for me in this entire process so far. Thankfully, our social worker and pediatrician helped us tremendously with this and continued to remind us that it is not in the best interest of the child to be taken in by a family who is not equipped to care for their needs. Secondly, we have full say in whether or not we accept a referral (or a "match"). Our social worker will call us and tell us the age, gender and special need of the child and will ask us if we want to review the file. Assuming that we do, we have a set period of time to review the file and have it reviewed by medical professionals. We can then say yes or no to that referral. We have known families who have taken their first referral and families who have said no to several before finding the right match for their family.
Obviously there are tons of unknown factors in this process. Unknowns are hard for me. I am being stretched in new ways and am learning every day what it means to "live by faith not by sight" (2 Cor 5:7).
I will answer more FAQs next week. Now I need to go tuck in the precious kids I already have! As always, your prayers and support throughout this thing mean much more than we can ever express!!
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