best email ever!

I'm sure I will say that several more times in the next month or so as we hit exciting adoption milestones, but today it really feels like it! We got great news- I inquired on the status of our I800A application and I received this email back today...

Seriously so so excited. I didn't realize how much this had been weighing on me until getting this email today and feeling a huge weight lift. I had worried that I had circled the wrong box somewhere, not included enough information about something, etc. But the immigration officer found everything to be in order and approved our application! Praise the Lord! Our China baby, who has no idea that a family across the globe already loves her, nor that we wake up randomly in the middle of the night and pray for her (seriously, twice this week), is on her way to becoming an American citizen! Insert praise hands emoji here. 

It's also pretty fitting that we're hosting supper club tomorrow night and had already planned a Chinese meal; now we really have something to celebrate. So thankful! One step closer...

ugh... no update... still waiting

Well, I haven't posted an update in a while because there is nothing to update. We are still waiting for the completion of our last step before we can send everything to China. And then we'll be matched some time after that.

It feels like we have been waiting for approval of our I800a FOREVER. In reality it's been 42 days... (but who's counting?)

Apparently, these applications used to take only 2 weeks to receive approval, but there is a big slowdown at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration office with additional employee training and movement to a new facility which has delayed approvals to being somewhere around 50-60 days. 

I'm tired of telling people we're in the same place.

I'm likening it to trying to get pregnant. This waiting period before we are DTC (dossier to China) - the HUGE date - it feels like when we were trying to conceive a baby. I think it feels like that because technically there is still 'stuff' I can do. Once you're pregnant with an actual baby, everything is pretty much out of your hands for the remainder of the pregnancy. Once we are DTC with all of our documents in China, everything is pretty much out of our hands. We will get a referral after we are DTC in the Lord's timing. He knows who our baby girl is. But this time before DTC really feels like trying to get pregnant and at this point it's been taking awhile and I'm weary of it.

I can't wait until we are DTC! I can't wait until we receive our approval of our I800a application. But I know that "the heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps." (Prov 16:9) I'm admittedly a planner. I like to know what's coming, I like order, I like timelines. In my head I had planned/hoped that we would be DTC by the first of May (about 6 months from beginning paperwork) and in reality it probably won't be too long after that. I think I can feel like a failure if I don't meet my pre-conceived standards or timeline. But the Lord establishes our steps. Things happen in His timing for His purposes. There is a purpose in this "long" wait for our I800a approval.

And who knows what the purpose is? The Lord does. Maybe our baby girl's papers are still being prepared so that she can be adopted from China and if not for the long wait, we wouldn't be matched with exactly who the Lord intends for us. But God knows.

I'm sad because at this point of longing to be paper "pregnant" - I'm missing the emotional connection that I had to our baby girl in the beginning of this process. In the beginning, after the culmination of so much hoping, I felt so connected to her story. Everything made me think of her. Every song I heard, every thing we did - I imagined what she was doing, where she was, what her circumstances might be. I was often tearful - a rarity for me! And now, I'm missing that aspect. I feel weary of waiting. I wish I could feel her growing and kicking inside of me, though I know that even though she is not growing in my physical body, she is growing in my heart - stretching me and molding my heart in ways that I wouldn't have imagined were possible.

And so we wait. We hold the course. We trust the Lord to bring us to our baby girl in His timing. 

not the same - what does it look like to love kids from hard places?

There was a great blog post a week or two ago on website that I follow called No Hands But Ours. The website is maintained by a host of adoptive parents, and is specifically focused on providing information and resources for others who are involved in the world of special needs adoption from China. The post really hit home for me and I found it really helpful and wanted to share it.

The post dealt with the differences between parenting a child who had a traumatic start to life (ie a child that comes out of an orphanage situation, foster care system, older child adoption, or other hard social situations in which there were many cycles of unmet needs) and parenting a child with a 'typical' start to life - it which they were raised in a loving home and had many 'met' cycles of need.

The premise of her blog post is that even though these kids' actions may look the same on the outside - they are coming from very different places emotionally and can't be parented the same way. Before we did any adoption training and before I had a clue what a cycle of need even was, I have to admit I was/am guilty of comparing kids who have been adopted to my kids or other kids who were raised in stable, loving environments. I really think I did it out of a place of love, saying - look, your adopted kid is doing what ____ other kid is doing, they're "normal." It was my measly, uneducated attempt at comfort I think? But in reality, we can't compare the two children. A hard beginning with many unmet cycles of need truly changes a child's brain.

What is a cycle of need anyways?

Basically a cycle of need is when a baby has a need (like they're hungry or need to be changed or they're scared), then they cry, the caregiver meets their need (feeds them or changes them or holds them if they're scared), and trust develops. This is a cycle of need and this is the cycle by which healthy attachments are formed.

On the contrary, in children from hard backgrounds, there are often many unmet cycles of need:

A baby has a need (hungry or dirty diaper or scared), so they cry, their needs are not met - i.e. they are not fed, they are not changed, they are not picked up. And trust does not develop. Instead of trust, rage develops instead. And when this rage develops there are many other downstream effects of this unmet cycle of need. Cortisol, a stress hormone, is released in the body and this has many detrimental effects to a tiny, developing body. Babies in these situations will often develop self-soothing mechanisms - head banging, self rocking, etc. They stop crying because there is no point. Often you hear of 'silent' orphanages... in high school I went on a missions trip to Romania and we spent some time in an orphanage and experienced this. It was so eerie. So many babies and kids in there and you could hear a pin drop. This is the place that kids from hard backgrounds are coming from. Their brains have been hard-wired with a distrust for authority, they've been hard-wired to believe that starvation is right around the corner, etc. Seriously this little blurb does not even do justice to or scratch the surface of all the intricacies of attachment and the importance of it, but I truly encourage you / urge you - if you have anyone in your life/in your church/ in your community that has adopted, or if you are ever around adopted kids, please read this article:

http://www.nohandsbutours.com/2016/04/05/not-the-same/

It is so important for us to come around and support those who have adopted, and to do it from a place not just of niceties, but to be able to love and speak to them in a way that will really encourage and really meet their needs.

Really though, read the article. :)