Sad Day

We found out today that one of our potential matches, Aristria (3), is no longer available for us to adopt her. She has either gone home to her parents or is being adopted by another family. I'm sure I don't have to tell you how sad this makes us- it goes without saying, right? But I am also happy for her, that she is on her way to being out of the orphanage forever.

We're grieving today. There was a time, a few years ago, that we were in the process of adopting a little girl and it didn't work out. We had a name, pictures, information about her. And when we didn't adopt her, it broke my heart. I felt like I'd lost a child. Thinking about her, even now, I hurt deep inside. This is not quite like this. We don't have a picture of Ari or any information about her. Just a name and an age. Where losing Maria felt like a miscarriage in a lot of ways (the loss of an actual child), this is more like finding out we were never pregnant to begin with. There's an ache in my chest that won't go away.

Josue is still available for us, and we plan to move forward with his adoption. In the meantime, the staff in the Congo will be looking for a second child for us, another little girl. While we will be thrilled when this comes, and while we know Aristria was obviously not meant to be a part of our family, it still aches.

We only had a name. But that's enough to make me miss her.

Long Overdue Update

Early this month, we received news of a potential match with two kids in the Congo. We don't know much about them, but we do know that there is a little girl, Aristria (3) and a boy, Josue (6) that might become members of our family. They are not siblings (yet), and Ari lives in an orphanage while Josh lives with a nun. Let me tell you, this was very exciting news.

For those of you wondering what a potential match is, I'll do my best to lay it out, from what I know. Before we get an official referral (match), the kids have to be tested for several medical conditions and the lawyers have to do a social history and make sure the kids are officially (by US definition) orphans. But that takes money. Before they will go forward with any of that, they need a $7000 retainer from us that will pay for that stuff as well as the orphanage fees, etc. etc. etc.

Once all that is done, we receive an official referral, and our Congo lawyer works towards legally adopting them on our behalf in the DRC, for a lovely fee of $10,000. So essentially, before we can move forward, we need to have a full $17,000. Fortunately, we actually have $10K of that.

But it's hard, because the longer we wait to test the kids, the longer it will be before we can bring them home. Right now, we're (hopefully) looking at July/August, but at this point, we have no idea when we'll be able to go. We're diligently working to fundraise, but it's a lot of money. We also have to come up with the money to travel, which will be another $6-8,000. Eeesh.

I'll admit, I've been grieving lately. While we're here, living this rich life, with food in our stomachs and access to clean water and great healthcare, our kids are living in the Congo. I'm really struggling. This whole process has taken so much longer than I thought it would. We were so hopeful that our kids would be home by this time. And we really don't know how long it will be at this point. At this point, I don't even have a picture of my children.

It's hard, being paperwork pregnant. Since we started this process, we've had friends get pregnant and give birth. And more friends have gotten pregnant and will give birth before we ever meet ours. And while I am honestly, wholeheartedly excited for them, it hurts too. Knowing that we have children out there and not being able to bring them home NOW.

It's been a long process, but we are hopeful that things will move more smoothly from here on out. Out of $40,000, we've already raised $25,000. And that's a pretty big accomplishment, right there. The rest will come.

Thank you all for your support so far. We appreciate it more than you can know.

Jess

New Fundraiser Site!!

Jess and I have got a fundraiser site up through the good people at Adopt Together. The site allows people to donate funds to adopting families and since it is a non-profit company, any donations will be tax deductible. Please take a moment to check out our profile now. You can follow the link to the right or click here http://adopttogether.org/thehansons.

Bad News

(This was an email I posted to our adoption group in November. Our fees increased by $7000, and they were due immediately. We are very much continuing our adoption, but this was a pretty dark time for us, and it was hard to know how much to say and how to say it.)

We just got an email from our agency today, announcing that DRC fees are increasing, out of their control. This is a pilot program for them, and their first family has a referral. The fees in country keep adding up, but as we're adopting 2 kids, our fees have gone from $11,200 to $17,100. We've already paidover $15,000 this year (including homestudy, USCIS, and agency fees), and I'm falling apart. I don't know where we're going to come up with that much money! I'm losing it right now, and I guess I'm just not sure what to do.

This is their breakdown of incountry costs:
Foreign program fee (lawyers, etc): $6000 + 2500 for a second child
ReferralCommune fee $1000
Orphanage documentation $500
Orphanage Child request fee $100
Medical checkup $165
DRC Court and GovernmentRe-issue of child's birth certificate $200
Child's adoption judgment $200
Child's certificate of adoption $50
US EmbassyLegal certification of all Child's US visa documents $120
Certified translation fees (includes birth certificate, act of consent, etc.)$375, this fee can vary depending on your child's circumstances
Visa document copy fee $10
Child's passport photos $30
Child's passport $300
Bank charged Payment Processing and International Wire fees

Plus, there is $1600 every three months to care for our children until we take custody. With these added costs (including part of what we will spend to travel), we're spending more than we make in a year. I'm heartsick thinking about it. The worst part is, if we have a failed referral, we have to pay all of these fees all over again!!!! What do I do?! Our dossier has already been accepted in country, and we're so far into this, I don't know how we can possible quit now, but... I don't know how to continue either. I'm not seriously considering stopping the process, but I'm feeling miserableand confused and desperately unsure of where to go from here. Any advice?

Jess

Day to day

We're moving right along with this adoption stuff lately. We managed to sell the Subaru, which covered a nice chunk of our agency fees (but not all), and we're working on our packet to the Congo (called the dossier). I've applied for my very first passport, and hopefully, when that arrives, we can send this all in, and our agency will forward it to the DRC. Hurray! That being said, we have about $1500 that we need to come up with in a pretty short time span. So we've got a big giveaway planned, as soon as I can get the details squared away. So stay tuned, gentle readers. :)

In day to day news, there are big changes going on in the Hanson household. Mr. Robby will be starting Kindergarten on Monday. As if that's not bad enough, he woke me up this morning with the news that he has his very first loose tooth, which he is excited to no end by. When, exactly, did my baby boy get to be so grown up? He and Ella spent the entire day creating Geo Trax around our computer room, and their big brother, ahem, I mean their daddy helped them create an entire Geo Town when he got home. It's pretty impressive, actually, and only got bigger and better after the picture was taken. I'd say it's almost twice as elaborate at this point. Craziness! Just ignore the dog hair on the floor-I didn't exactly vaccuum first.

Miss Ella is getting excited for dance classes, which she will hopefully start next month. It will be a combination of ballet, tap, and tumbling. I try not to bring it up often though, because she get very indignant when I tell her that it will be a couple weeks and not "Just One More Minute, Mommy."

So, again, come back soon for the big announcement of our fundraising giveaway. It's worth the wait!

Where did summer go?

Apparently, I haven't blogged in 2 1/2 months. This hasn't been for lack of things to say, but rather, an inability to express those things in ways that haven't already been said, and better. The biggest of these is this: on May 7th, 2011, my father-in-law went to be with Jesus. He fought for so long, and with such dignity that, even expecting it, it was an enormous shock when Rod was suddenly gone.

As you can imagine, the loss of such an important figure in our lives left a maelstrom of grief and heartache. Our lives are suddenly full of firsts. The first father's day. The first family vacation. The first family picture. Unlike the addition of a new child, these firsts are full of bittersweet memories. And with that comes the knowledge that when our new additions do arrive, their Papa will never get to meet them.

But we have so many things to be thankful for, so many years that we had with Rod that we never expected. And six grandchildren have gotten a chance to sit on Papa's lap, and be loved with his tongue-in-cheek humor and grace. And as much as my kids grieve their Papa, I consider it a tremendous blessing that they were given this time with him.

On the adoption front, things are moving very slowly but they are moving. We submitted our 1600A to USCIS (US pre-approval to adopt) on June 10th and had our fingerprint appointment on July 14th. May I just take a moment and say that the folks at the USCIS office were above and beyond friendly and efficient. They really made my day with how incredibly nice they were. Ryan and I were also fortunate enough to witness 30 new citizens being sworn in. It was beautiful, seeing such diversity being added to our (relatively) small community.

For those wondering where we go from there, let me just tell ya. :) Once USCIS approval is in, we can send our dossier to the Congo. The dossier is basically our packet of papers praying for permission to adopt. Like the alliteration there? Thought so. The dossier will include things such as our homestudy, our USCIS approval, and large sums of money.

Once the DRC government approves us, we wait to be matched with our kids-this is called our referral. We can choose to deny any referral, but we don't really see that happening. I will admit, I love the symmetry of another son and daughter, but that might not be who is right for our family. We are trusting that when the time comes, we'll know. :)

After the referral, we wait. Again. A lot of paperwork goes into proving that children are truly orphans (legally this means either their parents have died or abandoned them), and the last thing we want is to "buy" a child. The Congo will tell us when we are allowed to travel. At this point, once we travel, it looks like at least one of us will be in the DRC for approximately 4 weeks. Yikes! This, naturally is posing a few problems with logistics. We're not sure Ryan can get that much time off of either work or school, but the biggest issue is that we don't want to leave Robby and Ella for a full month without a parent.

So. Overall timeline until our kids are home? Right now, I think they will be home next spring, which is frustratingly much longer than we had originally planned. C'est la vie. Or rather C'est l'adoption!

I've been remarkably lazy about it, but I really want to learn a few basic phrases to talk with my new kiddos. The official language is French, but most people speak Lingala or another of the 243 languages spoken there! So, a few phrases in French and Lingala will hopefully aid both the bonding with our kids and our stay there.

I will confess that I'm having trouble remaining excited throughout this process. Please don't mistake this for 2nd thoughts. It's just such a long process, and while I'm fully aware that adoption takes a lot of time and patience, right now it's still just a pie in the sky dream. I'm desperately looking forward to our referral, when our kids will have names, faces. It's difficult, not know who I'm planning for. At least with a pregnancy, I know that I'm expecting a baby! But with adoption? Next summer I might have two infants. Or two more preschoolers. And while I will embrace them wholeheartedly regardless, my heart has no one to long for.

I am absolutely sure there is more I should update, but "Frankly, Scarlett, I don't give a..." Funny story. Miss Ella picked up a not so nice word. Can't imagine where she heard it. We talked about it repeatedly, and she didn't seem eager to drop said word. So finally, after I'd calmly talked about it 3 times before noon, I told her we'd have to wash her mouth out with soap, to wash away the dirty words, if I heard it again. Two minutes later.... we're washing her tongue with a drop of soap (carefully checked for nut allergies first-geez, even the soap?) She was suitably chagrined. That same afternoon, Robby came running in, telling on his sister, that she had used that word once more. We were busy doing laundry, and we reminded Robby that tattling will also get a person in trouble. When we left the room a few minutes later, however, Ella proudly announced that she had washed her own mouth out with soap (unbidden!) and the dirty words were all gone! Love that girl. :)

Teaching our children

I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.
-Martin Luther King, Jr


As an American who watched in horror as the towers fell, there has to be a small part of me that is glad to see the end of such a hateful presence in our world. I believe that Osama bin Laden had a hatred in his soul, and I can only imagine how it must have eaten at him to enable him to cause such immense suffering to so many other people. I can absolutely empathize with those rejoicing in his death. And yet, what I really feel is sorrow. Sorrow for this man, who zealously allowed his beliefs to blind him, sorrow for the lives that were lost to his terrorism, sorrow for those that were left behind... And if I could believe that his death took a small piece of hatred out of our world, I might find myself glad of it, but unfortunately I don't. I can only imagine how much more the hatred in the hearts of his followers has intensified in the last few days, how much more righteous they must feel-we've killed their leader, proven ourselves the enemy.

I don't want anyone to mistake this for sympathy for extremists. It is, rather, a cautionary tale for us of the dangers of hatred and allowing it to have any seat in our hearts. As a follower of Jesus, I believe in the power of a hatred that consumes a person. My Christ died because of that hate. But more importantly, I believe in the power of love and in the refusal to hate our enemies. But just as Islamic extremists use their beliefs to justify terrorist acts, so do we as Christians often use our ideals to harm others. Our Bible becomes a battering ram.

But my Jesus-I believe that He's grieving for Osama bin Laden, the loss of this man to evil. And so should we mourn for any person so corrupted by hate. Bin Laden absolutely needed to be taken down, killed even. But doesn't it just make you hurt inside, knowing how absolutely full of filth people can be?

So it brings up the question then, what are we teaching our children. Or better, what am I teaching my children. And what I want them to know is that hatred is never okay, regardless of who the object of that hate is. Do I hate what Al-Quaida has done and will continue to do until they're stopped? ABSOLUTELY. But for the people, I grieve that they are so lost to their iniquities. I can't deny that I'm glad he's no longer in charge of such a powerful terrorist group. But to hate him? That would only serve to make me his equal, and I won't let hatred have that place in my life.