Looking back I can see the Lord’s hand guiding us to this point. If we hadn’t made the decision to homeschool T, I never would have joined a homeschooling email list. If I hadn’t been on the list, I never would have seen the ad for a suburban for sale. If we hadn’t responded to the ad, we never would have met J and M. If we hadn’t met J and M and heard them talk about their adoptions, we wouldn’t be halfway through the process today. Phil and I had talked about adoption a few times throughout our marriage, but I think we both felt that the only people who adopted were those who were unable to have biological children.

Our friends J and M have 7 children, and are in the process of adopting 4 more (three from Moldova and one from Guatemala). Initially I thought they were crazy, but it didn’t take long before my astonishment turned to admiration. We looked into adopting from Moldova, because both Tara and Cat speak the language. (Tara served her mission there, and Cat is from Romania.) Plus that’s where J and M’s children are coming from. But the travel requirements for Eastern Europe weren’t something we thought we could do. There are two, rather lengthy trips required, and both parents must travel for at least one of the trips.

Guatemala had a minimal travel requirement, but the adoptions are currently on hold due to political upheaval. So I spent my days surfing the internet, looking at websites and pictures of waiting children. When I saw the pictures of K and S I knew that Phil would want to adopt them. Although up to this point he was excited about adopting, he didn’t seem nearly as excited as I did. He has always loved the Polynesian culture and people, though. His mother and her siblings were raised in New Zealand and he has several Maori family members. He always thought he would marry a Polynesian girl when he grew up. It’s taken me 10 years of marriage to understand his family’s deep love for the Maori people, and people from other Polynesian countries as well.

When I showed Phil the picture of the boys, he got very excited. We called for information about them, and were informed that several other couples were also looking at them. That’s when we began what we call “The Race”. We began getting our paperwork together as quickly as possible. We scraped together the money for our homestudy and scheduled that. We had a great social worker who was able to pull everything together in a matter of days. We were relieved and thrilled beyond belief when we faxed our paperwork to the agency and received our official referral, stating that the boys were ours to adopt pending further paperwork.

The next step is to file our INS paperwork at the end of this month, and then we will start working on our dossier to send to Samoa. We should be able to get that ready in a matter of weeks, and then as soon as we have enough money (hopefully within less than 2 months) we’ll send that off. Then we wait to hear that the judge has signed, and Phil flies over. He’ll stay in Samoa for 3-5 days and meet the foster parents and pick up our boys, then fly to New Zealand for 1-3 days to get visas. This is the trip he’s dreamed of all his life, since he will be able to see the temple in New Zealand, and visit the land he’s heard about all his life. And then he’ll come home with our 2 little boys. 
- posted by Adria @ 7:49 PM

 
Phil and I got our adoption paperwork notarized today. It's really starting to sink in. I'm going to be the mother of 7! I'm excited, and scared, and impatient...I can't wait to bring our little boys home and give them a big hug. I hope they aren't too traumatized. Sometimes I feel guilty for wanting to bring them half way around the world, where everything looks, smells, and sounds different. We're going to start learning Samoan from Phil's cousin who served a mission in Samoa. We plan to keep them familiar with their culture by attending events in the polynesian community. I just hope they learn to love us and don't always resent us for taking them away from the only life they know.
- posted by Adria @ 9:44 PM

 
We got our referral! :D
- posted by Adria @ 5:44 PM