Love Crosses Oceans

Man guys, I was doing so good. Three posts in two months was like some kind of record, and then life exploded and the blog fell to the wayside. And it's in no way because I don't have things to tell you. I absolutely intend to blog about my trip to Indiana. Literally a dream come true. But today, I want to try to catch everyone up on where we are with the adoption.

When I last updated, we had just announced our adoption. In some ways, a ton of things have happened since then and in other ways, nothing at all. The China adoption process is kind of hard to explain to someone who is not familiar with it, but basically there are two routes you can take. Currently, children in China are divided into two groups by the China Center for Children's Welfare and Adoption (CCCWA). One group, known as Special Needs, is typically younger children with more mild and correctable special needs. To match with a child on the Special Needs list, a family has to have already submitted their dossier (think giant packet of all your information) to China. The other group is known as Special Focus. Children in this group typically have move moderate to severe special needs or they are older. A family can match with a child on the Special Focus list at any time, even before they have completed their home study.

Since we were open to children on the Special Focus list, we were able to view waiting children from the very beginning. For me, this has absolutely been the hardest part. There are hundreds of children on these lists just waiting. How on earth are you supposed to decide which files to review? Or which files to submit for a doctor's opinion? How do you know when you see your son or daughter? I realized very, very quickly that I was not up for this. I could not review file after file. China legally only allows for the adoption of one child at a time now, so no matter how badly I wanted to scoop up several little ones, I could not. These were the moments that Andy Stanley's well known phrase "Do for one what you wish you could do for everyone" came into laser focus for me.

Late in the summer we received a file for a beautiful little boy. His file was slim. A few photos. One precious video. We decided to have an International Adoption Clinic review the file. These doctors work fast, but man the wait is excruciating. After careful prayer, discussion, and research we submitted our letter of intent to adopt this little guy:

No, I cannot explain to you what he's wearing.
#becauseChina
He's just a babe in this photo, but he actually
 turned 15 months in September.

A few days later we received pre-approval (PA) from the CCCWA to adopt him! We are officially matched with this little love and working feverishly to bring him home. 

Garrison is thoroughly confused and has to decided to ask for a sister instead.

In some ways, it felt like things were flying...our home study was approved, our dossier documents were in route, we received pre-approval all within a few short weeks. I was already trying to count the weeks until we could travel. And then I discovered the real work of international adoption: waiting. 

We are currently waiting for our I800-A approval. Never heard of it? Yeah, I hadn't either. The I800-A is the Application for Determination of Suitability to Adopt a Child from a Convention Country. It is processed by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). We are currently on day 56 of waiting for approval. Once we are approved, we will send our dossier to China (DTC) and the CCCWA will officially log our dossier into their database (known as LID). From that date, we can estimate approximately 4.5 months until we will travel. I should be a gold medalist in waiting by now, but weirdly enough, I never got any better.

The one thing that we can do while we wait is work towards funding our adoption. Earlier this week we received approval from Lifesong for Orphans. We can now accept tax-deductible donations. There are two ways to give. The easiest way is online of course (just follow the link). Online donations are processed by STRIPE with a 2.2% + $.30 fee per transaction....Just FYI. You may also donate by mailing a check and indicating our family account in the memo line (Greavu 7212). In accordance with IRS guidelines, donations are to Lifesong for Orphans. This organization retains full discretion over its use, but intends to honor the your suggested use. Basically, if you denote our family when you give, 100% of the funds received by Lifesong will be placed into our family's account with Lifesong and then transferred directly to our agency for payment.

We're expecting our adoption to cost north of $37,000. We've spent about $17,000 of our personal funds that we had saved for the adoption over the last two years (thanks adoption tax credit) which leaves us with about $20,000. For Garrison's adoption we did a puzzle fundraiser. The puzzle hangs framed in his room as a tender reminder of everyone who helped us bring him home. Because I'm all about keeping things even and fair for the second child (you'd think I was scarred by not being born first), we'll do a puzzle fundraiser this time too. I've ordered a 1,000 piece puzzle that Sam is so eager to put together (love you, babe). With a $20,000 goal and 1,000 pieces, the math is pretty simple. $20 gets you a puzzle piece, $40 gets you two, and so on.

Our sweet boy lives in Kunming, which is in southern China,
just north of Laos and Thailand.

As always, we are so grateful to everyone for the extreme kindness and generosity that has been shown to our family throughout this journey. We truly could not do this without the help of so many. We cannot wait to welcome our precious son into his forever family!