This blog has been a long time coming and we’ve put off
sharing this information for far too long. Now that the time is right, here it
is. Now the real question is how long do I keep you in suspense for the big
reveal? So many choices and options. Lucky for you I am in a generous mood so
we’ll share early. We are adding a new member to our family and will be
adopting a 1 and a half year old boy from China!
For those who don’t know, our youngest son was adopted from
China almost 8 years ago. It wasn’t very long after we were home that we kicked
around the idea of adopting again. We started the process and for a multitude
of reasons we never really made much progress. Fast forward to mid 2017 and we
resolved to really make this happen. Our family has been diligently working on
making this happen and following the process. Piles of paperwork, emails,
conference calls, reading, praying ( a lot!) home studies, paperwork, video
training, more paperwork…you get the idea…have been worked on in the nooks and
crannies of a busy life. The driving force was knowing there was an orphan sitting
in a crib somewhere in China waiting for their “forever family” and when we
didn’t feel like working the paper chase, this thought would motivate us.
Due to the starts and stops we went through with the
process, we chose early to not blog about it. For those who followed along last
time, we are so much further into the process than we were when we shared
Emerson’s adoption. As I write this, we have already been matched to a child
(referral in adoption lingo) and our dossier paperwork has been sent to China, translated
and we’ve been accepted to be this child’s parents. We are now in the final
stages of paperwork with exciting terminology like I-800, DS-260, visas and
more. The next step is to hear from the USCIS that we’ve been granted our I-800
and then we’ll coordinate with our agency and the US Consulate for an
appointment in Guangzhou, China. Once we have a date, we can work backwards to
get our travel dates. It’s a lot of coordination and our agency, America World
Adoption Agency (AWAA.org) has been stellar in their support and assistance.
They helped us with Emerson’s adoption and we had no hesitation to work with
them on this one.
Less on the process side and more on the home side, our son
has cleft lip and palate which we are familiar with based on Emerson’s
adoption. He is in the same province that Emerson was from, Shaanxi but a
different city. We’ll meet him in Xi’an (home of the terracotta warriors!). On
this trip, we’ve made the hard decision that only Julie and I will travel to
China. There are many reasons for this and our plan is to make this as short of
a trip as possible so we’re skipping the sightseeing in Beijing and no extra
time in Hong Kong. It will be tough to be away from the kids for a long time,
but it’s the best thing for our family.
I am sure some of you are counting on your fingers and toes and
determining that we’re in our mid-forties and will be bringing a toddler home.
Yup, your math is correct and yep, that’s what we’re doing. Haha! Julie is literally shopping for a
crib/toddler bed while I write this. We’ve given this a ton of thought, prayer
and planning. We know what we’re committing to and if people laugh at his
graduation that his parents have grey hair, we don’t care. We’re old enough to
be beyond worrying about what other people think and know we’re doing the right
thing for this child and our family.
Speaking of our family, the kids are all excited about
bringing this new child into the family. We’ve discussed it with them over the
last few years so it was not surprise when we were finally ready to move
forward in the process. There will be an 8 year gap between Emerson and Wu (nope,
we still have not picked a name) and we’re fine with that, too. Our extended
family is happy for us and eager to meet their new grandson or nephew. We’re
beyond happy to share this information with the world.
If anyone is wondering what “Wu” is, it’s the Chinese name
for 5 (among other things – Chinese is a complex language). We’ve been “Seeking
Wu” for a long time and it seemed like a great name for the blog.
We hope you'll follow along on our journey. Stay tuned for more updates.
