Why Adoption?
In short, we believe we have been drawn to adoption from an early age. We love the concept and believe it honors God. We know there are millions of orphans in the world and we are eager to embrace one as our own. We love the passage out of Matthew 9:13-14 where Jesus embraces the children:
Then little children were brought to Jesus for him to place his hands on them and pray for them. But the disciples rebuked those who brought them. Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these."
Why Adoption FIRST?
We want for our adopted child to know that she was chosen first, chosen specifically, and chosen intentionally. If there is one thing we can offer to our adopted child, it will be the fact that we are privileged to be her mom and dad, not that she is privileged to be our child. Our daughter will know that we wanted her specifically, and that there is no other child whom we would rather call our own. One of the most glorious truths of Scripture is that God has chosen us to be his sons and daughters – he didn’t wait until we earned it, didn’t “settle” for us, but from all eternity called us to himself in Jesus Christ (Eph.1.4, John 10.14). We want our daughter to know that sort of choosing love from the earliest days of her life.
Are You Infertile?
This is a common question! We are not infertile (at least not that we know of ), we have not tried to have biological children yet. Josh and I have just decided that adoption is the way we want to begin expanding our family.
Will You Attempt To Have Biological Children?
This is a funny question, because we honestly do not know. We are open to going wherever God leads. At this point we are not closed off to the idea of having biological children but for now all of our focus and attention is on our baby in Ethiopia! We will take everything else one day at a time!
Why Ethiopia?
Once the decision was made to adopt, we began an intense investigation of different adoption agencies and countries. We knew that for our first child we wanted an infant to break ourselves in to parenting so we were looking in to countries that were known to have orphaned infants. We were drawn to China initially, but after we learned that there was no way around the age minimum of 30, we continued looking in other countries all over the world. In our research we found out that Ethiopia on average has more than 4.5 million orphans! Not only was there a great need for adoptive parents but they are known for having a relatively easy adoption process, reasonable costs and available infants.
How Old Is the Child You're Requesting?
We have requested an infant girl between 0-12 months. We wanted to start off with an infant for our first venture into parenting!
What Agency Are You Using?
We are using a wonderful agency! Children's Home Society and Family Services (CHSFS) has been so wonderful up to this point! We have been primarily working with Alexa Ricciardi and she has been the best! She has been patient and helpful! Any questions that we have she has answered in a really short period of time. We are using Hope For Families for our local homestudy. So far we have been so thrilled with them too.
Is It Expensive?
International adoption can be costly. God has blessed us with the resources to be able to afford this process, and we truly believe that he gave us the money specifically so that we could afford adoption! There is a substantial tax credit given to adoptive families so when all is said and done we will get back a big part of the money spent!
How Long Does It Take?
The time range seems to vary based on your agency and how quickly you can get your homestudy and dossier completed. See our "timeline" section for a detailed list of our process.
How does the process work?
First you send in an application (about 20 pages).
Next you schedule your homestudy.
Once the homestudy is complete and we are accepted into the Ethiopia program, we can begin the dossier preperation.
We file with CIS for our child's US visa.
The dossier preparation takes anywhere from 1-3 months to complete. It is basically the gathering of a whole lot of paperwork…. finger prints, doctors' approval, travel forms, etc. etc.
After the dossier is completed, the agency sends it to Ethiopia for translation.
We are matched with our daughter sometime after that.
Court process in Ethiopia to grant guardianship.
Completion of CIS paperwork for our daughter's US visa
We travel to Ethiopia to get our baby! (a 1-2 week trip)
From start to finish the whole process usually takes between 6-10 months.
Will You Adopt Again?
It is too soon to know for sure but we definitely think that if we are given the resources to adopt again we will! There are so many children that need homes, so we would like to leave as much room in our family as possible for them. On our next go round we may consider older children, special needs children or a sibling group.
Do you have a name picked out?
We do have one in mind. Many times families stick with the Ethiopian name of their baby, so we'll have to see. If you know the ancient Semitic word for "peace" you'll have our name.
Is it possible the baby will be HIV+ or have AIDS?
When the babies are brought to the orphanage they are immediately tested for AIDS and other diseases (Hepatitis, etc.) and “quarantined” to secure the health of the other children in the orphanage. That blood work is repeated 3 months later for verification. In addition to that, parents can order independent tests to be analyzed by their pediatrician stateside. Fortunately the risk of AIDS in Ethiopia is very low compared to other areas in Africa. The adult AIDS rate is only 4%. The tragic side of this, however, is that there are hundreds of thousands of children who do have AIDS in Africa, who are not being adopted. Once it is determined that a child is HIV positive, the child is taken to an AIDS orphanage, where most will spend the rest of their days. It IS possible to adopt these children in Ethiopia. In fact, we know several who have done it.
After malnutrition, the most commonly reported health problem in adoptable orphans is a simple stomach virus that can be treated with antibiotics.
How Has Your Family Reacted To The Adoption?
We are blessed with a wonderful family. This process has not been very easy for many of them, but we are so encouraged by their love and by their growing excitement. Our daughter will be blessed to have them all in her life. Our baby girl is wanted and loved and prayed for, and we have not even met her yet!
What are the details of your daughter's story?
This is a tricky question. We believe it is important to protect as much as our daughter's story as possible. It is hers to tell, not ours. It is our responsibility to protect her so that if she elects to share her story, she can. We know that she is loved and we are grateful for the many people who have cared for her (including her first parents) until we can care for her ourselves.