First, if you are tired of hearing about our adoption process, stop reading this blog right now. I have a feeling that my blog will eventually morph entirely into a record of our experiences in this process.
Our caseworker (a wonderful person, by the way) recommended that we start filling our family and friends in about a few things. Here's your rundown:
1. We will be traveling to Ethiopia twice, once for a court date and the second time to pick up whomever we are adopting. Each trip will be approximately a week long. We are hoping to take our whole family the second time, but that will depend on when it falls. The second trip will be about three months after the first.
2. As far as the process goes, our home study's final draft is being written. What's left? We have to fill out the I-600 form which goes through the U.S. government. This will involve more fingerprinting and checking and will take about a month to be approved by our government. After that, we will compile the twenty-some documents (of which the home study is one) that will become the dossier. (All of these documents must be dated within a certain time frame; otherwise, I'd already be compiling them.) The dossier has to be approved by our country and then by the government of Ethiopia, so those approvals will also take about a month. At that point is when we begin our wait. We've been told that it could be 18 months but that we might be quicker since we are willing to take siblings or an older child.
3. Yes, we have thought about both race and cultural issues. We want our child(ren) to embrace both the American and Ethiopian cultures, so we're working at learning more about Ethiopia. An Ethiopian pastor in Sioux Falls has agreed to come to our house with another family to explain culture, cooking, hair care, and so forth. We are so blessed by other families who have adopted. (Here's the blog of one adoptive mother. It's inspiring and real. Oh, and she's an impressive writer.)
4. When we eventually do come home with one or more children, we will need to cocoon ourselves for a while. Imagine for a minute the absolute fear that you would have if you were taken from your country and everything you know and placed in family you can't even understand. Looked at from that perspective, we understand our case worker's and the many books' warnings about keeping the adopted child's world very, very small for a while. This means that you will not see our entire family in the grocery store. You will not see all of us in church. We won't be having any welcome home parties. Keeping the child's world small for months is an important part of the attachment and bonding process.
5. Our adoptive child will not act like our other children. Any child who has been adopted will have grief issues. Adopted children sometimes exhibit interesting behaviors that are directly attributable to the grief process, to the instability they feel, and the attachment process. Sometimes the behaviors are easily understandable and sometimes they aren't. Our family may need to go to therapy to work through any issues.
6. We are learning a lot but still feel like we know nothing. A lot of the learning will take place by trial and error, so please be patient with us.
7. Some of our adoptive child's history will be kept secret. Even if you're my sister or my best friend. Just because.
I'll try to be a little more intentional to write as we go through the process. Thanks so much for your prayers!
