Waiting to Adopt and Struggling. Anyone Else?

Dear Becky,

I am so, so sorry for your struggles. I just said a prayer that God will bless you with your intended child. We went through two years of an adoption roller-coaster from 2006 - 2008. We started in Guatemala. We received a referral of a two week old baby. We flew down and stayed with her in a hotel for a week, had her framed all over our home, and carried pictures of her everywhere we went. Then, after nine months, the birthmom changed her mind. At this point, we were extremely nervous because we had to start over and we were afraid we wouldn't beat the ticking clock of Guatemala shutting down adoptions. After two years of obsessively checking emails, crying in bathrooms so my two boys wouldn't see mommy upset, and wondering if we had just flushed $35k down the drain....God blessed us with my sweet Molly!!! She is my little Guatemalan sunshine. She completes us and fits in so amazingly perfectly with her two brothers. The adoption process is painstaking. But, you will grow more in your F. and maturity than ever before. Prayers, prayers, and more prayers....
F.
Mom to home-grown Sean & Murphy, and Guatemalan princesa Molly
Here's a video of our adoption journey http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48VVWs1mSJM

Six years ago my husband and I went through the adoption process and tried to adopt a baby domestically. Due to the fact that he's older and I'm blind, no birth mom ever chose us. After a year our agency asked if we'd consider going international to adopt a blind child. Almost five years ago we went to China and picked up our twin boys who we thought were just blind and maybe a little delayed. Turns out they're on the lower end of the autism spectrum. I know, sorry. Another not very uplifting story. Adoption is such a hard thing to do since some agencies--and the national trend--lean towar abortion. It's very frustrating, but hang in there. If a child is meant for you, it will come. Sometimes I wish we still had orphanages for unwanted children. They'd be much better than what some of the ones left to live grow up in. There are many folks yearning to adopt and culture just turns a blind eye to it.

My Aunt and Uncle are adopting also.. I don't know much details, but I do know that they have gone through Gladney (sp)... When they finally got to where they were accepted and went through all the background checks they were told that it would take 4 months -2 yrs before they got a baby. That was back in June 2009. As of 3 weeks ago they were picked by a birth mother and she is due any day now. So within the next couple of weeks they will get their son... So for them it is only took them 9 months before they got a baby. Not sure if you have considered going through them or not but they have been around FOREVER... my Aunt was adopted through the same agency 46 yrs ago. So it is really good. Wish I had more information for you. Contact me privately if you want more information and I would be more then willing to ask them what you want to know! Good luck and I will be keeping you and your family in my prayers!

It took us 4 years and a lot of heartache, but we finally adopted a beautiful baby boy. He is now two. We started in domestic adoption and had a devastating fall through. We decided to continue and went international. The country we chose slowed down considerably and about 1.5 into the wait our social worker called to say that she was working with a birthmother and was it OK to present our information to her. We decided to pursue it and it all worked out perfectly.

It's a very difficult process, but in the end it was worth the wait. Hang in there and things will work out for you.

I brought my 3 boys home from Russia in 2005. It was a VERY long and difficult road: First, we actually started our process in Ukraine, which then basically shut down (not a true moratorium) before we could travel. Then, the international agency (not our homestudy agency) drained our bank accounts and fled the country (later were prosecuted/jailed), but we did not get any of the seized assets even though we have a judgment against them. We lost every penny we had saved, plus all the money we had spent on the failed Ukrainian adoption. I had about given up when I received an email about a sibling group of 3 boys that were available in Russia AND the international agency was offering a grant to potential adoptive parents for these boys. While I still ended up WAY in debt to bring them home (just the plane tickets to bring the boys home were outrageously expensive), I was able to make it happen.

I don't know that this is a very uplifting story - I guess it depends on how you look at it. Going through the adoption process were the darkest days of my life and I don't know that I would do it again. In addition to all the failures and losses I suffered during the adoption process, my boys were medically cleared, but it turns out that all of their medical records were falsified and two of the three boys have special needs, one of them severely enough that he is truly considered disabled and will eventually move to a group home. The other it is uncertain, but it is likely that he will also never live independently. On the other hand, do I love my boys? Yes, of course. :)

Good luck.

We are in the foster to adopt program too , but we've only been licensed since mid January. We anticipate a long wait to be matched with the child for us for adoption.
Have you gotten any referrals from your agency? I agree, it is very hard, the waiting, the wondering.............Hang in there.
Its been a rough road, we have one bio child and wanted another child, but unable to conceive, tried the fertility meds route, tried international adoption but too much red tape involved , now here we are. :)
I figure we have a 50-50 chance of this working for us if we hang in there, thats better than no chance at all if we didn't try at all.
Please don't lose hope. You're not alone. You'll never know what could've been if you give up.
Contact me anytime if you need to talk. Hugs~

Here is an up lifting adoption story for you. After deciding to adopt a child, my husband and I spoke first with a lawyer specializing in adoption. She recommended an agency, got the ball rolling on our home study and foster parent application and was also the one who introduced us to the birth mother. Our adoption process took 6 months from the time we first spoke with the lawyer to the day we brought our son home. Our son is a happy healthy kid, born in Milwaukee WI. We were very lucky, we know, but there are good lawyers and agencies out there to help you. I wish you the best, and hope you will also have a happy ending.

My sister-in-law and her husband adopted an incredible little boy from Russia 2 years ago. Theirs is an amazing story with stops & starts and an incredibly happy ending. The whole journey is outlined on a website they started when they began their adoption process - I think you'd find it interesting and uplifting. It's www.russianmunchkin.com - take a look! Enjoy!

Hello, Becky!

I just read your message about adopting. That topic lies close to my heart, as we were unable to have biological children and God opened the way to adopt 4 times in 4 different ways. If you need encouragement or would like to correspond, feel free to contact me and we can go from there. Be encouraged. Yes, when one see soooooo many children out there needing a home, one wonders why there are so many roadblocks to helping them!
Martha

Waiting to adopt is challenging. I know I have been there before. But I would never have chosen adoption as the field I wish to put all of my professional efforts and personal passion if I didn't believe that it works! Adoption = family. Here is a post on our blog that is related. I hope you will check it out: http://adoptionstar.com/tag/25-ways-to-wait/