pressing on in hope

a view from a park in our city

While we are trying to cherish every day with our little Bella, the truth is, we will not be adopting her.  We will be adopting other children.  We’re in the midst of figuring out who these other children are, and it’s an agonizing process.

I’m not sure how it works in other countries, but let me share a bit about how the referral/matching process happens in Chinese adoptions of children with special needs.

At the magical time when we’ve completed enough paperwork (usually it’s close to the time our dossier gets to China), we start receiving referrals from our agency.  A referral means that a child’s file has been pulled off of these general lists by our agency.  No other agency or family can now choose this child.  The agency sends the file to us.  The file includes a few pictures and medical information and a very general summary of the child’s development and daily life.

When we receive this file we are given about 36 hours to think, pray, do research on this child’s condition, contact doctors and other specialists for their opinions and make a decision.  If we say yes, there is paperwork to gather and a written statement about why we want to adopt this child and our plan for her care.  If we say no, her file goes back to our agency and then to another family or back to that general list altogether. 

We have received three referrals.  We’ve had to say “no” twice.  We remind ourselves that doesn’t mean these two sweeties spend the rest of their days in the orphanage.  It just means we’re not the right forever family for them, someone else is.  Because we live in a place that is rather remote, medical care here is limited.  We want what is best for these children and for them to receive the best possible care.  We’ve had to acknowledge that our home may not be what is best.  Therefore, we need to adopt children with minor, correctable special needs.  Making a decision about what is minor and correctable is not as easy as it sounds.  We have agonized over each referral.

Currently, we’ve said a tentative yes.  We need more information to make our decision.  And the information is coming VERY slowly.  The file we were sent was very outdated, nine months has passed since the medical information they sent us.  So, we are anxiously awaiting current information.  We’ve been waiting almost a month. 

Pray that we get more information in the next couple days.  And pray that we are able to wholeheartedly say yes.  We really want to say yes.