During the past week or so we have learned a lot about where our adoption is heading. We were told that our child from India will need to be younger than our biological child. India is apparently placing a lot of importance on birth order recently. While we respect this, this information has changed the game for us. We were anticipating a toddler and now are going to be welcoming a baby home. The worst part (especially for Justin) is the waiting. We were on the "fast track" if there is such thing in adoption--and now we are in for a HUGE wait. The wait, however, will be totally worth it. We are confident that God has a child for us already planned--he or she just isn't born (or even conceived yet)!
This is where we stand now:
Submit our home study to JOH for approval--October 2010
Bio baby born--March 2011
Amend our h/s (after birth of baby)--March/April 2011
Submit our I-800A (a form approving us to bring a child into the US)--June/July 2011
I-800A will be approved hopefully (making us able to accept a referral)--November 2011
Our Indian babe will be born--December 2011 (9 months after bio baby)
We accept a referral--December 2011/whoknowshowlong :)
We travel approx. 1 year from accepting a referral--hopefully early 2013
It has been said that an age difference should be good enough to fulfill India's requirement to maintain birth order. However, after giving it a lot of thought and researching "artificial twinning" quite a bit, we really feel it's best to allow a greater age gap between our kids. I think that giving them atleast 9 months between birthdays and having them in separate grade levels at school will help both of them have their own identity. If you have any thoughts on artificial twinning--please share them :)
Now for some AMAZING NEWS!! I asked the agency last week for an update on Henna--she has been matched with a family!! Justin and I feel such an amazing feeling of peace knowing that God had a family for Henna all along, maybe we were just extra prayer warriors for her and for them :) We will continue to pray that Henna be joined with her family as soon as possible and for God to keep her healthy while they wait to be united.
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I have a friend who adopted a child from Ethiopia who was listed at 3 1/2 years. Turns out she is between 5-6. Friend already has an almost 6 year old. They are struggling with figuring out the "artificial twinning" thing. If you want her e-mail address, let me know. I'm sure she'd be happy to talk with you, whenever you might need to chat!
ReplyDeleteAdoption is never an easy process, is it? I just have to keep holding on to the fact that God has a child prepared for your family--he/she will be the perfect Evoy!
ReplyDeleteWe are beyond thrilled that Henna has been matched--and that you have peace about it! Praise God!
Wow that is fantastic that Henna has a family!! How wonderful! What a crazy process already...just know that you and Justin will become stronger and closer throughout this process and keep letting God lead you along the way :)
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