Waiting for Claire!

So, it has been brought to my attention, as it should have, that I am way behind in posting to this blog. Life is a little hectic with three boys and our little girl on the way. Today, however, I am making time to update everyone about out lives and what is happening with little Claire over in Korea. By the way- we finally picked a name for our daughter. She will be Claire Liliana Se-ra.

After receiving Claire's referral, it took a little over a month to get her legals (essentially all her background history that the USCIS needs to approve her to come to our country). I was bummed that it took so long but was relieved that we finally had it. These papers allowed us to file the I-600 form with USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) allowing us to bring Claire home. It was just another step in the process and I was anxious to get it done. I new that once we submitted it, it could take weeks to get the approval.

Chad dropped off the form to the USCIS office in Des Moines on 6/19. This last week on 6/25 the official approval letter was in our mailbox. The date on the paper said it was approved on the 19th, only one day after we submitted it! What a blessing - something going very quickly in the process. I just have to remember not to get too excited and expect this to happen with all of the other things we are waiting on.

As of right now, we have done all the paper filling out that we will need to do. It is just a matter of waiting for all the paperwork in Korea to go through. I am still hopeful that it could happen sometime in August maybe September.

We sent Claire a care package a few weeks ago and we are hoping that maybe we will get an updated picture of her with everything we sent. I am dying to know what she looks like now since we only have a picture of her at a few weeks old. I am so curious if she has hair! It is nice that each month we get well baby checks (much like the monthly checkups for babies here in the U.S.) letting us know how tall she is, how much she weighs, how she is doing developmentally and what vaccinations she has gotten.

I am going to try and up date things on a more regular basis as we hear more.

God's timing is always perfect!

Last night I was working on sewing one of my pillowcases dresses for a customer when the phone rang. Hunter answered it before I got to it and said he wasn't sure who it was. I said hello and it was our social worker. I figured she was just wanting to check in and make sure everything was going good for us. Instead she started to tell me that there was a little girl that they were wondering if we would be interested in. My heart stopped for a second. Was this really happening? It couldn't be, we thought with the way things were going for referrals of little girls in Korea, it would be a least a few more months before this call would come. Yet, God had different plans because his timing his always prefect!

I personally had always felt that when the time came for us to receive this call, it would be "the" child because it was the one that God had guided the individuals at Holt to select for our family. There were a few minor issues such as her being born early and having jaundice for a while at birth but right now she is perfectly healthy. How could I say no to the daughter God had placed in our hands? I hadn't even seen her picture but I felt 100% sure that we should accept the referral.

Wednesday rolled around and we gave the social worker a call requesting a copy of the info she had given me verbally the night before over the phone . Chad and I opened the email and saw the pictures of our beautiful daughter. It was surreal! I was thrilled and couldn't wait to call the sw and let her know we would accept the referral. Chad was excited too but wanted to make sure everything was good by thoroughly reading through her file that day.

At about 2:40pm we made the official decision and I made a phone call to our sw. We accepted the referral and we couldn't be happier!

We are now waiting for all the paper to arrive via FedEx Thursday, Friday but hopefully before Tuesday. God is so good!!!

We had to brave the freezing cold  temps this morning (-15 F) and went to have our fingerprinting done at the USCIC office.  It went smoothly and hopefully we will have approval soon.  This is for the I-600A that has to be filed and approved to allow us to bring a child to this county.  

Needless to say, I will not be making any more trips outside today!! Brrrrrrr!!!

We are still waiting for our referral and I am more and more excited everyday!

So, I was just thinking the other day that I have never shared how Chad and I came to the decision to adopt.  So here goes-

It is really hard for me to explain how it happened but I do remember a couple of things that lead up to God planting the idea in our hearts.  

One of the first was when I attended the ICC Women's Retreat last year (2008).  I felt like God was drawing me to sponsor a child at the Compassion International table they had.  I chose a little boy slightly older than Hunter who liked soccer because my kids love soccer too and I figured the boys would relate to this little guy easier.  

A few weeks later we were working on finally getting our old acreage sold (almost 2 years after we had first put it on the market).  The couple wanted the home but wouldn't be able to purchase it because they were in a hold up with an adoption in Illinois.  They were not permitted to move until the process was complete and the biological parents were dragging their feet.  The biological parents had not had the child since she was 6 weeks old and now she was almost 2 yet they were slow to finally sign away their rights. The awesome thing is all the time we were trying to sell that house, I had heard God remind me over and over that it wasn't about the money. It had been a struggle for us carrying two mortgages, yet God provided for us and when the money was finally all gone, the house sold. It was His timing and for his purpose that those people bought the house when they did.   His plan was to bring this family into our home, not to save us from any financial disaster, but to bring adoption to the forefront of our minds.  I wouldn't have imagined that God's plan for our house sale was to lead us to adopt a child.  HE is so amazing and His plans and timing are perfect!

I had never thought adoption was something I was open to.  I could have children and I didn't know how I would love an adopted child the same way as my own children.  Yet that was exactly what God was telling me we were supposed to do.  He had put those events in my life to prepare my heart for this amazing journey.  He had erased the worry of how I would love this child and replaced it with complete certainty that if I was following his plan it would be just fine and this little one would feel to me no different than my other children.  It is amazing to see how God can work in your heart to change it so swiftly.

So as I was having these feelings, I brought it up to Chad.  (Now, he says that it was his idea and he brought it up to me but I see it differently).  I figured that if he was unsure and against it then it was not the right time.  To my amazement, he was in total agreement.  Clearly God had been working in his heart too.  

We were unsure what to do next.  This was all new to us.  We started by doing extensive research online to determine the route we wanted to take.  We were up late many nights laying in bed with the laptop trying to determine where our little child would come from.  We had decided that International Adoption was our best option, as the holdups that can occur here in the US were unappealing to us (after seeing what the couple whom had bought our house had been through).  At first we were drawn to countries near Russia but that quickly faded as we become more and more interested in South Korea.  I was in love with the beautiful features the little Korean children had and we were so impressed to know that infants in Korea were actually living with foster families prior to their adoption, rather than orphanages .  A bonus was that South Korea allows you to choose the gender of your child if you already have at least 2 of one gender.  What a blessing God had given us, we were going to be able to have a little girl!

So we had settled on a country, now we had to pick an agency.  We found a few that work in Iowa and have adoption programs with Korea.  Holt was one of the only ones to get back to us and we have been impressed ever since.

Sure the process seems long at times, but it will be so worth it in the end when we hold our little gift from God in our arms and she is forever ours!