Aberle, Party of...Three

Sometimes things don't really go like you planned. Or, if you're like me, things definitely don't go the way you planned, so you made plan B. And just when you got used to plan B, plan C appeared. And while you're trying to discover how you feel about Plan C, Plan D arrives on the scene.

I don't know which plan we're really on. I've lost count.

About two weeks ago, our adoption agency contacted us. "There's an almost two-year-old Polish boy available with some special needs. Are you interested in seeing his information?"

We were. This was not what we had planned. In some ways it was better. We would have him home in April or May. He was significantly younger than we'd thought. But we weren't sure he would have the best opportunities here, with us. Were we capable of being the parents he needed?

The same day we received videos of him (and what a sweetie! what a personality! I love him), we got a phone call from someone else. For the last five months, we were being considered to adopt a local infant. It fell through in December and we decided to move on.

Now, they were desperately looking for someone to take this child (not yet born, due in April). The people they'd originally selected were not working out.

But the problem was that if we said yes to one child, we had to say no to the other. We could not (were not allowed to) take both.

I find no words to describe how difficult and painful this decision was for us. For one thing, it made look at myself and my motives, my desires and my plans. I thought I had reconciled that the way I had wanted to build a family was not the way that God wanted to build our family. I thought I was trusting God to take care of it, but I realized that it hurt me very deeply that we were being asked to make a decision like this.

What kind of crazy world is this? I wondered. What IS the right thing to do? Bryan and I were not prepared for this emotional turmoil. We thought that we would be overjoyed (and a little scared) about seeing the information on our children for the first time. We thought it would be exciting.

It wasn't like that. I still struggle to name the source of this pain. I opened up an email this afternoon from a friend who has both adopted children and biological children. She said that there is physical travail in childbirth and emotional travail in adoption. While I haven't experienced childbirth, I imagine this anguish in our hearts in similar to the pain of that.

We don't have an amazing story that lend us to make our decision. We hope we're making the right one. All I can say is that we feel God's comfort and embrace. Last week, our hearts were anxious and overwhelmed. Today, we're still wondering exactly what the future holds, we still have a lot of decisions to make (and not a lot of time to make them), and we are nervous about being parents. (My word, how do people do this and survive?).

One of things I read this week was, if God is not Master of ALL, He is not Master AT ALL. And that is giving us strength to go on. Even though this is painful for us, and even though it seems like a big decision and even though we understand so little, it's not big at all compared to what others are going through.

So, yes, Lord willing, we will become a party of three in April. We opted for the infant (also a boy!). We feel like we let the Polish boy down, but I got an email this morning that there is a Polish couple interested in him. Yes, his agency preferred the US because they thought he would have more opportunities, but we're happy that he will have parents who love him.

Things could still fall through for the infant. It's a complicated situation that makes it more high-risk than some, but we will trust that if this boy is ours, it will all work out. We pray for his birthparents and we're grateful they have made this decision to entrust him to us.

Dossier in the mail!

We received our last piece of paperwork (with appropriate seal) today, so our dossier will be mailed off to Washington state and our adoption agency tomorrow.
The dossier will be translated into Polish and go into Poland soon. Then we officially begin waiting.
Are you wondering what a dossier is? What kind of paperwork is inside?
Well, if you are (oops! even if you aren't), here is a list:
Homestudy (includes information on family, our marriage and financial picture, juicy reading, selling copies for $25 each)
Background checks
A letter from our bank regarding our stellar checking account balance overdrafts omitted due to subtraction errors
Physician letters
Homestudy agency licenses
Birth Certificates
Marriage certificate
House deed
Tax return
Passport pictures (I hope no one looks at these; I can't imagine anyone approving us to be parents after looking at them)
Employment verification letters
Reference letters
And adoption training certificates

Whew. Lots of information. In one little big envelope. This envelope holds within its manila depths the culmination of 9 months of work. We never dreamed it would take this long, but we're glad it's done.

We have some major decisions to make that have ramifications either way, so our stress level is high. We are praying for wisdom. Soon, we'll share some of those things. In the meanwhile, let's take a humor break, shall we?

When I get stressed, I go into big picture mode. Bryan goes into detail-oriented mode. Here's what I mean (and I am totally NOT making this up): when we are having company, I do crazy things like, well, washing dishes, making sure all the dust bunnies are under the bed where they belong (not out in the open), and that the laundry is put away. Bryan can't get the dirty kitchen cabinet handles out of his mind. He scrubs them with a toothbrush. After that, he usually will clean a part of the house that company will not see (such as the basement laundry room or even the detached garage).

Folks, I am not complaining. I am grateful that he cleans. He does a really, really good job. In fact, he's downright amazing.

I believe this de-stress detour may have helped. Thanks for sharing this with us.

Apostilling Adventure

I drove to Springfield this morning with Mapquest directions to the Secretary of State's (will be identified as "SOS" from now on) office in hand. Everything was great until I pulled up next to the Capital building. I looked at my paper. 0.1 miles, your destination is on your right. I looked at my right. The Capital building again. How strange.

I kept driving, getting into the 200 block, then 300. I called the SOS office. "Um, hello, I am trying to find your building? And I'm having trouble?"

I'm not a customer service expert, but let's just say that the receptionist had a voice that made me think, well, that she didn't like talking to lost people.

In a monotone, "We're the building north of the Capital."

"And how about parking?"

"Parking behind the building is for state employees. There is metered parking in front you can use."

That was great, just great. I normally NEVER carry cash, but today, thinking ahead, I had slipped some greenbacks in my purse. The only problem was that I had one nickel and 6 pennies.

Which, in case you're wondering, is not enough to park. So I did what anyone would do. I drove around to find a McDonald's to buy a frappe I didn't want with money I didn't want to spend. The first funny thing was that I only had $50s. (I feel the need to mention this is unusual, too. I don't want you to think this is our normal currency of choice, but I happened to do a favor for a friend and this was my payment. Oh, the friend's number is - haha, just kidding. It was a good favor.) I paid with a $50. It seemed ridiculous.

So I bought the frappe (mindlessly) and while waiting, I happened to glance down in my hand. My change include one quarter. One! 


I figured, being across from the Capital, that one quarter wouldn't even be close to what I needed. So....

"Ma'am, is there any way you can give me 4 quarters for a dollar?"

She looked at me and was polite. "Yes, but you'll have to wait until my drawer is open again."

So I affixed a grin to my face while I waited for the next customer.

I got four quarters.

Then I set out to try to find the SOS building.

North of the Capital? That meant it was on the...left. And there it was.

I found a meter, gave it three quarters (which happened to give me 1.5 hours. Sorry, congresspeople. I shouldn't have assumed it would be inflated), and met the very (?) friendly receptionist. I didn't see a smile. Come to think of it, I didn't see a frown either. Just...nothing.

This story has already dragged on too long, but since I don't post often, you don't care, right? Right?

The lady who did the apostilling was very nice. Five documents had to be notarized or renotarized for various reasons (the notary was very friendly, too) and 24 documents were apostilled. My birth certificate, since it was from Ohio, can't be apostilled in Illinois. So I have to mail it to Ohio.  Tangent: that means I can't send all this paperwork off to Washington yet. Maybe next week. But the seals on our paperwork look very pretty.

While sitting there (it took awhile - 9 minutes left on the meter when I went back out), I had the opportunity to observe. The funniest thing of the whole day was an exchange between a worker and someone on the phone.

The worker got more and more irritated with the caller. Lots of huffing, sighs, etc.

Finally, the worker said, "Thanks for your advice!" and she hung up.

When she got off the phone, she told her coworker, "That person gave me some customer service advice, so I thought they would like to talk to a dial tone!"

Mercifully, this is the end of the story.

Approval letter received!

How exciting! Today we received our approval letter.

Tomorrow I will email all our documents to our adoption agency to make sure we have everything. Then they will get apostilled. THEN they go to Poland.

I am grateful to have this letter a week before I expected it :).

Fingerprinting appointment - check

We aren't a "GPS" party of two. I love my atlas, mapquest, and the challenge of trying to get somewhere using a compass. Still, I didn't want to get lost today...on the way to our fingerprinting appointment.

So I mapquested it. And then, just for good measure, I tried to find the phone number. I didn't find it. But I did find something like this, "The USCIS Naperville Office is really hard to find. So here are the GPS coordinates. Plus, it's right behind the Lazy Boy Gallery."

Without that helpful bit of information, we'd still be driving around Naperville (which happens to have a really neat downtown and a neat, independent bookstore. At least, we've heard the bookstore is cool. We ran out of patience before we found a parking spot), but the USCIS office is right behind (as in, the same building) the Lazy Boy Gallery. It does not face the street and doesn't even say USCIS on it. So I thank the nameless person on the internet who helped us find our way.

I've heard stories about the fingerprinting appointment. They won't let you in early. Not nice people. 

We were pleasantly surprised. The lady was very helpful and we waited for 20 seconds.

We expect the wait for our approval letter will be longer. Perhaps a month, so probably no updates on here for awhile :).

Fingerprinting appointment!

We knew the letters were coming any day.

Still, when I saw the Department of Homeland Security/USCIS letters in our mailbox, I was excited!

They informed us of our fingerprinting appointment on December 21. In Naperville. We were hoping for Bloomington, but we'll deal with this. No problem.

Approximately 2-4 weeks after our fingerprinting appointment, we should receive our approval letter from the USCIS. Then, we prepare our dossier, send it off to our adoption agency, and they send it off to Poland.

At that point, we should have about 12 months to wait.

Adoption Agency Approves Homestudy!

I just got an emailed invoice today. Normally, I would not be excited about another bill, but this one means that our homestudy has been approved by our adoption agency. Once I receive the official approval letter, we send off our USCIS paperwork. We are getting closer to having the paperwork done, and then we'll just be waiting. And waiting...and waiting.

I thought this would be a good time to share something that Bryan and I have been thinking about.

(Stepping up on soapbox).

One of our challenges with considering adoption has been trading the safe, secure, delightful life we have now, for a future that we know nothing about. We spend a lot of time together; we have little financial stress; we do what we want when we want to do it.

After spending time with friends with young children, I am reminded of how easy our life really is. (And by easy, I mean that we're footloose and fancy-free. Of course, we have challenges and heartaches and frustrations. Just like everyone else.)

We know that adoption will have its own joys, but frankly, it will have challenges that we know we are not equipped to handle. Our life changes go from the mundane differences (having little people who will mess up the house and add more stuff to our somewhat barren house. Yes, we like it that way.) to the major (being responsible for their spiritual upbringing, their health, sleepless nights, crazy days, mental anguish, and perhaps other issues, like attachment problems).

Most people have been positive about this change in our life. Others have not. And if you have reservations, we get that. We have them, too. This isn't an attack on anyone.

But this is what Bryan and I have thought about: Since when has God wanted us to be selfish? Since when has God wanted us to protect what we have by keeping it to ourselves? Since when is the safety, predictability, and ease of our life worth more than a child (or children) who has no parents, who doesn't have a place to call home, who probably doesn't know about God and His son, and who will leave the orphanage/foster care at 18 and NEVER have a place to come home to? What happens to these children?

I admit that I always thought adoption was a "nice" thing to do. I didn't realize that it was so hard. And I never really thought about what happens to children who don't get adopted. Imagine all the decisions they have to make at 18 years old. Alone.

We know we will make mistakes. We hope that when we do that it won't get blamed on our children for being adopted. We pray that people will understand the advantages that their own children have had (being loved, snuggled, needs always met, never starving, secure, not dealing with rejection, trauma, or neglect) and to be compassionate to our children who may not have had those advantages.

I don't think that God wants everyone to adopt. But I do believe (reference James 1:27) that He does want everyone to be involved with the fatherless. There are many ways to do that other than adoption. It can make a difference to one soul, and that is why Bryan and I have started down this challenging road.

(Stepping down from soapbox.)

May you find something today that "stretches" your comfort zone, but advances the Gospel and brings glory to our Father.