To Be Continued....

We are so excited to be in the last stage of the adoption... so excited!

Part of the last part of the paperwork included a form that we had to sign that said that we would not blog about this adoption or the process thereof.  So to stay true to our word, we are discontinuing our blog until our little boy is officially ours. When that happens, we will reevaluate whether we will have time and energy to continue.

That does not mean that you will stop hearing from us - we will be communicating via a private Facebook page, email, and other more private means. If you are not already part of our circle on Facebook, we are rather easy to find - just send me a private message saying that you would like adoption updates and I will include you.

Thank you for understanding - we realize that many of you are devoted followers of our little musing and will greatly miss us. However, we value keeping our word and want to ensure that nothing will get in the way or cause trouble in this final stretch.

May God bless you and yours!

Much love,

Ian and Mel

Inquiring Minds Want to Know…

So what about this second trip to pick up little Victor? Here are the answers to a couple of common questions:

How much more do you need for your final adoption trip to be fully funded?

The cost of this trip is a bit more than our last one… we will be staying longer in order to complete the immigration/visa process. Here are the funds that will be needed:

Flights

Our flights, including a one-way ticket home for Victor, will cost around $2500. (Of course, this is just an estimate – it will depend on when we get to travel.) We are working with an adoption-specialty travel agent who can get a child’s one way ticket for pretty cheap – about $500 – otherwise it could cost around $1700 alone!

Lodging

Since we will have to stay about ten days for this trip, our lodging will be about $125 a night for a total of $1250. Our lodging for our last trip was much less because we were staying in a smaller city. Hotels in the capital can be twice as much as other areas of the country!

Food/Miscellaneous

We anticipate about $750 in food and miscellaneous expenses like taxis to the airport and emergency diaper runs. We may be able to get by with less than this, but won’t know until we get there.

Grand Total

$4500! Quite a little speed bump in our race! However, we already have around $1600 of this so the amount we still need is only $2900! That number looks so much more do-able!

When will you go pick him up?

WE DO NOT KNOW!

It is horrible. It is awful. The suspense is killing us... but we do not know when we can go pick him up!

But we are ever so eager to go… we are like racers at the starting line – waiting for that shot that will propel us forward at full speed toward the finish line. But until that shot is fired, we are poised to start at any moment, focused on the track ahead! The shot will probably not be fired for another two months or so; please pray that we can remain focused, yet restful, for the long wait! 

After the court rules in favor of our adoption of our little son and all the legal processes are complete, we will receive “the call” – we will have a week or two to make our travel arrangements and then we can fly over the ocean to the son of our heart and wrap our arms around him and never let him go again! The very first thing we will do upon arriving in Bulgaria is to travel to his little town and free him from the orphanage! We will thank and say good bye to his nurses and the director of the orphanage and walk out of there forever! I get goose bumps just thinking about it!

We will then travel back to the capital city and begin the long process of medical exams and tests, all for our visa interview. We will get his new birth certificate – with our names in the Mother and Father slots! We will answer many questions and spend a lot of time waiting. This process is supposed to take about ten days.

It will be very cold then – the coldest time of the year in that area of the world. This will mean a lot of time spent in the hotel room, so we will have to bring lots of toys and be inventive to keep our boy entertained and happy– all the while bonding with us and getting to know each other. It will be scary for him – it will be the first time he has not been either in the orphanage or in the hospital. He will be used to being left alone for hours on end and now he will constantly be in our company – his Mama and Tati – complete strangers who love on him more than he has ever experienced before. I can imagine even this will stress him out and we will possibly have a very cranky three year old on our hands: all within the confines of a small European-style hotel room.

Soon everything will be finished and we will get on our plane… his first flight and into a strange land too. Eleven hours or more of travel. I hope he sleeps most of the way and is not too frightened.

When we land in the States, we are planning on having an airport welcome party with a few of our friends – we will have much to celebrate and people will want to meet our newest addition! I am sure I will cry and shout for joy and sing Hallelujah all at once. It will be a short, but joyous, occasion and then we will go home and sleep. Our new life will begin as a family!

Christmas

Can I write about Christmas yet?

Last year, it was a rather sad Christmas… No little ones, not even my cute little nieces and nephews, to run around with Christmas joy.

I know that the joy of children is not the only joy of Christmas – there is the joy of family, the joy of friends, the joy of giving, the joy of making a difference in others lives, the joy of knowing that God sent His only Son to us out of pure love… the list could go on for quite a while. But for me, my empty arms and the broken mother’s heart within me made it hard to feel the other joys.

It was so awful that I did not want to face Christmas again without my little one. I worked hard on paperwork to bring him home in time for Christmas. I prayed and prayed.

But here we are, Christmas again, and still an ocean between our son and us.

However, it is different than last year. It is still sad, yes, but not quite so sharply.

Instead of yearning for a child, I am yearning for a son that I have met and held in my arms.

Instead of wondering at the future and if we would ever make any progress with the adoption, I am wondering when it will be finished.

Instead of tears, I have quiet sighs of impatience patience.

So even though I do not have my sweet son under my tree yet, I can honestly say that my Christmas is not joyless. Not by far. A little sad, yes, but it feels more like a determined patience than a sorrow. This may not be the first Christmas he spends with us, but we know him and have him in our hearts and minds.

“Just think,” we say, “Next Christmas, he will be with us!”

We look at his photos, laugh at the memories of his cuddles and temper tantrums, and hold on just a little longer without him.

Come home, soon, sweet Victor!

P.S. If any of our friends and family want to get us Christmas prezzies this year, could you instead give to our adoption fund? We have all the possessions we need – and the only thing we want is our son to come home. We have a few thousand left to fundraise for our second trip, which is now at least 10 – 12 days long instead of the 5 – 7 days we were expecting – all due to a new requirement by US Immigration. So instead of chocolates and new hats, would you consider helping us bring our baby home? If not for Christmas, maybe for Martin Luther King Jr. Day? Or maybe Valentine’s Day? Or, at the very latest, St. Patrick’s Day?

Storming the Gates

The final documents (I know I have said "This is the last paperwork" about a dozen times now) required from us are ready to be mailed off! I will walk them up to the post office during my lunch, fight the ornery postal workers who would much rather be home watching HGTV (wouldn’t we all?), and send the papers on their merry way to our adoption agency.

A momentous occasion, I know.

These three documents are the final pieces of our dossier that will be translated and submitted to the Bulgarian government.

I am not a moody person – I may have my ups and downs but try to keep things pretty even keel. With this adoption, however, emotions become deeper – this is my son we are talking about after all! What would be a normal thought of “Oh, I will have to wait another five months for such and such to happen” is transformed into “O woe is me!!! I have an eternity to wait and am certain that I will not be able to bear it, much less make it through my daily life of work, sleep, eat, church!!!”

When I have thoughts like this, I start to fantasize about storming the gates of a mighty castle to free my gentle little son. Now I would never do this in real life – it is illegal, unethical, and just plain wrong. There are procedures to go through that are in place for very good reasons. They protect children from kidnapping, child trafficking, and slavery. But in my fantasy, I fight the good fight, siege the castle, and win my little prince.

In reality, the gate of the orphanage is not the sort that you storm… it is only guarded by a coffee vending machine. The workers there are not evil imprisoners of my child but women with hearts and souls that provide for my son’s needs… even if I don’t necessarily agree with their methods or their cultural mindset toward orphan care. If I stormed in and took my son, they would call the police and that would be the end of it. And probably end all chance of me ever adopting – and very rightly so. As such, I guess I won’t storm the castle.

In these days of waiting, I need to be careful to have a proper perspective on the situation. Ian is better at this than I am… he is always rephrasing my drastic statements, centering my emotions when they flare out, and giving me support when all the world seems to give way.

I need to choose my words with care – choosing life and victory. I need to express hope, patience, and quiet determination. I need to pray and be a blessing to others – focusing on their needs and not my own meager existence. I will fill my mind with happy thoughts, my heart with hope, and my hands with good works. This is how I will be able to endure the waiting.