People are stopping me everywhere I go asking questions about the adoption...which makes me SO EXCITED! I decided I should do a post with some of the main questions that we get asked A LOT!
The number one question is ALWAYS:
WHY did we decide to adopt?
So, I've had adoption on my brain for years. Years and years. Hubs and I had talked about it briefly and thought that maybe one day we would adopt. But that's all the conversation was. We have our four beautiful biological children and thought our family was complete.We took measures to not have any more biological children.
In the fall of 2014 I started really thinking more and more about adopting. I didn't really talk about it with anyone seriously but things just kept popping up and reminding me that maybe we are supposed to adopt. Things like random radio commercials about adopting. One day I was riding down the road with Reece and she just blurted out, "Can we have a foster child?" Um what? There are other random things that I will have to go back and add...can't think of them at the moment.
I kind of blocked out adoption at this point because I really thought maybe it was not the right time. Brooks was only a year old at the time and I guess I just thought the kids should be more grown before we pursue it? I don't know why I thought this.
Fast forward a few months and the random things started getting me thinking about it again so I started praying about it. This is when things started coming at me out of control! Everywhere I turn it's in my face. One of the main things was that I was thinking about was how much it would cost...and almost the very same day my sister and I got TWO full price offers on a flip house that we had for sale! TWO FULL PRICE! At this point I feel like the Lord is like "HELLO!!! I can't BE anymore CLEAR APRIL! I've got this, you just have to say yes!"
When this happened I decided that I better talk to the hubs. I filled him in on everything that was going on and I thought that maybe he would need a few days to process but no. At first I really didn't have to say much of anything, he already knew. He briefly said, "Do we really have room?"(We have 5 bedrooms) to which I responded, "THEY DON'T HAVE ANYTHING! No Mom or Dad, no ROOM AT ALL. They ALL sleep in one room and play in another, that's IT!" He looked at me like, "Ok, you have a point there." and said, "Let's do it."
I love that man.
That's a very condensed version of why, but you mostly get it...right?
How long before we get her?
Ah. I wish I had the magic answer. When we started the process our adoption agency told us we would be in China in about 18 months. But, really, it's all up in the air.
How old will she be?
We are in the middle of our home study right now so it depends on how that goes. We would prefer to keep our birth order and feel like the younger she is, the better. She will probably be around 2!
How much will the adoption cost?
An arm and a leg! Surprisingly this has been the least of my worries! You would think it would be a big stress but it really hasn't. It will cost around $50,000 or so, if you just HAVE to know a number. It will probably be more than that for us since we are taking the kids and plan on making a pit stop in Japan! :) Because, why not?
Do we have a name for her and will we keep her Chinese name?
We have not named her yet. We have some ideas but nothing is final. We will probably keep her Chinese name as an extra middle name or something? Maybe, I don't know.
Why China?
Because we like Chinese food.
HA! No, because we feel called to China just like we feel called to adopt!
We had our first home visit with our social worker yesterday! It went really well! We have two more visits with her and then we are done with our home study! One step closer...
