Growing Our Family

I will start this post with sweet Chloe updates and then go into something new happening in our family. 

 We took Chloe to the library the other night.  She and I have only been twice before.  It was nice having Tim there this time so that they could sit and look at books while I went and searched cookbooks.  When it was time to leave, it started pouring.  The kind of rain that at first sounded like the air conditioning had just turned on.  We had to stick around a bit and Chloe graced the library with some loud objections as to how long we were there. 

 I feel like 50% of the time we grill out, it rains.  It hadn't rained all day and then right as it was time to put the burgers on the rain came.  At first it wasn't bad but by the time they were done Tim had to bring them in with an umbrella.  Here is Chloe trying out her new raincoat that her Great Aunt Debbie found her...it is still a little big.

 Is that not the cutest face?  She is still working on those top teeth.  It will be great when they finally pop!  While teething, she spends a lot of time with her tongue out! 

Now on to our family news.  Many of you already know that we have felt led to adopt internationally.  It started out as "someday" talk that turned into something that is going to happen.  We have each felt called to adoption throughout our lives and know this is the path God is laying out for our family.  

We have decided to do international adoption as opposed to domestic for many reasons.   I will tell you most of these are my reasons.  If you ask Tim, he will tell you simply that God has not called us to domestic adoption.  While I agree, here are a few more.  There are many children in the United States foster system that need forever homes.  However, these children tend to be older.  We would like to maintain birth order as much as possible.  We could do domestic infant adoption but feel that since we are able to have biological children, we would like those that cannot to have the opportunity to parent their children from as young an age as possible.  In international adoption it is rare to bring your child home younger than 12 months.  It does happen, just not that often. 

At Christmas we officially said yes to God and started our search through agencies and countries.  As it turns out, the adoption world is not kind to those married under 5 years and under the age of 30.  There were only a handful of places we qualified for.  We chose South Korea with Holt International because we knew people that went through them successfully.  We met with our caseworker and she was wonderful but warned us of changes occurring in the Korean program.  She also said we needed to wait until next year because Korea would not give us a referral until Chloe was at least 18 months old.  A few months passed and South Korea added a second mandatory trip, adding another week away from work for Tim, another week away from Chloe and another set of plane tickets to buy.  We had always kind of gone back and forth on Korea or Thailand.  Korea was quicker but significantly more expensive.  Thailand was much more affordable but the wait was longer.  We weren't totally settled in this path.

A few nights ago while rocking Chloe I was thinking about the adoption stuff.  An old friend from college popped into my head that is in the process of adopting from a different country that we had overlooked in our earlier search.  I did some research and found 4 agencies that seemed to work for us.  Over the next few days, my constant prayer was Psalm 5:8, "Lead me in your right path, O Lord, or my enemies will conquer me.  Make your way plain before me."  One by one, the agencies began falling through.  For 1, it appeared we qualified but really they wanted us to be married for 5 years.  2 others would work for older waiting children with severe needs.   That left 1 agency.  Could you have a more plain path then that? 

The wait for this agency is long and although cheaper than Korea, it still is not cheap.  They are an amazing ministry and I have felt a peace about this that I did not have with Holt.  I feel like this may be the path God has for us.  Tim was unsure of the wait but he looked into it more this morning and read some e-mails I had with a wonderful lady that worked with them.  He agrees this may be the way we go.  

I am intentionally leaving out the where and who until we hear back that they will accept us on their waiting list.  It could be that this is just another stop along the way to finding our child but not our destination.  We will let you know as soon as we do.  In the meantime, please be praying that God gives us undeniable reassurance that this is right.  Tim is pretty good at trusting and going along with the ride that God lays out.  I over think and over analyze EVERYTHING!  That means that unless I am 100% sure this is God's path, it won't take much to make me doubt and falter.  If you have encouragement or questions, please e-mail us or Facebook us.  We would really appreciate it.  Thanks everyone!