How True

I read this quote today.

"I know God won't give me anything I can't handle.I just wish he didn't trust me so much"--- Mother Teresa

I don't think anything could sum up the way my life is going any better than that. I know that there is a reason for everything, I just wish it made more sense to me. I know that there is some reason that this has been such a difficult process, but that doesn't make it any easier.

Eric is now considering trying to become a drill instructor when he gets back from this deployment. I'm fine with that, but he's going to have to put it off until after we finally get an adoption finished. He's gonna have a very angry wife if he comes back from the boat and voluntarily ends up somewhere else where they won't allow him to take leave. They are not going to allow a new DI to take enough leave to travel overseas to adopt.

What to do...

I finally heard back from the woman at the agency again and she said there are several families interested in the children we are interested in. So, I'm not sure what our course of action should be. There aren't many children available from that country and if someone else gets their paperwork done before us (which I'd say is highly likely considering we haven't even gotten started yet) there aren't any other children available that are in the age range we are considering, without serious special needs.

Honestly I don't know if I could deal with the woman at this agency through a whole adoption. She can't seem to answer more than one question per email, so I'll ask her two questions and have to ask one of them again in a separate email because she won't answer it the first time. I ask a lot of questions... I think I'd start to really get irritated with her.

It's still a possibility, but I'm pretty discouraged that there are already several families interested in those children and we haven't even gotten started yet. Ukraine is still an option, but we can't do anything there until Eric gets back from the boat. I'm emailing some agencies about Russia. Russia was our first choice, but I've been told that because I took antidepressants for a couple of months that we don't qualify. I'm trying to figure out exactly what the requirements are because it just seems wrong to me to disqualify us because of a couple of months of that drug.

The woman from the agency that I've been speaking to is going to keep me updated about those two children, but I think it's very likely that someone will beat us to getting the paperwork finished and we can't afford to spend several thousand dollars on getting things done for that country and then having no children within our age range available for adoption.

So for now, I'm just going to focus on raising money. Everything I get is going into a high interest savings account and it's going to sit there and build interest until we can figure out exactly what to do.

Thank you

Thank you to everyone who has suggested ideas for raising money. I'm having a yardsale this weekend and I've even had someone offer to donate an entire garage full of stuff she hasn't had the time to get rid of. Unfortunately the woman at the agency isn't very speedy at returning emails. We have one issue that may be an obstacle and it's really the only thing keeping me back from getting things moving, but she still hasn't responded to my email yet. Either way I need to raise money. It may just end up sitting in a savings account until Eric gets back from this deployment and end up going toward adopting different children. But I am praying that everything will work out.

I have news... and need help

Well, the adoption we had started isn't going to happen. Paperwork will expire before anything can be done.We knew that was going to happen.

But I found 2 children in a different Eastern European country and after sending a few emails, it looks like we should be able to get the paperwork portion done before Eric leaves and he should be home before we would get a court date. And just incase he's not, this country only requires one parent to travel.

We are going to have to rush through some of the paperwork to get it done while Eric is still here (there are a few things that he has to be physically present for, so a POA won't work). Money is going to be very hard to come up with so I'm going to try to get some fundraisers going again. If any of you have old cell phones that you don't use, or printer ink cartridges that are empty, I can send them in and recieve money for them. Or if anyone wants to take up a collection, I can send you a prepaid shipping label to send them in for us.

If anyone wants a new magazine subscription or needs to renew an old subscription, buying them through www.magfundraising.com/ChristensenAdoption will save you money on the subscription, plus 40% of what you spend will go toward our adoption expenses.

Also if you go to www.currentfun.com , they have a lot of interesting things to buy (household items, magazines, cards, flowers, cookie mix, candies, snacks, and lots of other things). We will also recieve part of the profits from anything you buy from that website.

If you do choose to shop there, there are certain things that you have to enter in the check out process.
The Organization's state is North Carolina
On the next page you choose the organization.
Scroll down until you find "Meredith and Eric Christensen."
Then you just proceed through the checkout like normal.

If anyone is interested in helping out in anyway please let me know. Or if anyone has any fundraising ideas, let me know.

Another TTC update

Since the adoption is on hold for now, we've been back into the fertility treatments. I'm in my third month of Lupron. I'm only doing 4 months total, which the doctor said was fine. Timing is an issue now that Eric will be deploying, so I'll get my 4th shot October 15th(ish) and that will make our first 2 chances to try to get pregnant right around Thanksgiving and Christmas, both of which he'll be here for, so this is our best plan. If I don't get pregnant before he leaves for the boat I'm done with fertility treatments until after we adopt at least one child. The doctor has said that the Lupron treatment is our best chance to get pregnant, so if this doesn't work it's going to mean more tests and more treatments. I don't want to do IVF, it will cost more than an adoption and there's no guarantee of it working. It makes more sense to spend that money on an adoption.

I'm so ready for the fertility stuff to be over. I either want to finally get pregnant, or have the peace of knowing that that isn't the way our family is supposed to happen. Right now everything is just so crazy.

On another note, we're finally going back to church tomorrow. We haven't gone in months, mostly because Eric's schedule has been so crazy, but I've had a lot of times where I didn't feel very happy with God and had no desire to go to church, but I'm realizing once again, that things happen for a reason, whether I can see it or not, and I just need to trust in that.

Decisions

Since we have to put the adoption on hold for about a year I was considering adopting from Poland instead of Ukraine. Originally that is what I wanted to do, since Eric is part Polish. The Polish program takes longer, is more complicated, and more expensive, but there is a much smaller risk of a child with FAS (Fetal Alcohol Syndrome). For some reason it just doesn't seem to happen as much in Poland as it does in Ukraine. If we go with the intention of adopting a healthy child, we still may get a child who has some delays. If there is no indication of FAS or any other medical reason for the delays, they'll assume that they are a result of the child living in an orphanage. There is always the chance that after getting home and expecting the child to catch up that they don't because of an underlying condition that wasn't diagnosed. From what I have read, those chances are higher in Ukraine than in Poland.

Still, I have this feeling that our child will be in Ukraine. Logic and reasoning tell me that Poland is a safer choice, but my heart keeps pushing me back toward Ukraine. I have a love of the language and the culture that I just can't explain.

We have a long time to wait, but I was hoping to make a decision before Eric deploys because I'd like for both of us to learn a little of the language, so we need to know which language to learn.

I've learned over the last few years that God's plans don't coincide with mine. Now I'm also learning that his plans aren't always the one's that make the most sense. I keep trying to change our plans to work with whatever situation we are put in (domestic adoption, Poland, Asia, or adopting Jo's baby), but He keeps bringing me right back to the same decision and the same feeling... Ukraine is the right choice for us. It may be more risky, and yes we may adopt a child with special needs. But even with biological children you have the risk of a child with serious special needs, it can happen to anyone regardless of family history. We have control over the types of special needs we can handle (probably just correctable special needs) and which children we want referrals for.

This just feels like it is what we are meant to do...

We're still keeping our fundraising efforts going. We have some simple fundraisers going that donate money when people buy either magazines, or anothe website that has lots of knick-knackish around the house things, cookie mixes, candies (gift ideas for the holidays???). Here is the link to the post (or you can just scroll down to find it). Take a look... see if there is anything you might like... http://christensenadoption.blogspot.com/2008/02/fundraising.html

Done with our home study

So yesterday we got the final notarized copies of our home study report. We got 2 copies and USCIS (INS) got 1. We have been approved to adopt a child under the age of three from Ukraine. Our application will be processed in order of filing date. Ours was filed 12-23-07 so it should be processed by late April. My letter says that I shouldn't call and inquire about it until May 10th. I plan on calling as soon as I wake up that day to call them if I haven't recieved my I-171H from them yet. The I-171H is the government's approval form. They go over all of the paperwork we sent them, and our fingerprints we had done in Charlotte, and they determine whether they will approve us to adopt. I can't see why they wouldn't so I'm not too worried about it.

Now I've started gathering the documents for our Dossier (application that we send to Ukraine). This is where things start getting expensive. I have to pay for some of the documents that we need, we have to pay for county stamps and state stamps, then I have to pay Cathy at Ukrainian Angels for her services and I have to pay for the facilitators. So I have to find a way to come up with $6000 in the next few months. I don't know how we're going to do it, but we will find a way.