Changes Changes Changes

When we first started the adoption process, we were told that it would be a difficult road, but I had no idea how difficult it would become.

When we first started, we were in the honeymoon faze of the adoption and so excited and blissful at the thought of our future children. For a long time, that guarded us from the real struggles of adoption. First there is the struggle of so many folks around us having babies (I went to three showers in the past few months). I struggle so many times with the fact that I want to be a mommy, and it's not fair that I have to wait so long.

Now we are dealing with the struggling of changes. Just in the past three months, Kazakhstan adoption has become more difficult. One region there now requires three trips to the country instead of two, making it almost impossible for us to adopt from there. Now the time between when we are given the invitation to travel and our actual travel is only ten days instead of three weeks. That makes it difficult for me to get a permanent sub and prepare for two months in Kazakhstan, not to mention getting visas! I don't even know if my work will allow for it, so I am meeting with the human resources director this week to discuss it.

But there are more things that we are finding out. Lately, the Kazak people are starting to adopt more of their own, and very few healthy children remain after the required sixth month period in which the Kazak people have sole access to the children's registry. When we are invited to travel, we may not get a healthy child, and that scares me. I don't know if I'm strong enough to handle any issues that the child may have. Perhaps, though, that is what God is calling us to. If that is the case, then I'm willing to do whatever God calls me to do even if it scares me to death. Another issue that scares me is that the Kazak people can claim our child if we are not far enough if the court process, and that could be after we have already traveled to Kazakhstan and have started to bond with our child. It is scary, and I'm realizing that this is going to be a huge leap of faith for us.

I know that God is calling us to do this, and I know that we are doing the right thing by adopting, but we have so many decisions to make. We have already made the decision to change our preference to a girl instead of twins. We will still ask that if twins are available, that we have them over one child, but we know that will probably not happen. We are now wondering if we need to switch countries or even agencies. Switching agencies would be a huge step back, and we really don't want to do that.

Now all we can do is pray for God's guidance and His encouragement. That is all we can do, and I know that He will guide us even if we are discouraged and at the end of our rope in hope.