Seeing the Big Picture

The other day I was talking to my friend, Kyla, and something really stuck with me.  We were talking about how hard it was waiting for Ramya to come home.  Seeing her transfer to the third orphanage because our paperwork was taking too long, when there was nothing I could do to speed it up, was heartbreaking.  Every day spent waiting for her felt like years.  There wasn't a second in the day I didn't think about her.  At the time, I couldn't understand why things weren't moving faster and I doubted God's plan.  What I didn't realize at the time, however, was that if our adoption had moved faster and Ramya had not moved orphanages, I would have never met Deena and our family would not be complete.  Both girls are such a blessing and joy in our lives, and I can't imagine life without them.  The delays weren't fun, and it breaks my heart that Ramya had to be moved, yet again, but I'm so thankful that there was a purpose to our trials. I am so thankful that God perfectly orchestrated the timeline so that Deena could also become our daughter.

Why I've Been M.I.A and an Un-Update on the Adoption

I've been in a bit of a funk lately.  I've sat down multiple times to write this post, and it just hasn't happened.  Tonight, though, I'm going to get it all out :).

On the 27th of October I got an e-mail from Wacap.  They decided to send Ramya for surgery to correct her renal reflux.  When they took her in, though, she had a UTI so they were not able to set a surgery date.  Instead, they were keeping her in the hospital until her UTI cleared up and were doing the surgery after that.  Our agency was told...

“We had problems getting a date for the surgery as her urinary tract infection had to be addressed and treated prior to the surgery. She is still in hospital and is convalescing well. I will send you the discharge summary as soon as we get it."

We still have not gotten a discharge summary, so I am not even sure if she has had the surgery yet or not, or if she is still sitting in the hospital waiting.  It breaks my heart thinking of her just sitting there, in pain, scared, and all alone.  It makes me want to cry.  Actually, I won't lie, I have cried.  I'm having a hard time thinking about it.  I just really want to get her home so that I can be there with her and for her, and be the one making the decisions for her. 

We have also had some delays with our dossier paperwork.  We had it all filled out and went to get our apostilles from the secretary of state.  More than half of our paperwork was missing some of the verbiage needed to get the apostilles, though, and it had to be fixed.  We went to the bank to talk to the guy who did most of it, and of course, he was on vacation.  We waited until he got back and just couldn't get him in the office.  I finally wrote all the correct verbage down myself, convinced that they would reject it, and sent David downtown (about a 30 minute drive) to try and get the apostilles.  Thankfully they gave it to him on all but two pages, which were our passports.  I had written the verbiage for written documents, not photos, on them, so they had to be fixed.  David drove back to the house, got our passports, and rushed back to get them corrected.  After getting those stamped he brought them home for me (I've got a good man :)).  We went to Staples that night to copy all the pages.  It took quite a while because they had stapled the apsotilles on the front of each of our documents, so we had to scan, turn, scan, turn, scan, turn, well, you get the picture.  It took a while.  97 pages later we were finished.  We got home and I opened my mail to find more paperwork.  I stayed up to work on it that night, so that it would be ready to mail with our Dossier.

The next morning we had my mom come over to take some family pictures of us in semi-formal attire.  The photos will be send to India along with our dossier.  I packaged up both sets of paperwork (the dossier and the new paperwork) and drove it to the post office to get it off to our adoption agency.  I sent it priority with a delivery confirmation in hopes of getting it there quickly and safely!

Today after the baby I watch left, I hopped on the computer to check my e-mail.  Let's just say I wasn't too happy.  There was an e-mail from our agency that basically said that CARA, the organization that oversees adoptions in India, is postponing all new paperwork/adoptions until the beginning of the year.  They were originally going to still work on special needs adoptions, but now they may even be halting those. 

Unfortunately this morning we received news from two orphanages that they had just received from CARA a circular advising that CARA will now not be processing cases of children with special needs prior to January 2012. 

I wasn't able to get ahold of our agency, as they were already closed for the day, so I'm not sure if Ramya's orphanage is one of the two in India that got word that adoptions are postponed.  I'm absolutely heartbroken and saddened that our adoption may, once again, be halted.  It's just not fair.  Our agency is going to write letter and fight it, and I will absolutely write one too if they will let me, but i feel so hopeless.  I know God has a plan, but this waiting is rough.  Right now, I'm praying for a miracle!!

We just payed a nice big adoption bill and I"ll post our fees so far, just in case anyone is interested.  We're going to start up some fundraising.  If you are local and have any goodies you don't want any more, send them our way!  Big, small, we'll take it all!  We'll be having a big garage sale in December for a fundraiser.  My friend Amanda is also hosting a thirty-one fundraiser.  There are great bags, lunch boxes, organizers, and other great stuff, all that can get personalized, that the company sells.  10%-15% of all sales goes towards our adoption.  You can check out more information here (http://www.aworthyjourney.com/2011/10/ready-for-some-christmas-shopping-join.html).  A few people have asked me to put a chip-in button on our blog so they can chip in towards the adoption.  I'm not ignoring this request, I promise, I just want to wait to see if there is a way to make donations tax deductible first :).
 
That's really it for now.  Please be praying that we can get approved in India quickly, without any more delays, so that we can be one step closer to bringing Ramya home.  Most importantly, please be praying for Ramya and that God's hand will protect her. 
 
 
Adoption Fees Paid:
 
Oasis Adoption Application Fee $75
Fingerprints $35
Court Fee for Fingerprints $62
Learning Partners Classes $149
Dr. Luberto- Physicals $65
Homestudy Fee $1,250
Birth Certificate Certified Copies $60
Apostilles Round 1 $36
Apostilles Round 2 $69
Apostilles Round 3 $6
First Round of Wacap Fees $6,050
 
Total So Far: $7,857.00
 
 

An Adoption Un-Update and Our Upcoming Vacation

Today I heard back from Amy, the liaison helping us figure out what is going on with our adoption paperwork and approval.  She was in a training today and low and behold, there was Commissioner Clark, the judge in charge of our adoption!  She called me for our case number and was having the judge look it up to give her some information on it.  Basically, the judge was trying to say it was probably our adoption agency's fault, but I've talked to our agency many, many, many (did I say many??) times, and I know they have been on top of things.  I hope Amy can help us get to the bottom of everything!

In other news, we have a vacation coming up next week and we couldn't be more excited.  I really, really, really struggled with whether or not we should go on vacation this year.  I am finding there is a really fine line between living and enjoying our lives right now and planning for the adoption and the future with another child with a disability.  I always feel torn on what we should do.  I had planned to not go on vacation this year, but then re-thought the idea when my mom told me that they had gotten a two-bedroom timeshare in California and that we would be able to stay there for free.  Then I thought about how long it would be until we could take a vacation if we waited until after the adoption went through and we went to bring home Ramya.  That could very easily be 18- 24 months out still.  So, there's that 18-24 months, plus all the time after we bring her home where we need to lay low.  I'm a vacation girl, so that seems like a very long time to me. 

The plan is to drive up to Anaheim, stay for a few nights and go to Disney, then head over and stay with my parents in their timeshare.  The timeshare and our hotel in Anaheim will have kitchens, so I will be able to cook and save some money on the food side of it.  We will drive which saves some money as well.  Plus we are not paying to stay with my parents for that week.  Disney, of course, is not cheap.  That's the part I struggled with the most.  I decided to go, though, because I remember reading in The Connected Child that you should keep newly adopted children away from noisy places, especially like amusement parks and fairs and other places that would be very overwhelming and overstimulating for them ( a child in an orphanage is used to a sterile, white, quiet environment).  That would mean probably not going for a year or so after the adoption as well, if even that soon.  So, basically, I caved :).

Kyla is coming along with us for part of the trip.  She has not been to Disney since she was 4 years old, and is SO excited about the trip.  I'm even more excited just seeing how excited she is :).  Of course, there is Conner and Madi too, who ask me every day if we are going to Disney that day. 

I have a lot going on right now with trying to finish up Dossier paperwork and church curriculum, plus do what we need to for vacation, so I'm a bit stressed out, but I know it will all work out in the end :).

Dear Ramya,

I must say, it is hard to wait for you.  It is hard to pray for you and look at your sweet face, but not know if you will be ours.  I feel so useless and stuck because I just simply cannot make this happen any faster.  I am trying, oh trust me, I am, but the phone calls and e-mails just have not done the trick so far.  I feel like I should be fundraising and doing something more productive right now, but on the other hand, I feel like we need to wait until we are approved in Arizona, at the very least, until we start too heavily in to that.  For now, I am thinking and gathering ideas, but I want to be doing more.

I am told that the wait is harder on us than it is for you, because you do not know that we are here waiting for you.  I am sure in some ways that is true; You do not feel the same urgency and concern that we do.  On the other hand, though, I cannot imagine the angst of waiting your entire life wanting nothing more than a family, and feeling like you will never get one.  I remember reading that one of your social workers said that not having a family, yet wanting one so badly, was taking a toll on you.  And that was over a year ago.  I cannot even begin to imagine how you feel now.  I wish there was a way for me to tell you that we are here, that we are praying for you, that we WANT you, and that we are trying our best to get you here as fast as we can.  I wish you knew how much we love you already. 

Your brother, sister, father, and I are waiting for you.  We pray that one day soon we will get to tell you how much we love you as we hold you close to our hearts.  We pray that one day soon we will be able to come bring you home.  

Welllllll..... that makes sense, but I'm still bummed!!

Today I called Oasis, our homestudy agency, to see if they ever heard back from the Judge's office about our paperwork/approval.  They still haven't heard back, and I guess the judge's assistant (not sure what they are called) is no longer there, which is who she had left a message with last week.  She said that was a bad sign, but I'm not sure why, maybe because it will take longer or something.  Anyhow....  Oasis had faxed in the pictures of our pool fence in July.  The judge asked Oasis to also send in hard copies straight to her, so they did.  Today when Oasis called, they talked to someone else at the courts (the people that oversee the whole process or something like that), and they said they have no records of the hard copy being sent in.  Oasis is going to send it to that department now as well, just to make sure that everyone has what they need.

The problem, though, is that the courts have 60 days to respond (basically approve or deny your adoption petition) to the paperwork once it is submitted.  Whenever you send something new in, though, that re-sets that 60 day waiting period.  So basically, when we sent in the photos of the latches, that re-set the 60 days that they have to respond to us.  That would mean that we should hear back by mid September, UNLESS sending in the photos to the other department will re-set it again, and then we will still have up to 60 days!  AH!  Not cool! 

In better news, we went to the Children's Museum today and it was a blast!  My friend, Mary, had free passes for us (THANKS MARY!), so Kyla and I took the kids.  We brought Madi in her HKFOs (up ups) and helped her walk up the big climbing structure, go through the noodle forest, and all that good stuff.  The kids really loved it!  I also got to meet a local lady, Kiara, that has been a lot of support and help for our adoption, so that was really awesome!  We didn't know she would be there but bumped in to her, so that was neat.  Here's some pictures of our day:

Encouraging Words

You hear, O LORD, the desire of the afflicted; you encourage them, and you listen to their cry .

Psalm 10:17

I "met" a wonderful woman, Sue, through our blog.  She had adopted a child with spina bifida and was needing some encouragement and advice.  She has also adopted two children from India, and had encouragement and advice to offer me.  It's the perfect match :).  Though I have never met Sue, and I have only known her for a short time, her words have always been uplifting and comforting, and I have appreciated having her in my life.  Today I got an e-mail from her that was EXACTLY what I needed to hear.  I just had to share part of it.

I wanted to share something with you before I forget!  The woman who headed up the India program for both of my Indian adoptions is coming to Delaware tomorrow.  There are five families now who have adopted from India after we did - mostly church families but not all.  Anyway, she is incredible with placing special needs children.  Long story short, she has been to the orphanage where Ramya is (I told her about you and Ramya and shared your blog address).  She said it was one of the best places she could be while you are waiting. 


Oh how I needed to hear that today.  This wait has been really hard on me emotionally.  I literally run to the mailbox as soon as I hear the mailman, and am always saddened when I find nothing from the courts in there.  I think about Ramya all the time, and pray for her often.  In a way, I think this waiting is good.  I believe that this yearning for her is going to help build attachment.  The wait is really hard, though.  David has a great attitude about it.  He says he sees it as a done deal and that things will happen in God's timing.  I know he is right and I envy his peace with it all.  I, on the other hand, feel like part of me is missing.  I feel distracted and pretty blah.  I am sure it is silly to feel that way since we have not even been approved yet, but I do.  So to hear Sue's words to me today were such a huge blessing. 
 

"She said it was one of the best places she could be while you are waiting." 
 

Praise God!