The 3 Options as of Now

Right now we're in the middle of an intense waiting session.

We've run into an issue with our visa type getting a background check in the land we live (I'm avoiding saying the name so I'm not flagged -- it's stupid here sometimes and you never know what will be the THING that sets things in motion). Anyways... we have to declare residency and wait 6 months for a background check according to the local police station. The problem with this is that we've already had most of our home study done. This is literally the last thing we need before we send our home study report in to be approved. It's so frustrating. Our home study social worker is working on finding out exactly what we need and how to get it. We're praying about our options and would love it if you joined us in prayer over this decision.

Right now we have three options:
1. Wait until we can adopt. This might mean starting our home study process over in 6 months. We're also a little worried about the initial fee at our agency "expiring." (we were supposed to have our dossier finished within a year of the initial fee - and we haven't even finished the home study which is the precursor to the dossier). This might also mean waiting until we have a visa type that allows us to get background checks easily - we don't know when this would be available to us. Our school is working on it, but they've been working on it for a while to no avail.

2. Foster a local child. We would go into this realizing that we would not be able to adopt any child from here until we are both 30 (at least 4 years unless they change their law). I'm pretty sure we could do that part. The really tough part is that we would not be able to travel with the child outside of the country. This would mean that we have to find childcare every 60 days (another visa thing) or anytime we went to the USA or anywhere else for that matter. We would be committing to stay in country for the foreseeable future. This would also be almost immediate - no prep time, just thrown into parenting. There is also the issue that we both teach all day, so it would be afternoon and night, and weekends. Right now we also tutor a bunch on Saturday and some on Tuesday night. Most couples get the understanding from others that they've just had a "newborn" and there is some help in the adjustment. While I know I would thrive being a mom, I don't know that David's ready this instant to change his entire lifestyle on a dime.

3. Start trying to have children biologically. As I have mentioned before, we're not infertile that we know of, so this is still an option. This would be the easiest. But we also don't feel like this is God's call for our lives at the moment. I do feel that if this was the option we chose that I would get involved in some sort of orphan care ministry. There is a specific one that helps parents take care of their child, preventing abandonment in the first place. I would love to be the hands and feet of other organizations helping with orphan care as well, so I think this could be a valid option.

We're still waiting to hear, but I'll update as soon as I know. There is much to consider and at the front of that decision is God's will for our lives. Pray that His will becomes clear for us and that we are not(especially I am not) clouded by impatience or selfishness.

Belonging

It occurred to me today that everyone wants to belong, but also, there is something terrifying about it. The idea of belonging to a group is desirable, but often times we change who we are to fit into that group. For instance, I HATE reality TV. It grates on my nerves, because I can't stand to watch other people make bad decisions, or be forced into decisions that are unlikely reflections of their true feelings. Anyway, when I first moved to China I had a difficult time making friends. They people in our community of foreigners were nice enough, but we just had very little in common. It was so lonely though, that I started watching shows I couldn't stand just so I would have something to talk about with them for the 20 minutes I saw them after work. It wasn't a true connection, but I needed to belong to something bigger than me.

I was thinking about this in terms of our adoption and how the kids might feel when they come to their forever home. Will they feel a sense of belonging just by having a mommy and daddy? Or will it take more work than that? Will they every have a sense of belonging with us, or will this be a life-long question and insecurity for them?

It could turn out perfectly, imagine with me:
A seven year old girl and a four year old brother and sister walk into our apartment. We show them their rooms and they are over the moon excited! They pull out every toy we picked out for them, they look at the bed that is now theirs and snuggle into it playfully and lovingly. We introduce them to their new fur-babies Aubie and Luna and they are immediately taken with them. They spend the next twenty minutes throwing the ball for Aubie and petting Luna. When it's time for dinner they are so happy to be part of a family that they spend the entire time just looking at us while we all eat. We practice our Bulgarian and try to teach them some English. After dinner we spend some time playing together as a little family, and then we get ready for bed. They are unfamiliar with the routine of brushing their teeth and getting into pajamas that are just for them, but they are eager and want to learn. David and I take turns reading to them, then tuck them in and just stroke their heads for a while. They doze off and if they wake up they come and cuddle with us until they fall off to sleep again. That is the ideal sense of belonging. Immediate and wonderful.

Now the other way it could turn out is this:
Upon entering the new environment of our apartment, they stare at everything with a mixed sense of wonder and fear. They gaze at the things, but either are not excited by them or completely disengaged and they cannot fathom the things being theirs. They wander around the house and eventually start crying. When they meet the animals, they're afraid of Aubie and Luna and we have to ask our friends to watch them another night so the kids have time to adjust. They throw fits, they hate to be touched and they cannot stop crying. They rock back and forth constantly and cannot be calmed. At night, they keep trying to get away from us. They won't eat the food we make for them and no other snacks seem to please them either. We decide to try bedtime, and they don't know what brushing teeth is and it freaks them out. So much so they throw another fit. They kick and hit and cry when we put them on their bed. They refuse to let us touch them and we have no idea what to do to help them feel at ease. We decide to turn on some white noise, a nightlight and say goodnight. We worry about them all throughout the night because we can hear them crying.

Now I don't think that either of these cases will happen. We will probably have a mixture of both, somewhere in between the two extremes. I have heard adoption can be one of these extremes though. Wouldn't it be lovely to have the first extreme? We are prepared to deal with the second extreme (as much as we can anyway). We hope that if they have difficulty finding belonging in our family group, that in time we can earn their trust and enforce certain rules long enough that it becomes routine. I know that even biological children can have problems with their sense of belonging in their families.

A sense of belonging has always been something David and I have struggled with personally. Not in our family, but with groups of friends. I hope we can relate enough to be patient and loving unconditionally. I hope that everything will work out. I have big dreams for the future. Hopefully, eventually, they will find a sense of belonging with us in our family.

Counting the Days

As many of you already know, David and I are coming home in February (!) for two weeks. We're looking forward to seeing our families, meeting our new beautiful niece, and seeing some friends we haven't seen in what seems like forever. Even as I'm counting down the days until I get to hug my mama until I cry (or you know, long before I get to actually physically get to her, because I miss my mama), see my little brother(s) and sister, hold that baby and spend some time with my daddy, I'm also reminded of why we're going to the USA in the first place. I'm counting down the days until we bring our children home.

We're going so that we can round up all the documents we need for our home study and while we're there we want to try to raise money for the home study fees. We can cover a lot of the expenses for the home study, but because we're in China it's going to have more fees, mostly because of travel expenses for the social worker. We've been trying to contact as many people as we can find that are located near us. The problem is that the embassies have not updated their lists of home study providers in 10 years and laws for adoption can change within months. The biggest change that has been affecting us is the Hague Convention. Now, it's been inconvenient for us for a number of reasons, but I need you to know that this change is actually an amazing thing for the protection of adopted children and adoptive parents alike.

We've contacted at least 10 home study providers, only 3 are still in the running at all, and two of them are decently expensive. We're looking at another person that is closer to us, so we'll see if that pans out. We're trying to figure out what documents we need so we can figure out what our schedule will look like while we are home for the short 13 days. We're also trying to figure out how to change some of our information. We still have TN drivers licenses, but our permanent address needs to be with one of our parents so that means at least some hours spent at the DMV. We do have one advantage in all of our scheduling needs; we're not working while in the USA, so we can go in when most people can't. The down side will be that we will be jet-lagging probably pretty badly for the first week if experience serves me right. Pray for patience. We will already be in government buildings for far, far too long with my Irish temper, I will need extra patience for this trip!

I have had a lot of emotions when considering this trip; excitement, anxiety, and many others. But I have to remember that all of this is for the purpose of bringing our kids home. It's much like the mantra I had for planning our wedding, "At the end of all of this, I will be married." Except, this time it's, "At the end of all of this I will be a mom!" I don't know what becoming a parent will be like for us. I don't know what things we may encounter as parents or what joys it may hold, but we can't wait.

We were so excited this Christmas that we actually bought several presents that would be good for kids under the age of ten. We've decided to start buying toys and books so that when we finally do get to bring them home, we have things to give them. I realize that parenting is not about things, but this is the one aspect that we can really start now to benefit from later. We already missed at least one Christmas with our kids, and possibly many more depending on their ages. Through our endless to-do list of the adoption process, my mantra will be, "At the end, I will get to bring them home, I will be a mom and it will all be worth it."

Done with 2014, onto 2015

Bloglovin LinkI hope everyone had a great Christmas! As we're getting closer to the end of 2014, it's easy for my mind to drift to what might be next year. This year was GREAT for David and me. We're working at terrific jobs that we're finally able to understand what we're doing and what our goals are. We have wonderful students, co-teachers, and grade level peeps. Our bosses have to be the best in the world, but seriously. We have friends teaching at the school that plan to stay for some time. We also started our adoption process and got that ball rolling. There is just so much to be thankful for.

This coming year holds so many hopes and dreams for our little Carr family. So I would like to spend some time sharing here what some of those are, both to satisfy curiosity and for a measure of accountability. We, of course, have the cliche goals like, lose weight, drink more water, exercise - and honestly some of these are remarkably similar to last year's resolutions. Last year, I met several of my goals! I've started exercising more, and I gotta give a shout out to Jillian Michaels and her kick-butt programs, I love/hate her! I've drank more water than any year prior, ate healthier choices and lost about 10-15 pounds of weight! (it's hard to know exactly because we didn't get a scale until summer time).

There were some goals that just weren't as realistic as I thought at the time or that we worked hard to achieve, but just didn't happen - things like, travel more of China, pay off 3 school loans (we did 2!), and some others that are so ridiculous I'm a little embarrassed to them post here!

So for this year, when I consider what is coming up I will have some things that are for my personal betterment, but most of my resolutions will be about us becoming a little bigger of a family. So here they are:

1. Get a home study completed before summer starts.
2. Put on at least one super-successful fundraiser for our adoption.
3. Accumulate toys and books that would be appropriate no matter what the age of our kids.
4. Read 3-4 parenting books.
5. Read 3-4 adoption oriented books.
6. Apply for as many grants as humanly possible.
7. Keep all adoption paperwork extremely organized.
8. Start debt snowball and ATTACK! (thanks Dave Ramsay for the saving know-how!)
9. Read 2-3 books about being a better teacher.
10. Get fit - not necessarily lose weight, but be healthier.
11. Do devotions more diligently (maybe She Reads Truth - any other suggestions let me know!)
12. Blog every week (if you have any ideas for topics PLEASE let me know!)
13. Take pictures at least once a week - and keep learning more about the beautiful camera I got for Christmas!
14. Love on kids at Haven of Hope twice a week (at least) Find out more about this great program that helps special needs orphans by clicking here. 
15. Paint the house.
16. Travel somewhere fun (but cheap, maybe Bali?).
17. Cook more at home, and healthier foods.
18. Keep learning Chinese, and pick up some basic Bulgarian.
19. Complain less, encourage more.
20. Bring our kids home - now I know that this may not happen this year, but let's face it, how many of our goals do we actually achieve in our own little time-frame? I see no reason not to be optimistic. God showed us that this is His calling for us right now, so until he says otherwise, we're running full speed towards that goal.

I hope you enjoyed reading my list of goals and can help keep me accountable to achieve (and maybe even help achieve some!). I hope many of your goals are met this year and that this New Year brings more joy to your life. Happy New Year!

Parenting - Great Expectations & Feelings

Sometimes, when things don't move as fast as I thought, I lose hope. Please tell me you have been there too, that I'm not the only one! To you, as a third party to our adoption, it may seem that things have been moving at a pretty good pace - one thing happening after another. To me, this whole becoming a parent thing is taking forever. And when something takes forever, I start to over-analyze. Unfortunately, I am also a researcher at heart and tend to look up as much information as possible with whatever is on hand. What is on hand right now is the internet; and people's blogs; and people's stories of adoption; and people's horror stories.

Now, I do tend to be the kind of person that believes that all things work together for good, and so I am confident it will all work out well. I do realize there will be some difficulties, and have never been under the delusion that any kind of parenting would be easy. However, when I read some of these stories, I feel seriously discouraged. I feel like it might be too hard.

All these stories are not helping my current emotional feelings of incompetence. Lately, I've felt so stressed out with work, having a semblance of a social life, and trying to keep my house in order that I've come to question whether I can even be a working mom. I've talked it over with David, and we've decided that as soon as possible (aka when our contract allows me to) I will go down to either part time or not working with some tutoring jobs. The more I think about it, the better the plan seems. I took a sick day today because I had a huge headache and was feeling flat out awful from my cold. I was able to sleep, get good medicine, eat decent food and altogether rest. Not only was I able to finally rest, but I also had a chance to catch up on some things that have fallen behind in the chaos. I was able to straighten up and do some serious amounts of laundry. Cuddling with my babies (Aubie and Luna) was truly helpful to my mental health as well!

All of these thoughts when considering myself being a parent is leading to me feeling that maybe I'm not ready. (I need to insert here that I have not changed my mind about adoption! Just in case you were getting that vibe). It makes me feel like if I can't handle these small little responsibilities, than what will happen when I have extra little people, with bigger needs than mine, to take care of. It's kinda freaking me out a little. I have been consoling myself with the fact that it's very common for people, when they find out their going to be parents, to freak out and wonder what kind parent they will be.

Because I have been feeling uneasy about being a parent, I've decided to do the one thing I know usually makes me feel better about doing something new; pick up a million books and read about it! I've gotten tons to samples of parenting books off my Kindle, and I'll be buying a few of them as soon as I figure out which ones I like (i.e. the ones that actually teach good parenting techniques based on Psychology, and not ones that are like "I have pretty good kids, this is how I did it!" - It's crazy how many books like that there are!). I feel like maybe if I can read about good techniques, I will feel more prepared for managing my life and my children, and then will feel less uneasy about becoming a parent. Do you have any favorites that I should check out? Any advice during this period of waiting?