National Adoption Day

Every November 21st is National Adoption Day!

Here are a few things you can do to celebrate today.

1.) If you know of anyone involved with adoption (whether that be an adoptee, adopted family, or a birth parent), then give them a good word of support today or say a prayer for them. Tell them you are happy to celebrate National Adoption Day with them. Hint hint: we love prayers and encouragement. But seriously, reach out to anyone you know!

2.) If you have any desire to learn more about adoption or extra free time, then we encourage you to educate yourselves about adoption. Today is a great day to start to do so. Check out our bookshelf: http://adoptionpilgrimage.blogspot.com/p/bookshelf.html

3.) Get out your favorite drink, whether that be wine or hot chocolate, and toast with your family to the beautiful reality of adoption and muse the mystery of adoption in your own life. While not the same as being adopted by a family, we are all adopted children of God (cf. Romans 8: 23). It is interesting to ponder what this may mean for how we think about adoption and how we should teach our children about adoption. Perhaps we will explore this theme in the future in a later piece.

Cheers!

Fundraising and Savings Update #4 Plus "Two Coins for You"

Fundraising and Savings Update #4

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! We just wanted to update you about how the fundraising and savings are going. Through your support and working two jobs now (Dan started working full-time at the end of August while still writing his dissertation), the Lord has really blessed us with a miracle of provision. Before we offer a reflection on all of this, we will just cut to the chase: we currently have raised $11,252 from donations and we have saved a total of $7,296 towards the adoption for a grand total of $18,548!!! Therefore, we are in great shape for the adoption and just in time for some of the biggest expenses coming up (placement agency fees of $4,500 plus when we get matched we will pay birth parent expenses that could be anywhere from $0-$3,000 or more [see our adoption costs page for more details]).

Now, we just want to reflect upon this blessing. We are so humbled by your generosity. With any gift or donation of any size, we realize we are on the receiving end of a sacrifice to make this gift possible. This naturally reminded us of today's Gospel passage of the widow from Mark 12: 38-44. In this passage, we read the following:

"Jesus sat down opposite the treasury
and observed how the crowd put money into the treasury.
Many rich people put in large sums.
A poor widow also came and put in two small coins worth a few cents.
Calling his disciples to himself, he said to them,
'Amen, I say to you, this poor widow put in more
than all the other contributors to the treasury.
For they have all contributed from their surplus wealth,
but she, from her poverty, has contributed all she had,
her whole livelihood.'"

Now, as we heard this, we couldn't help but think about our generous benefactors and feel like we are on the receiving end of that widow's generosity, as we know many of you who gave are in financially tight places, like the widow. You may have not given your last two coins, but we know you have sacrificed in the spirit of the Gospel and we are humbled. You are making possible this beautiful adoption.

We think the best way we can re-pay you is to make sacrifices, in turn, like you and the widow. We are working hard at saving all we can for the adoption, but more importantly we are trying to cultivate in our hearts a self-sacrificial love for the child who will be placed in our arms, for the birth parents, and for everyone. It starts with prayer, offering up inconveniences and sufferings to the Lord, and just trying to do loving acts of kindness, when we can, to those around us - even when this is difficult.

So, inspired by your generosity and the Gospel, we would like to continue this path of sacrifice by simply loving you with what little we have this week - "two little coins" of prayer. If you dear benefactors, or anyone who reads this blog, are in need of a prayer, then please feel free to email us using the "contact us" tab and send us your intentions. We will write your intention down in a private journal and keep you in our daily prayers (coin #1) as well as offer up our difficulties along the road of adoption for you (coin #2).

The Next Steps after the Home Study

So now what happens after the home study?

Now we put a basket on our doorstep and wait for the stork to drop off the baby, haha :) Nope - there is still more to do! But we really have come quite a long way, and are so grateful for everyone's support and prayers.

Here's our to-do list going forward:

1. Catch our breath and take a breather for a week or two.

2. Apply to St. Joseph Adoption Ministry (Kansas City, KS), which will be our matching & placement agency, meaning that they are the ones who will connect us with potential adoption situations and once (God willing) one works out, they will handle the legal paperwork to make us the adoptive parents of our new son or daughter. The application process for them is nowhere near as long as the home study, since they receive the full home study report from our Maryland agency. But we do need to do some extra things like get a letter of reference from our pastor, attend an infant CPR course, etc.

3. Create our "profile book" which is a picture + text book about us, what life is like in our family, where we live, what we like to do, etc., that will be shown to birth parents considering an adoption plan for their child, so they can see if they want to choose us. Basically the most important crafty project we've ever done!! Is there a patron saint of really, really important crafts? Hmm.... Christ worked in a woodshop so . . .Christ send us your craftiness!

4. Once we're accepted by St. Joseph's and have our books ready to go (multiple copies to send multiple places - our future baby could be born in one of a number of states), then we're in the waiting pool, ready to wait and pray that God would send us the child he has chosen for us. We will be officially a Waiting Family, although we have been waiting for a child for quite some time! So we think this a misnomer.

We will keep you posted! Again THANK YOU for supporting us throughout this pilgrimage, cheering us on, and giving us spiritual and material support. It has been a true journey of faith, hope and love so far. Please continue to pray for us.

Home Study DONE! We are approved!!!

Wow - a lot has happened since our last post about the adoption process! On August 28, we handed in the rest of our home study paperwork, which meant that we could start the interview phase of the home study. As it turned out, we were able to schedule all the interviews in September, which was perfect because Bethany had a long work trip in October.

To cut to the chase: we finished the final interview on September 29 and were officially approved to ADOPT on October 14th ! **Cue the fireworks here!!**

So that's the big, exciting news. Before we outline what comes next, we want to share a little about what the interview process was like.

First of all, our social worker (we'll call her "Debbie") was wonderful. She was experienced, professional, very friendly, timely, and efficient - basically all the qualities you want in a social worker who is interviewing you. She was very easy to work with, including working around our busy schedules and coming to our home for all of the interviews so we didn't have to drive to the agency. Not that we've ever done this before, but it felt like having the interviews in our home was more comfortable and relaxing rather than the office-like environment of our agency. Plus our social worker had several opportunities to see our home, which we personally think is pretty, well, homey :)

Interview #1 - September 11
This was our first meeting with Debbie, so we were kinda nervous! The night before we cleaned our home - not to a crazy level of white-glove clean, but respectable. Dan set out a platter of chocolates and a tray of tea in case Debbie wanted any. Oh, and the interview was in the early afternoon so we both worked that morning and then hurried home right after lunch.

Debbie was so friendly right away. She seemed very motherly and kind, which put us at ease. We gave her the 60-second tour of our digs, and then settled down in the living room to chat. She explained the process to us: she had a number of questions to ask us, and although there was time for us to talk leisurely, she might need to switch topics from time to time in order to cover everything. She also explained that the process was meant to be transparent, meaning that if anything came up that might be a potential issue, she would address it with us - we'd never get a letter in the mail saying "sorry, you fail" or anything like that. We would know ahead of time if there was a problem. And she said she would take lots of notes during our conversations to make sure not to miss anything.

This session had some pretty intense topics: she asked about us as a couple, how we met, our strengths and weakness, what we love about each other; she asked how we came to the decision to adopt, so that involved sharing about our infertility, which is always challenging because it is personal and still quite sad; and then we talked for a long time about our parameters for the child we were hoping to adopt: boy/girl, race, medical issues, family background, etc. With all of these topics, part of the social worker's job is to help us address and work through any lingering questions we have about anything related to adoption, and Debbie was also able to provide guidance along the way if we wanted it.

All in all, we spoke for about an hour and a half, and it was pretty exciting, but also tiring. But overall, we thought it went well!

Interview #2 and #3 - September 17

This was a two-for-one special. Debbie came to our home in the morning, and first talked with Dan individually, then with me. This was a chance to get to know us a little more, and to talk more in depth about our respective backgrounds: family, childhood, education, career, etc. Topics included the composition of our families of origin, how our parents raised us, our experiences in elementary school, high school, and college, and our job history. It was all very comfortable and rather pleasant. (Who doesn't like to talk about themselves?)

Side-note: In-person reference interview - September 19

Part of the home study process was to have four references submit written letters about us to the agency. One of those references later needed to be interviewed in person. Our original choice for the in-person interview ended up not being able to make it work (they had moved quite a ways out of town earlier in the Spring), so another reference kindly made the time to come visit and meet with Debbie in person. Anecdotally: the plan was that Bethany would watch their two oldest kids while they went to a coffee shop with Debbie (Dan had a work event that morning). Well, their oldest son decided we needed a little more hands-on parenting practice, and got sick at breakfast! It was providential though - yes a kid throwing up was providential - because our friends were able to tell Debbie, "Yes, I think Dan and Bethany will be good parents - after all, they're cleaning up our son's throw-up right now and taking care of him while he's sick!" Ha ha (and no we didn't know they were going to do that!). The reference interview went fine too.

Interview #4 - September 29

This one took place in the evening, the day after we got back from a week-long trip to Philadelphia to attend the World Meeting of Families and see the pope. Needless to say, we were a bit tired! Thankfully we had enough energy to do the interview and sound decently coherent. The main topic for this session was our ideas about parenting, and specifically about parenting an adopted child. Debbie asked us questions about what we think will be our strengths and weaknesses as parents, how we plan to discipline our child, and so on. And we talked through our thoughts on the needs our child will have by being adopted and how we will help him or her cope with the loss that comes with any adoption.

We talked about our thoughts about open adoption and having an ongoing relationship with the birthmother and/or birthfather (which we are open to). And we talked about what we've learned and thought about regarding interracial adoption (which we are also open to). Debbie had a lot of good parenting tips and was very encouraging to us in regards to the transition from being a family of two adults to a family with a little baby. As much as we so, so much desire to be parents, sleep deprivation will still be real! We talked through what that will look like, particularly with adoption where time spent bonding with your child is so important.

At the end of this interview, Debbie said that she doesn't see any red flags, and doesn't see any reason why we wouldn't be approved. That was sweet music to our ears!! She also said that she was almost finished writing up the home study report and that the director of the agency would send it to us in about two weeks to see if we had any edits about factual evidence. Awesome!

Receive draft of home study - October 6

It took less than two weeks for our agency director to email us our home study. We then had the chance to read it in its entirety, see what it said about us, and correct anything - mainly the corrections would be misspellings of names and factual things that were missed.

It was strange reading a 15-page report all about us! It actually was quite moving in a way. The report outlined our life's journey to this point - our childhoods and upbringing, how we met, dated and got married, our struggles with infertility that led us to the decision to adopt. Reading it brought up a lot of emotions and memories, and on a spiritual note a distinct sense of God's presence throughout the ups and downs of our lives so far.

The most beautiful words came at the very end where they officially approved us, right before Debbie and our agency director had a spot to sign off on the report!!! Again, music to our ears!!! Never has dry, bureaucratic language been so lovely! Those sentences are the culmination of a process that began officially on April 2, 2015 when we began filling out the adoption application - and of course before that, when we decided to pursue adoption and discerned the best time to start - and most cosmically, when God chose this particular path for us, that here we are now, approved to adopt.

Pretty awesome.

Next post = Next Steps (stay tuned)

Praying with Pope Francis for Our Adopted Child!!!

Last week, Bethany and I had the privilege to attend the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia because Bethany was there for work. What an incredible gift! It was a blessed time for our family and our marriage feels strengthened and renewed! We had many highlights during the week from having a lunch with an Argentinian family, who packed up everything they had to travel with their family for a whole year throughout North and South America in a 1989 VW van (you can check out their blog here: www.americaenfamilia.com), to listening to great speakers, such as Bishop Robert Barron and Pastor Rick Warren. We got a chance to catch up with good friends of ours from Vancouver - Felipe and Veronica (along with their sweet daughter). We venerated the first-class relics of St. Maria Goretti and St. Padre Pio. Saw children get kissed by the Pope, like this adorable one dressed up in a Pope outfit: http://www.today.com/news/pope-francis-meets-baby-pope-see-his-sweet-reaction-t46551 (PS - if anyone would like to make a similar outfit for our adopted baby, we won't resist :-) ) Not to mention, an awesome festival of families featuring top musical performers and families who personally witnessed to the beauty of marriage and family. Lots to be grateful about. It was an amazing time of grace and joy.

The moment that was the best was meeting and praying with Pope Francis. He drove by us only a few feet away. Then, 1 million people gathered together for Mass on the packed Benjamin Franklin Parkway (with another reported half million unfortunately unable to enter due to the slog at the security check points)! We were able to get in and to pray with the largest Mass crowd we have ever experienced. Providentially, out of the millions of people and thousands of priests who were handing out communion, we also got to receive communion from our good friend Fr. Ambrose Little! What a grace!

We really appreciate Pope Francis' down to earth style and fatherly heart for the family to be a "miracle" of love in today's society, which "threatens perhaps the family more than any other time in the history of man." He offered the challenge to "make peace with your spouse every night" and to ask yourself one question, "In your house, do you shout? Or, do you speak with love and tenderness? It is a good way of measuring our love."

As the Pope led us in the Mass, we silently offered it up for many intentions (for our families, friends, you our fellow blog readers :-) , etc.), but our primary intention was for our adopted child to be as well as the birth parent(s), who will make such a hard and heroic decision. Who knows, our child may already be conceived?! If so, then he or she had two parents ready for him or her and praying in the midst of one million people for his or her loving presence in our family! As Pope Francis said and we prayed, "May our children find in us models and incentives to communion! Not divisions. May our children find in us men and women capable of joining others in bringing to full flower all the good seeds which the Father has sown!" (Here is the full transcript of his homily.) Amen.

Here is a picture of us below at the event. Enjoy:




Please continue to pray for us! Viva la familia! (And Pope Francis please come back soon :-) ).

Oh and here is one more funny thing: Pope Corgi . Hahahaha, yes even dogs enjoyed the Pope's visit, I mean he is named after Francis for a reason!

The last of our home study paperwork is handed in and a cool spiritual connection!

Big Home Study Update
We have been diligently working through our home study paperwork since we received the stack of forms and instructions back in mid-June. Today we're happy to report that we took the very last set of forms to our agency and handed them in!

All in all, everything came together beautifully.

We didn't take a picture at the agency - after all, the scene itself is not that exciting (us, a file folder, in an office) but we did take a few at the Mexican restaurant we went to afterwards to celebrate:

Watermelon margarita - YUM

Tamales and a guava-rita almost finished - also YUM

After dinner, we had a fun relaxing time at the nearby Barnes & Nobles. Not going to lie: it's been a bit stressful getting together all the forms, waiting for state & federal clearances, making sure we're on top of things, all while working and doing all the normal life stuff. It is absolutely worth it, but we were so happy to have this done and get to relax! It feels like a huge burden lifted to have all the forms in. And we're so grateful for everyone's support along the way.

What Happens Next
In addition to handing in our paperwork, we also gave the agency a hefty check ($3,000) to start the next and final stage of the home study. After the agency staff reviews our paperwork to make sure nothing is missing (a possibility with 50+ forms and over 200 pages of documents!) we will be assigned a social worker. He or she will contact us to set up four interviews:

1. Together, in the agency office
2. Dan alone
3. Bethany alone - these are to ensure that neither of us is feeling pressured to adopt, which we can assure them is not the case!
4. Together, in our home - the "home visit" that's kind of the capstone to the whole home study process

Our social worker will also meet with our in-person reference, as one more check that we're sane and stable and would be decently good parents. After those interviews are done, the social worker will write up the actual "home study" which is an official document - a report about us - that states our readiness to adopt, and can be shared with other agencies, adoption attorneys, etc. as acceptable proof that we've been verified and vetted. This report usually takes the social worker 4 to 6 weeks to complete.

As far as a timeline, because of some work travel coming up for Bethany later in the Fall, we are very much hoping to complete the interviews in September and have the home study report written by November. Here's hoping!

Significance of the Day
On a side but not unrelated note: today's feast is a meaningful one for us - Saint Augustine. Here's a bio if you don't know much about him. Both of us have studied his writings, particularly his famous Confessions and De Trinitate (On the Trinity), in college and grad school, and have been moved by his journey to faith and ardent preaching of the Gospel. But here's the personal connection that's really neat for today: we spent our honeymoon in Rome, and one of the many churches we visited was Sant'Agostino:

Like so many churches in Rome, there were a few surprises inside. One was that St. Monica (Augustine's mother, who prayed for his conversion for years) is buried here. (!!) Another was that there was a little alcove in the back dedicated to Mary as Our Lady of Childbirth:

The medals, and blue and pink pillows on the right hand side are tokens of gratitude brought by parents after a son or daughter was born. This is a popular place to pray for the gift of a child, and for safe delivery of that child.

You are probably getting the connection...! At the time we were in Rome, just a few days / weeks married, we were of course blissfully unaware that children don't always come when you want them to. We prayed at this altar for the gift of children, yes, without realizing at all how many years it would take (may still take) until, God willing, we too could go into Sant'Agostino and leave a token of our gratitude, something we would absolutely love to do someday. We often think of that shrine and say a prayer to Our Lady for her intercession.

Needless to say - it was pretty neat to have an important day in our adoption pilgrimage coincide with a feast day that is personally significant for us because of its connection with our prayers for a child. Well played, God. Well played :)

The adoption process is enlarging our hearts

by Dan

"The worst form of a prison is a closed heart" - Saint John Paul II

I have often pondered these words and what it means to have an 'open heart' of love toward others. It is definitely not easy in a lot of cases and I am still learning. But one thing is for sure: the process of adoption opens hearts. I'd like to call it training in sanctity.

When Bethany and I began this process, we expected to have our hearts opened from the child we would welcome. And in many ways, our hearts have been already opened more than once toward this child yet to be placed in our home. Our hearts are open to him or her in our daily prayers, in the paperwork we do, in the studying up of parenting skills, in fund-raising and saving money, and in the sacrifices we make to prepare to love the child. But what we did not expect was that our hearts would be opened from contemplating and learning about welcoming the birth mother (and in very rare cases the birth father - and so for the purposes of this post we will just refer to the birth mother) as part of the process. Yet this is exactly what is occurring and let me explain a little bit.

One of the responses we get when we tell other people that we are pursuing open adoption, where there is the potential for ongoing contact with the birth mother, is worry for us and the child. People ask aloud, "What if the birth mother interferes with your parenting in a bad way?" or "What if she will not be able to let go and to move on with her life?" Well, those are good questions that have been addressed in our parent training and ones that we have pondered a lot. But I think the questions must be proceeded by another question. The first question we should be asking is, "How can we not involve and love the birth mother (unless she does not want involvement)?" The birth mother is the child's biological parent. We can never be that and there will be a special connection with the birth parent in a way the child won't be connected to us. Does that lessen our role as the child's mother and father and our unique connection as his or her parents? Absolutely not, but we need to respect that beautiful and profound reality of biological parenthood and the tremendous gift of the child that this mother is placing in our hands. What better way to honor these realities than to continue to have her involved in some way in the child's life?

Really, at the end of the day, adoption is not just about embracing the child, but also welcoming his or her biological parents into our family (if it is possible and they desire it). We do this to honor the child's biological connections, but more importantly we do it because as a Christian we are called to love all people because all are worthy of God's love as His beloved. This is radical, this is challenging, but this is the path to happiness when we have the courage to follow it.

This enlargement of our hearts to prepare a place for the birth parents was not expected when we started this journey and who knows how it will shake out in the concrete situation that awaits us, but open adoption is beautiful, "enlarging," and very Christian. It is about enlarging our hearts and this is a very good thing for us and for preparing to love the child.While open adoption may involve difficulties, we are called to open our hearts to it even if our hearts may be bruised. Just like one goes through "growing pains" as one matures and develops, so too are we willing to endure possible pain in order to grow our hearts. It is certainly a pilgrimage. Please pray for us that we may have a living, beating, LARGE heart for all involved as we welcome them into our home!