Starting the Adoption Process

It seemed like a very long time while Steve thought and prayed whether we should adopt or not. Daily, I was praying for Steve to have wisdom...and me, patience! I didn't want to "push" Steve into it. In fact, I was praying that Steve would say "no" if it's not what God wanted for us (and that God would give me the grace to handle it). I have always seen Steve and I as a team. If we couldn't be completely united in this decision, I didn't want any part of it.


Finally, Steve gave me the green light! I was elated! I had already read an entire book on adoption (which was my first book since I lost my sight), so I knew we had a lot of decisions to make. I was excited to finally dig in and start the process. I presented lots of information to Steve and we talked and talked and talked.....and prayed and prayed and prayed. We finally decided to use Children't Hope International and adopt a child from Ethiopia. When beginning the journey, I was drawn to adopting an older child (about 6). A couple things made it seem like that wouldn't happen, though. We got scared as we learned about attachment disorders and having a child that could never show love to us. Then our agency had a policy that they didn't want you to adopt a child out of birth order (that meant she would have to be younger than Jake).

After much work preparing the dossier, it was great to finally be put on the waiting list. Unfortunately, there were lots of others in front of us. I think we were 86 or so on the waiting list....Yikes!

Our dossier was submitted 10/08 and I remember getting an e-mail from our caseworker on 8/09 telling us we were number 21 on the list. To me, that wasn't very good news. Almost a year had transpired and we still had 20 families in front of us.  I tried to be patient and we prayed a lot for our daughter. Even though I had no idea who she would be, I prayed that she would be protected and loved. I knew God was watching out for her.