Approved!

We've been approved to adopt through China! Our adoption agency called and emailed us yesterday with the news that we are in! We were pretty confident that we would be approved, but until you get the final nod of approval, you can't help but worry that there is something they won't like.

So what's next? In about a week, we will get the final paperwork from our agency. We'll give our final signatures and make our first payment toward the adoption. I'm not exactly sure how much that is yet. I'll have to wait until we receive the paperwork. At that point, we can move forward with compiling our dossier and also getting our home study completed. To be honest, I'm not very sure what's involved with either of those items. When I can sound like I know what I am talking about, I'll explain it to all of you!

All in all, it should take between 4-6 months to complete the dossier and home study. Once that is finished, it is simply a waiting game until we get "given" our child by China. They will send us a photo, information, and a name. Once they "refer" us to our child, we'll have about 6-8 weeks before we leave for China to pick up our daughter. We hope both of us can go, but if for any reason JB cannot get off during that window, I can go solo. However, it's the wait for the referral that is extremely long. That stage is the long one: up to two years.

When I told JB that we were approved when he got home from work, he immediately said, "You're going to be a mom!" It sounded very strange, and for some reason, I keep thinking someone is going to call me and say, "We're sorry. Your test results were negative. Please try again later." It's incredibly difficult to fathom that adoption doesn't work that way.

In fact, it's one of the reasons we decided to do international adoption and international adoption through China. Neither John nor myself could handle one more negative result.

In infertility circles, a negative is referred to as BFN "big fat negative." I started thinking about what these four years have entailed and the best I could come up with was:

1. 8 months trying before seeing doctors due to no ovulation -- BFN x 8


2. 3 failed attempts to ovulate on clomid -- BFN x 3


3. 2 negative IUIs (artificial inseminations) -- BFN x 2


4. 2 cancelled IUI's -- BFN x 2


5. 1 year on metformin but no other treatments (ovulated twice) -- BFN x 2


6. 1 cancelled IUI/permitted to try on our own -- BFN x 1


7. 4 IVF transfers -- BFN x 4

So that equals 22 times that we had to have someone call us and tell us (or we found out ourselves) that things did not work. I also thought I would try to estimate how many pills, shots, and doctors appointments this was but quite honestly, I do not even know how to begin to calculate those numbers. I'll just say that from the best I can estimate, I have probably had upwards of FIFTY internal ultrasounds.

Unfortunately, adoption domestically, while fantastic, can result in some disappointments: birth mother changes her mind, birth mother chooses someone else, etc. While I think domestic adoption is wonderful, we, personally, were just not able to deal with that at this point in our lives. We just, emotionally, needed something concrete.

The last two weeks have been a time for great healing and great conversation for the two of us. We have spent four years of our lives dealing with doctors appointments, medications, shots, hormones, emotions, and physicians intruding on one of the most personal areas of our lives. We are so relieved to not be doing that anymore. I am relieved that, aside from some residual headaches, I am sleeping consistently. I am not crying uncontrollably. I can exercise whenever I want. I am not yelling at JB for no reason. We aren't answering to alarms telling me it's time to have another shot or another pill or another appointment. We are relieved to be done with all of that and relieved to finally be doing something where at the end, we know the phone call will be a positive one.

I am still not ready to venture into a baby store or to buy anything for a nursery. I know I'll be ready at some point, but for right now, I just can't go there. It's also a long way away, and I'd rather focus on something else until then.

One thing you can add to your prayer list is prayer for our daughter. She is currently, not born yet. But at some point, in the next year to year and a half, a mother or couple are going to have a little girl that they are going to decide they do not want to keep. This could be because of poverty or, more likely, because they wanted a son and are only allowed to have one child. Please pray for those parents. Please pray for that little girl. And please pray that the Lord brings us together in his perfect timing (but quickly if he can!)