Full Speed Ahead
It's been a really long month. It's been 36 days since God first let us know that we have daughters waiting for us: two sisters in Ukraine. We have spent each and every day praying for them and working as hard as we can through this adoption process to get to them. Some things (most things) we have no control over, and that's tough. We take comfort in knowing that this is all in God's hands, and everything will happen in his perfect timing.There are no guarantees that 8-year-old Tetyana or 4-year-old Margarita will not be adopted by someone else. But we're doing everything we can, as quickly as we can, to get there as fast as we can! Our concern is that they do not have to be kept together, because Tetyana has diabetes and is on Ukraine's "special needs" list. So her younger, healthier sister could be adopted alone, separating them forever. That's motivating us to move quickly.
In one month, we have:
- Completed our applications for the adoption agency AND the home study agency
- Renewed our passports
- Received criminal background clearances from Johnston County, NC
- Received child abuse clearances from North Carolina
- Received criminal background clearances from York County, PA
- Received child abuse clearances from Pennsylvania
- Received certified copies of our birth certificates
- Received a certified copy of our marriage license - thanks, Mom :)
- Both of us got our physicals
- Received letters from the pediatrician that verify that Claire and Sophia are healthy
- Received employment verification letters from our employers
- Received a health coverage verification letter from our health insurance
- Gathered documention of all our assets and liabilities to attach to our financial statement
- Gathered information about adoption grants and loans
- Applied for our home equity loan
- Bought a Ukrainian phrasebook and almost cried
- Wrote our first letter to the girls to let them know about us, and mailed it along with a package of small gifts for them and the orphanage director
It's exhausting though. And although every step of the actual adoption process seems to have been blessed thus far, we're feeling the stress and it's wearing us out! And all the while, real life goes on and we still have our two daughters HERE who need us to be mentally and physically present in their daily lives!
