New Beginnings

Wow, it has almost been a whole year since I last posted. I'm sure the 2 people that ever looked at my blog have long forgotten me.

So many things have happened in a year. I truly don't know where to start. There are lots of adventures I wish to talk about, but I think I'll start about 6 months ago and fill in if needed.

Right off the bat...Rey and I have started the process of international adoption. I feel like this should include some really deep, meaningful commentary, but I'm not the best person to convey emotions in writing. So, I will try to basically explain our process of how we came to this decision.

In mid January I suffered a miscarriage. Because of this, Rey and I decided to live each minute as our last. We had a discussion about things we wanted to do and places to go with our children in the next few years. We both really wanted to take them to Disney World. We felt they were the right age and there was no reason to wait. We wanted to have fun while we could because who knows what tomorrow brings. So we took all of our savings and money from our tax return, then booked our trip! We set it for Spring Break which was around our 10th anniversary. We thought it would be awesome to return to where we had our honeymoon!

The kids were awesome, the trip was awesome, and I was more in love with my husband than I had ever been. It was our best family vacation yet!

Once we returned, Rey and I both began to feel out of sorts, but pushed the feeling aside. I was thinking maybe buyer's remorse.

Anyway, our social worker from our domestic adoption came over for her quarterly visit. She had no good news. We have been waiting four years for a child, any child, through the state foster system. Apparently, we had the experience (2 bio kids in our home), along with every other requirement to be adoptive parents, but it wasn't enough. Each time we spoke with our worker about a child we would get one of a few responses; 1) the waiting child is too close in age to your children now, 2)the waiting child needs a home with no other children, or 3)the waiting child is too much older. Basically, please have parenting experience but don't have children in your home if you want to adopt?!

Rey and I finally started discussing what was going on in our heads in late April. Rey realized after the miscarriage that he really wanted to add another child to our family. I realized I was disillusioned with the adoption route and didn't know what to do to grow our family. We knew natural was out because we (I) didn't want to deal with all the medication, doctor visits, lab tests, and blood taking that would have to happen. After lots of prayer on my part and a little nudge from God, by way of an amazing family, I brought up the subject of international adoption with Rey. [When we first started all this adoption "stuff", we knew we wanted to "help at home" and we didn't need a baby. This is why CPS was the route we chose.]

After a little while Rey really took to the idea of adopting internationally. Ever the logical person, Rey's main concern was money. We talked about taking a leap of faith, depending on God, and planning the best we could. We knew that there are grants out there for international adoption, we can also get loans and ask friends and family for donations.

Once Rey was sold on the money issue we went full speed ahead. We had researched international adoption agencies and the countries we could choose from. When all was said, Rey really wanted to go with Korea because of his Korean ancestry and so that he (and Talia & Max) would have a connection. From that point we decided to go with Holt International as our agency. They are one of the oldest international adoption agencies and their founders were the pioneers of Korean adoption (and international adoption).

Now it is June and our applications have been completed, letters of reference sent in, medical reports sent in, fingerprinting in process, and our homestudy scheduled for later this month. We are excited, scared and trying to take every thing in stride. This is going to be an emotional roller coaster, but we feel that we are stepping in the right direction. Please pray for our family as we try to grow.