Never say Never!

I remember looking at Ron while we were wading through the anxiety and fear of our first visit in Korea, being told that we may wait months before bringing Charlie home. Being completely exhausted and scared. I looked at him through tears and said "I just want to take our boy, go home and NEVER come back" I thought "I will NEVER do this again."The never part didn't have to do with adoption, we knew we would adopt again someday but not with Korea and probably not even internationally. We felt burned by the process.

If you read my blog you know that the last 9 months have not been easy, unexpectedly hard but right from the start we began to pray about our next move.  The process with Charlie was long and we wanted to start thinking about where/when and how our next process would go but we have learned alot about God's timing through adoption about so we wait. Well truthfully I was so ridiculously overwhelmed that I wasn't sure I wanted more kids and I was certain I couldn't handle more any time soon.  As with alot of things, time made it better, not perfect but better. So in the last 3 months we have been praying alot about what to do.

We really thought domestic adoption would be the right choice, it seems easier to me, faster and I don't have to take airplane rides that last 14 hours! We kept meaning to call a few agencies but never had that peace we experienced with Charlie, even in the hard, we had peace.  So we waited. Then 3 weeks ago we had Charlies 9 month home visit and at the end as our local caseworker was putting her shoes on she stops and tells us that she wasn't going to even mention anything because of our previous experience but she just felt like she should say something. She told us that an agency in Minnesota they work with contacted them regarding the many waiting children in Korea and that basically they're too many kids and they need more families. So they are reaching out to families who were interested in Korea at some point or have adopted before to see if they are interested again. Our caseworker says " would you like the information?" I am sure you can see where this is going...

Rewind a few weeks before this  conversation and I was "introduced" to a women on Facebook who had question about adopting from Korea, we messaged back and forth a bit and towards the end of the conversation I learned that she was working with our same agency out of Connecticut and that the time frame they were given was quick, like lightening fast. I just chewed that bit of information over and sorta forgot about until our local caseworker brought up Korea at our home study a few weeks ago. Little things here and there, coincidences you could say, or He was beginning to prepare us.

So we took the information from our local caseworker and called our agency in Connecticut, we prefer to use them since we have a history and have never heard of the company in Minnesota plus I wondered if they had heard anything similar news. Turns out the process has steadied again. My caseworker told me and I quote "I use your family as a worse case scenario when telling families that this process can change at any time, I want people to be prepared that it can get hard and your case was one of the hardest I have ever seen." Seriously??  So, I dared ask the question about time frames.  Currently, once paperwork is finished and sent to Korea the average referral is taking 1 to 6 months but the last three families she has worked with so far in 2015 all received referrals in less than 6 weeks. AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH! It's hard to swallow, we waited 23 months for a referral! Of course there are no guarantees, of course it could change, of course I'm terrified and of course we are starting the process again.

I wish I could be a fly on the wall in some homes after people read this, we have already encountered things like " you really want to do this again ?"  and "wow, just wow" or  "do you love stress in your life ? ". Still others have cheered and been thrilled.  And the answer is, we asked God and believe this is his answer. Even though I thought I would NEVER be doing this again. You have to admit, He's got a sense of humor.  We ask you pray for us as we start again.  Stay tuned, I'm certain God will do amazing things this time around as well.

Greyson was very excited and Charlie, well he was busy playing games