Baby Steps

Woot woot! Guess whose USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) packet was mailed yesterday and is en route! Ours!  SO excited!  This means our home study is done for China (huge step), and our application to the United States to adopt an orphan from China is on its way! After we receive our acceptance letter, we send our dossier (packet of information about us) to China. Then all we have to do is wait! We have a few documents to gather, medicals to get, and letters of recommendation to receive for our dossier...then all the hard work is done! I'm super psyched! I just wish we could hurry USCIS along! Maybe, just maybe, I'll start calling them daily to check on progress ;) I'll test out that the squeaky wheel gets the grease theory!

Here's our empty USCIS folder.  Yay!!  (I forgot to take a picture of something a bit more interesting, like the completed packet or mailing it or something like that, so empty folder it is ;)

In Russian adoption news, The Dark Matter of Love has made it into the Toronto Film Festival!! This is SO exciting! Especially since the Film Festival coincides or is shortly before President Obama's visit to Moscow. Hopefully the news is inundated with our STUCK orphans!! If you don't mind, go on over to The Dark Matter of Love Facebook page and "like" it!  Click here to get to the page! Then you can stay up to date on all the progress The Dark Matter of Love is making!

I have to admit that after sending off our USCIS stuff yesterday, I got excited butterflies in my stomach. I haven't had those in months and months and months. It felt nice and I'm loving any forward motion either of our adoptions get!!

S l o w M o t i o n

It feels like our adoptions are moving in slow motion.  Our home study for China is done...almost.  It's been reviewed by our agency a few times, and they keep finding minor tweaks.  Each revision costs a day or two.  It's maddening.  I thought for sure we'd have our USCIS application sent off mid-week.  Now it's not going to happen until next week.  When you're anxious to get moving, these days and weeks cause anxiety and a feeling like you're stuck in mud and can't move very fast.  So. Slow.

And Russia?  Oh please.  Don't even get me started.  I am exhausted.  Mentally, physically, spiritually, financially...just so tired.  There's still so much work to do. The fight's not over yet, but man has this six months taken its toll on me! Everyone is sick of me talking about Russia and our plans. Everyone is nervous I'm getting my hopes up for nothing. Everyone wants me to "move on" and just be happy. So I fake it.  I pretend like everything's okay and I go through the motions, but everything's not okay. I start talking about plans and possible movements, and they get the "look" on their faces. I change the subject. The reality for me, though, is that there is a two year old little girl on the other side of the world who I feel like belongs in my family. It's hard to describe how deeply in love I fell with just about six hours of real time with her. She was my child from the instant she was walked in the room. She has nobody looking out for her now and no future ahead of her. There are many reasons we went to Russia in the first place. These reasons are still there, but it's MY child that is in danger of becoming a victim of the looming Russian Mental Institution. It gives me a stomach ache 24 hours a day and a feeling like I can't breathe. It physically pains me to look at her pictures, but I can't stay away. Her laugh is hilarious. Have I ever mentioned that? I am working on a movie with pictures of our visits. I am going to post it here soon, hopefully. All of you who've followed our journey so faithfully deserve to see the face of our sweetheart.

One thing that's been interesting to me is watching my friends travel to other countries to meet their children. The love and bond they share after a few short visits is palpable. Although I'm overjoyed for them and their babes, it kills me inside. I feel like saying, "How would you like it, now that you know without a doubt that this child is yours, if someone told you you couldn't adopt him/her? That's how I feel." Selfish, no doubt. Of course I never say that, I just think it. I wish I didn't think it, but apparently there's a big part of me that's...jealous.

I had a long, beautiful dream about Dasha the other night. She came to the U.S. for heart surgery, and they let us visit with her for a day. Our family all got to meet her, and of course fell immediately in love. It was such a peaceful, wonderful, perfect dream. But then they had to take her back, and I woke up to hot tears and a wet pillow. The reality of the situation haunts me, even in my dreams.

I'm having a hard time bonding too much with our China guy because of a few reasons. One reason is that I'm absolutely terrified something is going to go wrong, and I'm going to have this heartache again. I'm trying to love him from a distance so I don't get hurt. Another reason is simply just that I haven't met him yet. I don't know him. All I know is a picture, diagnosis, and country. I know I will love him when I meet him. I don't have doubts about that. I guess until then, though, I'm protecting myself from the pain. We have pre-approval for him, so there really shouldn't be anything to keep us from him, but you just never know. Honestly, this adoption thing is a risky undertaking. So worth it in the end, but risky nonetheless!!

The bottom line, though, is that I wouldn't take any of it back. If six hours is all the time we get to spend with Dasha in this lifetime, those six hours of her knowing the love of a Mama and Papa were worth all the time, money, heartache, and despair it's caused us. She has changed us forever, and I hope in some small way the love we shared with her during our visits is enough to sustain her until she has a Mama and Papa to hold her forever. And until she has a family, I can't stop. No matter how tired and desperate I become, I have to keep fighting and pushing. Because what other choice is there??

I Believe in Miracles!!!

48 hours ago, there was still £30,000 to raise before The Dark Matter of Love hit their Kickstarter campaign goal.  A few days ago, The Washington Post reported that "A 57-country conflict-resolution organization on Tuesday urged Russia to allow adoptions to proceed for the 300 U.S. families who had begun the process when a ban was imposed on Americans.  The measure was introduced at the OSCE annual meeting in Istanbul by U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), who told the assembly it was unfair to change the rules after parents and children had met.  The resolution carries moral authority rather than force of law, but Wicker said in a telephone interview that it sent a strong message that would support the United States in negotiations with Russia over the children who had bonded with families. 'All of these families deserve a happy ending,' Wicker told the assembly."  (To read the whole story, click here)

Sarah (the film director of The Dark Mater of Love) was there in Istanbul.  She screened her film to the 57 country organization.  Russia was trying to stop her screening, and even took all the projectors so she couldn't show it.  They had to move her to a different hotel to hide her, and eventually found a projector she could use.  The film was so powerful that 57 countries signed on and agreed that Russia should let these kids who'd already met and bonded with parents go home to their American parents!  This was all possible because of Sarah!  Awesome!  Way to go, Sarah!  Sarah has done more for us in the last few weeks than anybody else in the last 6 months!  She is amazing!

I was feeling very sad that we weren't going to get the money needed for her to continue with her campaign.  Very sad indeed.  This is Sarah's outline and plan for the money:

"In the lead up to Obama's visit to Moscow in early September we would:
-Engage a professional lobbyist
-Engage a foreign relations expert
-Engage a press strategist
With the specific goal to put pressure on the Obama administration to raise the issue during his meetings with Putin.

In Russia we would:
-Conduct a series of high profile screenings
-Engage a Russian publicist for the screening tour
-Create a Russian subtitled version of the film
-Distribute the Russian version of the film as widely as possible

After the OSCE I've been invited to the following parliaments:
-Irish
-Swedish
-Spanish
-French
-Finland
-Austrian
-German

I would create subtitled version of the film in those languages (costs about £1000 for each version) and screen in those parliaments.

The Russians fought so hard to have our OSCE screening blocked, they care about their international reputation deeply and screenings of this film in those parliaments would build on our OSCE success."

I feel like the press in Europe is exactly what we need to get this adoption thing resolved.  For some reason, Russia cares deeply what Europe thinks of them.  I really truly felt like this film was key for us.  I had no clue how to raise £30,000, though, let alone £30,000 in 24 hours!  The beginning of our miracle started in the morning of July 4th.  We were at a parade with our family when I got the message that an anonymous donor had offered to pay the last £10,000 if we reached £40,000.  Eeek!  The first excitement!  We started spreading the word via Facebook, begging people to give.  We got a great response in some special needs adoption groups, and the numbers slowly started to creep up.  They were sharing and begging others to donate.  As I got ready for bed on the Fourth of July, the numbers were around £23,000.  We had two big name bloggers blog about it on the evening of the 4th, but I was certain we weren't going to make it.  I was so very sad.  It would take a miracle.  The support that was shown to our kids was amazing, though!  I felt such an outpouring of love and my heart was full.

I was exhausted after our 4th of July.  I had been up early and went to bed late and was in the hot sun most of the day and had spent SO much energy on the Dark Matter of Love Campaign.  I slept in, and was SHOCKED when I woke up!!  I had a million messages and our numbers had somehow shot up to £38,000!!!  The excitement was electric!  Hundreds of people were rallying for our kids!!  In the final minutes of the campaign, we reached and even surpassed our goal by a few hundred pounds.  I am still on a high from it!  What an incredible experience!!  There is no way we could have met our goal short of a miracle.  Our miracle happened, and now I've got my fingers crossed that it's the first of many miracles!!

Many of the original 300 kids who'd met prospective adoptive parents from the U.S. have been adopted.  Most of them from other foreign countries.  Most of them young and healthy.  The children that remain are special needs children.  They have no chance outside of being adopted by parents from the United States.  Please continue to pray for these children!  They deserve families, too!  They deserve a life outside of an institution!  We're still holding out hope that "A Miracle for Meg" will occur!  We're hoping there can be some sort of special needs amendment because, in the end, these are the children that are suffering the most from this ban.  These are the kids Russians don't want and other foreign countries don't allow to be adopted.  These are the kids that need us!!  Thank you for your continued love, support and prayers and for being a part of our miracle!!

Following our Red Thread

There is an Ancient Chinese proverb that states: "An invisible red thread connects those destined to meet, regardless of time, place, or circumstances. The thread may stretch or tangle, but never break."

We are never giving up on our Dasha Meg.  We are currently praying and hoping and willing her to come home to us.  I can't even fathom a world where a darling little girl will be locked away for the rest of her life when a family that will give her an education, therapy, happiness, and, most of all, unconditional love is more than willing to make her one of their own.  It doesn't make sense.  So we're going to keep on hoping and praying.  When she turns four, she will be transferred to a mental institution.  I will not let that happen.  If things don't start moving for us soon, I will be looking for a Canadian family to adopt her and make her their own.  If she can't be in our family, she's got to be in somebody's family.  I simply cannot let her live her life in an institution.

During this past year, we've learned a lot.  One thing we've learned is that the orphan crisis is real.  There are 163 MILLION orphans worldwide.  That's 163,000,000!!  Unfathomable.  Some are actual orphans, but most are social orphans.  Orphans because their biological parents or other family members can't/won't take care of them.  If all the orphans in the world were to make a country, it would be the 10th largest country in the world.  I know we are only one average family, and we can't affect global change.  But we know that the worth of a soul is great.  Every one of these children is a cherished and valued child of God.  Every child in the world deserves a home and family to love them unconditionally.  Every child should feel safe and provided for.  Every child should be able to go to school and to have the chance to make the most of their life.  I have a favorite quote from Hellen Keller that I keep reciting to myself, and that's, "Alone we can do so little: together we can do so much."  There will never be progress for orphans if we all feel like these kids aren't our problem or responsibility.  But if we all got involved, things could change.  There are plenty of families willing to adopt orphans, and oftentimes money is the only thing standing in the way.  These families are all capable of taking care of the children once they come home, but might not have an extra $50,000 lying around!  If you don't feel able to adopt an orphan, maybe find someone who is and help them financially or even emotionally!  It can be a very draining process, and it never hurts to have a shoulder to lean on!

Another thing we've learned this past year is that life is short and you can't take your money with you.  We can think of nothing more worthy to invest in than the life of a child.  We've arranged our house to fit our Dasha girl.  We've spent an entire year preparing for her arrival.  When Russia gives us the green light, we will be there to scoop her up and tell her how much we love her for the rest of her life. 
In the meantime, though, there is another child who has stolen our hearts.  He lives in China, and he has Down syndrome as well.  He doesn't have a family, and we are honored to say that we are going to be his.  We are entering into two simultaneous international adoptions at once.  It's been a bit crazy, but it will be worth it.  In the end, the world will have two less orphans.  

We saw a little guy's picture on my birthday (May 6th).  His beautiful face spoke to my heart.  I wanted to be his mother.  After much contemplation and prayer, I was driving home from taking the kids to school a few days later and had the distinct thought that if we don't adopt our little guy, life will be fine for us.  We'll be happy.  But if we DO adopt him, we'll wonder what we ever did without him.  That sealed the deal.  We contacted the adoption agency that has his file the same day and submitted our LOI (Letter of Intent, which is an official application to China to be his family) a few days later.  Our home study update should be done tonight and forwarded to our adoption agency.  As soon as they proof it and send it back and the changes are made, we will be ready to send in our USCIS application (the application to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services).  We are simultaneously working on our dossier to send to China so that as soon as we receive USCIS approval, we can send our dossier to China.  After that, we wait for China to give us the go ahead.  China is a one trip country, so we will travel there for a few weeks, then come home with our guy!  The estimate for getting him home is anywhere from December to February.   

I feel so much more prepared to do the paperwork for this adoption.  I know what I'm doing, and I know who and when to push.  If things aren't happening quickly enough, I know how to get them moving.  It's true that nobody is as motivated to get your kid home as you!  Some of the things we did for Russia carry over, and some things we have to redo.  It hasn't been as painful as I thought it would be.  China's a drastically easier country to adopt from than Russia to begin with, but the runaround we've been through this past year has helped me become a much more efficient international adoptive parent as well ;)

We received our LOI approval, so we are legally connected to him.  He turned one in April sometime (his exact birthdate is unknown, as he was found abandoned at a concrete factory) and we're over the moon excited to bring him home.

Thank you for all the support you've all given to us!  We will continue to update on our Russian adoption, but will add China updates in there as well!  This is never a path I dreamed I'd ever be on, but now that we're here, I can't imagine any other way.  These two kids have taken hold of my heart as strongly as my three biological children.  They are the children of my heart, and I simply cannot wait to have all FIVE of my children sleeping safely under one roof!!

P.S. If you haven't checked out the Dark Matter of Love Kickstarter campaign, please do!  Click here to be linked to the campaign.  There are only three days left in the campaign, and if the goal is not met to raise 50,000 pounds, they get to keep none of the money.  I really think this film can help us, and we're running out of options for things that can help us!  Please consider donating if you can!  Every dollar helps!  Thank you for caring!!