Operation Bring Hope Home: Take 4

So we got the news we were dreading but expecting.  Our little "F" has been placed with a family in Italy.  We are happy for her that she will have the family we have prayed for.  We are very sad that this family will not be us!

We started this journey well over a year ago.  And we have had many bumps along the way.  And we have a long way to go.

1) We were just finishing with our paperwork for Ethiopia when the country had a HUGE slow down in processing adoptions. Being that we were working with a very large agency our wait time for a referral went from about 1 year to anywhere from 2-4 years. 

2) We started looking for alternatives.  When we started this process we wanted to grow our family and we were hoping for a girl.  We started the adoption process because we had the means to provide a home and plenty of love to share.  When it looked like the wait would be so long it seemed as if this was not the right course for us.  There were families in this line who had no children and desperately wanted to bring home a baby.  That was not the case for us. I called a smaller agency who seemed to be placing more toddlers and young children.  When talking to the director I was informed that they were just starting a program in DRC and if we were willing to be the guinea pigs they had several young girls available immediately.  She showed us the pictures and we instantly fell in love with little "G".  While filing for G's abandonment papers our lawyer located her father and she went back to live with him.

3) We were once again shown the waiting list of children and felt pulled to "F".  We were given video of her and told that she did not have an abandonment decree but the paperwork had been started.  After 5 months of waiting for her abandonment papers we were informed that an Italian agency had filed before us and they had already been granted her paperwork.  The next two months were spent with our lawyer and social worker trying to get the paperwork released to us.  And that brings us to now. 

4) We are back to step one.  We have no referral.  There are no children in the waiting list that we are approved for (age).  So we will wait.  We have no time frame.  But we are #1 on the waiting list.  The good news is that throughout this process our agency has been working hard to improve.  AND we did sign on to be the guinea pigs.  And they have learned from our cases.  So now the families that were behind us in the process have referrals with complete abandonment decrees and are heading into/waiting for court dates.  They will bring their children home before us.  But our next referral will have completed paperwork.  AND we will only wait for court and then embassy.  Don't get me wrong.  That could still take 6-8 months.  But much of the stress will be relieved to know we won't lose the referral again.

This is where I will borrow/steal some help from a friend who is a much better writer than me.  She wrote this post about endurance.  Thanks Jennifer!  We are in this marathon with you and can't wait to celebrate with you and our other new friends at the finish line.