The Beginning Of Our International Adoption Journey

Welcome to my blog. If you have found this blog, you can read about "our journey to bring Arabella home." I will attempt to give you an overview of how we got where we are and where we are now in our adoption process and will periodically post updates so you can see our progress and join us on this exciting journey! In the beginning: After years of infertility, I felt the Lord speaking to me about adopting. I had been praying for a bilogical child for a long time, and this is not the answer I wanted to hear. A few months later, we started looking into domestic adoption. This has been over two years ago. In the U.S. you are usually chosen by the birthparents. Needless to say, we weren't chosen. Many couples wait for years and years and are never chosen. We desperately wanted to be parents and would prefer a newborn baby to call our own. Although I had researched international adoption in the past, we didn't think that was the route we wanted to go mainly due to the astronomical cost involved and the age of the baby when you could bring them home. We decided at the end of the summer to pursue an international adoption because we had waited 2 years to adopt domestically. We would have to compromise because we really had our heart set on a newborn and it cost a lot more. We knew that if this is what the Lord wants us to do that we would come up with the money somehow. It costs over $30,000 to adopt a baby from Guatemala. Interestingly enough just the month before we decided to pursue an adoption from Guatemala, God took us on a journey to M-Fuge in Nashville, TN with our youth group. Bobby and I both worked in different "tracts" or mission groups that week. We had one thing in common though, we fell in love with the kids we worked with. The children we fell in love with looked different than us (darker tan skin and big brown eyes). They were hispanic, and the ones I worked with didn't understand English. I remember thinking that they were the most beautiful children I had ever seen. I believe now that God was preparing us for the decision we were getting ready to make. Just a few weeks later our case worker came to our house to interview us for our home study update. She brought up international adoption as an option and then told us that Guatemala might be a country for us to consider. The images of the children from M-Fuge came into my mind and I was overwhelmed with emotions. It is hard to explain the feeling. We looked at several different options and countries, but I knew Guatemala was where our child was from that day on. Shortly after that, we started on our paperwork and dossier that we would need to adopt a baby from Guatemala. It took us several months to get all the required documents ready. Shortly after we completed our documents in October, we found out that due to changing laws and some uncertainty in the Guatemalan adoption process that our agency temporarily stopped issuing referrals for babies to adopt.

This was very disheartening at the time. I started researching a bunch of different countries again, but I couldn't find peace in pursuing a different country. I know now that this is because our daughter was already born and waiting for us in Guatemala.

Fast forward to December, 2007:

Guatemala passed their new law that stated that any adoptions that were started in 2007 would be allowed to proceed under the old notarial system. This would mean that all parents who had a referral for their child and had a registered power of attorney in GU by Dec. 31 would be able to move forward. GU is in the beginning stages of overhauling their whole adoption system. New adoptions (starting Jan. 1, 2008) will not be able to begin until they get their new procedures and everything ironed out, and no one knows how long that will take. The government will begin overseeing all adoptions now and it won't be done privately as in the past. This will probably do away with the foster moms that care for most of the orphans now. This will leave many babies in orphanages. Please pray for the GU government and for all the orphans who aren't matched yet with parents.

Our agency decided to go ahead after the law was passed and try to find homes for babies who needed homes that their attorney had in custody. This means the birth mother relinquished her rights and gave the attorney the authority to place her child for adoption. The attorney places the babies with a foster mom who takes care of the child until the adoption is completed.

THE CALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'll never forget where I was or what I was doing when I got the call that our agency had a referral for a baby for us if we wanted it. It was right after lunch on Fri., Dec. 14th, while I was teaching at school. It was too cold to go outside to play for recess, so my students were watching an educational video on t.v. I was sitting at my desk when my phone rang. Like I mentioned, my agency told me that they had a referral for us if we wanted it. What do you mean if we wanted it, were they crazy? Of course we wanted it. I think I was in shock, but I do know they told me the referral was for a baby girl born on August 14th. We didn't specify on our application what gender of child we wanted to adopt because we didn't think that was "up" to us. God knew that my heart's desire was for a girl, though. She was 4 months old on that day. I was so excited I could hardly stand it. Then we found out we would have to go to Lexington on Mon., Dec. 17th to sign our power of attorney and get everything going before the deadline for new law (Dec. 31). It was a long weekend to wait to see pictures and get the medical report. I knew she was ours already, but it took more convincing for Bob. He was being cautious and reminded me that we had to have the medical reports checked out and everything first to be sure. On Monday, Dec. 17th, we signed the papers to get the adoption started and saw the first pictures of our daughter. It was love at first sight. I remember saying, "Oh look, she is so cute I could eat her up!"

Everyone was so excited for us! They couldn't wait until we got home so we could email them the pictures. We went to dinner at Cracker Barrell when we got back to Elizabethtown. On the way to Lexington I had read a list of names that I had come up with over the weekend to Bob as he drove. When we sat down at dinner, Bob took the paper off the napkin and wrote something down on it and slid it across the table. He said that this was our daughter's name. Arabella Josey Boster. Arabella means answer to a prayer; Josey means blessed and is the baby's given middle name with a "y" added at the end to Americanize it a little. Both of these names were ones on my list. Bob informed me that he didn't like any of the other names I had picked out. It took me a couple of days to decide for sure, but he had hit the nail on the head. Arabella's nick name will be Bella.