Lena has been gone for two weeks now, we still get emotional when we think about it. A lot of you have had questions about why she's gone, when she'll be here for good, etc. so I thought I'd just take a minute and address some details.
The hosting program works directly with orphanages and each orphanage agrees to a certain amount of time for the children to be hosted, the children must go back to their country at the end of that time period, regardless of the family's interest in adoption. The hosting agency wants the children to come back in December for a few weeks and will be approaching the orphanage to see if they would like to participate in that. Our hope, of course, is that she will be able to come back in December for that time, we are praying that the orphanage will agree to this for their children!
Here's a kicker: In this particular country, children are placed on a registry for one year when they first arrive at the orphanage and during that year the child is ineligible for adoption while the orphanage confirms that parental rights have been terminated and there's no other family who want the child. In our case, Lena was not put on the registry, despite having been at the orphanage for many years, until sometime early this year-we hope she was anyway-so she is ineligible for adoption until that time is up, whenever exactly that is. Details do not come easily in this process. (CRY!)
SO in the meantime we have:
1- completed our home study (including autobiographies, medical tests, reference letters, notes from my 3rd grade teacher- just kidding, no notes)
and are now
2-in process of filing some paperwork to secure our ability to adopt HER (as there are a few complications around that given her age)
THEN
3- when the adoption agency says NOW we have to start another round of paperwork to put together to send to her country as an application to adopt-not too soon or it could expire, not too late or we'll miss our chance. "Completing paperwork" looks nothing short of bringing a notary to the doctor with me so that when he says I don't have all of the diseases I'm being tested for we can say he's telling the truth. (Thank you Krissy K. for saying you will try to make it work to come with me and be my personal notary!!)
SO this is how I feel right now:
Ok and also like this:
with a little bit of banging my head against the wall.
BECAUSE
Currently the orphanages are closed for the summer so the children from different orphanages are combined and sent to camps together, which are nothing like fun American camps but more like a concrete building where they are under little supervision, there is little structure to the day, and little for them to do. Lena was VERY unhappy about having to go there and left many of the gifts she had been given at our house because she was afraid they'd be stolen at camp.
AND BECAUSE
We have no contact with her until she returns to her orphanage sometime in September. (Getting any kind of concrete information from anyone is impossible, we have no idea when she's returning from camp). We can then send her packages and try to call on a phone one of the chaperones will buy with some money we gave her. It was advised that we try to get her a phone as sometimes orphanages close and then we would lose contact with her. (WHAT?!?!?? ) It kinda makes me feel sick to my stomach thinking too much about all of the things I have no control over, including where she is and who is watching over her. Talk about driving me to my knees in prayer. Seriously.
BUT
The Sunday before Lena left was truly a gift. A good friend of mine connected me to a woman who speaks Russian and she came over with her husband for two and a half hours and translated for us. It was AWESOME. Lena asked us all kinds of questions including why and how we chose her, if we really wanted a younger child and just ended up with her, if we will come to get her and when. She said she was worried about American school and making friends because where she has grown up there is no help if you miss taking notes in school, that the girls she has lived with have hurt her with gossip and betrayal. The threads of our attachment to her were being sewn. It was such a vulnerable conversation and such a gift for us to be able to tell her that we chose HER intentionally, that we didn't want anyone else, that she was no mistake. We got to tell her that we thought she was funny, sweet, beautiful, just perfect for us no matter how she does in school here or what becomes easy or difficult along the way, and that ultimately we trusted it was God's perfect plan somehow that she would be with us. That time with her was nothing short of an amazing, beautiful gift.
She was so animated getting to babble on in Russian, like she was just uncorked, it was so fun to watch. Here are some pics:
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| Oh how I love this girl. |
Thanks for continuing to follow up with us, it really means a lot to know that you all haven't forgotten that we're still feeling this even though she's not here right now. Sweet Alexa asked if we could call her tonight and was so disappointed that we have a while to wait. Ethan made her a pink God's eye the other day out of the blue. Still feeling it indeed.
xoxo
Andrea
