How did you decide to adopt? Part 2

Any day that Zeke can catch a snake is a good day for him!

Continuing the answer to the question of how did we decide to adopt...

Part 2:
As documented in previous posts on this blog, Andy got into medical school and we moved to Alhambra in Los Angeles county in 2010. Titus was born 7 weeks later. Adjusting to a metro area as a mom as well as the career change for Andy was a struggle at times, yet we tried to live in the present. 2012 was where I trailed off in the blog! In early 2013, Ezekiel William was born. I'll have to record his birth story at some point. Just before the end of medical school, we learned I would again be moving while pregnant! We moved just outside Albuquerque, NM, to the Sandia Mountains in Cedar Crest in 2014. Carys Noelle was born at home with a midwife attending 10 days before Christmas. Beginning in 2015, Andy's rotations were extremely stressful and time consuming. We had to do our separate jobs and had limited family time, but God sustained us. During this time the desire to adopt was not gone, but was dormant. Feeling that our plates were quite full, I felt that after residency we'd revisit adding to our family through adoption.

The second half of Andy's intern (first) year and the first half of second year, essentially all of 2015 was extremely difficult due to his schedule and my postpartum year. In that timeframe, Andy often worked significantly more than 80 hours per week, sometimes all through the nights and trying to sleep for a few hours during the day. We grew apart while both striving to work hard at home and at the hospital. In March 2016, we went through a "bottoming out" you could say, in our marriage. While I'd never wish the pain that we went through on anyone, I don't resent him or that time in our lives. Friends, this is a miracle of God. We went through the stuff that can spiral into divorce, though that was not up for discussion in our house. God has redeemed that painful time so beautifully. We had to have some hard conversations and we began Christian marriage counseling. I am so thankful for the healing that the Lord brought through having to address issues that had begun to creep in, but were exacerbated by the incredible demands of the job and growing family life after a big move. Andy and I would not be as close and have as healthy a relationship as we currently do, if not for having walked with God through those dark months and His deliverance through that time. We are honestly better for having gone through it and God has used us to even encourage others in their marriages.

While Andy's schedule had let up at the hospital by his third year, mostly it was the change in his attitude and heart which helped to change me and the environment in our home significantly for the better. In a brief conversation, Andy told me that he was still interested in adoption, but would not bring it up further unless I did.

Reading "Adopted for Life" by Russell Moore was a game changer for me in early 2017. Through this book, God brought me to a better understanding of our adoption into the family of God and how all followers of Christ are called to care for orphans, and some are called to adopt. Carys had turned two recently, and amazingly, and completely by God's grace, I wanted to start the process with Andy. I say amazingly not because of how some people may think, "You must have it together to purposefully add another one to the mix!" but because, truly because on my own, I'm tired, cranky, disorganized, and frankly, it's jut too much! I was also overwhelmed at the financial cost of adoption (but that is a topic for another post). But God has been teaching me over more and more over the course of the life he's given me to date, that He is enough and it is ok that I'll really never "have it together." He can still use me.

And just so that we're clear, I'm not saying that having any number of children means that God is using you or not, or more or less. What I'm saying is that God has given me the joy to trust Him to do things that I just can't myself. So He gets the glory. That's all :)

So, we started out considering local children in foster care in the spring of 2017. We were on the brink of beginning our home study with CYFD, when we attended a  meeting with them where we learned that more than 80% of children are in the system for longer than 2 years, even though we had been told it would be no problem that we'd be moving in 2 years. After talking to other local folks who have fostered/adopted here, we heard the resounding unlikelihood that we would be able to complete an adoption by the time we were leaving for the Air Force's assignment (summer 2019).

Next, we looked into a local agency who works with mothers in crisis pregnancies who make an adoption plan. They told us that honestly, if we were open to adopting an older child (not a newborn), that they recommend we go that route, since we have 4 kids and birth moms may be less likely to choose us for a longer amount of time (which could make the wait multiple years).

Finally, we began looking at agencies who serve orphans and families all over the world. We crossed off many countries due to their requirements, such as staying in-country for multiple weeks at a time, length of wait time (some were multiple years), income requirements, age/number of our kids, etc. We landed on AAC, an agency in Colorado that multiple local friends had used for their adoptions.

Soon after we officially began the paperwork for our home study in June 2017 with a local agency, All Age Adoptions Plus, we were asked if we'd meet with a local birth mom interested in meeting Christian families. We were overjoyed and wondered if God had a baby here for us after all! It was wonderful to meet this mama, who first planned to place her baby with another family, but ultimately chose to parent and hear God's work in her life and how she chose life.

While we didn't have any major attachment to a particular country initially, we did have experience with "our Korean" as we affectionately called her, named Ji Hae, who lived with us for her senior year of high school 9 years ago. Incredibly, Ji Hae will be joining us next week in Seoul to reconnect and help us to enjoy the culture and sights more deeply. What a God-thing, right?

Dollahite Family 2009

Read my post, Ode to Ji Hae here

We covet your prayers as we will be there next week, meeting our little guy twice and attending family court. We will then go home and wait for final approval and his visa to be processed. Hopefully, we'll be going back in a month or two to bring him home, Lord willing!