OK, so you may be wondering why we decided to adopt and how we chose Nepal. Well, here is the story...
Mike and I are blessed with 2 awesome boys who we love and adore. We are so fortunate to have them and I truly cherish each day with my sons. I have always felt, though, in my heart that I was meant also to have a daughter. Given the circumstances of the boys' births I knew I would not try to have another baby. When Riley was about one, I began thinking about adoption. Soon after that we moved from FL to TX and our lives were somewhat turned upside down. After we had been there about a year I brought up the subject of adoption with Mike. In our discussions he said that he felt fulfilled in relation to family and children and did not want to have another child. I was disappointed but did not feel that this was something I wanted to talk him into. If we were to have another child, I wanted him to want it.
Fast forward 5 years... We are having a casual conversation over an after dinner drink of wine and somehow the subject of having more children comes up (jokingly). Mike makes the comment, I would not want to "have" another baby, but I would consider adopting one. Really? After all this time? We are now both 41 years old. Is he crazy? So, I let it go without responding to him. But, I could not get it out of my mind. I kept thinking of adopting. Mostly I was thinking about how we were too old, our kids were too old, we were getting to the stage where they are quite independent, and things were starting to get easy. On the other hand I just felt this tug. We are both healthy and active. We are finally to a place financially where we could do this. I HAD wanted to do this before. After much soul searching and prayers on my part, discussions with Mike about the realities and risks of adoption, and hours of researching domestic and international possibilities we decided to go for it.
We considered many countries and then I learned that Nepal was re-opening their adoptions and that Gladney Center for Adoption was approved to accept dossiers for Nepal. Although I did not know a lot about Nepal, I remembered my cousin talking about a trip he had taken there. I felt an instant connection with the country and knew that our daughter would come from Nepal.
We were able to get accepted to become one of the first 10 cases from Gladney. We were so optimistic and although we knew this was a new program for the government of Nepal, we were sure everything would go smoothly. But this was not the case. Our dossier was finally submitted in country 6/9/09 and soon after that the Prime Minister of Nepal resigned. This virtually stopped all government functions, including adoptions. It was months before they were finally able to complete any adoptions. That was just the beginning of the problems. Nepal is very poor and is politically unstable. There were so many bumps I cannot remember them all. It would seem as if things were moving and they were matching families and then nothing for months. Then families would get matches and it would be months before they received their travel approval. Finally about May 2010 it seemed that Nepal was getting their system in place. All at once there were many matches and then quick travel approvals. The adoptions were moving along and families from all over the world were adopting these precious children.
We received our referral of a sweet two year old little girl in July. We were a bit surprised, but so excited. I knew that even though things seemed to be moving it could still be months for our travel approval so we were cautiously optimistic.
Then it happened. The US decided to close adoptions with Nepal. The Department of State (DOS) said that they believed that there was rampant fraud connected to these adoptions. Although they had placed warnings before, it was still a shock, because up to that point EVERY adoption from Nepal had been approved and all of those children had been granted VISAs. While DOS said they would continue to process adoptions from Nepal they were investigating these "pipeline" cases much more stringently. It was not enough for them to see that there was no fraud connected with a case, they have to now have proof that there is no fraud. This has led to most of these pipeline cases getting RFEs (requests for evidence) from the US immigration. We got our travel approval a couple days after the US closed adoptions. We got our RFE 11/3/10. We have 87 days to respond with evidence proving that this little girl is truly an orphan.
In this time, this little girl has become my daughter in my heart. Although I have tried so hard to be objective about this, I cannot. I want to think "if this is meant to be, it will happen..." but on the other hand, I want to get this little girl out of that orphanage and bring her home. The boys each have hung a picture of her in their rooms. I am sad and disappointed that my own country has created this additional bureaucratic red tape that I truly don't understand. But we are doing everything we can to make this happen. I will try to keep the blog up-to-date with any news.
Please pray for our family and for this little girl who we hope will become a part of our family.
