After sending an invitation to everyone we know about our blog, we realized that many of our long-lost acquaintances had no idea we were even adopting! Others wanted to know more about how long we'd been in this latest adoption process, so let me entertain you with how this all got started.
Our decision to adopt the first time was orderly and rather leisurely since we had to wait until we'd been married for three years before we could even begin the paperwork process. At the energetic young ages of 35 and 41, we had all the time in the world! Our paperwork had been in the Philippines for about 14 months when we got The Call on March 5, 2007, that a 5-year-old boy named Rene had been matched with us.
This time around was much more impulsive. It was early April of last year when David and I met for lunch and decided that even though we'd love to give Rene a sibling, another adoption just wasn't in the cards. The thought of compiling yet another mound of adoption paperwork was hardly enticing, and we were no longer the young punks we'd been four years earlier.
And then life intervened. Within 12 hours that same day of our lunch, several incidents and encounters, including one with a father of 10 adopted children, changed our minds. We contacted our agency, got the ball rolling, and indeed, found ourselves compiling yet another mound of adoption paperwork.
Mound #2 was finished and shipped off to the Philippines in August. For Philippines adoptions, the Philippines government first approves applicants, then the parents begin the long wait for a special adoption committee to match them with a child. The approval process is normally short, anywhere from one to three months. But with us, fall came and went with no word. Knowing that some parents wait as long as two years for a match, this wait for the simple approval was distressing, to say the least. I believe it was late November when David said out loud what both of us had been thinking: "My gut feeling is, this second adoption just isn't going to happen." [David asks that I add his explanation: "As usual, my gut feeling turned out to be nothing but a little indigestion."]
In early 2010, just as I was wondering how long we should wait before giving up, our agency sent an e-mail to everyone in the Philippines program asking if they were interested in a girl who "urgently" needed a home. A girl? Hmmm....There are far more boys than girls waiting for homes in the Philippines, so we had happily anticipated that our second child would be a boy. After three years of throwing baseballs in the backyard and saving old jars so that Rene can catch bugs in them, how would I even remember what girls do?
But what a terrific girl she appeared to be! We told our agency we were definitely interested, and a few weeks later we got word that we were chosen to be matched with her. We still had to formally petition the Philippines government to adopt Leah May, and on February 9, our social worker notified us that the Philippines government had officially approved us to adopt Leah May.
Since the day we got this terrific news, we've had a whirlwind few months getting ready for Leah May's arrival. Our spring has been a tornado of immigration paperwork, furniture shuffling, and questions from well-wishers. I've also made many trips to the mall to find the most adorable clothes and room decorations that retail America has to offer. See, I knew all this girl stuff would come back to me!
Our decision to adopt the first time was orderly and rather leisurely since we had to wait until we'd been married for three years before we could even begin the paperwork process. At the energetic young ages of 35 and 41, we had all the time in the world! Our paperwork had been in the Philippines for about 14 months when we got The Call on March 5, 2007, that a 5-year-old boy named Rene had been matched with us.
This time around was much more impulsive. It was early April of last year when David and I met for lunch and decided that even though we'd love to give Rene a sibling, another adoption just wasn't in the cards. The thought of compiling yet another mound of adoption paperwork was hardly enticing, and we were no longer the young punks we'd been four years earlier.
And then life intervened. Within 12 hours that same day of our lunch, several incidents and encounters, including one with a father of 10 adopted children, changed our minds. We contacted our agency, got the ball rolling, and indeed, found ourselves compiling yet another mound of adoption paperwork.
Mound #2 was finished and shipped off to the Philippines in August. For Philippines adoptions, the Philippines government first approves applicants, then the parents begin the long wait for a special adoption committee to match them with a child. The approval process is normally short, anywhere from one to three months. But with us, fall came and went with no word. Knowing that some parents wait as long as two years for a match, this wait for the simple approval was distressing, to say the least. I believe it was late November when David said out loud what both of us had been thinking: "My gut feeling is, this second adoption just isn't going to happen." [David asks that I add his explanation: "As usual, my gut feeling turned out to be nothing but a little indigestion."]
In early 2010, just as I was wondering how long we should wait before giving up, our agency sent an e-mail to everyone in the Philippines program asking if they were interested in a girl who "urgently" needed a home. A girl? Hmmm....There are far more boys than girls waiting for homes in the Philippines, so we had happily anticipated that our second child would be a boy. After three years of throwing baseballs in the backyard and saving old jars so that Rene can catch bugs in them, how would I even remember what girls do?
But what a terrific girl she appeared to be! We told our agency we were definitely interested, and a few weeks later we got word that we were chosen to be matched with her. We still had to formally petition the Philippines government to adopt Leah May, and on February 9, our social worker notified us that the Philippines government had officially approved us to adopt Leah May.
Since the day we got this terrific news, we've had a whirlwind few months getting ready for Leah May's arrival. Our spring has been a tornado of immigration paperwork, furniture shuffling, and questions from well-wishers. I've also made many trips to the mall to find the most adorable clothes and room decorations that retail America has to offer. See, I knew all this girl stuff would come back to me!
The mound!
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