About 6 or 7 years ago, I had the opportunity to attend a dinner gathering with syndicated columnist Cal Thomas. During the question/answer portion, I asked Cal, “What do you do when you get writer’s block?”
Said he: “I don’t.”
Well, I do. Especially when it comes to writing about the biggest thing to revolutionize my life since Bill Franks. But the time has come, writer’s block or not, to get this first chapter down on digital paper. So here goes.
Bill and I are adopting. Children. Two of them. Boys. From Russia. Oh, and we appear to have lost our minds. But I think faith often looks like that…
This past autumn/early winter, Bill and I read the book Crazy Love. I recommend it if you feel like you need to justify doing something NOT mediocre for Jesus. Afterward, Bill was ready to quit teaching, go to seminary full time, and still have children (with me staying home like I wanted). He wanted to be in a place where we really needed God for everything. I agreed, but also felt like we’d been given great jobs, money, and living quarters to help others. So we spent a few months on very different pages (different books, really) as to what our future would look like.
Then, in January, I read “When Helping Hurts,” about relieving poverty effectively. Thinking back, I don’t remember it ever mentioning adoption. But as we sat eating Italian at Grandma Rose’s restaurant one evening, I mentioned to Bill how I felt like adoption was an amazingly holistic way to relieve poverty of body AND soul. By the end of that conversation, we realized we wanted to adopt now, not later as planned. It would take faith (Bill’s camp) and stewardship (my camp) and blend them into an awesome life-changing experience for us and a some child somewhere. In the matter of one dinner hour, we were back on the same page of the same Book.
Fast forward 1.5 months. We’ve been researching, talking with friends who have adopted, getting counsel from our pastor and families, visiting info meetings, interviewing agencies. And now, all engines are go for Russia. Which leads to an obvious question:
Why Russia?
Yeah, that’s my question too, since I HATE (read: toss my guts) flying.
In our research, we learned more about open (can mean*** contact with birthmother throughout the child’s life) and closed (don’t know the parents) adoption, and decided we preferred closed for this one. The U.S. is mostly open or semi-open adoptions right now, so we began to look internationally. There were other reasons for us to go international: people in the U.S. our area often wait a while for toddlers and babies*** , and we felt like we wanted younger kids this time because as they grow up, so will our parenting skills. Also, children in the U.S. are in foster care, which, though not ideal, still gives some sense of family. The institutional conditions abroad oftentimes don’t come close. This is totally not to say you shouldn’t adopt domestically or that the wait is long for everyone. We actually hope to adopt an older child domestically in the future (when we have less money and more parenting know-how!) (***Italics are later additions and changes by me. See the end of this blog for some clarifying info about U.S. adoptions from my friend Katie.)
When it comes to international adoption, there’s really only a handful of countries doing international adoption, which I found surprising. You can’t just go to Africa and pick up a kid. Factor in that we are newly married and younger, and our choices were even more whittled down. Russia soon began to stand out.
The need in Russia is great: 700,000 estimated orphans. Without the support of a family, their future is bleak. And some say that for every 3 months a child is in institutional care as a baby, they lose 1 month of development.
Russian adoption is relatively fast. Right now parents adopting from China are looking at 3-5 years. Russia takes about a year, especially for boys (more people want girls). So we’re hoping to adopt two boys (siblings or not) under the age of 4. We know that gives some people pause, but we believe God has specially equipped us through our life experiences: We were both raised in families of 4, with much younger siblings we were old enough to help “raise” (I of course use that term loosely, but you get the gist). Bill’s brother is adopted. I regularly babysat families of 5 growing up. Bill babysits—I mean, TEACHES—24 inner-city middleschoolers every day. If you can manage that kind of crazy, you can manage anything. We know it’s not easy. We don’t have delusions of cherubs dressed in Ralph Lauren quoting back the 50 states by the age of 5. I promise. Yet all engines are still go.
Did I mention Russia is expensive? Seriously. Faith-buildingly expensive. Plane tickets (two trips). Interpreters. Orphanage fees. Government fees. Agency fees. Fingerprinting, homestudy, doctor, and hotel fees. It all adds up. But God’s placed us in the unique position right now to both work full-time and be able to pay for chunk of it ourselves. Let’s be honest: Bill’s planning to be a pastor eventually. This is probably the richest we will ever be (cash-speaking). This is the time to spend on what matters.
So what will the next year look like? We are working with Alliance for Children. The first segment is paperwork and homestudy with a social worker, which we hope to have all wrapped up by May or June (there’s THAT much paperwork). Then all of that paperwork flies to Russia, and we wait for a referral saying they’ve matched us and to come meet the child or children. That usually takes 3-12 months. We are applying with Astrakhan, which is moving quickly and accustomed to adopting multiples. (At the same time, if children come up domestically that could be a possibility, the agency can contact us about it–we liked that about Alliance.)
When we get that referral, we fly to Russia to meet the children and stay a week. Then we fly back and wait a month or two for paperwork to process. Then we fly back again for 3 weeks, by the end of which we’ll have been through Russian courts and officially adopted our children. Then we fly home together and celebrate. We hold to these plans loosely, knowing that anywhere along the way something could happen or change and send us back to square one.
So until, God willing, our adoption is complete, we will keep working, and praying about future decisions, like which one of us quits our job, how to help these kiddos adjust to family life, how to teach them about God’s overwhelming love for them, and what to do about all the other unknowns of this parenting journey. I just can’t wait to meet my “Little Men.” (Sidenote: Anne of Green Gables and Little Women were two of my favorite books growing up. Not coincidental, I’m sure.)
We’ll also be furiously saving money and selling stuff on Etsy to bring in a little extra moola. Visit www.junebugfelts.etsy.com to check out the goods. All proceeds go to the adoption.
We’ll be reading a lot too. “Adopted for Life” is recently finished. If you are at all interested in adoption, this book is, in my opinion, excellent. The picture of our adoption as children of God has far-reaching implications to human adoption. I’ll post soon on some of the things I’ve learned regarding this. It is, after all, the core of what we are doing. None of this makes sense to us without Jesus. We are mirroring a much greater story with our little lives.
So thank you for your love, prayers, and taking time to read this novel! We want our boys home instantly. Guess we’re all going to have to be patient together…
Love,
Jo and Professor Bhaer
***From Katie regarding U.S. adoptions…I just wanted to clear up a few things about adopting in the U.S. Our adoption was partially open. We met the birthmom while she was pregnant, and we send her letters and pics twice a year until Hannah is 5. She has not contacted us since the adoption was finalized and does not know where we live. Any correspondence is through our attorney. Second, we hired our attorney in September, had our homestudy done immediately, met the birthmom in December, and had Hannah in April – a LOT less time than the average agency adoption takes. That’s not to say that we are opposed to doing an agency adoption some day or even a foreign adoption, but I just wanted to clear up that adopting in the U.S. doesn’t have to be difficult. It was rather easy for us!=) In fact, our attorney usually doesn’t have anyone waiting for more than six months – usually less. Adopting from foster care is WAY more complicated and can take YEARS! Anyway, you can follow our journey at www.babydaydreams.blogspot.com.
****Thank you for the input, Katie. I want to clarify for people reading this blog that different states/cities have different waits/laws. We can’t do this mentioned kind of attorney adoption here in NYC — we have to find a child or go through agency or foster care. That’s our situation. It may not be true for you. Research your state.
