What's next

Some of the things we're waiting on right now are more medical records from the orphanage. We know BG (Baby Girl) has ROP, or Retinopathy of Prematurity. It's a very common condition, especially in developing countries.

We were able to find the contact information for an Ophthalmologist we went to Bethel with. He has been so great to look through what medical records we do have and try to give us some recommendations. We really have to wait for more information, but we're praying for guidance in these decisions. 

It's absolutely heartbreaking saying no to a referral. To a child. We know that the opportunities for good medical care are so limited in the rural areas of India. We have to be so mindful of trusting God in his faithfulness with potentially severe disabilities. While, also being aware that it's not just us we're thinking of. We have 3 boys whose lives will already dramatically change with adoption, even without adding health issues. 

We will of course be matched with a child that will need care and we're so thankful and blessed to live in a state with some of the best medical care in the world. Mortenson has great insurance, the U of M and Mayo are a short distance away. We're so blessed with good health care options. So we are definitely open to understanding the depth and breadth of care needed in any child. 

There is definitely more to come, but we would absolutely love your prayers as we're making difficult decisions. 

Thank you!

30 days

So, while we were trying to figure out where to go with Mahek's records, Laura emailed us again. Last Friday, the 9th, we received our first formal referral. We're in a 30 day review period for a little girl, who is about 16 months old. Ironically, she was born on Schaeffer's birthday, August 18, just 5 years later. We asked Schaeffer right away how he felt about that and he was so excited. If you know our family, if we do add another August birthday to our family, we may as well just take the entire month of August off for the amount of celebrations we have. 

18th - Schaeffer

18th - Baby Girl 

19th - Jenn

22nd - Jenn and Luke's anniversary

28th - Haddon's birthday

On Luke's side of the family, that's just the tip of the iceberg. 

21st - His aunt

22nd - His 1st cousin

23rd - His Grandma

Luke's mom is a saint! She never forgets anyone during those crazy 10 days. Adding another birthday in the mix might put her over the edge. 

Updates, Updates, and More Updates

I haven't posted on here because we've been in waiting periods and Thanksgiving and Christmas time are crazy. But there have been great updates the past few weeks in our adoption process. We submitted everything in October and the estimated waiting time is 6 - 8 weeks to get approval. 

We were notified the Tuesday before Thanksgiving that India approved us as adoptive parents! This is a huge hurdle to achieve. They didn't even ask for additional paperwork or make us redo any, which is shocking.

We had a call with our social worker later that same day. She told us it would be possibly 4 - 6 months before we would be matched with a child. With only about 700 children on the registry on any given day, it's really hard to find a child who is under the age of 3 with minimal health needs. With 20 - 30 million orphans in India, this is tragic. But it's the place we're in right now.

Laura, our social worker, let us know that there was a little girl already in the system the day we were approved. Her name is Mahek and she will be 1 in February. We've spent a significant amount of time  trying to figure out how severe her kidney issues are.

We didn't have a formal referral for her, so we were in this weird limbo of whether we should submit her medical records to the U of M adoption clinic. Instead, we tried to get some minimal guidance from doctors who could just give us a simple, "yes, this is a treatable illness, or no, this is a lifetime of dialysis and transplant." We found a clinic that was so willing to help, until their business office got involved. Then, they said they could only advise us if we had her on our insurance. Kind of the point! She's of course not on our insurance plan. We hit a little bit of a dead end, at that point.

So, then, we were waiting again....

The light at the end of the tunnel

We're starting to see the light at the end of the proverbial paperwork tunnel. I spent most of the last two weeks chasing down dossier forms, which are a slightly different version of all the forms we had to submit during the application process. It's grueling. But we have one more document needing to be notarized and apostilled (that's a real word) by the Secretary of State. We make 3 color copies of the whole thing and drop it off at Children's Home Society to be sent on it's way to Delhi. So close!

Haddon's letter and drawing of our house with he and his little sister. It says: 

Dear Little Sister,

I love you very much and hope to meet you soon. I am very happy we are adopting you. Love Haddon Carlson, Age 8. 

So sweet! And required by the Indian government. So it has practical purposes, too. 

My worker buddy. We spend more time in offices begging people to re-fill out paperwork or give us records in a very specific way. He's a trouper and never complains. Last Friday, he did have a little breakdown. We were at the Secretary of State office for 2 hours. They kept telling us it'd be just a few more minutes. Just a few more minutes. 2 hours later and the state accidentally giving every single piece of confidential information about our entire family to someone else. Our passports, driver's licenses, SS cards, birth and marriage certificates, 3 years of tax forms, background checks, police clearance, fingerprint paperwork, medical reports. Pretty much an identity thief's dream. 

Thankfully, the people who were given our paperwork brought it back about 15 minutes later. And are hopefully not thieves.

So close to being sent off to India! This is the dossier paperwork. 

Not to forget the application, training, immigration, and homestudy paperwork!

The picture of our living room and our family to be sent to the Indian government. Cheese! 

Soup, Football, Family and Friends

We had so much fun Saturday, October 8 for the soup/flag football fundraiser. We have the greatest family and friends who, without question, love and support us completely in this journey. Thank you to all who could make it. We played a lot of flag football, we ate a lot of soup, and we had so many wonderful people join us. Luke is still sore. He had the boys rolling pin his hamstrings a couple of days ago. We need a training program for next year's game. 

The football players.

The location was gorgeous and Shelli and Jeff and their girls spent so much time making it look fall and festive. 

Look at that spread! We had 11 different soups to taste test and vote for a winner. 

The winners of the soup cook-off. Marcia (Luke's mom) and John Pals (Shelli and Jeff's good college friend. John made Iowa surprise and Marcia made a killer coconut curry soup. Delicious! 

The greatest friends I could ask for in life. This is not even all of them. We've been meeting for a Bible Study every other Monday for the past 12 years. We've been through weddings, births, losses, cancer, joyful times, hard times, and everything in between. What a gift to have these Godly women in my life! 

Our family. Waiting for our girl!

My girl Shelli. She planned, organized and hosted this amazing day. And she rocks a fanny pack like no other. Love you, bud!

Flag Football and Soup Cook-off

Our dear friend Shelli has organized a flag football tournament and a soup cook-off to benefit our adoption fund. It's going to be on October 8 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Wilkinson Field in North Oaks. Address is: 

pin	Show Map 14 West Pleasant Lake Road, North Oaks

We had people ask how they can donate if they can't make it to the game, so Shelli created a YouCaring site located here. 

https://www.youcaring.com/the-carlson-family-660236

Thank you all for showing your love and support for us!

Wrap-around Care

We went to a foster care summit in June of this year and it was so helpful to get our minds focused on whether we should continue on the India track or switch to domestic adoption through foster care. One of the topics they covered was wrap-around care for adoptive families. Similar to a missions mindset, each person or family can have a role in the adoption process regardless if they are the ones actually adopting.

 - Some feel called to adopt.

 - Some feel called to support adoption, spiritually and financially. 

We struggled with this initially because we are the ones who are taking this step to adopt a child. It felt very weird for us to then ask people to partner along with us in this process. But if we approach it from the perspective of wrap-around care, we feel like we can welcome people in to walk through this together. Adoption organizations talk about the support systems needed for adoptive and foster care families. The financial piece is is just one part. We can't do this without prayerful support as we go forward.  

 So in saying that, my dear friend Shelli has graciously offered to host an adoption fundraising activity on Saturday, October 8 from 10 a.m. - 2 p.m. It's going to be a flag football tournament and a soup cook-off. If you would be interested in more information, please let me know. We'd love to see everyone!

We are completely humbled by the outpouring of love and support we've received this far and appreciate any way someone would like to continue to support us through encouragement, prayers, and/or financially. 

Thank you all!

The adoption timeline

If you know me well, you know I despise bureaucracy. I'm a rule-breaker and everything about bureaucracy is designed for rule-followers. It's a constant battle. 

I learned very quickly that adoption is A. LOT. OF. BUREAUCRACY. So much paperwork. Each agency requests different things, so it's hard to really start gathering what you need until you settle on an agency. 

We started our adoption process in November of last year. We looked at a lot of different agencies, paid fees, and started going through the application process, only to find out that it wasn't the right fit. One agency wanted us to make a 2 minute video (working with their film editor) to help "sell" us to the birth parents. Another made us sign 200 pages of paperwork from all the countries they work with (not just the countries we were considering, but all of them), along with a notary. A notary in Luke's office was a saint to sit with us through that. None of the agencies felt right until we found Children's Home Society. They have been very rigorous and thorough, but also very helpful and organized. Plus their office is close by, so we've been able to just run over to drop off paperwork as we've finished it. 

So, we started with Children's Home Society in March of 2016. It took us the entire month to fill out all the paperwork. Background checks (from 2 states), fingerprinting at the police station, credit checks, financial accounts, references (personal and professional), education experiences, medical histories for all of us (boys included), employment history, the places we've lived since we were 18 and contacts to confirm those residences. I started copying every single thing, just to not have to track it all down again. Through brute force, we finished all the paperwork that month and were waiting for our application to be approved. 

In April, we were accepted into the program.

In May, we had our first day long training with other families who were adopting internationally. We had such a great group! We email each other to check in and see where everyone is in the process, to ask questions, vent, etc. We're thankful for them! 

In June, we paused in the process to think about switching to the foster care to adoption track. 

In July, we had our first home study visit with our social worker. 

In August, we had our final 2 home study visits. She has a month to complete her home study recommendation that gets sent to India along with a dossier of our family. 

She's presenting to the internal Children's Home Society team on Tuesday of this next week, then they move forward with building the dossier. 

Once we get approved by India as potential adoptive parents, we are eligible to be matched. So, we're thinking we'll likely be matched this fall. 

Exciting times! We'll keep you updated as we move along!

Why India?

Why India? We get asked this a lot as we're going through the process. God really laid India on our hearts as a place to adopt, even before we were married. When we were dating, we went to Bethlehem Baptist Church every Sunday. We'd go to the 9 a.m. service (Luke's choice) and then he would volunteer in the book store and I would volunteer in the baby nursery. One of the children in the nursery each week was a little boy from India named Jeremy. I absolutely loved him. Even then, I think God was preparing us to go through this long journey with our focus on India. 

This past winter we paused our adoption process because there was a call for Minnesota families to get involved in the foster care process. There was specifically a critical need for foster care parents for infants. Our neighbor is a supervisor for Hennepin County Child Protection Services and she works tirelessly to care for and protect these children. Many who have been through so much in their young lives, through no fault of their own. We wanted to support her efforts and not feel like we were turning our backs to the children right in front of us.

However, after a lot of meetings and guidance from other foster and adoptive families, we continued on the India track. There were many different reasons, but one of the main ones has been that even if a child is born into really terrible circumstances in the United States, there is hope they can overcome their past. If a child, especially a girl, is born in the slums of Calcutta, there is very little hope that she will be able to rise out of her circumstances.

A 2015 study done by a human rights organization estimates there are 20 million orphans in India. Some even estimate up to 30 million. Up until last year, very few were eligible to be adopted (only 2500 in 2014) and very few were eligible for foreign adoption (only 271). That changed in 2015 when a new minister of women and children development came forward with a belief that every child should have a home. They started modeling their registry after China's Central Registry. They started to get more streamlined with the paperwork and have committed to pushing adoptions through faster. All of these things will hopefully help, but in the meantime, there is such a need for adoptive families. International adoption is costly and time consuming, but hopefully these changes will encourage others to explore the process.

So, here we are. We have so appreciated all the insight and guidance our friends and acquaintances, who have gone through the foster/adoption process, have shared with us as we have sought answers to tough questions. It's a group effort to get through it all!

7,875

Welcome to our blog about the journey to adopt a little girl from India. We're excited to have you come along with us as we navigate the international adoption process. The good, the bad, and the really bureaucratic! 

The name of our blog, 7,875 comes from how many miles it is from Minneapolis to the center of India. It's a long journey, literally and figuratively. We feel the Lord's guidance and peace, as we keep moving forward to our daughter. Welcome!