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....