Drama Mama

As promised, I am going to fill you in on our dossier submission drama.  I recently realized that I am horrible about following through with posting about what I promise to post about.  Every time I say(in a blog post) that I am going to post about something soon, I never do.  So this time I am going to follow through and give the details of our minor drama when our dossier was submitted.  I guess first I better explain a little bit what all this adoption jargon is, for those of your who have not adopted internationally.  International adoption has a language of its own and the dialect varies by which country you are adoption from.  In the particular country of Eastern Europe that we are adopting from, dossiers(which is ALL the adoption paperwork that the country requires), after being translated, are submitted to the Secretary of the Department of Adoption(SDA).  We are requesting to adopt specific children.  So part of our dossier being submitted, is checking that our 3 kiddos are all clear to be adopted.  We already knew that Daniel was, and his file was essentially "on hold" for us.  From the time we commited to adopt Daniel, to the time we added Parker and Josslyn to our adoption, the SDA changed things up a bit.  Children's file's are no longer put on hold.  For those of us who are trying to adopt a specific children, we just have to hold our breath and pray that their file hasn't been given to another adoptive family through a blind referral.(A blind referral is more of the norm for how international adoptions work.  This means that you send in your dossier and in it you list the ages, genders, and special needs you are open to adopting.  Then the adoption authority in that country matches you with a child's file.  You have the opportunity to view the file, and sometimes actually meet the child, and then accept or decline the referral).  Nearly all of the Reece's Rainbow families are trying to adopt specific children from the Reece's Rainbow waiting child list, so this new change in the adoption process of not putting our kiddos "on hold" for us can be pretty nerve racking.  With so many children available for adoption, the odds are slim that Parker or Josslyn's files would have randomly been given to a family by a blind referral, but I was still really worried about it.  I have seen it happen before, and I just could not imagine that kind of heartbreak.

Thursdays are the day that the SDA accepts dossier submissions.  The whole week, leading up to last Thursday, I knew that there was a very good chance that this was our week to be submitted.  I thought that I would be a nervous wreck all week(and I kinda was for most of it), but by Wednesday night I was totally at peace.  Thursday, I refused to let myself neurotically check my email and the Reece's Rainbow website to see if we had been submitted.  Once an hour was my limit for checking.  I got the news that we had been submitted from my Reece's Rainbow BFF, which was the only fitting way to find out.  I am so glad that I found out from her.  It made the good news all that sweeter.

After I got the news I didn't fully let myself celebrate, because I didn't know for sure that all 3 of our kids(Parker, Daniel, and Josslyn) were clear to be adopted.  The past month or so I have been having a nagging feeling that something was going on with Parker.  I didn't know exactly what or why, but it wouldn't go away.  I thought I was just being paranoid, until I told Josh how I felt and he said that he had been feeling that way too.  Ugh oh.  I didn't know what, but I knew that something must be going on with Parker.  I kept thinking that his file must have been given to another family and they accepted it.  I mean, look at him! Who wouldn't want that precious kiddo as their son?!  So when I heard that our dossier had been sucessfully submitted, I was not going to fully celebrate until I KNEW that it was for all three kids.

Later in the day I found out that, yes, all 3 kids were clear for adoption(PRAISE THE LORD), but Parker had been transferred.

Transferred.

That is one of the last things a family adopting from EE wants to hear.  My heart had a mini-heart attack when I read the word "transferred", and it took a minute to recover and finish reading.  Parker has been transferred(bad news), but
-he is at a internat(older kids orphanage), NOT an institution
-he can still be adopted from the facility that he is at
-the internat he is in is very close to the orphanage that Daniel and Josslyn are in
-we can adopt all 3 at the same court hearing

All of those are very good news!

Even though my mama instincts were right that something WAS going on with Parker, the most important thing is that he is still going to be ours!  And isn't it amazing that God has already given me mama instincts for a child that I have not even met yet?  God is good.  I love my new kiddos so much.  Now we are just sitting and waiting to hear when the SDA wants us to come and officially accept referrals for each child.  Hopefully we will find out in the next week and a half.  Exciting times! 

Oh, and if you want to see that we have been submitted in official red letters, then check out our Family Sponsorship page on the Reece's Rainbow website.  Pretty nice!