This is Us – The Story of Us

** Preface:  We primarily write this blog as a journal for ourselves and our children to look back at later in life to remember our current thoughts and feelings.  Many times, the journal will be very personal and other times it will be a recap of our day with notes about moments and memories we want to document.  Please do not share personal information about our children or our family with others that do not have access to this blog.  Thank you!
** We currently call our newest daughter by her Chinese name (Wen) and her English nickname (Katie).  When we first adopt her, she will go by Wen and we will gradually begin calling her Katie when she decides that she would like us to do so.  Since she is older, that may be quite a while or maybe even never.  We will let her decide.  Throughout the blog, we may call her by either name when typing about her, especially in the beginning when we are in China and are using her Chinese name. 

 This is Us – The Story of Us

Before we start this adoption/travel blog again, we thought we answer some of the questions we get asked the most – Why did you decide to adopt?  Why did you decide to adopt from China?  Why are you adopting again?  
We don’t have time on this blog to go back to the very beginning because the story of this journey has been quite a lengthy one as well.  If you want to read how adoption became part of our lives from the very beginning, it is best to visit the blog we wrote when we adopted Lily in 2012.  The blog address is horst-family-blogspot.com.  Please visit it to learn more about how we (Jeff and Jodi) went from two young teenagers to a family of 6 with 2 biological children and 2 adopted children from China. 

So how did we end up in China in March 2017 adopting two more children?  Here is that story ….. (not a short one either – Jodi was never good at summarizing!)   This is really for us to personally document the specifics of our journey and may not interest many of you.  If you want to skip ahead to Day 1 of our travel journal – feel free to do so! 

After Lily’s adoption in 2012, we both truly thought that we were done growing our family.  We gave away all the clothing that the boys and Lily outgrew.  We sold the crib and matching furniture.  We took all the toddler toys to our church or gave them to friends and family.  We were happy and content as a family of 6 until one day last March (2016) when Jeff came home and said, “Jodi – you’ve ruined me.”  I was confused and asked what he meant by that statement.  He explained that for years when he was asked the question, “Are you done having children?”, he would emphatically answer, “Yes.”  On this day, he was asked the question again and out of his mouth came the answer, “Well, as the kids get older we may consider adopting again.”  I immediately explained that the answer that he gave had nothing to do with me and reminded him of how I had given away of all the outgrown clothes, sold the baby furniture, donated the toddler toys, etc.  Anyone, who knows me, knows that I am way too frugal (and Pennsylvania Dutch) to give away something that I think I might need later.  I would have never given away those items if I had thought or known more children were in our future. 

Little did Jeff know, but that exact same day while I was checking my Facebook feed, a beautiful little girl’s face appeared on an advocacy page that I must have signed up for and joined all the way back in 2011 when we were in the process of adopting Lily.  I didn’t even remember that I was part of this group because, honestly, after we found Lily and were matched with her, I didn’t really look at the advocacy pages anymore .  However, on this day, a post from them showed up on my feed and I couldn’t stop staring at little girl in the photo.  We were not looking to adopt again, but I couldn’t help but click the link to learn more about her.  I quickly realized that this beautiful little girl had what many people would consider more severe special medical needs.  Regardless, I thought about this little girl all day after I saw her photo and read about her.  When Jeff came home later that and told me “I ruined him”, she was instantly in the back of my mind.  I couldn’t believe that on the same day I saw her and was drawn to her, that he would say he would consider adoption again in the future.  However, for Jeff, the key word was FUTURE – not now.  I decided not to tell him about this little one that had grabbed my heart.  I waited about two days and then weaved this little girl into a conversation we were having about an article he had read about a girl that became paralyzed after doing a backbend in her living room.  The little girl that I couldn’t get off my mind and heart, is also paralyzed from the waist down.  When I told him about her and showed him her picture, he gave me the “No, we’re not adopting again” look.  He proceeded to tell me that it was just a coincidence that I happened to see her the same day that he came home and told me about possibly adopting again when the kids get older.  I told him that I didn’t think it was a coincidence and to just “think” about whether we might be being called back to adoption again.

Over the next week or so, I kept coming back to the little’s girl’s advocacy page to see if a family had stepped forward to adopt her. No one was and I just couldn’t stop thinking about her.  Jeff knew she was on my mind a lot.  After about two more weeks, he said that I could get her file from the agency and we could have it reviewed by our good friend, Kelly, that is a physical therapist and also have it looked at by our son’s (Andrew’s) team of doctors at the Spina Bifida clinic in Hershey.  Kelly got back to us right away and gave her input about what information was in her file, but for some reason, we were not hearing back from the SB doctors that we were trying to have view the file.  It was around Easter and we attributed it at first to the holiday schedules of the doctors.  After about 2 weeks with no formal review from a doctor and lots of prayer on both of our parts, we decided that, sadly, this little girl was not meant to be a part of our family and we informed the adoption agency that we would not be proceeding forward with her file at this time.  Even though she was not our daughter, we printed out her photo and hung it in our kitchen to remind all of us to pray that she would find a family.  The kids were great about remembering to include her in their daily prayers and would often ask me if I had heard anything about whether she had a family or not yet.  Well, I am so thrilled to say that a few months later, we learned that a family did step forward to adopt this little girl.  I don’t believe that they have traveled for her yet, but she should be adopted soon!  This little girl will always hold a very special place in our hearts.  Even though she was not meant to be our daughter, she was a large part of the reason why we started to consider adoption again. 

** You may be wondering how we could look at files of children if we had not even started the adoption process yet.  When adopting from China, children’s files are labeled special focus or LID (logged-in-dossier).  The label is usually given based on the special needs of the child as well as their age and gender.  Special focus children tend to have more complex special needs, are older children, and/or are boys.  Often, families are still looking to adopt girls from China, so finding families that want to adopt boys is more difficult.  LID children have what some consider to be more minor needs or needs that are less challenging.  China decides what designation each file will get.  You can be matched and pre-approved to adopt a special focus child at any point in the process (even before you have started your home study).  For the LID children, you must complete your dossier (a compilation of your home study, immigration pre-approval, and many other documents) and send to it to China to be logged in before you can be matched.  Andrew, Katie, and Carter are considered special focus children.  Lily was considered LID. 

After we returned her file, another beautiful little girl with cerebral palsy was pulling on our heart strings.  We asked for her file, but were told that another family was in the process of having it reviewed.  [Sidenote – some agencies let multiple families look at a file at once, other agencies only allow one family at a time to view files].  We were second in line to view the file and were told be patient and wait to see what the other family decided.  After several long weeks, we learned that the first family had decided to adopt this little girl and that we would not be able to view her file.  It was very hard to hear this because we were getting more and more excited each day about receiving her file and learning more about her.  Ultimately, though, we were happy to know that she would be getting a family, too. 

In early April, we attended the Together We are Called adoption retreat and spent a wonderful weekend with 100 other couples that have adopted both domestically and internationally.   Jodi was convinced that we were supposed to adopt again after attending the retreat.  Jeff needed more time to know for sure.  By the time we heard back about the second little girl’s file, it was mid-May and we needed to decide whether we were just imagining this adoption thing again or if we were truly being called to adopt again.  After much prayer and conversation with each other and with the kids, we decided to begin our home study to adopt again.  We signed the paperwork to begin the home study process in early June.  We have had the same home study caseworker, Beth, since 2008 when we started the process to adopt Andrew.  She has done all of our home studies as well as our post placement reports.  Therefore, she knows our family very well!  We were excited to tell her that we wanted to adopt again.  She did the required number of visits to our home and interviews with each member of our family.  We discussed the age range, gender, types of special needs, and number of children that we wanted included in our home study.  Since we already had three older children that were all within 20 months of age with each other, we discussed looking at children (boys and girls) age 6 and younger.  However, our daughter, Madeline, was relentless in her pursuit to remind us that there were many older girls that needed families, too. She even went on US Kids Adopt website and found an 11-year-old girl in Alaska that needed a family and begged us to consider adopting her.  We did research it and even called Alaska children’s services directly, but ultimately felt she was not our daughter and that we were being called back to China again.  Madeline continued to advocate for older girls throughout the entire process and we considered each child she showed us.  We also joined a group on Facebook that specifically advocates for older girls from China and we even looked at a few files.  She really wanted a sister closer in age to her so that she might be able to have what Andrew and Zachary have.  Our boys are only 4 month apart and are truly the best of friends.  They have an amazing bond that is so neat to witness each day.  We did not want to change the dynamics of their relationship by adopting another older boy close in age to them (they are both 11 years old right now), so for boys, we were looking at 6 years of age and younger.  Because of Madeline’s persistence, we looked at girls all the way up to age 12.  So, the age range we decided upon then was age 2 to 12 for a girl and 2 to 6 for a boy.  Before she came to our home, we also discussed that we would like to consider adopting two children at once.  Adopting two at once was practically unheard of when we adopted Andrew and Lily.  However, now, more families have done so and we decided that we should ask for our home study to be written that way just in case that was God’s plan for our family, too.   Adopting two at the same time is not encouraged because it is extremely challenging and requires more experienced parents with strong resources and support to help meet the needs of both children.  Our caseworker felt that we could adopt two at once and wrote up our report quickly.  It was completed in about 30 days.  The next step was deciding which agency to use as our placing agency.   The China program for the agency doing our home study had significantly declined since we had adopted Andrew.  Because of that, we decided to only use them for the home study and in turn, we needed to find a placing agency for the rest of the adoption paperwork.  We decided upon a placing agency in mid-July just as our home study was being completed.  It took until mid-August for both agencies to review and finalize our home study.  Over the course of the summer, we looked at numerous advocacy posts and even asked to look at the files of several children, many of them older girls.  When none of them seemed to be a match, we began to think that maybe we were not supposed to adopt and older girl and that we should start focusing on younger children.  It was about this same time (while we were on a family trip in the Smoky Mountains), that we saw Wen’s (Katie’s) photo on a page that advocates for older girls that need families.  We inquired about her and asked for her file.  We learned that she had been hosted in the US from June to July 2016.  When we got home from Tennessee, we called her host mother to learn more about her.  I spoke with the host mother for about an hour.  During the conversation, the more the mother described Wen, the more I felt she was our daughter.  I got off the phone and instantly called Jeff at work to tell him everything I had learned about Wen.  We both agreed to proceed to try and adopt her, but there was one big problem - her file was not with our agency and the agency that had the file was not willing to transfer it to our agency.  So now it was time to pray and figure out a way to get her file.  Over the course of the next month, our agency asked China three separate times to transfer the file from the one agency to our agency, but they would not because the other agency continued to say they had a family that wanted to adopt her.  Each agency gets files for a set amount of time and this agency still had her file for another whole month.  We were so worried, that within that month, another family would step forward to adopt this young lady.  All we could do was continue to pray.  Sept. 27, 2016 was the third time our agency asked China to transfer the file.  They denied the request and said that we would have to wait one month and see if the file was still available.  That seemed like a lifetime and we thought that, surely, another family would see this amazing girl and want to adopt her before we could lock in her file.  Well, God never ceases to amaze us!   We expected to nervously wait until the end of October to hear anything about her file.  We didn’t have to wait that long.  On Sept. 29, 2016, our agency logged into their accounts for the day and without any notice from China, Wen’s file appeared on their agency list.  We happened to be on the phone with them when they checked.  We kept asking – “How did the file get to you?  We were denied a transfer three times.  Are you sure it is the correct child?”  They did not know how the transfer occurred because neither the other agency nor China told them it was going to happen.  We may never know the specifics of how her file got transferred, but we give all thanks to God for moving the mountains to make it happen.  If there was any doubt left that we were supposed to adopt an older girl, it was gone in that instant.  He totally showed us which child was meant to be a part of our family.   It appears that he used our other daughter Madeline as the catalyst to point us in the right direction.  Her stubbornness and persistence proved to be good qualities in this situation.  We received pre-approval from China to adopt Wen within less than a week. 

Luckily, during the month we were asking for the file transfer, the rest of our paperwork had moved onto next step of the adoption process.  In early September, it was sent to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services for preapproval to adopt an orphan(s) matching the specifications listed on our home study.  We received the approval in the mail just a few days after locking in Katie’s file.  Now it was time to put everything together so that our dossier could be sent to China.  It took a few more weeks for documents to be authenticated and notarized and by the end of October, our dossier was ready.   During those few weeks before our dossier was sent, we continued to look at advocacy pages to see if there was possibly a second child that God wanted us to adopt.  We weren’t sure, but kept feeling like there were two children waiting in China for us, not just one.  We requested the files of two young boys – both of whom were already listed with our agency.  They both had several special needs, but they were needs we had already been approved for and needs we felt that we could meet.  We began the process of sending one of the boy’s files (advocacy name Luka) to various doctors to get medical opinions and advice about his special medical needs.  We also learned that another family was also considering adopting Luka.  They had received his file first and needed to decide whether they were going to proceed with the adoption.  After what we had gone through with previous files and with Wen’s file, we guarded our heart and tried not to get too attached to either boy before we really knew whether they were meant to be ours.  A day or so went by while we were waiting for the review, and the other mother reached out me to ask whether we thought we would like to adopt Luka.  We said that were waiting for more information from our doctors, but that if the review was what we expected, we would most likely adopt this little boy.  She said that she and her husband were praying for clarity every day to decide whether he was their son.  I told her that we would pray for them and that in the end, we were just so happy that either way, he would be blessed by a forever family.  We encouraged each other and it was a blessing to speak back and forth with her during the process.  I could tell from our conversations that she was an amazing Christian woman and that she and her husband would be wonderful parents to this little boy.  Jeff and I truly thought that they would proceed with the adoption of Luka and to be honest, we were glad that the decision was not in our hands, but theirs at this point.  Knowing which child(ren) God has planned for your family is probably the hardest part of the entire adoption process (with actually waiting to travel a very close 2^nd)!  We had mentally started to prepare for them to proceed and were set to get more information about the second little boy the very next day.  Once again, we thought we knew God’s plan.  We were wrong.  At 10:15 PM that night, we received a text from the other mother explaining that they had prayed and had decided that this child was not theirs.  They felt that we were meant to be his family.  We couldn’t believe it.  To see the words on the screen felt like we were being given the answer to question of whether or not God had another child in mind for our family and exactly which child.  Onto our next leap of faith - it was time to move forward with adopting Luka.  Compared to Wen’s almost 8-week process (from when we saw her photo to when we got preapproval) Luka’s was a whirlwind 2- week process to get everything completed and get pre-approval from China to adopt him before our agency had to return his file to China.  We got preapproval the day before his file was to be returned!  It was also perfect timing because our dossier could now be sent with both children’s files which would help with the overall speed of the next steps on China’s side of the adoption process. 

** Sidenote – the amazing family that had Luka’s file before us, has decided to adopt a precious and beautiful little girl from China and they will be bringing her home in 2017 as well!    

Our dossier was logged into China in early November.  It was translated and reviewed and we received our Letter of Acceptance from China on Dec. 23^rd.  We then had to do step two with the USCIS – which si to get approval to adopt these specific children.  That approval was sent at the end of December and we had approval in late January.  Everything was then sent to China for the last several steps of the process and we received travel approval in late February.  And here we are now …. ready to once again travel to China!