Adoption Funding

As our dossier is being shipped across the country to be "authenticated" which is the last step before it will be sent to Ethiopia, we have begun to look into options to fund our adoption so we can continue this process, by God's grace, without debt.

There are two ways you can all help us in this endeavor.

If you love coffee as much as my husband does, you can order coffee from Just Love Coffee and a % of your coffee purchase will go toward our adoption. Just click here!

The second way is for any of you who order from Amazon. If you will click this link and order through the window that opens, a % of your purchase will go toward our adoption!

So read lots of books and drink lots of coffee!!! Thanks!

Chevron!

If you have noticed the background of this blog, you can surely tell that I LOVE the chevron pattern!

My mom asked me the other day if I knew a theme or how I wanted to decorate a kids room. I have some ideas floating around, but do not feel I can settle one a decorating scheme (I like this wording better than theme!) until we know the age and gender of the kid/kiddos who will be joining our family sometime in the year 2014 (hopefully)!

One thing I do know for sure... is that CHEVRON will make it's appearance in this room and this video has me inspired!

Anyone want to help me out??

I love the idea of one line of the chevron continuning around the whole room while just having one wall of the room being the full chevron pattern.

I am planning to do more a two tone pattern similar to these pics below. I'm not quite bold enough to do the rainbow scheme shown in the video. I am interested in anyone's opinion if I should do a steep pattern like the middle picture or a pattern that isn't as steep like the top and bottom picture. Please feel free to offer me your advice/opinion!

Reminders from The Blizzard of Oz

We have had a very mild winters as far as Kansas winters can go, but this winter did not end without a typically unpredictable snow storm which has now been named The Blizzard Of Oz!

This blizzard has afforded me four days off of work and has brought some important reminders that I had forgotten recently. So here are the top 10 things I was reminded of...

10. Unexpected extra time off of work is ALWAYS a blessing and God seems to know exactly when I need this time even when I do not know it myself.

9. It is ok to not be busy all the time. It is ok to spend a day without being productive.

8. I really enjoy cooking and baking! In the midst of the busyness of the school year, I do not take time to cook or bake for enjoyment. I was able to do this and not have to hurry! Pics below!

Made soup from a recipe book from my favorite lunch spot, Tanya's Soup Kitchen!

Homemade chocolate chip cookies with M&Ms! These were the best batch I've ever made!

Chicken Tortilla Soup is the best soup and so EASY to make! Yum!

7. I need to blog more regularly. It is kind of theraputic for me. I am not a great writer, but since I am both an internal and external processor (meet my parents so you understand why I am both), blogging is a way for me to accomplish both ways of processing. I have a few blog posts circling around in my head... hopefully I will make a point to blog a bit more often as things slow down in the next few weeks.

6. This winter has been really busy with working on my master's, working at basketball games two nights a week and working through the adoption paperwork so I am looking forward to the spring more than normal. It took this Blizzard of Oz for me to look back at this winter and realize just how fast it has gone and how much I have been doing. God has been good to sustain me during this time!

5. I am an extrovert, but not as much as I used to be. I'm sure you've all done some kind of personality test to see if you are an extrovert or introvert. I always score as an extrovert but not as extremely as I did in high school or college. It has been nice to be at home and not do much through these snow days, but after a few days I got a bit stir crazy and needed some social interaction.

4. I get the privilege of working with some incredible students. I am so blessed to get to work with high school students and see them grow up and mature. A few of my favorite students stopped by today and "decorated" my yard! They bring a smile to my face!

Making Betty the Baker snow-woman! Amy & Mandy were supervising!

3. I do really LOVE my job. This time away has caused me to actually miss it. At times of great frustration and disappointment at work, it is hard for me to not get lost in the things that minimize why I am there. Being away from my job for these four snow days but six days total has allowed me time to refocus and rejuvenate. I work with some great people and teach some great students (see #4 above)! As a colleague reminds me often, I can't let other people's WHAT keep me from accomplishing my WHY in what I do each day.

2. My husband is a ROCKSTAR! He shoveled our driveway probably six or more times in the course of this Blizzard of Oz and never complained. Aside from his snow shoveling powers, he is a great person to be "stuck" at home with, but it never feels like we are stuck actually. He is patient and understanding as he deals with my many quirks. As we walk this long road through the adoption process, I am grateful he is the one on this journey with me. We have learned much already, have accomplished much, but still have much to learn and a long wait ahead. He makes waiting a bit easier. He is going to be a really good dad too!

1. Snow is beautiful and WHITE! Changes the scenery from dingy brown, dry winter to a beautiful snowy winter wonderland! What a great picture of what Christ's sacrifice does to cover our sins!  Isaiah 1:18 “Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool."

Do you Just Love Coffee?

Any coffee lovers out there? Or do you know someone who loves coffee? If so keep reading!

There is a great organization called Just Love Coffee that has set up a way for adoptive families to raise money to help fund their adoption and it is so simple!

We have set up our own online coffee store through their website called The Ingram's Ethiopian Adoption. If you'd like to buy some coffee to help us out, please visit justlovecoffee.com/ingramadoption or you can click on the coffee bean picture on the right hand panel of our blog. All the details are there as well as far as the percentage of the proceeds that will go toward our adoption and how the store works, etc if you are curious.

We thank you for any coffee you drink on behalf of family!

Transition in Thinking

For the past three weeks, we have been working to complete some of the education credits required as part of our home study. These online trainings have been very helpful and beneficial, but I must admit, they have also been a bit overwhelming. One training was through the National Council for Adoption over Inter-Country Adoption and the other was through the International Adoption Clinic at the University of Alabama-Birmingham.

This fall I have also been taking a class on Sunday nights at church taught by our pastor, Josh Black, called Biblical Theology and Interpretation. Josh uses a phrase often, "ratcheting up", in reference to how a theme is threaded and developed throughout the redemptive history of the Bible and ultimately culminates in Christ.

I feel as though these trainings have been ratcheting up the reality of adoption REALLY building our family. Listening to the realities children in orphanages experience now hits closer to home knowing our child will face some, if not all, of these realities. Building attachment and trust will be more important than following other traditional parenting tips such as letting the child "cry it out". Our child, regardless of age when we bring them home, will need to be held and rocked. Who knew that this motherly instinct to hold and rock a baby actually helps children develop and grow?

The Johnson & Johnson company ran the commercials saying "having a baby changes everything." Even though we have not biologically had a child yet nor have we brought home our adopted child yet, but the expectation and anticipation for the time we will be parents has already begun to change everything.

If you walked in our house, you would not see any physical changes (we have not bought a crib or painted a baby room yet). If you observed our daily routines, we have not made any significant changes in how we spend our time.

So what has changed?  I no longer think of myself as just a wife. I am beginning to find myself thinking more like a mom. I can't quite pinpoint exactly what that even means yet, but I know there has been a shift, subtle as it may be. I see Philip as a dad and envision the things he will do with our child and say to our child. My decisions, small or large, now take into account that there will be a child joining our family.

I am realizing that we don't just become parents when we arrive home with our child. We have become parents in our decision to go down this adoption road. God didn't become our heavenly Father the day our hearts turn to him in salvation through Christ. He has ALWAYS been our Father as he initiated our adoption as sons into his family and gave us our eternal inheritance. We did not choose him, but he chose us before the foundation of the earth.

And We're Off!

Thanks for the many prayers and words of encouragement so many of you offered us as we went into our first meeting with our social worker to officially start our home study on Saturday. We definitely felt God's peace throughout the meeting and continue to see his hand work out the details for us.

I won't go into a lot of details about everything we talked about with Sharon on Saturday, but if I were to summarize what the goal of our first meeting with her was it would be that she get to know us and we get to know her. It sounds simple. And it really was. If anyone reading this is considering adoption, but you are hesitant because of all the details and all the people who seem to be scrutinizing you... have no fear... it isn't as scary as it might seem. Maybe God's even nudging you to begin this incredible journey to expand your family through adoption.

The big questions she asked us were why we decided to adopt and why we decided to adopt now, how we met, what fears or concerns we have about adoption, what is our marriage like and what do we as a couple disagree about and how do we resolve disagreements and how do we make big decisions. Those might sound like daunting questions, but many of them we had already written out answers to in our application or autobiographies and talking with Sharon was not intimidating at all.

She asked us if we wanted her to do the official "walk through" of our house or if we wanted to do it another time. We of course wanted her to do it Saturday since we had spent 2 1/2 hours cleaning the night before and honestly, our house was probably the cleanest it had been since we moved in. The questions she asked us about our house (square footage, number of bedrooms, how old, etc) took longer than her actually walking through our house. Part of me wanted her to open the shower curtain so she could see the bathtub that I had scrubbed as clean as possible the night before. :)  But the other part of me was relieved to know that she was not evaluating how good we could clean our house, but instead was evaluating if our home was safe to bring a child into and if our home had room to bring a child into. She spent more time admiring the quilt my mom and I had made for our bed than anything else. Really, it took probably 2 minutes and I'm not exaggerating. She did say this part of the home study for foster care is a much more detailed process so for those of you who have been approved for foster care I greatly admire you and appreciate what you do.

Before she left, we scheduled the second meeting with her that will be this upcoming Friday (October 26th) at 5 pm and we scheduled the third meeting that will be on our day off on November 12th at 2 pm. She said more than once that she does not see anything in our application or in the info we shared with her that will cause any hiccups in the home study and we might even be able to complete the home study early. When she said this, I think I had to wrap my fingers around the church pew I was sitting on  in our living room so I would not leap for joy. When we initially applied, I had a pie in the sky hope that we could complete the home study by the end of the year. Now, I know there is still no guarantee, but just knowing it is a possibility that one thing in this process might go faster than expected is encouraging to this task-oriented, Type A, number-crunching, detail-driven math nerd. :)

What We Know about the Details

Lots of people have been asking about what the process of international adoption involves, how long it takes, etc. One thing we know for sure is every adoption is different and every agency handles things slightly differently, but we want our journey through this process to help others possibly considering adoption to know some of the details and steps.

So read on if you are interested in some of the nitty, gritty details...

Sarah, our Ethiopia caseworker, outlined the overall process for us last week in our orientation phone interview. Here is what we know....

The Home Study as defined in the Ethiopia Program Manual is a "series of interviews and supporting documentation put together by a licensed social worker in a report for the purpose of adoption."

The Home Study involves four "visits". I place visits in quotes because at least one will be in our home and the others may be in the office at Topeka or might possibly be over the phone. We aren't entirely sure. None of the visits are unannounced.

The main goal of the home study is for us to build a relationship with the agency and social worker as well as to get any questions we have answered. The home study is NOT about the agency looking in every drawer and closet to see if our home is spotless and clean. The main purpose of the visit that will be in our home is to ensure that our home is a safe place to bring a child into as well as ensure we have room for a child to join our family.

During the home study, we will also clarify any specifications we have for the child we want to adopt (age, gender, etc) and also if we decide we want to adopt two children at once, our home study has to be written and approved for two children for the ages we specify. (More to come on our journey to this decision in a later blog post....)

The home study typically takes 4-10 months to complete. (If you know me well, you know what end of that timeframe I am shooting for!).

Once the home study is complete, a notarized copy is filed with the government in order to get our I 600-A. According to the program manual, the I 600-A is "the applications families file with CIS in order to be approved to adopt internationally.  The I 600 A is for non-Hague countries."

It usually takes 3 months to receive approval of the I 600-A. While we are waiting on this approval, we will begin to gather other documents that will be submitted with the Dossier. The Home Study and the I 600-A are two of the twenty documents. The Dossier is "pronounced “doss-ee-ay.” A collection of paperwork submitted to the Ethiopian Courts and MOWYCA for permission to adopt a child from Ethiopia." Sarah told us that the Dossier is essentially who we are and why we want to adopt in the form of 20 different documents. Our birth certificates and marriage license are a part of the Dossier as well.

After the finalized Dossier is sent to the country, the wait time is typically 12-14 months for the referral of a child younger than six months. The referral will include a picture and date of birth, but Sarah did emphasize that birth dates are sometimes not exact. We will also receive as much of the medical history of the child as they have, but the medical info is often not fully reliable. 

Lifeline partners with West Sands Adoption Agency for the placement and referral and West Sands also handles everything in-country when we travel to Ethiopia. The orphanages in Ethiopia are government run so West Sands works with a couple of those in order to place children. On our first trip to Ethiopia "is to meet your child, and to ensure the child matches the information you were provided and that you are satisfied with your referral.  You will also have an  appointment at the Ethiopian Court House to give your consent for the adoption.  It is highly recommended that BOTH parents travel for the court appointment."

During our first trip, we will stay at a guest house on near the transition home ran by West Sands. Our child will move from the orphanage to the transition home for the time between the first and second trip. We will get to interact with our child daily on the first trip that is typically 5-7 days in Ethiopia.

We then have to return home and the child stays in Ethiopia until all their paperwork, passport, and visa   are processed and finalized. It can be 3-4 months between the first and second trip when we travel to bring the child home. The second trip is also about 5-7 days spent in Ethiopia. Both parents are not required to travel on the second trip.

Whew... is anyone still reading??? That's all Folks! (For now... well that's what we know for now.)