Providence in the Wait

This is a story about how small the world is, and about how the smallest kindness can sometimes be the thing that keeps you sane.

It was the summer of 2015. For months, we'd been waiting with no news about Baby Girl J. We knew she was ours, but we had no idea when she would finally finally get to come home to us. The waiting was interminable, but the uncertainty was worse...

You see, there should have been no uncertainty. We had official records on Baby J--where she was, how she was doing, her history. But then something happened. Starting in March of 2015, I had gotten into the habit of emailing our agency every other week to check status. I wanted to stay on their radar, since they were the only ones with the ability to email ICAB and say "can you tell us what's going on?" Typically, I'd get a "no news" message and go about my day. But in June of 2015, the messages changed.

I had requested the ability to Skype with Baby J. It's allowed as long as the caregivers have the technology available, and many of them do. So the Skype request was part of my regular check-in ritual. In response to one particular check-in I received an email included the following:

...unfortunately, it won't be possible for you to Skype with Baby J, as the foster family caring for her lacks the technology...

Um, what? Everything we ever read about Baby J told us she was in an orphanage. Not just an orphanage, but an orphanage on a hospital campus, where she could be treated for her medical concerns. A foster home? What happened? What's going on???

I emailed the questions to my agency, and the response I got was, in my view, unacceptable. There was no urgency in it; no clarifying information; nothing. Just "we'll get back to you."

I was beside myself. I turned to a private group of adoptive parents for some prayers and support--had anyone else experienced situations where their child had been moved into foster care while their adoption was being finalized? No one had heard of such a thing. I got more nervous, which was maddening because there was nothing I could do.

One of the moms messaged me privately asking where my daughter was supposed to have been living, and I told her. That was a big day for providence: July 28, 2015. This wonderful woman connected me with another woman, and she saved my sanity. She was in the Philippines with her own adopted daughter, bringing treats and supplies to orphanages around the country. It just happened that the orphanage NEXT on her list was my daughter's orphanage. 

My request of her was simple: would she see if Baby J is there? Could she just tell me if Baby J was doing alright? It's a big orphanage (70ish kids!) and honestly, I had no idea if she'd actually find my baby or not, but she promised to try.

She did better than try.

The following Monday, I received pictures in my inbox of my sweet Baby J, smiling and happy, and right where she should be. Pictures of this wonderful woman who barely knew me, loving on my little girl in my place. Pictures that taught me the first thing I ever learned about Baby J: she loves spaghetti and chocolate cake! Oh, how I cried!

It would be two more months before I would finally be able to put my own arms around my sweet baby girl. And it would be another two weeks before my agency confirmed for me what I already knew--that my daughter was where she should be, and that the confusion was merely a mistake on their part. They were talking to me about a different family's child. 

Frustrating in and of itself. But all those frustrations and countless others were made easier to bear by the incredible, simple kindness of a woman I may never meet, who understood what a little bit of knowledge can mean to a waiting mother. 

It's an awesome thing when you can actually see the world getting smaller right before your eyes. That's what I think about when I remember this moment in our adoption journey. That, and how the power of women working together never ceases to amaze me. 

Adventures in Toddler Nesting

For over a year now we've had basically no control over the adoption process. All we can do right now is wait, and wait, and pray, and wait some more.  For someone like me, who plans contingencies for her contingencies, it has been all kinds of maddening.

Naturally, all that energy had to go somewhere. So I turned my attention to converting one of our guest rooms into a room for Little J. I spent hours pouring over bedding sets, room themes, and color swatches. But eventually, I landed on a little piece of history. 

Baby J's wall mural, and the kitchen Howie is sure she will love to play in.

Before we knew that Howie was going to be a boy and chose his airplane pattern--Jake: "His Dad is a pilot. How else would we decorate his room?"--we found a pattern for a little girl we just adored. It was girly but not traditional "girl colors," cute but something a baby wouldn't outgrow for a while.

It came up in conversation as I was scouring the bazillion baby sites on the web--not super thrilled with any of them--and it just clicked. Not only was it something we loved, but it was also in a color scheme that is very similar to the place where Little J is now. We are hoping the room will be comfortingly familiar to her. 

We weren't sure we'd be able to find the pattern, though. After all, it had been six years since we first picked it out! It took some serious internet digging, but eventually I was able to piece together the whole set. I found a great little company to make wooden letters for her; I found a woman on Etsy who made a beautiful set of matching wall decals for her; and by serendipity, a Houston artist of whom I'm a fan had done a beautiful piece of artwork in exactly the right colors to compliment the rest of the room. And as an added touch, Howie decided that his kitchen would look great in Little J's room (such a sweet big brother!).

Bookshelves in need of filling. We're working on it!

We picked out some furniture for Little J's room, then got to work on paint selection. Jake and I have this entire process of elimination we go through with paint samples before we land on a color. Usually we wind up going through thirty or more swatches. But this time around, even as we observed our whittling ritual, I think we both knew that Little J's room was going to be yellow. Jake was a little uncertain of the color when it went on the walls--"it's really bright!" he said, as though he hadn't spent quite a bit of time in the colorful city that is Manila. But once everything was in the room, he changed his tune. 

Getting the room together was not without its challenges. For instance, the furniture that we ordered arrived in boxes. Unassembled boxes. While Jake was on assignment in Louisiana. Of course they did!

It took hours and hours, but I'm more than a little bit proud that I put it all together myself! And it made me chuckle because exactly the same thing happened six years ago--Jake was gone, and I put together Howie's furniture too! So I guess now it's a tradition I should prepare for; if furniture needs assembling, Jake is sure to be gone!

The other issue, of course, is that the eighteen-month-old in my head isn't eighteen months old anymore. She's three! (Yep, that's how long this process has taken!!). My baby, but not really a baby anymore. Instead, a small walking, talking person. So, what started out looking like this:

We started with a crib but...

Had to be converted to this:

Now Baby J has a toddler bed.

I have to confess, I was a little heartbroken to change it, thinking about the missed years and missed milestones of her life the change represented. I let myself have a five-minute pity party and a few tears. Then I reminded myself to look ahead--I choose joy.

So, with this (relatively) minor change, we're ready! So very, very ready! And with the room finished, I'm now looking for some other place to channel all my most frenetic energy. (Suggestions welcome!) So far my usual "fill the schedule" ritual isn't really working. Also, it's slowly starting to drive Jake just a little bit crazy. 

Then again, this entire process is kind of crazy-making. Lord, give us patience! 

Also, please let us bring our baby girl home soon!

To My Sweet Girl on Her Birthday

Our Sweet Baby J,

Today is your birthday. Three years old! It's the second birthday that you have passed since we asked to become your parents.  It's a long process, and it's definitely weighing on me. I'm ready to have you home! Ready to stop waiting and start building our new life with you in it.

But I hope it's not weighing on you. I hope you passed the day happy, playing with your friends, noshing on your beloved spaghetti. I hope your third birthday is bliss for you!

You're so loved, baby girl. Even as I feel my heart breaking that you are still 9,000 miles away from me, it's filled to the brim with how many people are praying for you, harboring hopes for you, ready to embrace you wholeheartedly when you do finally come home. 

You aren't just getting a family, sweet little one, you're getting a village! And oh, the strength and the heart of this village!

Your Kuya Howie is so excited to love on you. He talks every day about the things he will teach you, ponders what you will like to eat, what toys you will play with. Let's just say he's really hoping that chocolate and super heroes make your "likes" list! 

He made a beautiful doll for you with painstaking care. Okay, so a very nice lady in San Jose actually made it; but he poured over every detail--she should have hair like Baby Sister, with a flower. She should wear orange--Howie is sure that you will love orange--and blue so you'll have his favorite color too. 

Howie was hoping to give your new little friend to you for your birthday, but things didn't go quite as we hoped. Instead, you will meet her when you meet your brother (hopefully soon!). He's so very excited to see the smile on your face! And he's a hugger, so you should prepare yourself!

I got a little something for you too, Baby J. What can I say? I couldn't help myself! It's nothing big, just a little bit of shine that is all your own. Peridot is something of an odd birthstone; I hope you like green! It reminds me a little bit of the tropics where you've been spending your days. I can't wait to spend some time there with you as a family!

You'll find I really like to shop with a cause, sweet baby, and this necklace I chose for you is a special one in that regard. It was made by people who have overcome their own challenges, just as I know that you will overcome the ones that are in front of you!  I'm in awe of your strength, little one, to have endured so much in your short life, and still to wear a smile.

You're three, so I doubt this little trinket is one that will last very long. But I can imagine the smile on your face as you open the little box--a gift that is all your own!

I don't know when we will get to celebrate with you, Little One. I hope that soon we will all be together, and that your Kuya, Daddy and I can love on you in person! Learning to be a family is going to be, in itself, a journey. It may be a wild ride sometimes, but we're ready! We can't wait to finally finally be a family of four that is all in one place! And we can't wait to introduce you to our incredible village.

But in the meantime, we are sending you every ounce of love in our hearts. We are thinking about you, we are praying for you, and wishing you the happiest, happiest of birthdays sweet Baby J! 

I hope you can feel all the love and warm wishes all the way on the other side of the world!

When the Going Gets Tough, Hit Your Knees

My God,

It was a year ago today that I first laid eyes on her. She was so tiny, so sad and beautiful, and leaping right off the page at me. We loved her even before we knew she was ours.

It was a dangerous proposition, but we trusted You. Now she’s officially a Hicks, and we are so incredibly grateful for this wonderful, indescribable blessing. Thank you, God.

I know it’s Your will. You’ve told us that care for orphans is “pure religion.” And by adopting us all, letting us call You “Father,” You demonstrated exactly what it looks like when love makes a family. 

But even more than this, I know that adoption is Your will for our family.  We have seen You move through every step of this long, winding process with us. We’ve watched You direct our steps as we navigated the sometimes rocky path, as You brought us to this point in our journey.

We’ve trusted You through the long years of waiting for the unknown, and now through the year of waiting for the known—a call that we can finally go pick up that tiny piece of our hearts 8,700 miles away.

We’ve prepared our home; we’ve prepared our daily lives, our friends and family. And oh, how we yearn for the day we will finally stop preparing, and start being.

I know that Your timing is perfect—things happen when they should.  I know it, but that doesn’t stop my heart from aching or the tears from falling. Why must we wait so long? I’m struggling to see Your plan. I don’t understand.

I can enumerate the long list of reasons she should be home now, but You know them all (and not just because I’ve told you a million times!). If “not yet” is the answer, I know the reason is good. Help me believe that. Help me really believe it, when I say it.

Give me peace, oh God. I need peace. More patience; greater trust in You. Help me lean on You. Help me loosen my Type-A stranglehold on the situation before I drive myself mad.

Help me get outside of myself and serve You while I’m waiting. Help me let go of how things “should be,” so that my heart is open and ready for the things that will be.

Help me wake up each morning and push through the ache in my heart for what’s missing, so I can focus on what’s here and now. I don’t want to miss it!

Most of all, help me remember to be profoundly grateful. She is ours, wherever in the world she is. She is loved, and will be all the rest of her days.

And when the time comes, when the call comes to finally bring our missing piece home, help me remember where every good and perfect gift comes from, and say “thank You.”

I offer this prayer for my daughter in Your sweet son’s name,

Amen.

"Ready," Set, Glitch

I never thought I would hate any word as much as I hate the word "Ready" right now. I've seen it so many times that the word has lost all meaning at this point. I would really love to banish the word from my vocabulary entirely, and I will just as soon as I find a suitable alternative (suggestions welcome). But I'm getting ahead of myself...

Howie:
"Big Brother Whale is giving Baby Sister Whale a ride."

We received confirmation from ICAB of our formal match with Baby Girl Hicks on March 12, 2015, but we had no idea when the official documents--match certificate, birth certificate, medical records, etc.--that we needed to continue the adoption process would arrived in Houston. In international adoption, you have to get your "approval to adopt" renewed annually, and we were coming up on the expiration of our approval (end of April 2015). Since we had no idea when the documents would arrive, we started the process of getting our approval renewed. 

Because this was our second renewal, we had to submit all new documentation, new background checks, an all new home study, new finger prints: the works! Fortunately, our local agency handled the background checks, and we were able to get the documents gathered and schedule meetings with our social worker for the home study update really quickly. But that still left fingerprints which, if you've been following me all along, you know is quite the process.

And because nothing is ever simple, this time around Jake was away (again!) when his fingerprint appointment was scheduled (of course he was!) and we had to mail off for a new one. Fortunately, he was able to make the appointment the second time around. Additional bright side? At least this time he wasn't in Afghanistan, where the military police had to do paper fingerprint cards and mail them home, praying that they would (a) actually arrive, and (b) be accepted by USCIS.

Meanwhile, Baby's documents arrived in Houston on April 6, 2015. Read: we didn't actually need to jump through the renewal hoops after all because we filed before our old documents expired (!!). But we were already so far along, we completed the process anyway. 

As soon as the documents arrived, I got right to work. First, we had to fill out an I-800 petition to have Baby designated as our relative (i.e., our daughter) for immigration purposes. We also had to fill out an I-864 petition to prove that we could care for Baby (financially, medically, etc.). Between them, the two applications were well over 100 pages, but we managed to get them compiled, notarized, and sent off by April 10, 2015. Meanwhile, we also had to send information to ICAB so that they could apply for Baby's Filipino passport (still in the works at this point).

Both the renewal and the I-800 were approved on May 15, 2015, and on May 21, 2015, the State Department sent us a letter letting us know that Baby's application for a visa had been submitted to the U.S. Embassy in Manila.

I was thrilled! After three years of "hurry up and wait," we had made a ton of progress in a sixty-day period. I started thinking that maybe we would have Baby home this summer! Especially when I saw this:

Redacted by me because the internet

So, really exciting, right?!?

Sure. Until four days later when something caused the entire global visa system to glitch. For nearly a month, not a single visa could be issued. Anywhere. Well, you can imagine the backlog from a technology failure like that. In many parts of the word, including the Philippines, the issue is still not fully resolved.

I check the State Department system every day, and every day I get the same screen I've been seeing since June 5. So that's where we are now--"Ready."

"Ready?" READY?!?! Well, yeah! Ready...and about to pull our hair out that an entire immigration application process can take the same amount of time we've been waiting just to get a visa and actually bring our daughter home! 

Ready...to do any kind of planning whatsoever for our family's process of going from a threesome to a foursome. 

Ready...to know something--anything???--about what's going on, when this will resolve, and how our Baby is doing in the meantime. 

Does she know about us? Is she wondering where we are? It hurts my heart, but I kind of hope the former answer is "no," just so the latter is too! 

The past week, several of our friends who were also stuck in the "Ready" holding pattern saw movement on their files. It's so wonderful, and it's giving us hope that our file will be moving again soon, too. But in some ways, it also just makes me even more impatient with the "Ready."

If that's even possible. I guess we'll see when I check status tomorrow...

The Interminable Wait

Seven Months. That's right, seven. Honestly, I thought we had the whole waiting thing on lock. I mean, we've been in this adoption process since 2012!! We know all about waiting!

But none of the other waiting prepared me for the void that followed our request to be matched with that tiny little girl with the tiny little profile.  It was July the first time we saw her on paper--this little bitty person with the huge, sad brown eyes staring right at us, a stark contrast to her pink floral ruffles and puffy white sleeves. We could see her entire, sad little story in the glance captured by that single picture. It remains, to this day, the only one we've seen of her.

It was the first week of August before our caseworker finally got a response from the Inter-Country Adoption Bureau (ICAB) acknowledging our interest in this little girl. But immediately, there was a hiccup--one of her special needs was not listed as "accepted" on our "acceptable special needs" list. When we got word of this issue, Jake was in Kansas (of course he was!) and I was traveling for work (of course I was!), and so the corrected form didn't arrive until three days later. Then came more silence. 

We heard silence all through August and all of September. The first thing that is supposed to happen after you request to be matched with a child is to receive their comprehensive file, and then state definitively "yes, we want this child." But two months had rolled by with no files, and we were beginning to think well, if they won't even send us files on the child, odds are they are not going to pick us for her.

On October 8, 2014 we finally received the little girl's full file. It contained the same picture we had seen previously, plus details about her history (sad indeed, and for a different post), as well as details about her medical issues. 

It was more information, but nothing that differed from what we learned about her through the little paragraph that originally accompanied her picture. We immediately notified our caseworker that "yes, we want this child," and she conveyed our response to ICAB on the same day. Which is a good thing, because we were given a deadline of less than a week to respond!

After that...More waiting. The rest of October passed us by, and half of November, too! On November 20, 2014, our caseworker received an email from ICAB asking if we were still interested in  the child, and noting that we must reply within three days. More hurry up and wait!! But it was an easy question to answer; in fact, my email back had only one word and five punctuation marks in it: 

"YES!!!!!"

After that email exchange, guess what happened next? Yep! More waiting. Thanksgiving passed us by, and then we rolled into December. When we were headed toward Christmas, I became convinced I was getting news as my Christmas present.

Never convince yourself that something out of your hands is going to be your present. Ever. It was a super rough holiday, and I did it to myself.

Christmas passed with no news, as did New Year's Eve and Day. It was two weeks into the new year, on January 14, 2015, when we got an urgent email from our caseworker, with loads of questions to answer about our family.  ICAB wanted to know more about Howie's medical history; they wanted to know more about our home dynamics; they wanted more information about Jake's service and his retirement plans. It was a ton of questions, but none directly related to the little girl we requested, which was a bit confusing. We didn't know if this request was about her, or if ICAB was just updating family files.

And, again, we were given a very short time frame in which to respond. 

There's nothing like waiting forever to be thrown into the frantic, over and over. 

We cobbled together answers to all the questions (read: the wordsmith in me poured over them endlessly until I thought they were perfect), got a letter from Howie's doctor regarding his medical history, and managed to get it all sent off within four days. I'm actually really proud we managed to respond so rapidly. 

...And you know what happened next. 

Honestly, these in-between places sometimes feel like a game of Jeopardy that will never end, theme song on a perpetual loop, when all I want is for someone to shout the right answer!! Anyone? Anyone?

On February 25, 2015, we received a FedEx package from our adoption agency containing, among other things, the news we had been waiting for...

"The Inter-Country Adoption Bureau has approved the placement..."

Oh the joy! I laughed and cried and would have been dancing in my office, if I weren't still trying to prove to my then-new coworkers that I was sane and well-adjusted. (Although I have it on good authority, however, that others were crazy-dancing on our behalf).

I was so excited about the news that I *almost* missed the fine print. The letter from ICAB was dated February 9, 2015. And the first line of the second paragraph read:

"Non-receipt of the couple's decision on the placement within fifteen (15) days...will be deemed a rejection of the proposal."

Anyone catch the math? We got the package on Day 15 in the U.S., which meant that Day 15 was already over in the Philippines. 

Our caseworker had been traveling on business for the adoption agency. No one checked her mail while she was gone. And now, after months of agonizing over whether we would be picked as this little person's parents, we were facing a blown deadline. 

And just like that, the fine print squashed our joyous celebration like a bug.

I don't know if I've ever felt that sad and that furious all at the same time. I raced to put together the materials required to accept the proposal. It was no small task! There were detailed forms to fill out, cashier's checks to obtain, doctors' notes to obtain, things to be notarized, not to mention a slew of things to collect to send to the little one (pictures, stories, etc.). 

Fortunately, I had already been working on a storybook for her, which was basically ready to go.

| Design your own photo book with Mixbook's easy online editor.

We threw everything together as quickly as we could, sending the acceptance first digitally and then by overnight courier to our caseworker, praying that ICAB might still let us bring home our girl.

It was another two weeks of waiting and wondering before we finally got the news--despite our missing the deadline, ICAB was going to let us proceed with the match. 

On March 12, 2015, ICAB confirmed receipt of our documents, and let us know that the things I sent for the baby were being forwarded to her caregivers.

I'd love to stop right here and stamp the whole story with a "happily ever after," and then pepper your social media feeds with pictures of our little brown-eyed girl. But it's July and we still only have one, rambunctious, boy-of-a-child running around our house, so you know the story isn't over.

No, we learned that the official match was only the beginning of a whole new process (and a whole new round of waiting!) to get from a match on paper to a child in the home.

Stay tuned...

The "Special Home Finding" Do-Over

After our heartbreaking near-miss with the adoption Special Home Finding (SHF) list last spring, I thought for sure that I had learned caution and expectation management. Falling in love with a child, then not becoming her family is, after all, sufficiently grueling to leave a lasting impression, right? No. I was giving myself way, way too much credit. 

It all started off well enough. We received profiles of SHF kids from our case worker in May and June, reviewed them pretty dispassionately, and passed on them.** Perhaps, we thought, our prior "incident" was telling us to be patient and wait for a match through the "healthy kids" track. So we waited, proud of ourselves for being patient, for not rushing into another match scenario right away.

But then July came with its own crop of SHF profiles. This was a big group: we were used to getting 15 profiles at a time, but this group was 25, at least. It was a little daunting. In fact, I almost didn't look at them. We're waiting, I told myself, quit being impatient.

I waited all of fifteen minutes from receipt of email. The profiles just called to me, like maybe I knew there was an extra something special in that giant pile of information about the many children in need of homes. So I started flipping through the profiles one by one.

She was in the middle of the group, by far the smallest child, with by far the smallest amount of biographical information. I felt that familiar pull on my heart, but I resisted. This is impatience, I thought. Besides, she's probably already matched just like the last one. I just need to keep waiting.

That lasted all of ten minutes. I decided to get Jake's opinion uninfluenced by me. So I sent him the entire group of profiles to look at with (what I considered) a rather casual note about looking at them when he got a chance. I decided that if he randomly picked the same child, then that must mean something. Sort of like picking a guy out of a line-up! If he picked her, she was bound to be meant for us, right?

An hour later, I still hadn't heard from Jake, and it was nearing the end of the day. I called Jake, who was headed to the airfield to fly. He'd been planning a mission and hadn't checked his phone. 

"You need to look at those profiles and tell me if any of them jump out at you."

"Now??"

"NOW!"

He got off the phone so that he could check his email. I waited.

Ten minutes later, he sent me back the same tiny profile of the same tiny girl. Calm down, woman! I thought to myself. She may be matched already. The match could be rejected for other reasons. She's probably not yours.

But by this point, I was completely ignoring my voice of nay-say. I immediately called our caseworker, who didn't answer the phone. It was a Friday afternoon, late enough that she may have been gone for the weekend. But just in case, I emailed her too; just for good measure.

Sure enough, it was Monday before we heard anything. Our caseworker responded that she had passed along our request to be matched to the Inter-Country Adoption Bureau (ICAB), and now we just had to wait. 

This time, we didn't snap into planning mode, though. No talk about decorating a room or planning for her first few months home. No discussion of how to talk to Howie about this child. So maybe we actually did learn something from being burned--let's not get our hopes up until we hear something. 

But weeks went by and we heard nothing. And as the silence grew in length, my resolve that this child belonged to us grew deeper. In retrospect, it seems really backwards, like my heart was asking for trouble. But so it was that my certainty grew in the absence of news to the contrary.

Which is really dangerous, because it would be seven long months (and some self-imposed heartache) before we heard anything more about this tiny little girl with her tiny little bio.

**For an explanation of the different adoption "tracks," check out this post.

Match, Interrupted

Those of you who know me know that I tend to write our life on delay. Partly, that's for security reasons. But it's also because I'm a big-time processor. I (usually) want to give things a lot of thought before I write. In this particular case, almost exactly a year of thought. But don't worry! In the coming weeks, I will bring you up to speed!

When it comes to our adoption, we've gotten very used to the waiting. After all, we started this process in early 2012! So waiting and the Hicks family are old friends by this point. Still, what makes the waiting bearable is hope--that there will be good news at the end of all of the waiting. It's really only the hope that keeps you going on the tough days. And when it's not there? Oh boy!

Last year, on the Wednesday before Easter, Jake came home from nearly ten months in Afghanistan. It was an extremely joyous (if a little complicated) time for our family. For a brief few days, we were over the moon excited to just be together and have some fun. But as if having Jake home from a war zone wasn't enough, though, we had other things to be excited about too!

When you adopt internationally, you can do so in basically two tracks. On the one hand, you can be on the (long) waiting list to be matched with a healthy child. On the other hand, you can receive lists of "special home finding" kids, and choose a prospective match from those lists. In the Philippines, "special home finding" typically means one of three things: (1) the child is over five years of age; (2) the child is part of a sibling group; or (3) the child has a special need of some kind. The list is typically published monthly, and it is long.

That's why, since early 2013, while we have been on the waiting list for matching with a healthy child, we were also receiving the special home finding list from our caseworker. Or rather, we received child profiles from the list that roughly matched our family's file. If a particular list had 100 kids on it, we would receive about 15 profiles. At that many profiles a month, you can imaging how many kids whose stories we read.

The same day that Jake got home last spring, we received the April Special Home Finding profiles from our caseworker. As we were all snuggled up together before bed, we looked through the profiles, and found one that really struck us. She was a beautiful six year old girl, almost two years to the day older than Howie. Her story spoke to us, and we were certain we were the family for her. We contacted our caseworker and requested to be match right away. 

The messages we got about the match were very positive, and we started to get excited--planning her room, how to handle school readiness, how to get Howie ready for a big sister. It was both exciting and overwhelming all at once. And for someone who researches and plans...well, everything, it was a time when I hopped into overdrive!

Four weeks later, I was at the airport waiting for a flight to Lexington for work, and I got the call. There was a long conversation about the "why," but the gist was that the little person we'd been building our plans around was being matched with a different family. 

I just fell apart. I found myself sobbing on the floor in the United Club bathroom. I missed my flight, which led to a (now) hilarious, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles-esque race to get me to Lexington in time for my meetings. It was terrible. Calling Jake to let him know was worse--running through it all again, falling to pieces again. He handled it better than I did (he usually does), but it stung. Really stung. 

I can look back now and just be thankful this little girl has a family. And when she crosses my mind, I say a prayer for her. But it still makes my heart ache.

A few days later, I collected myself and I called my case worker again to find out what happens next. She began the conversation with "if you don't want to proceed with this any longer, certainly I understand." The statement struck me: was she asking if we'd given up? Did she think we were done? 

I talked to her and learned that many families reach a point in the adoption process where the emotional toll is too great, and they have to walk away. I thought about me, crumpled on the floor, and understood. But it gave me resolve that I didn't realize was there before. "This little one was not meant for us," I told her, "but it doesn't mean adoption is not meant for us." See, Jake and I have felt from the beginning that adoption is something we were called to. No one said it would be easy, and Lord knows we've had our challenges. But absent some insurmountable roadblock, we just know adoption is our path.

"We're in this," I told her. "Perhaps there will come a day when we decide that, for our family, enough is enough. But today is not that day. Not by a long shot."

A year and a dozen challenges later, it's still not that day. Not by a long shot!

To be continued...

Adoption Through Sweet Treats

Hi friends! OK, I admit it, I have been neglecting this blog. Honestly, it's been a hard few months, between crazy changes at home, and no news on the adoption front. But I'm resolved to start chatting with you again in the coming weeks and get everyone caught up on all things Hicks Hiking, so watch out.

In the meantime, I would LOVE for all of you to help me support another family in their adoption journey. 

I know some of you have heard me talk about how expensive adoption can be, especially international adoption. Families often have to get creative about how to fund their adoptions. Some hold fundraisers; some write grants; and some make items to sell. 

One of the families that we have met on the adoption journey is the Hudson family. The Hudsons are also going through the process of adopting from the Philippines, and they have come up with a super sweet plan (literally!) to pay for their adoption, and then pay it forward.

Jennifer Hudson makes truly delectable salted caramels and caramel sauce. They are awesome! You can read more below, but here's the short version: Jennifer's original goal when she started Stirred by Hand was to sell 50 to 100 jars of the caramel sauce at Christmas. But it's so good, she actually sold over 500 jars! That's not counting the candies! And it's no wonder to me at all; did I mention they are amazing?

Jennifer informed me today that they are 2/3 of the way toward their goal of funding their adoption through her sweet treats. And once they've funded their own adoption, Jennifer wants to start supporting local and international initiatives--like Mercy House--to care for orphans and make adoptions more accessible through Stirred by Hand. Awesome, folks!

But Jennifer's not waiting until she hits her own goal to start paying it forward. She has already donated $1,000 worth of caramels to one other adopting family, and has committed to making caramels for a second family--a Marine Corps family--to sell for their own adoption later this month!

I'm hoping that you, friends, can help me put her over the top of her own adoption goal, and get her started with her outreach efforts as well! Jennifer's contact information is in the story block below. She ships anywhere in the U.S., and with Valentine's Day just around the corner, there's no better time to be buying sweet treats!

Also, I'm no medical expert, but I'm pretty sure that calories you consume for a good cause don't count, right? So load up today my friends! 

Maligayang Pasko, Little One!

It’s Christmas Eve today, and I’m just not in the Christmas spirit. I really expected to be, but I’m not. I really should be. After all, Jake is home safe. Our family is under one roof, all together and all in good health. We’ve trimmed the tree and lighted the house. All the presents are wrapped and under the tree. A stream of Christmas cards has been filling our mailbox for weeks. All of the key components of holiday cheer are present, and yet cheer is not. 

And it’s my own fault. My heart convinced my head that my big gift for Christmas this year would be news. ‘We’ll finally hear about the newest little person joining our family!’ I convinced myself. 

Despite the fact that we won’t even hit the average wait time until April. Despite the fact that I’ve been working in the Philippines for nearly a decade, and I know that government slows to a halt in December. Despite, despite, despite. Against all reason, I was simply convinced—our little person is out there somewhere, and this Christmas I will finally get to learn who our little person is.

I was wrong. And it’s deflating. My heart is aching, not just from the disappointment, but also from knowing that our Little really is out there somewhere, passing yet another Christmas without a family. Generally speaking, caregivers in the Philippines are extremely loving and attentive to their charges, so I’m not worried about an unhappy Christmas for Little. But it hurts my heart to think about a Christmas passed with a void; Christmas as a lone piece of a far-away a puzzle. Christmas passed longing not for Santa, but for nanay (mommy) and tatay (daddy) and kuya (big brother). When we’re right here!!

So now, what I’m yearning for this Christmas is peace. Lord, let me lay down the disappointment. Lift the sadness from my heart. Help me focus on the now, and allow the future to come to me when it will. 

And to my Little, wherever you are, Maligayang Pasko sweet angel! Merry Christmas! Maybe next year you will spend it with your family.

It Doesn't Have to Be a Lonely Road...

In July, we passed the two years mark in our Philippines adoption journey, and this month makes eighteen that we have been on the approved families list. If the averages hold, that means we are probably looking at a match in the Spring, but averages are just averages.  I have to remind myself of that a lot. We knew from the beginning that this would be a long journey, but somehow that doesn't stop the impatience eager anticipation for the day we finally get the call.

The thing that is hardest about the adoption journey is that it can feel really isolating. As time passes with no word, you start to fret. You start to wonder if it is ever really going to happen. You start to worry whether you dotted all the i's and crossed all the t's. Did I miss something? Could we have done a better job with the documents? Are we doing it wrong?

I'm meticulous. I know I did it all right, and more importantly I believe that this whole process is in God's hands. Yet I still obsess a little a ton about the details, worry about the unknowns.

I think part of the reason for that is that, comparatively speaking, the Philippine international adoption program is really small. There are only about 300 international adoptions each year from the Philippines, usually fewer than a hundred in the U.S. That includes matches, home findings for special needs kids, as well as relative adoptions. It's a small group. And because it's a small group, there just aren't a ton of support resources out there. It's hard to find other people who've been there.

Actually, that's why I started blogging about this in the first place. I wanted to write our story to keep our friends and family informed, but also because I hoped that other people out there, Googling "Philippines Adoption," might find it and not feel quite so alone in the process.

It's starting to work! In recent months, I've had a couple of families reach out to me on the blog and share their stories. One family, the Nissa family, sent me a message a few weeks ago letting me know that they had been matched with a baby boy. They're in the process of finalizing paperwork to bring him home now. You can read all about their story here (it's in French, so you'll need a translator). When Anne Nissa wrote me with her good news, she said "I just want to animate you on this road!" Boy did she! My heart still swells when I think about it.

I recently heard from another woman whose family was just matched with a five-year-old boy and his eighteen-month-old sister. She left her comments anonymously so I don't know who or where she is, but it was definitely encouraging to hear from her.

Reaching out really helps, too. Last year, through someone who reads my blog, I finally found a Philippines Adoption Group. It's a group of twelve people, all at different stages of the waiting game. At times, if feels like we are all taking turns being frustrated with the waiting, but sometimes commiseration is exactly what you need. And when any of us has questions, needs help or just an encouraging word, someone is there. 

A few weeks ago, a friend sent me a new story about a couple in Denton, Texas working on a Philippines adoption. We were able to find each other on Facebook, and our virtual conversation about adoption led to our being found by another woman who recently started a Philippines adoption group on Facebook. Through that group, I met Mandy Rose and Jessica Wood, both mommies waiting for Philippines matches, both blogging about it.

We're all still waiting. Finding each other certainly didn't fix that. But what it did was give us someone with whom we can commiserate. Other families working through the same challenges we are, sharing the same hopes we do. Finding community in this journey, it means we'll get a lot more of those joyful heart swells as these families welcome home their children.

It makes waiting for ours just a little bit easier.

Waiting--One Year In

Amidst a great cosmic swirl of happenings (about which I will write more later), a milestone came and went without our noticing it. April 12 marked one year that we have been sitting on the Approved Families list for the Philippines, waiting to be matched with a child.

That we are still waiting is no big surprise to us; we anticipated two years on the waiting list, which means we are really only at the half-way mark at this point. And it's a year that flew by between deployments, another year of growing for Howie, and all the craziness my own work interjects into the mix. Still, at the back of our minds there's a yearning. 

Not an impatience, really, because there are plenty of reasons why later would be better for our family. No, this is more like a question, consistently being whispered in the quiet moments of our lives. When? When will we get the call? When will the stars align?

Like so much of our lives, this process is one of waiting. Like waiting for deployment to end, and waiting to finally live under one roof. But this is different. This is fundamentally changing the fabric of our family, of our lives, in the most profound way imaginable. It must happen on its own time, in its own way.

I have written before about how providence has guided our adoption process. It might be the greatest exercise in searching for God's will that Jake and I have ever undertaken, and sometimes it has been tremendously challenging. But through finding the right agencies, then a replacement agency, through scheduling and paperwork snafus and even some natural disasters, we have found our way to this point.

Now we are being faced with some new process-oriented decisions we hadn't anticipated. For now all I can say is that there are multiple avenues laid before us (not will we adopt, but rather how will we adopt), and we are searching again for the path of providence in knowing which way to go. 

Please pray for us, friends. Pray that we will have peace and patience as we continue our time on the waiting list, and that we will have wisdom to know how to proceed when the child meant for us finds his/her way to us.

Three Months In...

Well, technically three and a half. By the time we get past Thanksgiving next week, Jake will have been deployed for four months.  In some ways, it has flown by. Howie and I have managed to achieve a level of normalcy I hadn’t expected with Jake gone so long. Being more okay than I thought we’d be comes with its own kind of heartache, though. I like to think it comes from all the years of practice being remote—we just know that even across the miles we’re in each other’s hearts. Maybe that’s enough for now.

But on the other hand, when I think of how many months we still have to go—and especially when I think about the holidays, birthdays, and other important things that lie between here and there—it still makes my heart sink every time.  Last night, Howie and I had a movie date. It was really fun and Howie loved it (“just you and me time mommy!”). But still, I couldn’t help but think how I’d give just about anything for our twosome to be a threesome on that simple everyday outing.

Last month, my life was made infinitely easier.  Jake’s brother moved to Houston with his wife, and they have been helping me with Howie. It was really a God-send because my travel has been more than a little hectic this past few months. It’s a struggle for me to remember a week where I wasn’t away at least a day.  

Having them here, knowing Howie is cared for and that he can keep his routine while I’m working brings a lot of peace (no more mild heart attacks every time I have to take a deposition, attend a hearing, or [insert thing work expects me to do because it's my job]). It makes the rest of this--the deployment, the distance--easier to handle.  Not to mention, we’ve never really had family living nearby.  This year was the first time that Howie got to celebrate Halloween with more than just me! He really loves having them around and so do I.

Of course, it hasn’t all been smooth sailing. Howie is being very THREE lately. I’m sure it’s mostly the age he is; many of his friends’ parents are experiencing the same things. It seems that the incredible personality and imagination I see more of every day goes hand in hand with willfulness and independence. I guess you can't have one without the other, but some days I sure wish you could!

Even though I know that being very three is very normal, I also know that his Dad being gone plays a part. Jake is a regular feature in Howie’s best dreams. It always breaks my heart a little when he’s finished telling me the stories, and I see in his eyes that he remembers Daddy is gone.  And he loves talking about the adventures we will go on together.

We've now started weaving adoption into the conversation to get him ready for our next big adventure as a family. We pray that God will send us the perfect little brother or sister to add to our family. We pray that Daddy is home from Afghanistan before we are matched so that we can all travel to the Philippines together to bring home a new Hicks. And Howie knows what the Philippines is, where it is, and *almost* knows how to say it. 

One thing he did pick up pretty quickly: the word "kuya." It means "big brother."

I tell Howie stories about the last time our family went to the Philippines together, about our volcano adventure, and he thinks it is a great story but I don't think he believes me. Guess we will have to do it again! Hopefully next time, as a foursome!

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