Russian adoption

I thought I would give a little background on Russian adoptions in general.  We have gotten lots of questions in the last few weeks about this process.  We are happy to answer any questions, we actually welcome it because it allows us a chance to talk about our future heritage and culture that we will be blending into our lives. 
Russia in general has great working relations with the USA.  They have signed an adoption agreements and they have paved a clear road for all adoptions coming from Russia to the US.  The youngest child that can come out of the Russian adoption program is 8 months old.  All children need to be available for domestic Russian adoption for a minimum of 6 months first then they are eligible for international adoption. They do not have a "foster" system like the US does, so every child that has been removed from a home or given up is housed in orphanages.  These facilities are less than optimal, but they do provide some basic needs.  They are typically underfunded and understaffed.  So for every month a child lives in an orphange they are typically 3months behind our developmental standards.  There is over 250,000 Russian orphans available for adotpion, and about 2.5 times that number of children living in orphanges for some reason or another.

Russia is great at matching a child to an adopted family...which means they look out our finances, our ages, our biological child's age and they firmly believe in keeping natural birth order and trying to match a child that may look like us if we desire that.  This is different from other countries that just match the next available orphan with the next available family.

Most of Russia operates on a "blind referral system".  This means we get little or no information about our child until we arrive in Russia to meet the child.  We then get access to any information they have on the child.  At this time we get there medical file that is filled with a list of medical conditions that may or may not be true. All orphans have some sort of medical condition labeling them, this is how they get them on the registry list to get adopted.  Some of these conditions are not eve translatable into to English, because they don't exist.  Simple things like, lactose intolerant is label as a GI tract condition but only need proper attention that is not offered living in a standardized environment.  After meeting the child, and the Orphanage director and Dr. we can decide if we want to proceed with this adoption.  We then return to the US and wait for another invitation to travel for court. This is usually about 2 months later.  As of Jan 1, 2012 we have been informed that Russia is implementing a mandatory 30 waiting period after our court date that will allow us to take our child to the US embassy in Moscow and get there birth certificate and passport so they can come home with us.  They will be a US citizen upon arrival in the US.  So what this means for us.  We will both need to travel twice and one of us will have to go back a third time to get our child.

We are excited about this journey the Lord is taking us on, and we anticipate the day we get a call to travel for the first time.  Our prayer today is that we get to travel this year.  We don't know if this will happen, it is possible but it is also realistic that it may not happen.  So if you are a praying person, we ask that you pray for this journey to happen this year.  We are currently at a waiting period for some immigration paperwork and then we can "Register" with a specific region in Russia - from that point they say it can be a 4-12 month wait. 

Russian Christmas

As we wrap up our Christmas Season here in the US, our Russian Child could be anxiously awaiting a visit from Grandfather Frost.  The Russian culture that celebrates the Russian Orthodox religion run on a bit different calender and actually celebrate Christmas on Jan 7th!  They Celebrate the New Year first then prepare for their Christmas Celebrations which is richly embedded with Christian heritage.
Here is a few of the traditions we have researched about Russian traditions.

Santa Claus is dressed in a Blue outfit and called Grandfather Frost.  He is accompanied by his granddaughter the Snow maiden to deliver gifts to the children on New Years Day, because of the history of the Communist ban on religion.  The Russian's found a way to Celebrate the Season.  Today they Russians have a large New Years Celebration and then the Holy Christmas Day is celebrated on Jan 7th.

Russian Orthodox fast on Christmas Eve until the first star appears in the sky.

The families celebrate with a HOLY SUPPER - with a white table cloth, a single white candle in the center of the table representing the "light of the world".  This meal consist of 12 different food items to represent the 12 Apostles.  This is typically a meatless meal.

On Christmas day families visit each other eating, drinking, and singing Christmas Carols all day long.

Many of the same traditions are carried out in the Western world, so we shouldn't have a hard time incorporating some Russian traditions into our home.  We are excited to celebrate the heritage of our child and always have some Hatfield family traditions that reflect where she came from.

Our Prayer today is that if our Little Angel is born, that she is warm and safe.  We pray that someone is holding her and that she gets to celebrate the season.  If she is not born we pray that her mother is taking care of her and that with the Holidays upon them that she restrains from the use of alcohol or drugs, which unfortunately is a large problem in this part of the world.

Mommyhood

Today it is sunny and 42 in Kansas City and today it is a rain/snow mix and 33 in Moscow, Russia.  It seems weird to most but we check the weather in both places everyday.  Not only because it gives us something to do, but it gives us a sense of what we should be praying about for our little "snow princess".  You see we don't know anythng about this little girl.  We don't know if she is even born yet.  She maybe living in extreme poverty, or on the streets or she might be well taken care of in a baby home.  I use the weather to guide me, if it is snowing I almost always pray for warmth and not just physical warmth, but that she can feel a warmth in her soul because someone loves her.  Someone like me from far away. What I do know is that I feel the exact way about her as I did with my son when I was pregnant.  The incredible love i already feel for this human I have never met.  I wonder who she is, what she looks like, will she be traditional Russian heritage or will she have some asian features?  It really is crazy to love someone so much that you don't even know and better yet I don't know when I will meet her.

Overwhelming sense of calmness

For most people pulling up to a local coffee shop to meet a complete stranger sends a surge of nervousness through them.  Well for me it was different.  I wasn't worried about the fact that I didn't even know what the face looked like I was supposed to be meeting to start our home study process.  I was calm, collected and excited to meet my new friend!  Even though I had never met our social worker, I felt like knew her because of all the wonderful things other people had said about her.  She was just as great as they had said.

I prayed on my way to our meeting that this would be the start of a wonderful working relationship and that it would be a smooth process that brings us one step closer to our Russian Princess.  Really, we just talked about my family and the process.  Thankfully I am blessed and have a normal family, and we all have pretty good relationships with eachother so that made it easy to talk about and I didn't have to explain anything weird.  Jeremy gets his chance to meet alone with her Tuesday, so he will be the real test of how easy this is.  I am a bit bias, because I like to talk!

We are praying for our child daily and we know that God has chosen just the right baby out there for us to love and call our own.  I had a personal experience this weekend that really struck me deep with adoption.  I am not a real emotional person but situation brought a moment of fear and tears that  made me wonder if I am equipped to emotionally handle all aspects of adoption.  I just have to be thankful for those mothers that are so selfless and know they need to provide a better life for their child, even when it seems hard to comprehend why God would even let them concieve a child if we can't.  I know that is a bit deep for some, but it is sitting heavy on my heart. 

Puzzle fundraiser

Will you be a piece of the puzzle?

We have purchased a 1000 piece puzzle that will be a catalyst for bringing our child home from Russia.  We will be selling each of these puzzle pieces for $10, once the puzzle piece is purchased we will write your name on the back of the piece(s) and then when the puzzle is complete we will glue the entire puzzle together and have it framed and then hung it in our childs room.  This will forever be a reminder of God's grace and all the people that  supported and prayed us through this journey as well.  The puzzle we chose is called "Tree of Life", this couldn't be more fitting when you think of all the branches of people that will be a part of this journey.
We invite you to be a part of this.  Please share this with your family, friends, coworkers, or anyone who might have a heart for orphans.  Realistically this is just giving up a couple of coffees or a meal out, but will bring a child home to a forever family.
You can purchase a piece of our "Tree of Life" through the PayPal link, We ask that if you purchase multiple pieces please email us and let us know whose name you want on the pieces.  We will probably be able to figure it out if you purchase a piece for every member of your family..but we don't want to leave people out.  Or if you want to make sure we get it correct you can send a check or cash to us directly.

Please email me for our contact information.  Tabathann@hotmail.com

Finances?

Everyone looks at adoption in a different light.  Some are excited about it, some not.  Some get hung up on the "what ifs" and some get distracted by the price tag associated with this journey.  Thankfully, the latter is something I am not stressing about.  I guess we have so much to do to make this happen that we haven't had time to panic about the financial aspect of this.  Don't get me wrong, we have spent plenty of time looking at our finances but we are not stressing over this.  Why?  I don't know.....really.  When we decided to move forward with adoption we took a leap of faith and decided that God would be faithful.  We feel like God would not have given us theses desires if he was not going to come through on the financial side.  People spend large amounts of money on cars, boats, vacations, or homes....so I guess our priorities have shifted this direction.  We would rather have a family than these extra things.

A little history.....

Adoption has always been a small part of my life...my mom was adopted so we grew up talking about it occasionally and my grandmother and I have had several conversations over the last 30 years about how much of a blessing adoption can be to someone who can't have children.  So I have always had a heart for adoption and quite an urgency to follow through with a mission to do this someday.  Of course, I thought I would do it on my terms and under my conditions.  That is where I had mistaken the yearnings in my heart for adoption as one of my dreams, not the plan God had in store for me.  Two years ago Jeremy and I found out that we would never conceive a child on our own.  We could do it through In-vitro but never spontaneously, which in iself is devastating...this meant there would be NO accidental pregnancy, no weekend getaway baby or a child concieved out of  anthing but some fancy medical procedure and even the pure reality that the number of children we had dreamed of was suddenly taken away from us for pure financial reasons!  Now those of you that have dealt with infertility know this heartache, for those that haven't...it sucks!  Mostly because all your choices are taken away from you and you are at the mercy of medical doctors.  Well realistically God's MERCY, but it was hard to focus on that at the time.
Somewhere in those moments at the doctors office..the moment that I had hit the shut off switch.  I remember thinking very clearly "this is why I have a heart for adoption".... But then it was over, I went back to the words "you will not ever conceive on your own".... and I never really re-visited that moment about adoption until months later.
Well most of you know that we looked into our options for creating a family, because we knew we were meant to have a family...we knew our lives would never be complete without a child to call our own.  We did our research and we prayed like warriors and really felt called to at least try the In-vitro so we couldn't say somewhere down the road..."what if"....
We were blessed on our first attempt and got pregnant with our son.  He has been the greatest joy in our lives.  I look at his beautiful smile everyday and feel like the luckiest mom in the world!  I feel so thankful that I have gotten to experience the joy of becoming a mom.  His blue eyes will melt your heart and his spirit is one in a million.  We have watched him become alive in his personality and we knew shortly after he could smile in response to people that he need a sibling and a playmate.  So here we are..............after months of prayers and Gods faithfulness he has completely filled our hearts with the yearning to move to adoption for our second child.  Its been really cool to watch God orchestrate this decision.  Jeremy has always been OK with thinking about adoption, but now he is adamant on adoption!  His heart has been filled to the brim with that sense of urgency that I have always carried.