Waiting on insurance!

Today I hate to tell you that I NEVER thought what would end up holding our adoption up the most would be medical insurance!  If you are starting this process, I would HIGHLY recommend that before you assume your insurance will take your child on, that you MAKE SURE!!!  This has given us a ton of trouble!  Our social worker said that before we agree to doing special needs we needed to make sure our insurance would not deny a child with special needs.  Our baby may need lots of surgeries so this is really something we have to consider!  She told us it would be crazy for us to accept a baby that we may not be able to support medically!  Which of course is true!  So right now we , I should say Matthew,  has had ROUNDS with the insurance because they are telling us they don't have to cover an adopted child and the Colorado commissioner is telling us they do!  To us, our new baby should be viewed just like our birth children and there is NO difference!  So right now I feel like that is discrimination at its finest!!!  So, long story short, please pray that our insurance situation gets worked out so we can get to our baby as soon as possible!!!  Thank you! 

Road to Special Needs...

Looks like Matthew spread the news today that I now have a blog about adoption!!  I'm glad because I really love hearing from people who have adopted or who want to learn more about it!  Today, I thought I would tell you some about how we were led to think about special needs adoption.  I told you about the wait being close to four years, so naturally you might think that is why we looked into special needs.  And in part it is!  But that is DEFINITELY NOT the reason to think about adopting a child with special needs!  But when we began looking at those children who are already waiting for a family, it started to become really difficult for me think about them all staying in China in an orphanage with NO family!  The greatest thing I have ever read about special needs adoption was on the blog of another mom who has adopted 5 times from China.  She said that when her family began looking at special needs children, they realized that the BIGGEST special need a child has is a family!  SO true!  God is still molding our hearts and preparing our family to find out who will be that special baby for us!  Please pray that we will have the faith in God we need to wait on Him and that the perfect child for our family will soon be in our arms and an orphan no more!

Deciding on China...

Once we made the decision to adopt, we then had to decide where we wanted to adopt from!  After lots of discussing and prayer, we felt like God led us to China!  It all seemed to fall perfectly into place with the agency and we have actually met TONS of people who also adopted using the agency we chose!  NOT A COINCIDENCE!  Then we began!!!   The mounds of paperwork people told us about was oh so true!!  We were constantly working on documents and this was when I realized that adoption is NOT the easy road to a child!  It is the road less taken, but a road that leads to a MUCH deeper faith in God and reliance on Him to guide me, regardless of what I want!  But we did the paperwork and finally finished our dossier and it was sent to China!  For those who don't know, that means that all our paperwork went to the Chinese government and they actually received it and we got a date that was logged in as the day they got it.  Then we began talking about the four year wait!!!!!!  It never occurred to me that it would be a maddening wait that I couldn't stand!!!  We discussed how the wait would be good because we could enjoy the children God has already blessed us with and would then have more time to devote to the baby when it comes because our children would be older.  We also talked about how financially we could save for the adoption and not have to come up with TONS of money within the year...which is another issue with adoption that people don't realize until they begin!!!  But all the reasoning did not prepare me for how I would feel once my paperwork was done and we were waiting...it is miserable!!!  I want to know RIGHT NOW who my baby will be, where he or she will come from, and what he or she is doing RIGHT this very minute!!!  The unknown is so hard for me!  It is completely out of my control and I know God is leading our minds through this whole process, but it is hard just the same. But for now we are praying....and thanking.
     I will write more later to catch everyone up on where we are now, and what led us to look at children with special needs!  Thanks to my 2 followers!!!  That was kind of shocking to me!!!  Didn't think I'd have any...
"I have prayed for this child, and the Lord has granted me what I asked of Him."
I Samuel 1:27

Our adoption journey began....years ago!!!!

This is the very first time I have written a blog post of any kind!  I decided I wanted to start one when I began reading sooo many other people's blogs about their adoption journeys.  They have been such an encouragement to me and such a source of comfort.  Loaded with information, I decided that maybe I could do that for others, or at least join with others in sharing our story to inspire others to adopt too!  That said....here is the beginning of our adoption journey!
   I have always had a place in my heart for children without parents!  I have always wanted to go get them all and bring them here and take care of them!  But that wasn't really in the workings of my family until after my second child, Noah, was born! Several factors were involved in us looking into adoption for our next child.  And I will have to say that once you begin to research it and look at all those babies without families, it can become overwhelming and also obsessive!!!  I became somewhat crazy over looking at those babies and feeling for them spending their little lives looking out through the bars of a crib not being loved at all and rarely feeling another human's touch, while MY children were being spoiled and nurtured and loved beyond measure!!!  That wasn't right to me and I spent, and continue to have sleepless nights wondering how I could live with myself if I didn't at least bring one of them into our family.  But that's not to say I am not doing it for the selfish reasons of wanting more children to love and raise also!!!   And so, God began working on my heart!  And working on my life and Matthew's life, and even the lives of our children to prepare us to be ready to take a leap of faith and go get a baby!!!!  That's all for tonight!  I'll post more later...if I can remember how to get on here!!!  But one thought I have to leave you with is one I heard several years ago...If every Christian family adopted one baby, there would be NO more orphans!!!  Not less, NONE!!!!