Adoption Moratorium, Faith, and TWO Little Winns

Since November, Donald and I have made ZERO progress toward finishing our adoption. The country we're adopting from has been voting on legislation that would put a moratorium into effect for their international program. After passing two votes and being signed into law by their president, it would go into effect. It was after the first vote (where it passed) that we paused everything. Being toward the end of our home study, and having many of our documents gathered (some of which were time-sensitive and could "expire", so to speak), our best judgement told us to wait and see what would happen next.

Any further progress would have been a significant financial investment in adopting from our specific country. The cost for translating the documents was over $4,000 alone. If their program closed and we had to switch countries, we'd be out by several thousand.

A huge financial risk... that we weren't willing to take.

I remember reading blogs of fellow adopting parents who made the opposite decision, and were pushing forward in faith. My reaction? "Oh, they must be loaded..." or, "Wow, how naive...". At best, I might have thought they were brave or inspirationally optimistic.

Now, I find myself ashamed of those judgements. Aside from it obviously being NO business of mine, I now see the fruits of their faith: submissions of dossiers, dates received, plane tickets purchased, and some families with children already in their arms, home forever.

While we, the "financially prudent family", sit here on the couch with our dogs, watching X-files.

Several "postponements" in the voting process later (among other things), a moratorium is no more imminent than it was two months ago. And yet, we're no closer to having a Little Winn home, either.

Not for long, though. We're moving forward. We're doing this thing. We're taking the financial leap of faith, and are tapping into retirement accounts (lol, who needs a retirement fund - our kids can care for us in old age!) We're bringing home our Little Winn... or rather, our Little WinnS.

We've decided to bring home TWO children from Eastern Europe.

Details are still being hammered out, but I'll post more information once things are official.

ONWARD!