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Thursday, November 17, 2016

The fruit of the Spirit isn't a pineapple...

But according to my "What to Expect When You Are Expecting" app, baby Mila is a pineapple this week! (If you haven't heard... I am 35 week pregnant!)
Was that a strange segue for y'all? Sorry, my brain is all over the place lately. I blame hormones.


The last time I wrote about baby stuff was after we had lost our first pregnancy.
*long pause and deep breath*
A literal long pause because it was over a year since I blogged after that and I also just took a long pause because I'm not sure what to write after that sentence.

...

The last time I wrote about baby stuff was after we had lost our first pregnancy. A lot has happened since then. I assume most of y'all are fairly aware of those changes because you are our Facebook friends (and if you aren't, you really should be). Last December we received baby Angel Jesus, a newborn who was abandoned in a strip mall. We received word about him while we were in the States for a funeral and two days after a negative pregnancy test. It was (and has been) exciting and overwhelming at the same time to be insta-parents.

It has been almost a year since we received AJ, and so much has happened (like becoming pregnant!). I wanted to take some time to give y'all a status report on AJ and the adoption process. This will probably be a long story, sorry y'all.

I will start by saying that fostering/adopting is a VERY complicated process in Ecuador... as most legal processes are. Plus, Ecuador does not have currently have a foster program and in fact, looks down on the foster program. We currently are fostering through the Hacienda, which has legalized written bylaws allowing fostering, and that is the only reason why we are allowed to have AJ. So I guess we were off to a bad start to begin with when dealing with CPS (child protective services).

AJ's case was a little different from most because he was broadcasted all over the national news. Case workers, police officials, and the local CPS office were interviewed and videoed, which probably made them feel pretty important. Newborns being abandoned in town actually isn't a very common occurrence. So some of the locals have this special emotional attachment to him, which they don't in any of the other Hacienda kids.

Back in early 2016, I was posting pictures of AJ on Facebook fairly often. Despite the fact that my profile is set to private, the local CPS office was able to see some of the images and posts. They were fairly upset, and understandably. It is a law, even in the States, that foster parents cannot post picture of their foster kids. But the part that got me was the fact that they were upset to see that we were growing a bond with him. They feel like it is better for a child to be put in a children's home or orphanage so that bond aren't formed as closely. Kinda backwards thinking, hu? Well, I was visited by the local CPS office. They came up to the house and wanted to see the baby and where he was staying. They also wanted to inform me that we were not his forever parents and that we will never be his forever parents. Pretty harsh.

That was a difficult conversation and a difficult day. We've known all along that chances of adoption could be pretty slim and that we just had to be prayerful and open to all possibilities. Which of course is a very...VERY... hard thing for anyone to do, nonetheless a couple suffering through infertility.

We were told that this was the local CPS office who were making these statements and they technically don't make any sort of adoption decisions. So we made an appointment in February, with the main CPS office in Tena, which is in-charge of adoptions in our area. Tena is a 5 hour drive towards the Amazon jungle.  There we had an informal meeting with the psychologist. Normally we would meet with a social worker, but the current one had quit so we were left with psychologist. We had hoped that because of the good relationship the Hacienda directors had with the main CPS office, we would receive good news. We left fairly disappointed. Here is what we were told:

  • We couldn't start the official processes of being adoptive parents until July 2016, because that is when we would have lived in Ecuador for 3 years (we knew this part, so it wasn't a big deal)
  • As adoptive parents you cannot choose the child you want to adopt. CPS chooses them... It doesn't matter that you are fostering a child, especially in our case because the child is so young you don't grow the same kind of bond. We were told that infants don't remember anything so the bond we are creating doesn't really matter much. (?!?!?!?)
  • If we wanted to adopt, we couldn't be in the process of trying to get pregnant. If we were to get pregnant, we would have to wait a certain period of time after the birth of our child to begin/or continue the process of adoption.
I left that day feeling extremely discouraged, more so about that last point. What do we do? Do we post-pone fertility treatments and pursue adoption in hopes that they will bend the "not choosing your baby" rule (which we feel confident they would) and jump through all the hoops not knowing if further down the line we get a different "no" for a different reason (which is highly possible). Do we continue with fertility treatments in the hopes that they would change their minds later and even take the risk that AJ could be adopted by someone else? Its almost a no win/no win situation.

The path we decided on was to continue our plan of growing our family and put AJ's adoption into God's hands. In March, we found out our third IVF cycle was successful and I was pregnant. Things were pretty quiet on the CPS front for several months. The main office had a change over of staff (which happens every two years) so that delayed almost all of their cases. In July the new psychologist was in town working with the Hacienda's social worker. I was informed that the new lady was up to date on AJ's case and wanted to work with us on adoption work. Praise the Lord!

In July sat down with the new main office CPS psychologist while she was in town. She got some basic info down and said we had to drive out to Tena again and do an official interview. We asked if being pregnant would be an issue, she assured us that it would not be (hooray!). However, the problem was, once again, there was no current social worker. The lady said that once she found a social worker she would give us a call and we could set up an appointment, hopefully for sometime in August. Well, August came and went and we received no call. This isn't a surprising fact, as that it is very common here. We are the ones who have to be proactive if we want things to happen. And unfortunately, we were not. I could list off some excuses and things we were doing, but I won't. We should have been better.

September came and so did the time for the Hacienda social worker to close AJ's file with the courts. This means that all the work to find his family has been done and he can be officially declared adoptable. Well, that put a little bit of a rush on us. I was in Quito getting a glucose test done when I was told that we should be getting together documents and speaking with the psychologist again. Jake called and talked to the lady and she said we could begin the paperwork, BUT because I was pregnant, the 5 hour drive would be too much for me and to wait until after I gave birth (because then having two babies and driving to Tena would be so much easier?). 

We were scheduled to leave the next day for our month long visit in the States. So I ran around trying to get paperwork together- pictures of AJ throughout the time we've had him, pictures of our house, picture of our family, apostilled marriage certificate, visa paperwork. Then while we were in the States, we got more paperwork- apostilled birth certificates, changed the name on my brith certificate because it was spelled wrong, and FBI fingerprints/background check, all to put into our file to show that we have begun some sort of work towards adoption. 

Now that we are back in Ecuador, we've heard that the psychologist is quitting in December. And that is where we stand right now. Still in limbo. But maybe with higher hopes than when we began the year. 

AJ will turn one on December 8th.
He has two lower teeth and 4 coming in right now on top.
He is getting super close to walking.
He says "mama" and definitely knows who his "right now" Ma-ma and Da-da are.
He loves to watch "Praise Baby" (worship music for babies) on the TV and play on the couch.
He loves his puppy dog, but too bad the puppy dog is afraid of him.
And he is absolutely a blessing to Jake and I. 

Baby Mila is due Dec. 22nd. She has been kicking momma a lot! Side note- How come we women don't often talk about the amazingness that is growing a baby?!? There is a whole 'nother world going on in your abdomen that no one knows about! You are at work, sitting in a meeting maybe, and there is life kicking, moving about, growing inside of you and everyone else is just going about like it is another normal day. It's not a normal day... there is a miracle happing! It's just so cool! But I digress. 

Anyway. That is the long story. We still don't know what is going to happen. It is all still outside of our control and we have to daily give it all to God because there is nothing else to be done. It isn't easy. We love this little guy so fiercely. He is our family. Let's all be in prayer that he will get to be in our forever family. 




September 2016
Shhhh... Don't tell anyone!



2 comments:

  1. Wonderful catchup! We are praying for your children and you. What is that saying: If God brings you to it, He will bring you through it. I don't believe God takes away blessings - He multiplies them. We will also pray for the people you are dealing with that God will lead them. Love you guys! Mary Miles

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  2. Tanya, Thank you for sharing your heart. We keep you all in our prayers continuously and can't wait to rejoice with all 4 of you when the time is right. Blessings. Rusty

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