Time for a Change

Happy New Year to all. (I guess I'm a month late on that one, aren't I?) It's amazing how there are days when we feel like time is dragging on. However, when I looked at the website and realized that it's been over two months since our last post, I see that time really is zipping by. I guess selling a house and moving within a 7 week period of time will help the days and weeks to fly. I am so excited that we are another month closer to getting our children! I thought I would post a new blog to answer the many questions that we get each and every day. We have been so blessed and our hearts have been overwhelmingly warmed by the amount of people that continue to hear about our adoption, send their love and moral support and ask us questions. I seem to add people to our adoption list almost every day so that they can be made aware of blog updates. And most exciting, I have people who are wanting to know more because they are now considering. I haven't always known the answers to all of the questions, but I have some great sources. Recently, I joined a Yahoo group of women that meet online every Monday night. All of us are either awaiting Colombian adoption or have already adopted in Colombia. Their knowledge, stories, recommendations, words of wisdom and prayers have been wonderful. Plus we continue to seek advice and info from our friends who adopted there. I thought it might be a good idea to use this blog entry as a way to answer the questions that we are asked over and over again. So, here it goes. . .

Question #1 (which we encounter every day): What's the latest?
As you all know, we have been in a holding pattern since our dossier approval in November. We currently are on the 2 sibling, 0-6 year list which has about an 18-month waiting period. The reason we are on this list, just to re-cap, is because we don't want our new children to have any chance of being older than Luke. And if we would've stayed on the 0-7 list, there was a very strong chance that we would be assigned our kids somewhere between March and May and one could've been as old as 7 years, 11 months. So we opted to go into a holding pattern until timing would be right. Well, the timing is right now. We had our social worker come out to our new house yesterday so that she could survey it and make sure it was suitable for the children. She should have her report written by Monday which means I have, I mean, get to drive to Topeka again to get the document apostilled. Once I do this, we will attach a letter requesting the change to the 2 sibling, 0-7 year waiting list. We will then send the new homestudy and the letter of request to our adoption agency's home office in Oregon where they will be translated to Spanish. Next, the translated documents will be sent to Colombia for processing. This processing will probably take 6-8 weeks. Once it is done, we will receive official notification that we have been approved and we will be placed on the 2 sibling, 0-7 year old waiting list. So we are thinking we should have a referral for our kids between August and October.

Question #2: How long will it be before you get to see your kids?

This is a little more complex than one would think. The timeline will go something like this, though I could have a few things wrong. We will be told when a placement is in the works. Then, we play the waiting game of waiting for more details which can sometimes be 3 weeks or so. When we receive the official referral, I believe it is at that time that we will learn of the children's genders and ages. We will then have to write a letter of acceptance, have it translated and send it to Colombia. Then, we will wait for our official date to travel as well as our "Gotcha Day" when we will finally meet the children. From the time the referral is sent to us, this whole process can take a few months. So I am guessing we will travel between October and December. Don't hold me to this. It's just a guess!

Question #3: How long will you know about your children's ages and genders before you go get them? / How long will you have to prepare their rooms, etc., before you see them?

I believe about 1 month. Yikes! As most of you know, I am a hard-core planner. One month to get everything done, including updating fingerprints, getting new doctor's letter, driving to Topeka AGAIN for apostilling of documents, etc., will put me in overdrive. So beware! ; ) I can't wait to get started on the rooms!

Question #4: Will you change their names?

We aren't sure about this one. Haven't done a lot of thinking about this as it seems to far away to worry about.

Question #5: Aren't you afraid to go to Colombia?

To quote Matt: There's nothing to be afraid of. You have a big, strapping husband to protect you! Seriously, though, I have days where I hear stories about things that go on and have concerns. (Thank you, Dad for keeping me aprised of situations--I love your fatherly protectiveness you continue to have for a 38 year-old daughter.) But every adopting family I have spoken with says it's fine. There are people assigned to us when we are there that kind of tell us things to be careful of. Everyone also says that Bogota has a very safe feeling. So, I trust in those who know.

Plus, we have also learned of a few highly recommended destinations if we want to go there while waiting for our kids' visas. There is a place called San Andres Island that has received glowing remarks. Matt has put his feelers out to a guy he knows in Panama to see if it's something he'd recommend as well. But, let's be honest, we're not sure of how much it costs so it may be totally out of the picture. I'm hoping it might be an alternative, though, because it helps to break up the incredibly long time away from home.

Question #6: Why Colombia?

You can look back to our first blog in June for more info here. But bottom line, it's the country that best suited our needs. We wanted more than one child, liked that the children will come from a foster care situation rather than an orphanage, didn't want to wait too long as we are not getting any younger and didn't want to have to pay double the adoption expenses. It also helped that we knew of a family that adopted from Colombia.

Question #7: How much does it cost? Do you mind me asking?

We have had a number of people ask us if we would be comfortable sharing the cost of our adoption. While it's really no big secret, I do feel a little strange addressing it. So for those of you who want more info, you can click on the link on the bottom, right side of our blog page. This reflects our personal experience of adopting 2.

Question #8: Will you be able to communicate while in Colombia?

Yes, although it is my understanding that the internet is not always the easiest to access. We will hopefully have a laptop to take by then, and we will try to post each and every day. Most importantly, we will try to include pictures and maybe even videos (if we are able to get a video camera before leaving, too). I'm not sure if I will post them all on the blog, as some people have told me that it can take a long time to download them. I have heard that e-mail can sometimes be tricky and take a while to get delivered. So, I strongly urge all of you to sign up with a Google account so that you can post your thoughts directly onto our blog site. Here's how you can do it:
1. At the end of each posting, you will see "comments." Click on that.
2. Next, you have to choose an identity. If you have a google or gmail account, I believe you can use that e-mail address. If not, click on "sign up here."
3. You will need to fill out the rest of the info on the following page and accept their terms. Be assured that your e-mail address will not be exploited nor will you receive any spam from it. I have done it to be sure.
4. You will be taken back to the post screen where you can type in a response and then send it.

I have been told by my Yahoo group of women that the blog posts were a welcome part of every day. It can get pretty lonely in Colombia due to homesickness and having that connection with friends and family is what comforted many through the 3-5 weeks that they were there. So, I urge you to please try it now so we can communicate while we are in Colombia. Plus, it's really fun to see what all of you are thinking. It's definitely not a journey that we are sharing just with our immediate family! We love the fact that so many others have opted to ride along with us : )

Question #9: (Last one since this blog is so long. We'll answer more next time.) How can I find out when you post new blogs?

If you are interested in this, let me know. You can either let me know of your interest by posting it after this blog or e-mail me and let me know. I will send out an e-mail whenever there's an update. However, once we head to Colombia, we will try to post every day and I will no longer send the e-mails to let you know. You can just go directly to this blog website each day to see what's going on. You can set it as a favorite so you don't have to remember it.


Well, that's enough for this post, I believe. Hopefully, there will be more info to pass along soon! Take care and continue your prayers!

Traci

Approval with a twist

It’s been a little over a month since I last posted and so much has happened. Shortly after we learned that our wait time was potentially cut from 12 months to 4 months (once the government approved out dossier), we knew we needed to find a bigger house. Immediately, we contacted my former hairdresser, Lisa, who took us around to some houses nearby. We found that we were interested in pretty quickly. However, since our house wasn’t up for sale, we had to offer the owners a 45-day contingency offer. Fortunately, they accepted the contingency. Immediately, we spent a long, grueling 14 days of cleaning, discarding and prepping our house for sale. We rented a storage unit, got out most of the clutter and had it on the market the Friday before Halloween. Within a week, we had two offers. We were incredibly blessed! Kudos to Lisa and her incredible work ethic. I can’t imagine ever selling another house without her help. Everything just worked out perfectly and we will be closing on both houses on Dec. 6. We absolutely love our new house—see the picture posted. It has four bedrooms, a beautiful kitchen/hearth room, a finished basement and a 3-car garage. Luke is most thrilled about the fact that we have a huge driveway where he will finally be able to play basketball! You can imagine that the house goings on have kept us quite busy but now it’s down to packing. Hopefully the weather will continue to cooperate through December!

Now for the news on the adoption front. Last week, we received word that the Colombian government approved our dossier. YEA!! We were pleasantly surprised to hear so soon. There is a twist, however. As you probably remember, we have asked for two siblings from 0-7 years of age and younger than Luke. Well, since we were approved so quickly, this meant that we could potentially get our children as early as April. This presented one problem . . . since a 7 year old could be 7 years and 11 months old when assigned to us, there was a chance that he/she would be older than Luke. For this reason, the ICBF (Colombian govt.) approved us for ages 0-6 instead. The wait time for that age range is much longer at 18-24 months. The good news is we have options. Since we definitely want to keep Luke the oldest, sometime after the first of the year, we will write the ICBF and ask to be switched to 0-7 years. This change will take 1-2 months. So now, it looks like we may get our children as early as August or as late as November if the wait time remains steady at 4-6 months. Honestly, I really feel like this has happened for a reason. It will give us more time to get financially adjusted to our new house and to prepare it for the kids. The extra time is actually a welcome relief. Be assured that we continue to enjoy the adoption ride and there are no heavy hearts or frustrations at this point!

Finally, we want to congratulate our friends, Shawn and Cindy, who just brought back their fourth child from Colombia. We are so happy for them. Just as we are so happy and thankful to have such a wonderfully supportive family and a fabulous group of friends who are constantly asking how things are going. God has truly blessed us with all of you and what a better time to give thanks than right now. Please continue to say your prayers for our children. Hopefully your words and thoughts will reach and comfort them on difficult days.

Happy Thanksgiving!

An October celebration

I have been thinking for a while now that I should write an update, but there was nothing more to report, until today. And all I can say is just when I thought life couldn't get any better after my Jayhawks beat the Wildcats this past Saturday, I found out I was wrong. We are excited to learn that it looks like we may be getting our kids a little sooner than expected. As of right now, CHI is awaiting approvals from all dossiers sent to the ICBF (the Colombian government) in July. Since our dossier was sent in August, our processing will be next. The only uncertainty is if they will process it before the middle of December. It is at that time when they take a winter "break" until mid-January. If they do not get our dossier processed by mid-December, we will probably be looking at February as the time when we receive our approval.

The above information is nothing new. This is what we expected all along. THIS is the exciting info . . . once we are approved (by no later than February, it appears) the wait time for sibling groups of two between 0and 7 years has been reduced from 12 months to 4-6 months!!!! This means that by summer's end we should have our kids! I can not tell you how excited I am! Although we have not been in the adoption"process" for a lengthy period of time, it is always nice to have bits of news, no matter how insignificant they may be, to break up the monotony of waiting. I can't lie that the cautious side of me does keep in the back of my head that as quickly as things have changed for the better, they can just as quickly be changed for the worse. I have found it is easiest to realize that I am powerless over the situation and that we will have our children when they are intended to be ours.

So, I can say with a pretty good degree of certainty that our soon-to-be children are in foster care at this time. While our hearts are full of happiness at this tremendous news, we can not overlook the fact that our children are living through difficult times of adjustment right now. It does heavy our hearts and all we can do is hope that our prayers of hope and love reach them each and every day until they are in our arms. Please pray that God will keep them strong and give them courage to believe that life will get better. It's amazing how much love I already feel for them when they are nameless and faceless. I know how wonderful it was to be a parent the first time around, and I can't wait to experience it once again!

So, that's all for now. We will update you when more comes our way!

Traci

The wait begins. . . or does it?

It has been an exciting past two months as we have been filling out paperwork and fulfilling our parent education requirements. I have heard so many negative things about what a pain the paperwork is and how extensive it can be. However, I have found this whole ride quite enjoyable. (I'm sure that having the summer off and being given time to do these things helped!) We've learned where many interesting places are around our area--U.S. Homeland Security, courthouses, police stations, etc. I've even learned a little bit more about the confusing geography of downtown Kansas City. When we finished with all of our Kansas documents, Luke and I took a trip up to Topeka to get them all apostilled (a fancy word for a certificate of verification that our notaries from the state of Kansas were all valid). We had a great time and he was quite impressed with the Capitol building. It's been fun to hear his questions about our state government. On the way home, we made a stop in Lawrence (yes, I've trained him right!)and walked around campus, looked at Memorial Stadium, watched the baseball players practice and purchased some new, KU attire. The most wonderful part of the day was taking him into Allen Field House and watching his shadow stand in awe of the newly polished floor exclaiming, "Wow! This is so cool!" Although he's been to a basketball game there, for the first time he felt the mystique of The Phog. : ) If ever the Jayhawks sign a 5'9" guard from Olathe, Kansas, I will always remember that day! So truly, this has been a wonderful summer!

We submitted all of our paperwork--called a dossier--last Friday. It was a relief to know everything looked great. We were asked to include one more, precautionary thing which I had to round up, drive up to Topeka once again, and return by Tuesday. (The trip by myself to the Capitol wasn't nearly as fun.) We were told that our dossier was on its way to Colombia on Wednesday. A definite celebration!

Yesterday (Thursday), we had no idea that we receive a phone call that blew both of us out of the water. Our agency called to let us know that there was a sibling group of three ready for adoption. Yes, you heard correctly. . . three. Even though we requested two, the agency always clears you for one more than you ask for. And since the children were all 7 or under, they essentially matched our criteria. You have to understand that everyone's criteria can look very different (three girls under 5, a boy and two girls under 11, 2 children of any gender under 7) which is why there could be someone else who has been waiting longer than we have and they still haven't had an offer. It's a complicated deal!

Long story short, we talked about it off and on for the rest of the day and into the evening. Our decision, though an especially hard one for me, was that we wanted to stick with our original plan of adopting two. It was a very emotional day yesterday. I found it hard to turn away three children who have been in foster care for a year and badly need a home. It's just not in my nature to do that. But Matt did a wonderful job of helping me to re-focus on the goals of our family, and once I did that, I knew this was the right decision. So. . . the wait, albeit short up to this point in time, continues.

We have been told that our dossier will take approximately 3-5 months to process and translate. If I understand correctly, once that is finished, it will be sent to the ICBF (the Colombian government) where we will seek approval and officially be placed on the waiting list. Currently, the wait for two, 7 and under siblings is 12months. (The wait for sibling groups of 3 or more is basically non-existent. Yesterday proved that.) That means Jan. 2009--give or take a few months--is the approximate time this will happen. What an exciting time we have ahead of us!

If more information comes available, we will let you know. Until then, say your prayers for our "someday" children that they will find the strength to persevere through their difficult times. There is no doubt that they will finally be loved and taken care of when they reach our arms.

Traci

The journey begins--June 7, 2007

Dear Friends and Family~

As this may catch some of you by surprise, we are excited to announce that we will be expanding our family. No, Traci is not pregnant! Instead, we have decided to seek an international adoption. Adoption has been something we have thought about for a very long time, and it's something we have always wanted to do if/when the time was right. With much praying, discussion and investigation, this was a perfect fit for us. We could go into the MANY stories and incidences where international adoption kept being brought into our lives, and we finally decided we needed to acknowledge God's will. As we also got to know a family, whose Colombian-adopted son was in Luke's 1st grade class, we knew this was what we wanted to do. We are so grateful for their time and question-answer sessions! They will have a place in our hearts forever because of their candidness and willingness to spend time with us to explore our options of Colombian adoption. (Shawn and Cindy--you're not off the hook yet!! Still many more questions to come we're sure!)

To sum up a very long process in a concise manner, we will be taking the next 3-4 months filling out mounds of paperwork, getting background checks, doctor's clearances, etc. (This takes a large amount of time which is why we are resorting to an e-mail versus individual phone calls to each and every person!) We will also have two home studies among other things. After this process is complete, we will officially go on the "waiting" list. At this time, we are unsure of what the wait may be. We have been told as long as 18 months but will learn more at a meeting next Thursday.

We have decided to ask for two children who will be siblings. It is our understanding that the wait for two children is often as long as waiting for one which is 12-18 months. We will not specify gender (however, we are praying for at least one girl!) as we will be accepting whatever comes our way. They will range in age from 0-7 years old, but Luke will stay the oldest. Most Colombian children have either been neglected, abandoned or their parents have died. We have already started our prayers for our future children, because, potentially, they could be getting removed from their homes at this time and placed into foster care. They will obviously come to us as Spanish-speaking children (OE Spanish teachers, help!) with little to nothing but the clothes on their backs.

Once we are assigned our children, we believe we will have 2-4 weeks to get things set, then we will fly to Bogota, Colombia. From there we will go to our children's city. We think we will be united with our children within the second day of arriving in Colombia. We have been told that Traci will stay there for four weeks as we will have to wait for our children's visas to be processed. And the plan is that Matt and Luke will be there with her for the first two weeks. We have heard from a variety of people that this can sometimes be reduced to a total of three weeks. Every situation is different depending upon which city our children will come from.

We are beyond excited. It's tough to curb that excitement knowing that it is a LONG process ahead of us, but when you can see how excited Luke gets about being an older brother, it definitely makes it worth the wait! Of course we have some anxious times ahead--how will two more children move into our small house? Once we learn their ages/sizes, how will we have time to go out and get them all of the essentials of clothing, etc.? How will Luke do in a foreign country that may not appeal to his palette? How will we get away from work/school/family for that amount of time without it being incredibly disruptive to others? How will we transition our kids into an English-speaking country? The questions go on and on. We try to remind ourselves not to worry about all of this as we are confident that with much prayer, God will take care of us. We would not set out on this venture if we did not believe we were meant for it. One question people want to or have asked is how will we deal with having children who don't "look" like us. To answer, it's just not important to us--never has been, never will be. We have seen many other families seamlessly grow together regardless of background, ethnicity, looks, etc. Our mission is to enlarge our family by gratefully accepting these beautiful gifts that God will deliver to us.

We are going to stop here, because as you can imagine, we could write about this for many more pages. We just wanted to share this information with each of you and ask for your daily prayers as we begin our journey. We will keep you updated. Our hope is to get a website where we can update progress every so often. We'll let you know.

Those who want to know more, please do not hesitate to call us. We look forward to what's ahead and pray for patience. Have a wonderful day!

Matt, Traci and Luke
(and hopefully soon-to-be two other Jensens!)