questions + answers

We want to share some answers to common questions.

You gotta know, though, our agency has a strict social media policy. They’ve seen the way social media has hurt people, governments, and adoption processes. While this is hard for me, because I would love, love, love to share every single detail, we plan to absolutely respect their policy. 

What we can’t tell you — or show you — online is identifying information of our child such as name, birth date, photos, and exact age. We also can’t post online the name of the country from which we are adopting (but it is one of the bigger ones in Africa!). We can’t write about the specific steps of our adoption process and where we are in completing those steps, either. I can tell you right now that we’re almost three months into this process already. We do not yet have a referral. (Adoption lingo for a specific child whose info we know and picture we’ve seen… like, we haven’t been “assigned” to a child or they haven’t been “selected” for us.) We can, however, tell you all of this in person. So, friends, let’s get coffee! Come over to our apartment! 

For now, questions we have gotten (or expect to get) and can answer:

How long will your process be?
Approximately 11 to 14 months, start to finish. But we are very well-informed in the ways adoption timelines can change at any instant, so we’re prepared for the adventure this may be.

Boy or girl? Age?
We have no gender preference. I like baby girl clothes better, but we also love the idea of having a son. Annnndddd, we have a boy name picked out that we really like. Our preference is a 0- to 6-month-old baby at the time of referral. We know we need to put some parameters on our preferences, but we also really like the idea of leaving room for God to put a specific child in our family that He’s had for us all along. Isn’t that a crazy thought?

When did you tell your families?
They’ve always known adoption was a big priority for us. When we started feeling pulled to it earlier than we expected, we gave them the head’s up and asked them to pray as we researched and prayed ourselves. They probably knew a couple weeks before we “signed on” to do this.

When did you tell your friends?
We told about five friends a couple weeks into the process, because we just really wanted the prayer. And it was just a lot to keep to ourselves! Because we’re kind of in a unique stage of marriage, school, work, life, etc. and wanted more reassurance that we really could do this, we chose to wait a while to tell everyone else.

Do you want to have biological kids?
We’d love to add to our family through pregnancies some day, and that’s the route we will take if we begin to feel that’s the next way to grow our family. But right now, we would love to adopt more than once!

And the answer to any infertility questions is this:
We truly don’t know. We haven’t tried. But a lot of our friends and family have experienced or are experiencing infertility. Love them well, please. Be tactful in your questions and comments. Many people turn to adoption, but some do not, and that’s okay.

edited to add:
Will you be travelling to pick up your child?
Right now, our agency and country allow for escorts — staff people — to bring home kiddos. They also allow travel. Right now, one trip is all that is needed. That being said, all this could change pretty quickly. We haven’t made a firm decision on what we’ll do, because of the uncertainty, but also because we will need to weigh the pros and cons depending on our schedules — especially Dan’s — when the time comes to for our child to come to the U.S. We’re definitely open to the idea of travelling, and we feel strongly about visiting our child’s birth country at some point if we don’t this year.

edited again to add:
Welp, just got word that we will be required to travel to pick up our kiddo. So, there’s our decision made… just a little glimpse of the unpredictability of this adoption process!

What other questions might you have? This is fun.