I have been documenting the process of our adoption journey here on my blog as drafts almost from the beginning. We aren't quite ready to publish them all, but I do feel the need today to express some things that have come along with part 5. Therefore, what I had written of part 5, plus a bunch of additions today, is coming now.
When Devin and I decided to start the adoption process again, we also decided that we weren't going to tell anyone about our plans for a while. We didn't know what "a while" meant, but we weren't going to share right away. The reason for this is because we didn't want to feel judged for our decision or to have people tell us their opinions about what we should do instead, or why it wasn't a good idea, or ask questions like "Have you considered...?" or "What if (fill in the blank)?" Examples: "Have you thought about how this might affect Hallie and Jace?" or "Have you considered how hard this is going to be?" or "Are you crazy?" Because the answer to all of those is YES-- we have thought about it and YES-- we know it will be difficult and YES- we may be crazy.
However, at the end of the day, we felt strongly guided to this decision, so no matter what happens, no matter how hard it is, we are still doing it because we feel that this is what we have been called to do. I'm not going to lie, I sometimes look around at other young families and wonder what it is about us that the Lord has asked us to do this, yet others who seem to have more money, more resources, or seem to have themselves together better than we do, are not called to this path. Because I really do view it that way- we've been called to build our family this way.
Because we felt so strongly about pursuing this path, we'll take what comes with it. Even the difficult times. If one of our biological kids happened to have a hard time down the road (or now), we would never consider giving up on them, or finding them a new family, or anything of the sort. The same is with Flor and it will be the same with this child. We made a commitment to Flor that we will be her family through good and bad and we will make the same commitment to this child.
So, to have any opinions that were unfavorable (even if the people meant well, which I know they ALL do), seemed more than we were ready to handle in the beginning, thus we decided to keep the decision to ourselves. This process started in early July and we had been talking about it all through June, just to give you an idea. And for any of you who know me, you know how hard it is for me to keep my mouth shut about things. I work through stress and difficulties (which is all this process is!) by talking about it with as many people as possible and writing about them (thus, the blog). So to not be able to do that was hard for me. We did have to have 4 people write reference letters for us early on in the home study process, so obviously those 4 people knew and I could talk to them, so that was helpful.
I can tell this is going to be a beast of a post. Moving on.
The decision to tell people came much earlier than we expected. I had had an especially difficult few weeks in regards to the adoption. For some reason, I was feeling an onslaught of negativity related to adoption in general and international/older child adoption in specific. I heard about some families disrupting their adoptions. I saw negative posts on Facebook. I read a negative news article. Some people I love and trust posted about a lot of negative things about their own adoption (which in and of itself is not bad- just came at the wrong time for me). I had hardly anyone to process this all with (see above-- my four people were getting sick of me), so I was in my head about it a lot. I spent two weeks with the thought "We are going to ruin our family and ruin our lives" running through my head. It was getting really bad and I couldn't seem to pull myself out of it.
That weekend, however, Heavenly Father sent me a beautiful message intended just for me and it came through my brother-in-law, Travis. We have an annual, one-day Perry family reunion each year. We play hard all day and at the end of the day, we usually have a family fireside. Travis was asked to give the fireside this year, probably because he is the most spiritual of us all. :) Really, it was because he is a Bishop in our church and he was asked to give some insights as to what he has learned in that position. Travis talked about many things, but one thing in particular that I know was meant for me. He talked about the internet and how Satan is now using the internet as his biggest tool to bring people down in these days. He talked about how when he was growing up, Satan was more obvious and people openly talked about Satan worshipping and things like that. Now, you don't hear about those things anymore. But what we do hear about is families being ripped apart by things like pornography, affairs from previous boyfriends/girlfriends that are reunited by social media, negativity toward Christians and those who are followers of Christ from behind the anonymity of a computer screen, etc. While he was not talking about what I had been through specifically in the weeks leading up to this family reunion, he was still talking exactly about what I had been going through. It was as if a lightning bolt hit me and I realized that all the negativity I was swimming in came from the internet. ALL of it. Satan was using his favorite tool to get me too. And it was working. I was feeling completely overwhelmed at the adoption idea and thinking that there was no way that it would turn out well, all because of what I had been reading online.
I came home and discussed my feelings with Devin and told him that I needed to stop seeking "support" online and get actual support from people in our lives who love us and care about us. It was then that we decided that it was time to start telling our families about our plans to adopt.We told all of our family members in person whenever possible and then let others know via phone. We waited a few weeks and then announced our decision here. By and large, the response has been very positive. There have been a few comments that stung- people suggesting that maybe it's a better idea to just have another biological child instead and others saying that they were unsure about our decision until they heard more about the back story. I don't feel like I should have to explain myself, though. What I'd rather have is people say, "I support the life choices that you've made for your family and I don't need any explanation or justification." That sort of comment makes me feel that people have faith in our ability to choose what we feel is best for ourselves. The opposite comment or offering alternative plans that they think may be better makes me feel a lack of people's confidence in us and our ability to make our own decisions. By and large, though, we received nothing but very positive support. That may have been because I was a blubbering, crying mess each time we told our families. They probably didn't dare say anything at that point... haha.
So, the reason I chose to write about this today is because it has been another one of those weeks where I can feel the negativity creeping in. I want to be vigilant to recognize it and squelch (is that a word?) it as fast as I can. It's been a hard and stressful week for me. I have had so much to do and it feels like little time to do it. In addition working a few days, I have had something every night this week- adoption appointments two nights, dinner with my friend another night, and checking out locations for business related trainings another night. None of this is bad, but it was just on top of a stressful week anyway, which made it worse. I also saw very little of Devin, which always contributes to my feeling of being overwhelmed. I do a lot from home to run my business & while I love it, it can get stressful when there are deadlines to meet, etc. And there was a lot of that this week.
So, on top of all this, we found out that Devin needed a background check from Portugal for our home study. Everything else is done and ready. We also got back our psychological testing results and reports this week (I'll have to write about that process some other time-- totally special (that's sarcasm if you can't sense it)). So to have this come up LAST MINUTE when literally everything else is done, was super frustrating. It's a long story about why we just found out we need it that I won't go into, but needless to say, it's not been pleasant news. We had to research ourselves how to get it done, so Devin contacted the consulate in San Francisco and they mailed him an application. It had to be sent back (read and filled out in Portuguese--and his Portuguese is rusty) with a US check for $26.44 AND 5 Euros. WHO DOES THAT?? So I called every bank in the valley to get 5 Euros and finally found one in SLC, so I drove to get them yesterday. Ugh. So we mailed that back in finally, but the lady said that it will probably take a month to come back. Not the news we wanted. Please pray for it to come back miraculously fast. This is not the last time I will ask you to pray for a miracle, either, I am pretty sure. Thanks in advance. :)
So that dumb background check stressed me out all day yesterday and then I went to Utah County to do a home study. I was with my clients from 6:30-9:30 pm and then I went to get into my car to drive my tired little self back (an hour + and I knew I had to work in the morning so I needed to get to bed) to find that my car would not start. WOULD NOT. Refused. We haven't had any problems with it at all, but of course it decided in Utah County, clear far away from Devin, to up and quit. I had to take the walk of shame back to my clients' front door and ask them to help me jump it. They were out there for a good half hour with me trying to get it to work. First baby that comes available is theirs-- you better bet your bottom dollar! I owe them. But, the car would still not start. I called my Uncle Lynn, who lives in the next town over and begged him to come rescue me. If I am looking at the positive side of the story, and I am trying to do that, it would be that he was actually home because he's been spending his weeks in SLC and staying there for work. But, he was home and came right over.He's incredibly helpful and supportive and has a heart of gold. I know he'd do anything for me he often has. So he showed up and he tried to help us get it going, but no. It continued to refuse. So, we left the lovely car right there at my clients' house and Lynn kindly let me borrow his car to drive home. Huge blessing #2 in this story: He doesn't work all weekend (totally rare) and said that he could work on the car situation today. Well, he tried and guess what-- still dead. So, the car still sits in front of their house and we have no idea what is wrong with it. We'll have to go down and deal with that problem tomorrow. Gotta LOVE it. Ugh.
All this extra stress this week has kind of gotten me a little down again. I just kept thinking all day today, "How much is that car repair going to cost?? We're trying to save money here for a good cause...and yet it's going to cost a fortune, I just know it..." but I can see that it is just Satan trying to attack me again, to make me feel inadequate and that we can't do it. Why the attacks? Because he knows that we are doing a good thing and he wants to stop it. He wants nothing more than to destroy families, not build them. This is exactly contrary to his plan. So we press forward and put a big smile on our faces and tell Satan to shove it, because no matter how much the car repair costs, it's not going to deter us from following God's plan for this little one and for our family.
We'll make it. We'll get there. One stressful event and one stressful week at a time.
Continued prayers appreciated. Thanks for reading Part 5. :)
