Our Adoption Decision

In my last post, I talked about different reasons that families decide to adopt. I really hope people begin to see that the reasons are so much more varied than just infertility.

Brad and I briefly talked about our decision to adopt in our adoption announcement, but I wanted to share more about it. We realize that since we have been married for over ten years many people will assume we are pursuing adoption due to infertility. But, that's actually not the case.

So, why did we decide to adopt?  The short answer is simply that God gave us the desire to pursue adoption rather than pregnancy to bring our first child into our home.

After nine-plus years of marriage, we decided that we would like to add children to our family. Just a couple of months after deciding that, we started to get interested in adoption. Our eyes were opened to the many children in need of loving parents and to the beauty of adoption as a wonderful way to build a family. We decided that we would go ahead with our plan to have biological children (since we are already in our early 30s) and then adopt children a few years later.

As we began trying to get pregnant, we also began to fall more and more in love with adoption. As a couple of months passed without pregnancy, our hearts turned to adoption even more. After a total of seven months, we had such a deep desire to adopt that we decided to stop trying to get pregnant and instead adopt our first child.

So, as far as we know, we have no fertility issues. Since we tried to get pregnant for only a few months, we never got to the point of going to the doctor to discuss fertility. We would certainly like to have biological children in the future. We also want to adopt more children. After we adopt our first child, we will again look at how God is working in our lives and decide whether we will pursue pregnancy or another adoption.

Reasons for Adoption

Since we started this wonderful process of adoption a few months ago, I've thought a lot about people's views of adoption and assumptions about adoptive couples. There's no doubt that our society largely views adoption simply as an option for couples who are unable to have children by birth. And, that view is true to an extent. There are many infertile couples who turn to adoption to build their families, and adoption certainly is a wonderful blessing to those families.  But adoption isn't just for those couples who can't conceive.

In reading about adoption, I've seen families that choose adoption for all of the following reasons. I'm sure there are others as well; these are just the ones that came to mind first.

• Infertility -- Obviously many couples who cannot have biological children choose to adopt.
• Secondary infertility -- Other couples have one or more biological children and wish to continue growing their families but find themselves unable to have more children by birth.
  
• Difficult pregnancies -- Some women who have had difficult and/or dangerous pregnancies don't want to carry another baby but desire to have more children.
• Desire for a child of a particular gender -- Since having children by birth obviously doesn't give couples the ability to select the child's gender, some couples with two daughters, for example, who want to have a boy will bring a son into their family through adoption.
  
• Adoption only -- Some fertile couples would prefer to adopt rather than have biological children.
  
• Adoption first -- Some couples choose to adopt first and then have have biological children a few years later.
  
• Concern for orphans -- Many couples desire to be parents to the many children in the United States and around the world in need of a family. (To my adoption friends - I realize that the notion of adopting in order to "rescue" a child is somewhat controversial in the adoption world. I understand where people are coming from with this thinking, but I believe that concern for children without parents can be a very valid part of some couples' desire to adopt. I'll elaborate on this in a future post.)
• Desire to adopt -- Just as most people have a natural desire to have biological children, many couples have a desire to adopt children. I've spent a lot of time writing and rewriting this paragraph trying to explain this because I think it's hard for people who don't have this "adoption desire" to understand. I finally gave up. If you are one of the people who wants to parent an adopted child, you fully understand what I'm saying.

Many couples discover the beauty of building a family by adoption through their struggles with infertility. But I hope our society will begin to turn from the idea that adoption is nothing more than an infertility solution. Brad and I have come to see it as so much more than that, and we hope other people will as well. In my next post, I'll share more about how we came to the decision to adopt.

International Adoption - The Immigration Process

Ok, I said last week that I would blog about the immigration process involved in international adoption, especially as it applies to adopting from Korea. I realize this will quite likely be the most boring blog post ever -- so you have my full permission (as if you need it) to quit reading and get back to your regular life, which has got to far more exciting than this will be. I'm writing this for myself as much as anything; I just want to have a good understanding of the immigration paperwork, and I figure blogging about it will make me really learn it.

So for those of you sticking around, here we go -- The first step in the immigration process for our adoption is submitting the I-600A to USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services). The I-600A is the Application for Advance Processing of Orphan Petition. The purpose of this form is basically to get advance permission from the United States government to bring an orphan into the country as our child, even though we don't yet know who that orphan will be. (Families adopting from a Hague country will submit an I-800A instead of an I-600A. The Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption is basically an multi-nation agreement regulating international adoptions. Even though the United States is part of Hague, Korea is not, so our adoption is non-Hague.)

As part of the I-600A, we will fill out a 2-page form and also submit copies of our birth certificates and marriage license. If either of us had been previously married, we would also have to submit divorce decrees or death certificates. We will send all this (along with a certified check for $830) to the USCIS.

Side note -- Don't confuse the I-600A with the I-600. The I-600 is the Petition to Classify Orphan as an Immediate Relative and is submitted once we have a referral, while the I-600A is the advance application that is submitted before referral.

When USCIS processes our I-600A, they will then mail us notice of our appointment to be fingerprinted. We will go to an immigration office for this, which is about an hour and a half from our home. The purpose of the fingerprints is so the the federal government can conduct criminal background checks.

Once our home study is completed, Lifelink will submit it to USCIS as part of the I-600A requirements.

Once USCIS has all these pieces of the I-600A, they will send us an I-171H which is Notice of Favorable Determination Concerning Application for Advance Processing of Orphan Petition. (seriously, where do they come up with these names?) Basically, this document gives us permission to bring a foreign born child into the United States.

So, once all this is done, we will be "paper ready" to receive a referral. Pretty much the only thing for us to do then until referral is wait...and wait...and wait.

The one thing that could possibly come up paperwork-wise during this time is the expiration of either our fingerprints (15 months) or our I-171H (18 months). For the past couple of months, I've been totally confused as to why fingerprints expire. I mean, they're fingerprints - they don't change. I learned though that it's actually the background check that expires after 15 months, which makes a lot more sense. So, if we haven't filed an I-600 by the time the fingerprints expire, then we will have to be re-fingerprinted. The same thing applies to the I-171H -- If we haven't received a referral and filed the I-600 within 18 months, we will have to get an extension on our I-171H. USCIS will do one extension of the I-171H and one additional fingerprinting for no charge.

After researching all this, I do still have a couple of questions. I know some people reading this blog have adopted children from Korea, so perhaps you can answer my questions --

• How do we know the exact dates our fingerprints and I-171H expire? I think I read somewhere the expiration dates for both are listed on the I-171H. Is that true?
• Do our fingerprints have to be current when we travel to Korea, or just when we submit the I-600? Same for the I-171H -- If it expires before we travel to Korea, are we ok, or do we need to extend it?
  

Also, if any of you adoption experts see something I got wrong in this whole pre-referral immigration process, please let me know.

So, that is the paperwork process up to the time of referral. After we receive a referral, there's another slew of paperwork that I'm not even going to attempt to understand now. I'll wait and sort that out somewhere down the road.

So, for those of you who stuck around, there you have it -- the MOST boring blog post ever. Hopefully someone will find it helpful though. I know writing this out really made me research the immigration process and understand it. And hopefully, I can find something just slightly more interesting to write about next time.

Our First Chuseok Celebration

Chuseok is a major holiday in Korea. Koreans get together with their extended families and celebrate with a big meal (somewhat similar to Thanksgiving in the US). They also honor their ancestors as part of Chuseok. The date is based on the lunar calendar, so it changes from year to year. This year, Chuseok falls on October 3 -- today.

A local Korean church invited the Korean adoptive families group to their Chuseok celebration this year. Brad and I hadn't met anyone from this group in "real life" (just via blogs/Facebook/email), so we were anxious to meet Korean adoptive families in our area and celebrate Chuseok. We met lots of great people and had a fantastic day!

The church that hosted the event did a great job! They started out with Korean games for the kids - and adults - this morning. Kids were encouraged to wear their hanboks (traditional Korean dress). The kids looked adorable! It made us even more excited to adopt our own child from Korea. (if it's possible for us to be any more excited that is)

After an hour or so of games, we enjoyed an incredible lunch prepared by the women of the church. I don't know what all we ate, but it was unbelievably good! Brad and I have been to a couple of local Korean restaurants and liked the food, but this food was even better. We decided that we're going to have to give Korean cooking a whirl sometime soon. Our favorite dish was the soup. (Yes, I took a picture of the card in front of it -- I'm hoping this will help me track down the recipe for it.)

After lunch we were treated to a performance of traditional Korean drumming. Like everything else about the festival, this was incredible. We were definitely not ready for it to end. We would love attend another performance of this group. (If anyone happens to know when/where they perform, please let us know.)

We really enjoyed the day. We met some great adoptive families, enjoyed wonderful Korean hospitality, and were treated to a fantastic meal. What a great first Chuseok for our family!