Can I just say that the adoption process is so hard? My heart is so ready to complete our family by means of adoption, but our wait is still so long. I read an email update from our agency today on the way home from the lake and it said that the wait time for a toddler (male or female) age 0-4 is now 36-42 months. The math is getting harder to do... I'm math stupid, but if 12 months= 1 year, and 24 months= 2 years, and 36 months= 3 years, that means that 42 months= 3.5 years... and they added that they expect this trend of slowing down to continue. We have been "paper pregnant" for 16 months. So, this means that as of today and the current wait times, we have about 24-30 MORE months to go. I can't imagine what that number will be in 2 more years...
We are required to update our home study and other paper work every year. That process was so hard to be motivated to do this year because I know that doing so does not speed up our adoption. It's money and time spent for nothing, in my mind. Can you tell I'm feeling defeated/frustrated? We hear from time to time "how is the adoption going?' and that question is so tough to answer- I wish there were more to tell, but all I can say is that we are still waiting and will be for quite awhile.
One might ask, why don't you just switch agencies or countries? It's not that easy. Making either of those switches would cost quite a bit of money, not to mention that things could be just as slow or slower with a different country or agency. As of now, our feelings are still strong for Ethiopia. We know this is the journey we have been called to. They said it wouldn't be easy. I know what that means now. Adoption is not for the weak, and we don't even have our child yet.
In closing, I got a message today that our fundraiser site is shutting down. You have until
October 1st to order a t-shirt to support our fundraiser. The link is: http://www.adoptionbug.com/thegronberg6/
Thank you for your continued support and encouragement. The road is long, but before long we'll bring our child home. I'll keep my chin up and focus my thoughts on the reason we're going through this in the first place! God's got this, and we need to trust in His plan for our family!
Hi, Friends and Family!
It has been quite some time since I've written, and that's because there just has not been much to tell.
Last month, there was a possibility that international adoption in Ethiopia would be closed. The prime minister chose to support international adoption, however, and phew, we can rest easy (for now).
My first thought was for all of those orphans who would never have the chance for a family, and for those families that were at the top of the list, having waited for years to get that phone call that we all are so determined to get- the phone call with good news that a child had been matched with our family.
I was never stressed out for us. We are new in the process (we've been on the list since 5/10/13). We would be so sad to say goodbye to Ethiopia, but could still add to our family through adoption in numerous other ways. We have been trusting God throughout this entire process, as all that we can do is continue on, knowing that the control is out of our hands.
Each month, the coordinators at our adoption agency hold a conference call for the families adopting from Ethiopia. Last month, a big topic was the fact that the process is continuing to slow down. When we started this process back in September 2012, the wait for age 0-2 years was 18-24 months. Now, in February 2014, that wait is now 36-42 months, with the possibility of those wait times continuing to get longer.
This has brought Nathan and I to have some decisions to make about the age and gender that we are requesting. If you do the math, and our wait is 3 years from now (or more), Riley would be 11, Addison would be 9, and Chase would be 6 years old. Will we want to do the whole baby/toddler thing again when our kids are all in elementary school? It's hard to know what's going to be going on 3 or so years from now, or how we'll feel about this.
We went to lunch with our awesome social worker on Wednesday to discuss these things with her and get her professional opinion. The other thing to think about is that while there are issues with any age coming from a traumatic situation, the older the child is, the harder the transition will most likely be. She recommended staying under age 6. We've decided to change our request to up to 4 years old, and instead of requesting a female, we've changed our request to either gender. Both of these changes will move us up on the list just a bit. Something I just thought of- we had hoped to be surprised with Chase's gender, but the sonographer accidentally showed us what was between the legs. So, none of our kids were a surprise in that regard, now we will get our surprise! I like it. We get what we get!
God already knows who our child is, and we trust Him completely with the future of our family.
We ask that you continue to pray for the orphans and for the Ethiopia process to be ethical and more efficient.
Thanks, friends and family for all of the love and support you've shown us over the last 1 1/2 years. We have a long way to go, and appreciate everyone!
With Love,
Nathan, Jenny, Riley, Addison, and Chase
