Our Bulgarian Adoption!

A photo op in Sofia, Bulgaria

For those who don't already know, Caitlin and I are excited to share that we have been in the middle of an adoption process since we returned from Germany last May. In reality, we started the paperwork process the previous fall, but when we were given the opportunity to move to Munich for a few months last spring, we decided to wait on completing our home study until we returned to the States. At that point, we had basically decided that we wanted to adopt from Bulgaria after speaking to our friend Katherine Long, who lives and works in Sofia as a missionary for MTW. Therefore, we were extremely blessed that being in Europe made it possible for us to visit Katherine last April. Katherine was a wonderful host and guide; she gave us the grand tour of Sofia, which is a beautiful city, along with a lot of background on the history and culture of Bulgaria. 

Our visit to Sofia served as confirmation that this is where we wanted to adopt, so we were excited to renew the adoption process last June once we returned to Colorado. The next big steps for us were to complete our home study and adoption training. Going into the adoption training, we were still trying to decide if we wanted to adopt one child or two. We had been leaning towards siblings, but it wasn't until we went through the training that we really began to think about our adoption from our future children's perspective. We went through an exercise where we examined loss by taking a list of ten things that were important to us (family, personal beliefs, friends, favorite places, culture, language, etc.) and then had to gradually choose which ones we could live without until there were only one or two left. Then our instructor pointed out that adopted children often lose most everything that is familiar and important to them when they are adopted. She cautioned us not to lose sight of this even though we may think we are bringing them into a better situation than where they were. As a result, we realized if we were able to adopt siblings or two children that knew each other well, our children would still be able to retain a biological connection/friend, a familiar language, and some of their culture to help them face the unknown. This was enough to convince us that we wanted to adopt two children, so we requested to be matched with siblings. We are a little nervous, but we are extremely excited about bringing home both of our children if that is how God provides.

We finished our home study and training last August, and then we had to put together our dossier for Bulgaria. This consisted of our home study, medical and financial records, background checks, family photos, and other documents. It took several months to get all of these documents compiled and certified by the state of Colorado and the Secretary of State, but we were finally able to submit the dossier to Bulgaria around the beginning of January. For the last few months, we have been waiting for the Bulgarian government to process our dossier, and we just found out a little over a week ago that it has been processed and we are officially on the waiting list for a referral! There is not a concrete timetable for how long it will take to get a referral, but the best estimate we have been able to determine is 12-24 months. Since we are open to siblings up to 6 years old, we are hoping and praying that the wait will be 12 months or less. This means that there is a good chance that our children are probably out there right now, so please join us in praying for their safety and well-being in the interim!

Once we are matched, we will travel to Bulgaria twice in the following months. The first trip will be within a couple weeks of our referral to meet and bond with our children. Then a few months later, we will return to finalize the court process and bring our children home, so there is still a lot of waiting to be done. In the meantime, we will be preparing our home and our hearts to welcome our  

children home. We plan on posting regular updates here as the adoption moves forward, so stay tuned to hear more about how God works to bring our family together!