Gabrielle's Life and Writings

Gabrielle Lawson, writer of Fanfiction. I will use this space to keep a journal about my writing, the progress I'm making, stories I'm working on, writer's blocks I'm having, our adoption process and progress and just life in general.

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Location: Missouri, United States

I'm multifaceted and highly educated. I have a BA in History and an MA in Museum Studies. But I couldn't make a living in a museum, so my hobby--computers--became my living. I'm now a charter member Microsoft Certified Desktop Support Technician. I aspire to be a professional writer and/or poet. I am a Christian and have been living by His grace for the last four years or so, despite the MegaStress and now the GigaStress. He keeps me going, and displays His glory still, in my life.

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Adoption in High Speed

I mentioned rather briefly in another "recent" post how we signed up for an adoption agency that works with Poland. Note, this is not the normal order of things, but we feel it's definitely God's work. We signed up for EAC (European Adoption Consultants) just about a week before that lady sent her son back to Moscow like a bad printer bought on eBay. Russia threatened to close aodptions to the US. They didn't but it wasn't certain right then. And Russia did make it harder. We were still $29,000 out from adopting one child in Russia and now it was going to be harder still to get there. We decided to look elsewhere before we made any further commitment to EAC. We looked at Waiting Children from China. One that I'd rather taken to from last August was still there. I cried a lot and prayed and asked my family how they'd feel if we gave up on Russia. It was a tough decision as I felt God showed me my daughter in that dream. Well, we finally made the decision. We emailed for information on the Chinese girl (age 9) and filled out a preliminary form only to find another family had decided to adopt her. She had the most beautiful smile. I hope she is happy with her new family! We got an email from our home study agency in which she added that she'd had a contact with an agency that works with Poland and we might be interested. We looked into it and scheduled a call for Sunday, April 25th.

We missed that call because we were burying my beloved Pooder in the back yard. Mimi (from the agency) understood and we rescheduled for Monday, April 26th. We talked and liked the idea of it. We told her we were updating our home study and we'll consider it together and let her know. I really liked it and Rob was open to it. I'd been to Poland before (so had Rob, briefly) so it is a little less scary than Russia. We heard that if we were willing to get a child older than 8, it could happen quicker as Poles adopt many children under 8. Sibling groups were also an option and it doesn't cost any more to adopt siblings than it does to adopt 1 child. We only have room for 2 so 2 was our max. Well, on Wednesday Mimi called to ask if we had a draft of our home study update. I said, no, but we have our completed home study from last year. She said to fax it to her and told me about a sibling group of 5, where the younger 3 were being adopted. They don't like to adopt those three out without knowing the oldest two will be going somewhere. She thought of us. It's a boy and a girl. Angelika is 9, the oldest of the five. Jarek (short for Jaroslaw) is 8. We faxed our home study and signed the confidentiality form. We had the referral on Friday. We sent in our application right after. We also sent 30 questions about each of the kids and the family.

Usually, it's the other way around. You apply then you work on your paperwork and pay your fees and eventually get a referral. We got kind of fast-tracked on that. Well, after that, Mimi got us our first three packets of info and we paid some more fees, joined the online PAPA group (Polish Adoption Parents Association). I attened a Love and Logic course and we prayed and thought about Angelika and Jarek. We finished our home study update and waited for approval. We got the draft and proofread it. We sent it back. It was sent to Mimi and there were adjustments made which I proofread. The Polish attorney preliminarily approved it. We had to send $500 and a application to another home study agency to approve it as our home study agency is not Haque Accredited and Poland is a Hague country. So we're just waiting for that agency to finish up them we should be able move forward with our dossier and immigration papers as well as apply for grants and low-or-no-interest loans. We got answers to our 30 questions on Wednesday of last week and found traits in those kids that were like Rob and I. They feel like our kids. We officially accepted our referral!

We're officially expecting! We could be travelling by September! We still need at least $13000 but with the ability to apply for grants and loans that could be much easier to obtain. And God willing, we'll have our kids before Christmas!



    Status of Stories
  • Alien Us: Philippe is working on Chapter 18...slowly.
  • Purgatory: Resurrected by Valerie Shearer and myself!
  • The Honored: Still on the back burner.

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