Welcome to Our Adventure!

Well, the cat is officially out of the bag.  We couldn't hold it in any longer, and it was time to share.  We figured since we had officially been accepted, there was no time like the present!

A huge thank you to my sister for making this photo happen.  I had jumble of ideas for announcements, and she just saw through my madness and put this together.  She even took the picture for us!

I'm sure a lot of you who are just joining us have a lot of questions. If you go back to one of my first posts, there is a little Q&A, though i'm going to answer a few more.  I love getting to talk about this adoption.  We are so excited to start our family, and the more we get to talk about it, the more real it feels.

Here are just a few basic questions, that I would be asking if I were you:

Why international adoption?

When we first starting considering adoption, we put everything out and decided what fit best with our family.  We are very lucky to have the means to adopt internationally. No, we don't have tons of money, but we do have very supportive jobs that are willing to give us the time off needed for the lengthy amount of time you need to be gone in international adoption. In addition, working for a major airlines has its perks.  We're lucky that part of my benefit package includes positive space travel for all adoption needs.

Why Hungary?

We kind of did the same thing as above.  Once we had settled on international, we looked at all the countries, and found out we didn't even qualify for most of them.  You'd be surprised how picky they can be! For example, we weren't eligible for China, because i'm under 30, most other Asian and South American countries wouldn't accept us because Cory takes anti-depressants, I didn't personally agree with some of the ethics of adoption from Ukraine, and Uganda has wait times of over 4 years.  There are so many other countries out there, that i'm not even mentioning! Eventually we had it narrowed down to India, Poland, and Hungary.  We knew we wanted a younger child, and we knew we wanted a child with "corrective or minor disabilities."  This was a big factor in narrowing it down to these countries.  In the end, we turned to prayer and endless research.  We learned most children adopted from Hungary are of Romani Descent.  If you aren't familiar with the Romani people or the struggles, I highly suggest looking it up.  This did play a factor in our decision.  Another one of the big factors was that the country requires an extended bonding period.  You are required to spend at least 30 days with the custody of your child, until the adoption can be finalized.  We loved the idea of getting an entire month of nothing but bonding and learning about each other.  Most families never get an uninterrupted opportunity like that!

Baby or Child? Boy or Girl?

Adopting internationally means the opportunity to have a baby isn't realistic.  The Hague Convention, put in place by the united nations in 2014 greatly regulated the way adoptions are run around the world.  It's a great program that helps to fight child trafficking and unethical adoptions.  Because of this, for a child to be adopted internationally, all reasonable resources must be taken to have the child adopted in country. Children under one year are never eligible, and children under 24 months are rare.  We are open to any child, or sibling groups under the age of 4. As for as gender, we have no preference as long as they get to become ours. Though from Hungary, over 85% of the adoptions are of boys. 

How long will it take? 

We really have no idea how long it'll take, but for now our guess is around a year.  We are announcing it early, because we need all the love and support we can get.  We're still in the beginning, and it's been full of highs and lows.  We love getting to include our friends and family in the planning and everyday of the adoption process.  Plus, if our little blog helps even one person trying to make the same decisions some day, it has been a success. 

What comes next?

Our current tasks are to finish up on our home study, and getting our dossier prepared to be sent to Hungary for translation. In the mean time, we will be doing tons of fundraising and applying for grants. (The total cost of international adoptions is around $40,000, which sadly we don't have) If anyone has great fundraiser ideas, feel free to let us know!  Once our dossier is submitted and accepted, its between a 2-24+ month waiting period for a referral. Since we are both young and have no other children, we're hoping our referral period will be no more than a year.  Once we have a referral, and we have accepted it, we have about a month until we travel.  from there we will spend just under 2 months in Hungary, and then we head back home.  Once we step into the U.S. as a family of 3 (or maybe even 4) our entire family will be U.S. Citizens. 

If you every have any questions about our adoption process, what we've struggled with, and what led us to our decisions, feel free to drop them in the comments or sent them to us privately.  Like I said, we love to talk about it and want you all included in our story.  Just like the old saying, says "It takes a village!"