we’re here! (for now)

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We’re moved in… and definitely not unpacked. So far, we’ve gone without hot water (and showers), driven two hours to IKEA and back, gotten fingerprinted for our adoption home study update, groaned about how horribly uncomfortable our mattress has gotten, and marveled at how well our neighborhood fits our future family.

Still to go: The delivery of what is to be a miracle-working mattress, my first dentist appointment in too long, lots of unpacking, buying groceries, and… driving back to St. Louis for Dan’s graduation.

Tired, but happy.

changes + prayers

It’s been a little quiet around here, no? With all the endings and beginnings we’ve got going on, I’ve been focusing my energies elsewhere. On the adoption front, it’s been a difficult few months.

This week, we learned that the government in Theo and Elliot’s country is considering some changes to adoptions. Unlike the other changes we’ve recently experienced that simply added time to our wait, these new changes could possibly eliminate our ability to adopt Theo and Elliot. Yes, that would be the worst case scenario… but we are pretty darn worried nonetheless.

We hope to hear what decision has been made by next week. In the meantime, we’re begging for your prayers. Depending on the changes made, many families — not just us — could be affected. Personally, we’ve felt our hearts tied strongly to Theo and Elliot. We’ve believed God intends them to be a part of our family.

Please pray that our adoption of them would be protected. Please pray that they would be able to come into our home quickly and safely. Please pray for peace as we wait for this decision and for peace with whatever comes to pass.

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leaving St. Louis

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As we continue to wait for the okay to bring Theo + Elliot home with no end in sight, we’ve realized that maybe our apartment here in St. Louis won’t be their first home. That maybe we should put aside our desires to stay here as long as possible before all sorts of change hits. That maybe what would be best for Theo + Elliot is if we moved as soon as possible, got settled in, and prepared expectedly and hopefully for their arrival.

So, we’re doing it. We sat down and hashed out the dates… We’ll move the week of Dan’s graduation, come back to St. Louis for the ceremony and last goodbyes, and then return to Indianapolis to get settled into a new normal that will (hopefully) soon change with the arrival of two toddlers. 

Friends and co-workers keep asking if I’m stressed. I’m not. They also ask if I’m excited. I am. And if I’m sad. I am. 

I’ve felt like I hit my stride in St. Louis. No doubt that even this introvert was a bit depressed and pretty lonely upon moving here, but that all quickly gave way to great friendships, exploration, personal + spiritual growth, lots of learning, and meeting/dating/marrying my husband. As cheeseball as it is, moving to St. Louis was the first time I stepped away from all that was familiar and comfortable. And I really believe God celebrated and rewarded that.

We have loved our daily routines, our friends, our family, and our church here. During this time, though, God has continually led me to focus in on two of my main callings (after being a daughter of Christ): a wife to my husband and a momma to adopted kids. Right now, it appears that I’ll be most easily able to transition deeply into those roles by moving and settling in for what is yet to come.

I’m a little sad to leave my job, as I prepare to be a stay-at-home mom. I’m a little sad for Dan to launch into residency. And being very honest: I sometimes feel this unwanted worry that our adoption will fall through, Dan will never get to be home, and I’ll be bored and lonely as ever. 

But of all things that I fear, God has no fear. And of all things that I am uncertain, God is certain. 

sweet, kind people

We’re coming up on one year of our adoption process. Though we thought our sons would be home by now, we’re hanging in there. And sweet, kind people are helping us plow on. I know not everyone is pro-adoption, but we seem to always be surrounded by those who love it like we do.

We took a babymoon to Milwaukee and Chicago. In Chicago, we stopped at the wonderful Land of Nod Outlet. It’s a pricy store — outlet or not. We were about to leave when a decorative zebra bust caught my eye. It’s $70 new. It was discounted quite a bit, but it was still borderline too expensive. We decided to get it anyways. As she was ringing it up, the cashier asked us where it was going to go. I told her. She squealed, said adoption is important to her, cancelled our transaction, and pushed some buttons. We walked out with an even further discounted zebra!

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We recently went to a birthday party of one of Dan’s very popular, well-liked relatives. There were tons of people there, including several we’d met in the past. One woman who I hardly recognized us asked us how our boys were doing. She said the first time we met her, we told her we expected the boys to be home around April. She said she’d marked it on her calendar: “Twins home.” She was disappointed as we are that they wouldn’t be home in April, but I was absolutely touched by her thoughtfulness and interest in our little family.

Last weekend, I got to be a part of a second baby shower celebration for Theo and Elliot. I’m thankful for sweet friends who recognize adoption as something equally important as a birth. I’m thankful for those who have helped us slowly accumulate the things we’ll need to care for our sons. (Who knew it could get so expensive?) And I am so thankful for their prayers for me as a soon-to-be mom and for my sweet sons.

our future home

Once we knew Dan matched in Indianapolis, we started scouring Craigslist, Zillow, and Pad Mapper for a rental home. Criteria for this future home included less than 30 percent of our income, less than 20-minute commute for Dan, safe neighborhood, diverse neighborhood, three bedrooms, and at least a half bath on the first floor (hello, potty training in the future).

We further focused in on a few neighborhoods, and we quickly realized that the kind of places we like in those neighborhoods get leased super fast. We fell in love with one, bonded with the current tenants after emailing them for a reference, and watched it get leased within two days, even though we’d confessed our undying love of it to the landlord. Dang.

So, we set a weekend to go to Indianapolis, and we lined up as many showings as possible. Five homes and an apartment. One of the landlords was out of town, so she had a realtor friend of hers show us her place. When Dan called him to set it up, he casually mentioned we were adopting and would have kids in the house. The realtor has an adopted daughter, and he insisted that we also let him take us to a rental home he has. He said it was just recently vacated, and he’d only shown it to a couple of people. He mentioned the monthly rent, which was a bit above our limit, but he said he thought he could “work something out with us.”

We visited all the homes we had lined up. (Except for the one Dan lined up by himself… Gorgeous home, I’m sure, but the block had all sorts of red flags. Just drove past that one!) The one our new realtor friend showed us really was what we wanted, though it had a few quirks. The walls were unfortunately painted the worst bright blue, yellow, and pink, which made it really hard to pictures ourselves and our stuff in there.

At the end of the weekend, we were torn between our realtor friend’s home and another. We decided to not talk about it until the drive home, but once our realtor friend called to offer us discounted rent and to paint the place for us, we were in.

So, our future home is decided! It has three bedrooms, hardwood floors, a decent-sized kitchen, one and a half bathrooms, a fenced in backyard in which our boys can run, a front porch with a porch swing, and soon, the most beautiful White Pepper walls. (The landlord even let us choose the color!)

Move-in date is yet to be decided. We’ve had some changes to our adoption process, which I’ll share soon, but because of that, it’s looking like we may be moving sooner than we had planned. But I continue to feel a pretty extraordinary peace as I watch all the plans we had made change. So thankful for that!

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adoption update: little steps

It’s going to be increasingly hard to keep this vague, but I’m going to do my best! We’ve received two really good adoption emails this week.

You know that three- to six-month wait we’re in? Well, for a while we didn’t know when that wait officially began. We also didn’t know if what needs to be accomplished during this wait was being accomplished. (It’s not on our end to accomplish… It’s being accomplished in Africa.)

Today we got confirmation that our wait did begin when we thought it did (a couple months ago, as opposed to very recently!) and that what is needing to be accomplished is definitely being worked towards. What this really means is that Theo and Elliot could home anywhere between two weeks from now until August.

We are continuing to pray that they’re home before Mother’s Day. August sounds pretty far off, but honestly, I’ll wait and pray as long as is needed. I’ve felt a new peace and comfort with the unknown lately, and I’ll ride it until they’re home. 

The other email we got was a basic report completed by a registered nurse who visited the boys in their foster home! We learned that they are very close in weight, and Theo is a couple inches taller than Elliot. They like to eat rice, beans, fish, and yams. They’re still taking bottles a few times a day, which I’m happy to hear, because I’d love to be able to bond with them through feeding them bottles. They appear healthy, and they sleep pretty well at night. We also learned that our sweet boys are very shy. It wasn’t a ton of info, but we’re happy to have it as we prepare for how best to meet their needs when they get here.

Little steps, more info… I’ll take it!

adopting from foster care: foster-to-adopt

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While some families prefer the more certain end result of the adopt-only option of foster care, others prefer the foster-to-adopt option. I’ve gotten to work with some really great families adopting both ways. And families who only ever set out to foster and found themselves absolutely in love with the kiddos living with them. I’ve also interacted with families who only ever want to foster, and I have a deep respect for them, too.

Foster-to-adopt starts with the same licensing process as adopt-only. Very simply put, the licensing process involves 27 hours of training, background checks, physical exam, personal and work references, and interviews. At the end of it, you’re licensed and you have a home study specifying the “type” of children you’re interested in fostering and/or adopting: age, gender, sex, race, level of needs.

After families are licensed, the path looks fairly different. While adopt-only families are generally chosen in a staffing, foster-to-adopt families have children placed in their homes like all other foster parents. Depending on the broadness of your preferences and your community’s needs, you may be waiting different lengths of time for that first placement.

Agency staff, like myself, receive information when a child comes into foster care or needs to be moved to another foster home. I call foster parents who take the “type” of child needing placement and share as much information as I can with them about the child. I’ve made most of these types of calls after hours when a child just comes into foster care with very little information. Honestly, with new cases, I usually only know kids’ age, race, gender and any medical or mental health diagnoses. Because of this — and other reasons coming up — foster-to-adopt has quite a bit more uncertainty involved. If the child is moving from one foster home to another, I know a lot more information, and we try to plan several pre-placement visits.

After placement, the wait to see what happens with the case and the parents’ rights can be tough on families. Sometimes relatives are identified, and since preference is given to relatives, the child is moved. Sometimes termination of rights takes a really long time. (This can vary widely by state.) Sometimes kids are reunited with their families, and this is worth celebrating in many cases. There are a lot of variables, and a foster family has very little control over the outcome of a case.

One perk — in my opinion— to fostering a child before parent rights are terminated is that sometimes it is safe and appropriate to know and support the biological parents, grandparents, siblings, and relatives. I know many foster families who send regular photos to the child’s family members or call occasionally to share updates. This provides a great opportunity to minister to and encourage the child’s family during a really hard time. If you don’t think you can be supportive of birth parents’ rights to their children, foster-to-adopt may not be the best. I’ve seen foster parents wanting to adopt thwart the legitimate progress and growth biological parents are making, and it’s sad.

The 6-month placement before adoption rule applies to foster-to-adopt families, as well, though kids have usually been in the home longer than this. Generally, there is a 45-day waiting period after termination of rights before an adoption can occur.

Foster-to-adopt is great for people with a high threshold for uncertainty. It’s also fitting if you view foster care as an opportunity for biological parents to work on their challenges, as opposed to an opportunity for them to lose their children. Foster-to-adopt gives you ability to know a child from their very earliest time in foster care. And for those interested in adopting younger children, you may even get to know them from the time they were discharged from the hospital. You’ll get to experience things first hand, as opposed to reading it all in their file after you’re chosen as a pre-adoptive family, as you would if doing adopt-only.

Again, just as international adoption is not all around better than domestic adoption, foster-to-adopt is not necessarily better than adopt-only. It’s a preference thing, and a preference thing only.

Read about the adopt-only option.

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Do you have questions about adopting from foster care (or adoption, in general)? Please feel free to comment here or email me at littlethingsbigstuff@gmail.com! It’s one of my favorite topics to talk about. 

Indianapolis

We would have been able to deal with living in any of the places at which Dan interviewed. A rule of thumb in this match process is to not rank a place you wouldn’t be willing to go. You’re locked in. Big time. Better to not match than be committed to three to four years in a program you despise.

I had done my research on all the cities, but we had really homed in on Indianapolis the night Dan got there. He called me after the pre-interview day social gathering. I could hear the excitement in his voice. He told me about all the super nice, down-to-earth people. And the residents with kids! Kids at social gatherings! We could fit in.

He called me after his interview the next day, and his excitement was obvious again. Large numbers of patients coming through the ER, specialized experiences in adult and children’s ERs, three-year program instead of four… He was able to quickly list off a lot of pluses I hadn’t heard about other programs.

I started thinking about the pluses in my book. Sister-in-law living there, closer to his family, not any further from mine, fair amount of diversity, closeness to our Indianapolis-based adoption agency, lots of families with adopted kids that look like ours, several people we already know, promising church family possibilities, very reasonable cost of living, kick butt art museum/sculpture park, super cute neighborhoods, Pinkberry (!!), Madewell (!!!). No IKEA, which I’ve joked about needing all along, but there’s one much closer than we have now.

So, we talked. We prayed. I had the one night of doubt, but he ranked it first, and we both felt really good about it. 

It’s a huge relief to know we get to move there. It’s not as glamorous as some of the places we’d dreamed about early on (Portland! San Francisco!), but it’s absolutely great for our little family at this point in our lives. Since hearing that he matched there, we’ve been surprised to realize all the people we’re already connected there. Many of them through adoption.

We are choosing to trust that God will provide for our needs — and maybe even our wants — in these next few months. There’s a lot that needs to fall into place for this transition to go smoothly. And even if it doesn’t, I’ve got this great husband and this awesome God by my side every day.

my first time (of only two times!) in Indianapolis: Indy Mini

 

married to a med student: Match Day!

Friday was Match Day. Dan had the day off work, so I took most of the day off, too. I wanted to sleep in, but I also wanted to go out for breakfast and not be late to the ceremony, which started at 11 am. We chose the breakfast option. My stomach felt nervous almost right away after waking up, but I tried to push it away.

We sat down to eat our Clara Cakes at Half & Half. “Wait, how sure are you that you’ll match at Indiana? Like, how sure?,” I kept asking Dan. He’s been pretty sure all along, but there was no guarantee. “I’m actually getting nervous now,” he admitted. This man is never nervous. My nerves bubbled up again.

The auditorium was packed when we got there. Everyone was excited. There was beer and champagne flowing freely. We chatted with a few people, and then found seats toward the front, next to Dan’s old roommate/close friend and his family. And bam, it started.

One of the deans of students would read off one name at a time in a random order. The student would go on stage, drop a dollar in a bucket, open the envelope and read aloud their speciality and matched program. Some were obviously ecstatic. Some honestly seemed disappointed. (Each person puts in a dollar, and the last person to go gets all the money for having had to wait until the end.)

I didn’t know a lot of the people, but it was really fun to see Dan’s friends end up where they most preferred. Some had done couple’s matching, which sounds like the most stressful thing ever, so it was fun to see them go on stage together to read their envelopes.

An hour had passed, and it seemed like everyone had gone. My bladder was about to burst, but I didn’t want to miss Dan being called or have him tell everyone to wait because I was in the bathroom. “You’ll be next!” our friend’s mom said. And then they called his name! I followed him up, he took his envelope, and we walked up to the microphone.

In our moments of nervousness during the morning, we had talked about how it would go. “I’ll say hi to our families,” he said. (The ceremony was streamed online, and our families were watching.) “And then I’ll hug you and kiss you.” Instead, he walked up to the microphone and then, a la Kip at the bowling alley in Napoleon Dynamite, said “yesssssss.” I laughed nervously. (Prime example of me and Dan in nerve-wracking situations.)

He opened the envelope, and my eyes searched for the line on the paper. And he read: “Emergency medicine, Indiana University!” 

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Relief, instant relief.

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one last batch

moretshirts

Several people have told us they wanted a t-shirt but were unable to order one before they sold out. Because we’re trying to stay busy as we wait for our boys and because we loving seeing people wear our shirts, we’re printing another batch!

If you’re interested in pre-ordering an adult-sized shirt (crew neck or v-neck), you can go to our online shop to order one now! They’re still $20/shirt + shipping.

We’ll take preorders for the next two weeks, and the shirts should be printed and ready about two weeks after that.

Thanks for all your support!

about

Hi, I’m Natalie.

I’m enjoying life with my medical student husband, currently working as a foster care/adoption social worker, and really loving urban apartment living + church going.

We made the decision to adopt from Africa after less than a year of marriage… then, we decide to adopt twin boys! All I can say about that: our God is good.

join our adventure!

Pray continually! Pray for the financial means to bring these boys home, health for their little bodies, a favorable legal process, and the wisdom to parent them well.

Buy “Get You Here” world map t-shirts! We created the design and worked with a local print shop to make custom crew and v-neck t-shirts. (Thank you, Art Farm!)

Make a non-tax-deductible donation! We’re able to accept donations via PayPal.

Make a tax-deductible donation! Write a check out to The Fatherless Foundation, and mail it straight to us. If you don’t have our mailing address, please email us at littlethingsbigstuff@gmail.com to get it. NOTE: Please do not write our names anywhere on the check.

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