Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all mothers out there!  I will be honest and tell you that for the past couple of years, this holiday has made me a little sad.  Sad that I don't have kiddos to celebrate with.

I apologize that I haven't been the best about blogging, but there really hasn't been too much to talk about.  Philip is in the middle of bicycle racing season; we are renovating our kitchen right now; but, other than that, we have been busy with work.      

An update on the adoption...yes, we are still waiting for our I-171H to come back.  It was sent on April 4, and we were told that it takes approximately 10 weeks to come back.  So, that means that we should hopefully see it around mid-June.  We will be finishing up our dossier in the next few weeks and hopefully have it ready when our I-171H comes back.  That way, it can go directly to the HQ of CHI in St. Louis and then on to Ethiopia as quickly as possible.  Currently, the longest that a family has had to wait has been 6 months from the time they sent their paperwork in to when they received their referral.  The shortest amount of time has been 1-2 months.  It is still feasible that we could have our children home by the end of the year, but what we have learned throughout this process is not to get our hopes up.

I hope you all have a great weekend!

The China Wait

Many of you are probably asking, "Why is it going to be 3-4 more years?"  Well...here is our estimation and reasoning behind it.  

At the time we started our adoption journey in 2006, the wait from LID (Log-In Date) to Referral (when you get her picture) was 6-12 months.  Since then, we have seen the wait grow to 27 months, where it is currently.  The 27 month timeframe is the CURRENT wait time, but I think it is an unfair representation of how long we will have to wait.  The folks who are receiving referrals NOW have waited 27 months.  Our agency fully expects the wait to grow to over 4 years at some point.  The last batch of referrals that our agency received was for the January 6, 2006 LID.  The reason why we say it will be 3-4 more years is for several reasons, and I hope I don't overwhelm you with numbers here.  (My job deals with analyzing data, and sometimes I over do it.)  :)

1.  In 2007, China only referred approximately 6 months worth of LID's.  If they were on pace for that production in 2008, it would be 2 years before we got our referral b/c our LID was November of 2006.  That is the best case scenario in my opinion.

2.  We highly doubt that they will get through 6 months in 2008 b/c we have only seen a couple of batches of referrals so far in 2008, and is was only a couple of days worth at a time...not like a full month at a time like they used to do.  We are in April now, and current pace tells me that it would be almost 3 years before we get ours.

3.  The Olympics are in Beijing this summer.  This supposedly won't affect anything, but I think it will slow things down even more.

The slow-down really began mid-year 2007.  I had high hopes that it was only for a couple of months and that it would get better, but unfortunately, it has gotten much worse than we expected.  There are many rumors out in the adoption community as to why the slow-down is happening:  China is promoting domestic adoption; they have more families wanting children than they have children, the Summer Olympics in Beijing, bad press, etc.  No one really knows the answer, except for China.  There are approximately 30,000 families waiting for children right now as I type and more and more sign up every day.  We just have to keep the faith that one day God will unite us with the little girl that has been chosen for us.  

During the winter, there was a huge ice storm and heavy wintry weather in southern China.  Some of the orphanages were without heat, and donations were collected to help the children eat and stay warm.  The most frustrating thing for us was to know that there are children who are waiting for homes and loving families who are waiting to adopt them.  And, we can do nothing about it....but wait.

Our Adoption Journey

Greetings!

Welcome to our new blog. Here you can follow the Martindale Family adoption journey. As most of you know, we are currently waiting for a baby girl from China. We began the Chinese adoption process in 2006, and based on new numbers and projections from the adoption world, it will be 3-4 more years before we meet her. (That is a whole other subject that I will blog about later.)

Due to this staggering and disappointing news, we feel God leading us in a new direction. After much prayer and consideration, the Martindales have decided to pursue a concurrent adoption (two adoptions at once). We had to receive special permission from our adoption agency and go through additional screening and interviews to do this, and we were approved!! :)

In 2007, Children's Hope International (our adoption agency) was accredited to start an adoption program in Ethiopia, and we feel that this is where God is leading us. Here are some facts about Ethiopia for you to ponder: over 5 million orphans; if children stay in the orphanage, they only live to an average age of 18; adults live to the average age of 40 in the entire country; average income is 100USD per year. As you can see, there is a very large need in this country. Adoptions typically happen very fast once the paperwork is finished - between 3-9 months. However, we are the first family from our agency to attempt a concurrent adoption with Ethiopia and China. We are cautiously optimistic at this point but can't let our hopes get too high. There is a huge risk that we will pay all of our money, finish our paperwork, get our referral, and then the Ethiopian judge turn us down. We are even writing a letter to the Ethiopian government stating why we would want to adopt from two different countries. There is thought amongst the directors at Children's Hope that culturally, the Ethiopians will not understand why we would want to adopt from two different countries. This will be included in our paperwork and will hopefully be sufficient for him/her to understand our stance and why we want to help the wonderful children of Ethiopia.

We have begun the paperchase again, and we are happy to report that we are almost finished! We are waiting for a document from the US government to return to finish our dossier. Our goal is have everything sent to Ethiopia in May. If everything goes smoothly and we are approved, we could have them home by the end of the year. Some of you may say, "Them?" Yes. We have decided that the need is so great that we have requested siblings (a boy and a girl) ages 0-4 years old. They will not separate siblings, so if they are going to be adopted, they have to go to the same family.

We are very excited about this potential new phase of our lives! We covet your prayers and will keep you posted along the way. Thanks to all of you for your prayers and support. It means a lot to have such great friends and family on our side.

Enjoy your weekend!