Our growing family…
We are wanting you all to be in on our exciting news! Our family will be expanding this next year–by THREE!
No, we are not having triplets. PHEW!– Steve and I have decided to pursue a long-time goal of ours to do a foreign adoption of a sibling group of three children! We have talked about it for several years and now we know the time is at hand.
We are, at this point, working on a few preliminary things such as logistics, my passport, and ideas to bring in the large amount of money we will need to complete the adoption as well as to support six children! We are also finalizing who our agency will be and then when the new year rolls around, we will get moving on to the bulk of the paperwork. Whew! It is a lot of stress, but in a good way! We are so excited to be “expecting” again but in a different way this time. The girls are looking forward to the new siblings too: Hannah tells everyone we meet that we are adopting and and Annette brags daily to me about how well she plans on sharing with them. Of course, Ivy doesn’t have a clue!
It looks like we will adopt from Ukraine. The way it works there, though, is that after you tell them what you are looking for, they send you to an orphanage that has children that fit your criteria. For us, that is just a sibling group of three, 7 years old and under, generally healthy. This is broad in the sense that we have no way of knowing when we leave what gender breakdown we will come home with! Right now, our plan is that we go together but that I come home early and leave Steve to handle the court date. Steve’s mom is planning on meeting him there and then helping him to escort the children home where I will have had just a few jet-lagged days to prepare! It will be a whirlwind, I am sure.
Some of the things we will be doing in the next months are: Upgrading to a vehicle that seats at least 8, working around the house on things such as getting the extra bedroom transformed from playroom/guest room to a permanent bedroom and other things of that sort, raising funds, getting our dossiers (all the paper work–there is a TON!), beginning a website to help keep you all posted, and learning Russian (well at least some)! As you can see we will be coveting your thoughts and prayers. Please pray for us for wisdom throughout the process as well as for things to progress smoothly along each step of the way.
We are all so excited and will love to answer any questions you may have. Really!
Love you all!
Melissa and Steve
Steve and Melissa:
Wow that is big news. And completely unexpected. You guys definitely know how to keep a secret. We are so happy for you. I can tell you are excited Melissa just by the way you were writing. I was almost out of breath just reading it. There’s so much more to ask. I’d love to know how you came to this decision, and the number (3), and the Ukraine. We’ll need a whole cabin just for the Eimers crowd in July!!! Or does the process take forever? When do you think you will be going over there? You don’t have to actually answere all these questions but you better get Evan or somebody working on a website pretty quickly ’cause you know we wont’ wait forever.
Blessing on you both.
John Anderson
—–Original
Well, we learned several years back of the horrible future awaiting unadopted orphans in other parts of the world, particularly Eastern Europe and India. The prognosis for healthy girls is not a pretty one. A high percentage of these girls are sold into the sex trade and the boys often become involved in this business as well if they don’t join the military or Russian mafia. The suicide rate is extrememly high as well. In many countries the age of mandatory release from the orphanage is 16, while the minimum working age is 18. This two-year gap combined with poor economies to start with is a fertile breeding ground for the worst atrocities imaginable for these children.
This struck our hearts and we began planning to adopt a group of children that was an otherwise unlikely group to get adopted together. The reason we have chosen three is simply that we cannot take more. There are financial restrictions depending on your yearly income, reasonably so, they wouldn’t want to send these children to homes that simply couldn’t afford them (that is how many of them arrIve there in the first place). Our plans for the distant future suddenly became our plans for the here and now with no explanation, no discussion, none of that. We both just knew. I suppose it must have been God saying “Now” since I can think of no other explanation.
The process, once begun, is somewhat dictated by how fast we are able to get things accomplished. We are in a big hurry in the sense that we want to get things done as quickly as possible to limit the time our little ones are stuck in the orphanage. The process likely will take 6 to 10 months depending on how quickly we can raise the funds and tick each step off of the myriad of things to do.
We can’t change the world for all the orphans out there but we can change the world for these three.
We love them already. I feel like when we were expecting our first baby, anticipation, excitement, a desire for their health and safety and a deep all- consuming love even though we haven’t met them yet. It is hard to explain but wonderful and amazing!
See, I told you I’d love answering your questions!
Hey, Melissa and Steve,
This really is amazing news. It takes my breath away. I’m thrilled for you and especially for the children you’ll be taking into your home.
Melissa, this will be a great deal of work but you’ve been trained by one of the world’s best mothers and so I have no doubt you can pull this off with aplomb.
Bless you all,
Michael
Melissa,
I was curious as to which agency you are using for adoption. My friend is looking to adopt a child, but is not sure of what avenue to choose as far as an agency. I told her I would ask different people I know that have been through or are starting the process. If you can not share that information, I totally understand, but it doesn’t hurt to ask…right?
Thanks