Four Pairs of Shoes

Ok so some of you are wondering about these 4 sets of shoes.  So......WE ARE ADOPTING AGAIN!  It's been hard to keep this a secret for so long.  We have been thinking about this for a while now, but for a couple of different reasons we had not actually announced it yet. 

We had been talking about this since back before the summer.  However, with the adoption law changes in Taiwan that went in to effect on June 1st, we had no idea what this meant for us.  So we waited and prayed.  As it turns out the orphanage we adopted Ava from, we cannot adopt from them again right now.  That's a long story, but the basic gist is that 1) there is a long list for families waiting for second children, 2) the wait would be quite some time due to that, and 3) THOGL is not really doing second adoptions right now due to their long list for families waiting for their first child and the new law changes.  So we started looking at what our options were.  We considered doing China special needs but never pulled the trigger.  Our hearts are just still in Taiwan!

Fortunately God has placed a wonderful godly woman in my life as my accountability partner!  She also has adopted from THOGL.  One day while meeting she mentioned an agency who recently reopened their healthy infant Taiwan program (at this point most programs were closed due to the law changes).  So we looked into it, exchanged some emails with the agency, had a phone conference call with the agency and all came back great!  So we started our process the next day.  This happened basically at the end of August. 

Since then we have started our homestudy.  As we did not keep our previous homestudy up to date we had to start over from scratch.  That is being finalized this week.  We have been basically approved through the agency based on our previous homestudy, although not offically until our current homestudy is completed and reviewed.  We are hoping to have that done this Monday.  We had been waiting for "offical" approval before our announcement. 

We heard from the agency this past week, and while it's not final, it's close enough that we feel ok moving forward with the announcement!  So we are expecting an addition to our family HOPEFULLY within the next 18-24 months! (Please note that we do NOT have a referral yet.)

I will write more details later and as things progress, but for now, just admire the lovely new shoes!