crossing two oceans

In the middle of August, we crossed two oceans. We made the switch from Hong Kong to Bulgaria.

HOW? WHY?

We saw a picture.

There is much disagreement regarding the ethics of how orphans should be advocated for and going through the Hong Kong program we knew we would not see a picture of any waiting children until we were matched. We tend to be on the side of protecting the identities of children, yet here we are.

But we saw him. His picture was in an advocacy email from our agency that we were working with.

I guess you could say that in that very picture we felt something. And we asked for more information.

Both Adam and I are “YES” people. We tend to lead with our emotions and we HAD to put ourselves in check. Is this an emotional response to a picture?

Yes. It was an emotional response. We cannot deny it, but there was something more. Can’t explain it but there was a twinkle perhaps... a twinge if you will… and an undeniable feeling of love.

The following days were a blur of re-doing paperwork and applying with the MOJ (Ministry of Justice) in Bulgaria. Our agency only had him on their list for 7 more days, until he would go to another list and a different agency would advocate for him. This was Thursday, and our application with Bulgaria had to be translated and sent to Bulgaria by the next Friday (August 16th).

After this mad rush, we found out a few weeks later that the MOJ and IAC (International Adoption Committee) was on hold. Long story. They are making a few changes. We would get no news until October 11th. We waited 56 days to see if we would be preliminarily matched.

And so here we are.

The other side of the world. Hoping. Pleading. Begging. To give this sweet boy a family. To give him unconditional love. To give him the CHANCE to love.