meet the faulkners

Here is a summary of our adoption journey from our old blog baby faulkner. I’ve included a time line and excerpts of the old blog to try and sum up that amazing year!!!! Here it goes….

Timeline—
8/31/06- Info sheet to Gladney
9/19/06- Phone Orientation
9/26/06- Request for Application
9/27/06- In Ethiopia Deacon is born. (Estimated)
10/4/06- Received Application
November- worked on Application
12/1/06- Application dropped to Gladney
Started Dossier Prep
12/28/06- Home Study Interview
1/13/07- Dossier almost done and Fedexed to KBS. Waiting on Home Study.
1/22/07- Home Study Done!
1/23/07- Gladney approval received.
2/3/07- CIS Fingerprints done!
2/22/07- I-600A approved
3/1/07- I-171h received in mail, notarized and sent to KBS!
Dossier is DONE!
3/13/07- Dossier is received by Belay in Ethiopia.
3/22/07- Prophetic post and shots at health services.
4/5/07- I complain in a post about waiting for referral.
4/6/07- REFERRAL!!!!
4/30/07- Court date in Ethiopia
5/7/07- We take off for Ethiopia
5/9/07- Gotcha Deacon!
5/17/07- We take off for home
5/18/07- We land in Fort Worth!!!

Our first post:

Welcome to our adoption journey blog. We want this to be a place where we can update, think outloud and share the process with everyone who in interested. I wanted to keep this apart from our regular blogs so people who are only interested in our adoption journey don’t have to read about our random day to day stuff.

So, how did we decide to adopt? Here is a little background in the history of our family plan.

* May 02- Clayton and Margo are married.
* Sept. 03- We decide it is time to start our family. Mostly because Margo wants 5 kids by the time she is 30 and at this point she is 26.
* Oct. 03-Oct. 04- We actively try to get pregnant, but to no success.
* Nov. 04- Margo has surgery to remove polyp from an important baby making area.
* Jan. 05- Margo starts new job as nanny and now that surgery is over and healed we are ready to start trying to get pregnant again. As part of working for a peditrician, I take a TB test and fail!
* Feb. 05-Nov. 05- Margo has to take antibiotics for inactive TB (how in the world I got inactive TB no one ever found out, but being on antibiotics meant no getting pregnant.)
* Jan. 06- Now that antibiotics are out of Margo’s system, we start trying again to get pregnant. But while on meds, the idea of adoption floated around.
* April 06- Doctor wants to do many more tests and possible fertility drugs to help with the getting pregnant. By now, Margo feels that instead of spending money to have a biological baby, we could spend the money to adopt an already born baby that needs a good home
* May 06- We start to discuss adoption as a real possibility. Margo visits with an adoption agency. Margo feels that we should adopt even if biological babies are a possibility. Clayton feels that we should adopt as a last resort.
* June 06- Clayton hears Louie Giglio and is convicted that we start the adoption process immediately.
* Aug. 06- We decide on The Gladney Center for our adoption agency.
* Aug. 31, 2006- We drop off our information sheet to Gladney.

And that is where we are now. So, that is a little background to our journey so far.

Why Ethiopia?

Why did we choose Ethiopia? Here’s some insight to how we made this decision. I didn’t want to do domestic adoption partly because I didn’t want a birth mother to come knocking on my door in about 6 months and want her baby back and partly because we wanted to adopt someone from a more desperate place. While I understand that American orphanges aren’t a picnic, they are a lot better than Ethiopian orphanages.

Our first two choices were China and Ethiopia. We want to adopt a baby from each of these countries, but we had to chose Ethiopia first because you have to be at least 30 to adopt from China and Clayton is only 26.

Some people have politely expressed concern about bringing an African baby to North Texas. We can’t worry about what other people think. We have to do what we believe God is leading us to do.

Clayton’s 2 cents:

Up till now, I’ve just been a bystander in the process of our adoption. You haven’t heard from me, and some might think I’m being pulled into this against my will. Far from the truth. I get really excited at the thought of having a son in the near future. Margo’s first post stated that back in June I got the word from God via Louie Giglio that we should adopt. I wanted to elaborate on that a little more.

We were in California, and I was attending the Purpose Driven Worship Conference at Saddleback Church. I was learning a lot about a lot of different worship things, and this wasn’t one of the things on my list of things to learn more about. Louie was the last keynote speaker on Friday. I’ve heard him in person many times, and I always walk away from his messages thinking I’ve gotten just about as close as I’ll get to hearing the audible voice of God [this side of life]. Louie is passionate. And the point he made that rung most loudly in my ears was:
“If we [Christians] don’t do what the Bible considers to be “good religion” we can be very sure that God will not hear our songs.”

Now to explain what I/he mean/s by “good religion” I’m going to share some Scripture that I feel says it all…

* Ephesians 1:4-6 “For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.” We call ourselves the “children of God” alot. But really, we’re not his literal children. He only had One of those. We’re not a bunch of little god-lings running around here. No, what better describes us is that we are His adopted children. Adoption is a very beautiful picture of making someone who is different than you a part of your family. Getting a new name, a new home, and a new future.
* Amos 5:21-24 [GOD speaking] “I hate, I despise your religious feasts; I cannot stand your assemblies. Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!” Not directly related to adoption, but I think it makes Louie’s quote biblical. This is one of my favorite passages. I think it says God can easily get fed up with our worship if we’re not backing it up by the way we live. He desires justice & righteousness…but what exactly is that?
* Hebrews 13:15-16 “Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that confess his name. And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.” So the sacrifice/worship God really desires is continual, and includes doing good and sharing with others.
* James 1:27 “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” Ok, so now we see what just and righteous religion is to God: taking care of the orphans, widows, and maintaining purity in a filthy world.

Ok, so that is where I’m at. Also some more great news. A phone call from Judy revealed that because I am a full-time minister, we get a 50% discount on our program fee. This means we’ll save like $2,100!!! I think that means God must approve of what we’re doing.

After home study…12/29/06
Ok, yesterday we had our home study. It was really fun and not at all stressful. It was just someone getting to know us and taking lots of notes. Our social worker, Heather, has about a month to type it up and put the papers together. Also, Heather is our person when we get back and need help adjusting or doing follow up paper work. I didn’t know this, but after we get home we have 3 visits from Heather, at 3 months-6 months and 1 year. Then after that every year we send a letter to Ethiopia to tell them how much Deacon Elliott loves it in Texas.

In more exciting news…We got our FBI clearance packets back today. In case you’re wondering we are both arrest free!! That only took 9 days from the day I mailed them to the FBI to get them back today. Everyone says things take longer because of the holidays, but that’s bogus. Everyone has been quite swift in the paperwork department. Super!

I’ve also got all the pics we need for our dossier (shockingly the pics don’t need to be notarized, authenticated and translated). And I went by the bank and the manager was kind enough to type up my letter and have one of her employees notarize it for me on the spot….That took a whole 5 minutes.

I also went by the doctor to get those health statements we need…I had to leave the letters and instructions and she said they’d call me next week when they are ready…I’m a little worried about these letters…I’m afraid they won’t be as swift as everyone else…But that’s just because whenever we go to the doctor we sit in that little room for about an hour before they get to us.

I also have the copy of Clayton’s passport, we’ve got the passport sized pics of our adorable faces, and all 3 of our ref letters are written and waiting to be notarized.

I’m very excited at the speed of the process so far. Which is why I haven’t bothered with the nursery yet. It will be the most fun part of this experience, but I’m saving the nursery building for when we’ve got 3 months to do nothing but wait for Ethiopia to do their part….

prophetic post and shots…
I checked our fedex account the other day and I saw proof that our 1.1 pound dossier was received by Belay (our in-country rep) on March 13th!!!! Woo-Hoo!!! That day was my sister’s birthday. So now I have a theory that we will get our referral on either April 6 (my mom’s b-day), April 14 (MY 30TH B-DAY) or April 22 (Clayton’s B-day). Mary, if you are reading this any of those days would be super!! Come on, I know our baby is over there….We’re just waiting for a phone call to let us know you found him!!!

Also, today at 2pm we are going to travel health services to get shots….lots and lots of shots….I’ll let you know what we end up getting later. Clayton has the attitude that it seems most of the men have, which is just get yellow fever shot and then tough it out in country, come what may-malaria, typhoid, polio, meningitis. I have the attitude that I’d rather you stick me now with every shot I might possibly need to be safe, than to be sick in a foreign country- can i get a chicken pox booster and something to combat the plague?

Also, if you check out our Target registry you will see something super fun. They have a collection of baby gear named….MARGO!!! That’s right, the style comes in a pack and play, a stroller, and a baby carrier. I registered for the pack and play. Nothing ever gets named after me so I had to register for it!! It’s only on-line though, apparently my namesake hasn’t made it to your local store yet.

Ok, we need big prayers to God for our referral…The kind of prayers where you make unreasonable promises and offer up your first-born!

after referral…
Ok, I can type again. It was a Good Friday indeed. Here is how it went down. I went to work as usual. I called my mom around 10 am to wish her a happy b-day. We talked about the adoption, and then I hung up. I called Clayton to say hi and then hung up. I’m just sitting there and my cell phone rings. I don’t recognize the number, but I answer it anyways. It’s Mary (program director and the person we’ve been waiting to hear from)!!!!!! At first it didn’t even occur to me that she could be calling with our referral. I thought she wanted to talk about money or training requirements. Then she asked if I was sitting down and my body just started shaking. She told me all about Tegene and then sent the emails with history and the pic.

To respect his privacy the only thing I can tell you about his story is that he was found outside a music school in Addis Ababa. Hmmmm…My husband is a Music Minister and music is his life. Hmmmm….interesting. Hmmmm….perhaps God’s plan is perfect. I hung up with Mary and called Clayton. Then I called Mary back. Then we hung up and called our parents ( I got to tell my mom she got another b-day present!!! A beautiful grandson!). Then everyone with an internet connection got the email with the pic of our son. His pic has been forwarded around to probably 100,000 people already. So, now we see his face and the waiting just got harder. Luckily we only wait about 4-5 weeks before we travel to bring him home. But this has pushed me into super-nesting mode….check out the nursery….very cool.

after court…
Ethiopia, this is Fort Worth, we’re cleared for launch in T minus 7 days.

YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Mary just called and everything went well in court. We are booking the flight today!!!!! Wooooo-Hooooo! Can you feel the excitement??? I was starting to freak out a little and wondering if I filled out papers correctly or what if the Ethiopian judge didn’t like our picture…But then Mary called. I love it when Mary calls. And now we’re good to go. YAY!!! Here we come Deacon!!!

In Country Posts…