Category Archives: Adoption

Closer to Adoption and Big Questions

On Friday three Priority Mail envelopes arrived with our passports. My picture makes me look creepy. Doesn’t help that Lexi and I had to retake our passport photos because ProEx screwed them up (don’t worry, we got our money back). But we have our passports, so we’re one step closer.

This week we go in to get fingerprinted for the Department of Homeland Security. Another step closer.

I’ve also started reading There Is No Me Without You, a book Abby already read. It’s the staggering story of orphans and HIV/AIDS in Ethiopia and one woman who took in dozens of orphaned children, turning her two-bedroom home into a makeshift foster care center. I haven’t finished it yet, but it’s already challenging and convicting, both because of the incredible indifference of Westerners to the plight of the poor and oppressed around the world, and the incredible need.

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Go See Juno

A little more than a month ago I asked if you could do a funny movie about adoption. The answer? You bet your sweet bippy.

We went to see Juno last night, the adoption-related movie penned by the former stripper and Minnesota native, Diablo Cody. And I can say that all my fears about the movie not living up to the hype were unfounded. It’s better than the hype.

It’s laugh out loud hilarious, it has a great story, it’s honest and it’s real. They don’t make many movies like this one. At times it felt like Napoleon Dynamite, except instead of being so funny because it was awkward and bizarre, it was just funny.

So in case I haven’t been clear yet, go see Juno.

Adoption Interviews: Frank Johnson

Frank Johnson (not his real name) is a manager at the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (where I used to work). Frank and his wife Sarah have eight children–Bill, 30, Leslie, 27, Curt, 24, Jenny, 22, Kristin, 9, Mary, 7, Tara, 6, and Sam, 5 (whew). Kristin and Sam were adopted domestically through Christian agencies when they were each one day old, one in Texas and one in Florida. Tara and Mary were adopted from a home for abandoned babies Uganda when they were 3 and 4 respectively. Frank is 57 years old and lives in Huntersville, N.C., and notes that if you’re married to a saint like he is, adoption is a lot easier.

1. What motivated you to adopt?

Jesus said we were to take care of them. Plus, we had a desire to expand our family and have more children.

2. What differences have you noticed between adopting domestically
and adopting internationally?

The main difference is that the older children from an institution have definite attachment issues, as well as other baggage, while the domestic children were able to attach to us comparatively quickly. Process-wise, the domestic system is fairly cut and dried, and the international scene is pretty rough and tumble. Expect a lot of changes and surprises along the way.

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Adoption Continues

Wow, one month of blogging about adoption. It seems like a long time ago when we first promised to blog for the month of November about adoption. I wanted to thank everybody who answered interview questions, who shared links, who commented in some way, who spread the word, who agreed to support us in some way. I know I’ve learned a lot about adoption this month and I hope you have too. And I hope you’re not tired of it.

Adoption isn’t something that should get focus once a year and then be forgotten. And we certainly won’t be forgetting about it. And we hope you won’t either.

Our adoption process continues. We probably won’t stop blogging about adoption just because November is over (I have a few more interviews hopefully coming in soon). We’ll have updates and eventually, hopefully, some good news to share.

We hope you’ll stick around.

Adoption Interview Stories

Yesterday I shared an adoption interview with Sheila Cina about her family’s experience adopting their daughter, Irina, from Russia. After answering my e-mail questions she shared this story:

Irina just came down and asked what I was doing on the computer. I explained what an interview is and told her it was about adoption which gave her a big smile.

I asked Irina what she would like to say about adoption:

Irina: “It’s fun not to be an orphan cuz’ you don’t get to pick your clothes cuz’ that’s very boring to have to wear them.”

Mom: “Anything else you want to say?”

Irina: “No.”

We talked after that for a while, reminiscing about the adoption process and wondering who and where she would be and trusting that God knew exactly who and where she was and that he would bring us together somehow. She wanted to hear some of her favorite stories about meeting each other and flying back to Minnesota.

Thanks for the opportunity to think through this all again.

Adoption Interviews: Sheila Cina

Sheila and Matt Cina live in Minneapolis and run an electric business. They have three children–Jack, 14, Kate, 10, and Irina, 7. Sheila and Matt adopted Irina from Russia when she was 5 years old.

1. What’s your adoption experience been like?

It’s been a great experience. It’s like getting married. You put so much thought into that special day when you will be united. It is so hard to know what life will be like after that big day that most of the thought ahead of time is trying to get yourselves to that day. And, like marriage, after the big event there were surprise difficulties that we couldn’t have imagined but so many more wonderful experiences and a new way of life that we enjoy more than ever.

2. What made you decide to adopt?

We wanted another child and had several miscarriages (9 in all). We also saw that there were so many kids out there without loving homes that we felt it would be best to provide that place for a child who wanted it.

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Adoption Interviews: Erin Pratt

Just as Abby and I were getting into the adoption process a couple who used to attend our church showed up again. Andy and Erin Pratt had moved to Duluth but were now back in the Twin Cities–and they had a baby. About a year ago they adopted Henry from Guatemala when he was 5-months-old. They’ve since moved back to the Twin Cities, and just in time to share their adoption experience with us.

Andy is 29 and Erin is 32 and they’ve been married for almost five years. They’re both attorneys, though Erin is currently a full time mom. They adopted through Children’s Home Society and Family Services and the process took a little over a year (you can read about the process on their adoption blog–they don’t update it anymore, but it gives you a good insight into their journey).

1. What motivated you to adopt?

I wanted to be a parent long before Andy. And, practically, we needed to wait until he finished law school. We started trying to get pregnant soon after Andy’s graduation. Nothing happened for about seven months. Neither of us wanted to pursue fertility treatments. We knew God had planned for us to be parents and after prayer and discussion, we quickly learned that we were meant to build our family through adoption. I wish that I could write that I had always wanted to adopt ever since I was a little girl. I just never thought about it. However, once we started considering and researching adoption, we never looked back.

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Thankful to be Home

Hendricks Family Take 5700 miles, 12 hours, 4 podcasts, 2 half-listened-to audio books, a lot of U2 and one puking incident. It’s been a long day, but we’re finally back in the Twin Cities after three days in Kansas (and two on the road). Lexi did great, except for the whole not sleeping well Saturday night and throwing up on the ride home. But what parent hasn’t had to clean vomit out of a car seat? I remember throwing up myself in a car seat in our old Ford pickup and my dad having to clean it up. What goes around comes around, so to speak.

It’s no secret that I love going to Kansas, and this trip was no different. We were able to spend a lot of time with family. My immediate family–my parents, my brother and his wife and daughter and my wife and daughter–were all together for the first time since my niece, Charlotte, was born. The girls had a blast together and when Lexi woke up on Friday and my brother and company had taken off, the first thing Lexi said was “Charlotte?” It took a few hours to convince her that Charlotte and Uncle Rick and Aunt Limor had gone home. And then to convince her that they had gone to their own house, and not our house.

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Virtually Visiting Ethiopia

One of the fun things about the wired world we live in is that you can get a taste for travel without actually traveling. It’s only the slightest taste, but I’ve been enjoying pictures and videos from Ethiopia in anticipation of our trip.

And that’s just scratching the surface.