Adoption #2

Did you know that today is Adoption Sunday? I really didn't either until this past week. I've started following an adoption advocate on Twitter, which is where I first heard about it. Perhaps some of your churches mentioned it this morning. Adoption Sunday a chance to bring to light the millions of children living without one or both of their parents and those that need a home and loving family to care for them. I hope that the information and stories that are shared across America today are touching people's hearts and moving some toward adoption or foster care.

Being that it is Adoption Sunday I thought it fitting that we share our exciting news publicly today.

The Rudstroms are adopting once again.

We've been thinking about starting our second adoption for quite some time. In fact, we had been saying, "as soon as Guatemala opens again, we'll start." Unfortunately, Guatemala is just not getting their ducks in a row and it looks like it'll be quite some time before the new adoption process will be complete. It would have been nice to have our kids from the same country so we could take them back more often, but it was obviously not meant to be. So, based on that information, we began looking for another country. We sorted through the information on a few different places and finally decided on Ethiopia.

Ethiopia was the best match for us for a couple reasons. Since we have the most perfect boy in the world, we would like to balance the household out in the gender area and get a little girl. There is a much higher need for boys to be given homes in the international adoption world so some countries don't allow couples to request girls. Ethiopia, however, does allow us to have a gender preference. We also want an infant that has been cared for in a quality system from birth until we take our baby home. Ethiopia has all of this, so . . . here we go. Our very first piece of paperwork will be sent on Monday along with the first agency fee.

We are trying not to get too excited at this point. The gestation period for adopting is a lot closer to that of an elephant than a human being. We won't be parents for the second time for 12 -1 8 months most likely.

It won't be an easy process. It will require much paperwork, a load of money and a lot of patience. And we also know full well that at any time something could go wrong. Adoptions from Ethiopia could be closed, something with US policies could change, etc. I could think of a million scenarios but we just go forward hoping for the best.

We are once again working with Christian World Adoption. They believe that God is in control of their agency and our adoption. We agree, whatever happens in these next few months, God is in control and has a plan for us and hopefully for a little girl in Ethiopia. We rest in that and look forward to sharing our ups and downs with you over the next year or so.

--AnnMarie