Inquiring mind? Here's the low-down on our adoption of our first child, Edeneku Lee Huss. We LOVE to share our adoption journey with others, so please get in touch with us if you want to know more!
Our unique journey: Our adoption story is a bit different from others I’ve heard. Our desire to adopt did not stem from a painful road of infertility, nor was it something that either of us grew up knowing we wanted to do. It came on fast and we acted on it immediately.
The drivers: 1) being challenged from blog reading (specifically, the story of Katie Davis in Uganda), 2) not being pregnant already (we had been “trying,” but had not experienced any loss associated with infertility)
The “calling:” On the evening of September 16, 2009 (which made it September 17th in Ethiopia—a year to the day of Eden’s birth), Ben and I discussed how we should respond to a specific blog post regarding orphans. As I rattled off things…should we give financially, should we pray, should we adopt…Ben stopped me. He said that he felt a jolt through his body when I said “adopt.” I asked what that meant…and he said we should adopt. It was that simple. We started requesting free packets of information from adoption agencies the next day!
Some “feelings:” From the beginning, Ben always felt like we would get matched with a girl and that it would be before Christmas. The realist in me just “knew” that it would be a boy and that there was no way it could be before Christmas (based on where we were on the waitlist).
Our specifics: The calling that we felt was very clear to us. Adopt an infant. Adopt internationally. Adopt right now. We based all of our decisions (what agency, what country, what age child, etc.) on those 3 things. If there was a decision we had to make that was not clear based on those 3 parameters, we prayed and researched and went with the one where we felt God’s peace.
“Healthy:” When we first submitted our adoption application, we had to select whether or not we were open to a child with special needs. (Note that “special needs” is a broad term that covers medical needs, physical deformities, chronic diseases, etc.) Ben and I talked a lot about it and decided to say “no” and thus submitted our application for a healthy baby.
A big change: Fast forward almost one year. I (Lauren) hadn’t exactly been feeling at peace with that “healthy” selection. Through a series of things including another blog and a small group study, I felt challenged to consider adopting a child with HIV (you might need to give that a moment to sink in, but please don’t be scared!).
The discussion: Ben and I spoke about it over dinner on September 3, 2010. Ben mentioned that he could definitely see us raising a child with some sort of special medical need—he just didn’t know what kind of special need, and he didn’t anticipate it being our first child. But he said that if God was speaking something to me, he was certainly willing to listen! In order to stay true to the 3 things we felt called to, we decided that if it would delay our process at all, we wouldn’t do it this time around (because of the “adopt right now” calling). We left dinner that night feeling excited and nervous of the possibilities.
Slam dunk: God knows what He’s doing, people. His timing is perfect. And if He sees His children needing confirmation of a calling, He’ll give it to them. When we got home from dinner that night, our agency’s update email had come to our inboxes and the headline was “Introducing AGCI’s Positively Chosen Program.” There you go. Our agency had decided to have sub-program where you can adopt children who are HIV positive. And after talking to our case manager and finding out that it certainly wouldn’t delay us—if anything, it would speed us up, that just sealed the deal.
Getting educated: In the following months, we completed a long list of training and eligibility requirements for the Positively Chosen program and got all of our paperwork updated to reflect our change in parameters. We had an overwhelming peace about our decision and were certain that this is what God had called us to do. We went into this knowing there would be additional challenges we would face, but firmly believing that God would provide in every way for our family. We have a TON of great resources on HIV and how it is and isn’t transmitted (if you think you know, you’re probably in for a surprise). This YouTube video and the Project Hopeful site it mentions are my favorite—check them out!
Tough road: We only mentioned our change in parameters to immediate family members and a few very close friends. As you can imagine, HIV is a very sensitive topic that many people are scared of. In fact, you might be looking at Eden in a different light just from hearing our story thus far… Well, we encountered a couple of very tough responses regarding our change in parameters and simply prayed (and cried) to God that He would be glorified and that He would protect our child from any discrimination once he/she was home with us. It was a very tough road.
Best Christmas ever: On December 22, 2010, we got a phone call from our agency with a little girl they had in mind for us. We were told that her birth mother had HIV, Hepatitis C, and TB—the “triple crown” of infectious diseases, our pediatrician said. After that phone call, and officially accepting our referral, we were on cloud nine! Edeneku was SO precious and we couldn’t wait to share the news with our families for Christmas!
Prayer works, people! To say that we had a lot of people praying for Eden would be a drastic understatement. We were seriously SO blessed to have so many people praying for her! And let’s just say, it worked! Long story short, Eden is healthy! When we were matched with her, we knew she didn’t have TB. Before we even traveled to Ethiopia to meet her, we were told that her bloodwork came back negative for HIV. And now that we’re home, our pediatrician can’t even find anything that would lead him to believe she has Hepatitis C. He said he couldn’t explain it. We said that anything could happen through prayer—that’s explanation enough for us!
Bottom line: We love Eden no matter what her health status. We had people praying for her health in general (they had no idea of any of this) and for God to protect her. And, of course, we prayed that our child would be protected from harm of any kind and we trusted that God would take care of our family. God chose for Eden to NOT have these infectious diseases and for that we are grateful. However, please understand that health status does not define her—or anyone.
Eden’s birth mother: We had the wonderful opportunity to meet Eden’s birth mother while we were in Ethiopia (on our court date of March 17, 2011). She was very kind to let us videotape and photograph our entire meeting and she spoke very openly about Eden’s story. We know this information will be invaluable to Eden when she is older! As with all adoption stories, there is pain…however, there is a LOT of love in the story and that is what I know Eden will cling to!
Our takeaways: Give God complete control, be obedient to what He says, allow Him to show off, and give Him the glory! Oh, and pray with persistence and confidence!
For some further answers, here are some FAQs about our adoption…
Why adoption?
Ben and I felt a strong calling to adopt in September 2009. We can’t really explain it in any other way than that—a calling. We had been trying to get pregnant for about a year prior to that, but thankfully had not experienced any loss associated with infertility and had not exhausted our fertility options. The fact that we did not already have children and were not pregnant certainly made it easier to say “yes” to adoption; however, this journey is about so much more than our desires to have children.
Why international? Why not domestic?
The calling that we felt was very clear to us. Adopt an infant. Adopt internationally. Adopt right now. The beauty of the body of Christ is that we are all called to different things and we have different passions. Our particular calling and passion was to international adoption.
Why Ethiopia?
Ethiopia kind of picked us. You see, Ben and I initially did not feel a strong calling to any particular country. We based our country search on what we felt called to do (adopt an infant; adopt internationally; adopt right now). We started by selecting an agency (All God’s Children International—or AGCI), then we gave our information to see which countries matched with us. Since we were adopting an infant, that narrowed it down significantly (some countries only adopt toddlers and up). Then they take into account your ages, years of marriage, etc. For us, all signs pointed clearly to Ethiopia!
How did you decide on an agency?
We googled “Christian international adoption agencies” and requested free information packets from several of them (yes, it was a very scientific process--haha!). As they arrived in the mail, we reviewed the packets, most which have DVDs. All God’s Children International is the one we felt most comfortable with. One of the main reasons is that they have Hannah’s Hope houses in the countries they adopt from. Knowing our child would be waiting for us in Hannah’s Hope rather than in a government orphanage was a huge comfort.
Were you open to either a boy or a girl?
Yes, Ben and I were open to either gender. We even put on our paperwork that we were open to twins!
How long did your adoption take?
With adoption you have to “expect the unexpected” and every adoption journey is unique. When we started the process, the estimate for someone with our parameters (infant, Ethiopia, either gender) was approximately 8 months from the time the dossier is submitted to the time you are matched with your baby. We feel extremely blessed that we actually came in a month shorter than that estimate! We started the process in October 2009, got on the waitlist in May 2010, got matched with Eden in December 2010, and were home with her in April 2011. Although it felt like an eternity at the time, it is actually fairly quick in the adoption world.
Here are the specific dates of the main milestones of our journey:
9/16/2009 – Felt God telling us to adopt
10/19/2009 – Applied to All God’s Children International
11/24/2009 – Visit from social worker for home study
4/27/2010 – Home study approved by AGCI
5/6/2010 – Sent completed dossier to AGCI
5/24/2010 – Officially on the waitlist (#60 on the girl list; #40 on the boy list; #33 on the sibling list)
9/11/2010 – Received FDL from U.S. CIS
12/22/2010 – Got matched with our baby girl!
1/6/2011 – Mailed our completed referral packet to AGCI
1/18/2011 – Received our court appointment date (of 3/17/2011)
3/13/2011 – Flight to Ethiopia
3/15/2011 – Held our daughter for the first time!
3/17/2011 – Court appointment with Ethiopian judge / met birth mother
3/23/2011 – Received our MOWA letter, which meant we officially passed court
4/12/2011 – Received our US Embassy appointment date (of 4/20/2011)
4/15/2011 – Flight to Ethiopia
4/17/2011 – Our daughter is forever in our arms!
4/20/2011 - US Embassy appointment
4/23/2011 - Arrived home as a family of 3!
How much did it cost? Why so much?
Adoption is a wonderful way to grow a family, but it is an expensive venture. Our adoption expenses were in excess of $30,000. This includes legal fees, travel expenses, training programs, administrative fees, etc. Our adoption agency provided us with all of the services associated with our adoption including serving as liaison with foreign authorities and orphanage personnel in Ethiopia. One of the many comforts we had with our agency is that they were among the first group of agencies to receive Hague Accreditation. The Hague Convention on Inter-country Adoption is an international agreement between participating countries on best adoption procedures. To receive accreditation signifies the highest standards in integrity and leadership among adoption providers.
Since it was so expensive, did you do any fundraisers?
Yes. We believe that adoption is a team effort and that God calls a lot of people to be involved by giving financially—and they want to be obedient to that! So, we opened our hearts, prayed, and allowed people to bless us financially. This is the area where we saw God move in the biggest ways (because finances can be one of our biggest hurdles to "give up"). He seriously "funds what He favors"...and He favors adoption!
We also opened 2 online “stores,” selling coffee through JustLoveCoffee and t-shirts through Adoption Bug. God totally blessed our journey through friends and family like you, so THANK YOU!
Did you change her first name?
When we were in the waiting stage, we thought about this and decided that we would do whatever was best for our child. While we wanted to keep her connection to her birth mother and her birth country, we also wanted to ensure that her name also reflected us. Thankfully, we were able to do both! Her name is Edeneku Lee Huss.
Her birth mother gave her the name Yideneku, which means "to be in awe" in Amharic. We have changed the spelling to match English phonetics, and will call her "Eden" as a nickname. Lee is a family name on Lauren's side of the family. It is the middle name of Lauren, Lauren's mom, and Lauren's maternal grandmother.
What background information do you know about her?
Since we were able to meet Eden’s birth mother, we are blessed to have a ton of information about Eden! Her birth mother kindly let us videotape our discussion and take lots of pictures. We know that will be invaluable to Eden one day! Please understand that only a handful of people know her full adoption story. We ask that you respect the fact that we want Eden to decide when she is older who she wants to share that story with.
What is the orphan situation in Ethiopia?
The country has more that 4.6 million orphans. Approximately 800,000 children have lost one or both of their parents to HIV/AIDS. Starvation and diseases such as malaria are other problems that have affected the Ethiopians. Orphaned children often become invisible to society because they are left with little choice about their own future. Orphans taken in by extended family often work on rural family farms and are therefore not able to go to school. Working is more a necessity than a choice. Orphans who do not have extended family go to orphanages run by the government or private organizations. Because most orphanages have little money, the orphans live in desperate conditions; nevertheless, these orphans are given food and clothing and they are able to go to school.
Are you going to adopt again?
Yes. We’re 100% sure that God wants us to adopt again. We are praying for guidance on when and where.
Will you try for biological children as well?
Yes. Thankfully, infertility is not the road that led us to adoption, so if God blesses us with biological children, we will happily grow our family in that way as well.
