The End of the Road

This is a very sad post, and I am not looking forward to writing it. We have officially come to the end of the road with the adoption, at least at this point. We have been told that even if the Ministry of Health would grant us special approval to adopt (because the minor issue we spoke of before would show up on a medical form), we would still have a chance of being told we cannot complete the adoption by the judge. By the time we went to court to finalize the adoption, we would have been in Katya's country for several weeks and have spent a significant amount of time with her. We also would have spent the majority of the money needed for the entire adoption, all with the risk that we could not bring her home at all. So we feel that it is unwise for us to continue and that it is better for Katya that we allow another family the chance to adopt her instead of spending many months in the process of trying while "holding" her only for ourselves.

This has been heartbreaking, to say the least. We feel that somehow God has a plan for Katya and for our family and that this whole situation can be used for His good. Already, the wonderful people at Reece's Rainbow have suggested that they are making efforts to change the system in Katya's country (not an easy task, to be sure) so that the problem we ran into won't stop others from adopting or at least so that others might know that they are ineligible before starting the adoption process.

Thank you, everyone, for reading this blog, for leaving us encouraging messages, for praying for us, and for donating to our adoption. All money that was donated will stay in Katya's grant fund for the family who decides to adopt her or will be donated to the medical trip taking place to help Katya and others in her orphanage.

I will keep this blog going for now to update on the medical trip and on whether or not a family has been found for Katya. Maybe someone who is reading this blog is that family. And I certainly know that many of you are praying for Katya and will continue to pray for her.