The Chasteens: Adoption Journey

This may be a long post, but please hang in there. If you are interested in details of our adoption journey, this post is for you. We are grateful for the overwhelming love, support and encouragement we have felt from everyone!

I realize there are not many details on our blog about our adoption journey. I am going to attempt to go month by month and do a brief update for each month from the start of our process. We have learned and grown so much throughout the past 2 years. The Lord continues to remind me to TRUST Him and that there are many things that are out of my control. I pray you will be blessed reading our story!

May 2012: We decided we wanted to pursue adoption, but knew we would need to wait to officially apply. Jon would need to finish his dissertation and graduate before we could think about traveling for an international adoption. I began calling agencies and doing a lot of research into different country programs. We took the summer to pray and seek the Lord as to which agency to use and which country we would adopt from.

August 2012: After a couple of months of praying and seeking the Lord we decided that we would apply for a Chinese international adoption and use Lifeline Children's services. We shared the news with some close friends and our families. We knew based on the timeline Lifeline gives for Chinese adoptions to be complete, that we would need to wait until May of 2013 to officially begin our process.

November 2012: We shared our story and heart for adoption with our church during on Orphan Sunday in one of our morning services.

Winter 2012-2013: Waiting, waiting, and more waiting...ready to begin our process, but waiting for May! We contacted friends who could help us in designing and printing a t-shirt, because we wanted to do a t-shirt fundraiser. Our friends David Bishop and Jon Kenney came through in a big way. Jon designed an amazing shirt and David worked with us to give us a great deal so we could make the most of our fundraiser. We were excited to get this going and to have a great shirt to help share our story and raise funds for our adoption. (Adoption is expensive, but possible. Please don't let this be the reason you wouldn't consider adopting. We didn't have the $35,000 needed for our adoption, but we have seen provision in a big way throughout this process!)

March 2013: We sent out support letters and promoted our t-shirt fundraiser.

May 1, 2013: We mailed our application to Lifeline Children's Services.

May 11, 2013: We had a Giant Yard Sale (thanks to SO MANY friends who helped pull this off!) and raised $2,000!

May 16, 2013: We received our acceptance letter from Lifeline.

June 2013: We had our first home study visit. We had to find a local agency to do our home study because our placement agency, Lifeline, is in Alabama and not licensed to do home studies in Massachusetts.

July 2013: We had our second home study visit.

August 2013: We had our third and final home study visit and a home tour.

October 8, 2013: Our home study was finalized (picked up and in hand)!

October 2013: We filed our I800a. This is an application to determine our suitability to adopt a child.

October/November 2013: I filled out and mailed off four grant applications. There are many grants available for adoptive families and they can help tremendously in softening the financial burden of high adoption costs.

November 3, 2013: This was Orphan Sunday at our church and Jon preached.

November 7, 2013: We received word that one of the grants we applied for was giving us $3,000 toward our adoption!

December 2, 2013: We went into Boston for our fingerprint appointment.

January 2, 2014: We received an email from our agency saying they had received our immigration approval.

January 3, 2014: We arrived home from Christmas vacation and found a letter postmarked December 19, with immigration approval.

January 23, 2014: DTC!!! (Dossier to China) Our dossier was a collection of documents (marriage/birth certificates, background checks, medical clearances, home study and several more). This is required for all families adopting from China and must be submitted prior to "logging in" to the system in China.

February 11, 2014: Log In Date (LID) This was a big day because we were now able to be matched with a little girl from the Shared List of children that is released each month.

February 25, 2014: We received the news that we were awarded a matching grant of $3,000 from Lifesong.

March 6, 2014: We receive a referral! We have the file reviewed by an international adoption specialist.

March 7, 2014: We submit our LOI, letter of intent, to pursue the adoption of our baby girl!

March 10, 2014: We got pre-approval to adopt our Zoe!

March 18, 2014: We received a call and the news that we received $5,000 from the last grant we were waiting to hear from.

March 2014: We were able to send Zoe a care package through a lady our agency recommends. We sent an album with our family's pictures and a soft blanket. What a special treat to be able to love our little girl from half-way across the world in this way. We also were able to order a thumb drive to send to the agency. We should get this back on Gotcha Day with pictures of Zoe from the orphanage.

April 21, 2014: Our Dossier was translated.

May 10, 2014: We were able to do a communication package and request new pictures and video of Zoe. We were also able to ask 10 questions. Jon and the kids gave me a card with Zoe's pictures and questions answered for Mother's Day. What a sweet gift it was!

We decided on a middle name. Our little girl is Zoe Beigh. Bei is her Chinese name. We decided to spell Bei, Beigh. Our other three kiddos have our names as middle names (Leigh, David (Jon's middle name) and Jon). We wanted Zoe to have a family name, but also love her Chinese name. So, we are keeping Bei but changing the spelling to reflect Leigh. We hope this brings her past, Chinese heritage and her FAMILY together in her name.

May 28, 2014: There was movement in our file...meaning they were beginning to process us to receive our official Letter of Acceptance (LOA).

May 30, 2014: We hosted our Adoption Dinner and Silent Auction. We raised around $2,000 toward our expenses through this event. It was a great evening!

June 6, 2014: We were officially Match Approved! Our LOA would be on the way!

June 12, 2014: LOA arrived, we signed it and sent it back off.

We now wait for our I800 approval for Zoe, a cable letter, article 5 and travel approval. These next few weeks will be more waiting, but things will move quicker in this part of the process than others. We are praying things move quickly and that our sweet girl is home as soon as possible!

I am going to leave you with a few pictures. If you made it this far, these are some adorable pictures of our baby girl! I recently connected with a group on Facebook that is only for families with children from Zoe's orphanage. It's been a huge blessing to hear from Mommas of little girls who have been living with Zoe. I was scrolling through the feed on the group's page and came across a picture of Zoe. One of the moms who was there picking up her daughter had shared it. To say I was excited is an understatement! A few minutes later I saw another picture of Zoe with two friends posted by a different mom. I sent messages and these amazing ladies quickly responded and began sharing pictures with me. We have new pictures of Zoe, her friends, her nannies and the rooms that she lives in. This has been a blessing to my heart! Here are a few of the sweet pictures we received this week.