Many of you reading this probably know our story. 2017 was filled with craziness. We brought our daughter home from China, switched schools, changed churches– and we did all of it in a matter of weeks. I excitedly declared 2018 to be the year of little excitement or change. Then, 2018 actually happened. Our oldest hit up the ER for second degree burns. My husband spent three weeks in relentless pain with a herniated disc and then another 6 weeks on restriction after back surgery. Our eldest daughter went to kindergarten, and I returned to teaching full-time after staying home with my kids for 8 years. 2018 was jammed with way more than I ever intended or hoped.
So it makes complete sense that we would decided to adopt again.
We didn’t expect this.
In the spring David came home from a late night at work. It was around 11pm, and I had been asleep for a while. When I heard him come in, I said “hi” so he knew I was awake. Then he told me that he was ready to go back, and if there was another Jeffries out there, we should go get him. Fortunately it was almost pitch-black because my joy turned into an ugly cry like none other.
Then everything changed with David’s job, and I had to go back to work, halting our conversations about returning to China.
And then Oct. 16 came.
It was my 8th week of teaching, and students were filing out for the day. I grabbed my phone to check for any texts or messages that had come in while I was teaching. I had an email entitled “A little more time…” from the adoption agency we had used previously. They were advocating for a specific little boy, our little boy. I emailed back asking to view his file and contacted David. With the help of my cousin-in-law, we had the file reviewed by doctors at U of M. We asked some clarifying questions of the orphanage, saw a video of the sweet guy, talked to the kids, prayed a bunch, and said, “yes!”
November was spent getting everything together for our homestudy.
December was spent finalizing our homestudy and submitting our Letter of Intent (LOI).
January has been full with getting our Provisional Approval/ Pre-Approval (PA) and submitting our I-800a.
With the arrival of our PA, we also received permission to share a picture of him and his name. So with that:
INTRODUCING…
Caleb James
Isn’t he just so handsome?!
I have been asked about donations, and yes, we would greatly appreciate any financial help in order to bring Caleb home. We need to save/raise about $30,000 more, $10,000 of which we need to have in the next 4-8 weeks (timeline depends on USCIS). If you would like to help, please do so through PayPal as a ‘Friend/Family.’ It will show as David’s LLC, but will go directly to the adoption. We will let you know exactly what fee your donation will be used for. If you need your donation to be tax-deductible, please do not pay through PayPal, but rather contact me or David, and we can give you that information. Thank you so much for helping us in this new, exciting, unexpected journey!