I just pushed “send” on a letter to my two Senators, Todd Young and Mike Braun and also our Representative Jackie Walorski. That letter was one I never would’ve imagined we’d have to send. And with that, I thought I’d finally write the adoption update that was long over-due to our family and friends.
We have had SO, so many of you ask us, with so much enthusiasm, when we get to go to China. And it’s always hard for me to have to tell you that we don’t know. Not only do we not know, but the situation currently isn’t favorable for travel anytime in the foreseeable future. We are at the stage in our adoption where we are waiting for a piece of paper called a “travel approval” that comes from China. It authorizes us to begin planning our travel and typically after we received that, we would be traveling within 3-6 weeks. It’s normally such an exciting stage to be in, but China hasn’t issued a travel approval since the onset of the Covid-19 virus.
Our adoption agency was told by China, that China’s main concern is for the safety of the children. And as long as the United States continues to see a rise in Coronavirus cases, they will not allow the children to come to the USA. They currently are not budging on this. As a solution, adoption agencies are submitting plans written by doctors and pediatric associations that propose safety measures that we could take with the children if China will release them to come home to their adoptive families. They obviously also have concerns for letting large amounts of people from the USA into China to collect their children, so proposals addressing that have been written as well – they include things like a proposal that only one parent would travel to pick up the child instead of both, or that we would quarantine for a few weeks upon arrival, then begin the adoption process (which could mean 30+ days in China), then quarantine again upon return home. And there are also some concerns that adoptions can sometimes become political – and if we are ever in a time when China was a real buzz word or topic for politicians, it is now, unfortunately.
Currently, they’ve asked us to submit a letter to our Senators, imploring them to appeal to Washington DC to work with China as these adoptions are a humanitarian issue. To de-politicize this, if possible. To release just the families with travel approval for now, and see how that goes. (Again, that currently would not be us though.)
Our daughter is over there. She will be 6 soon. We can not call her. We can not go visit. We can’t send her anything other than a one-time photo book and a letter is allowed once a month. We haven’t heard anything from her orphanage since February, when Covid-19 began, and we are only allowed to request an update once every 6 months.
We have not lost hope over here in the Miller household. We know we will be a family eventually. But we feel the need to be very candid with you all that this is hard. Really, really hard. We’ve got videos and pictures of our daughter. We’ve become attached to her in a way that is inexplicable unless you’ve experienced it. While we are confident in the future of our family, we feel the passing time in a heavy way. We are losing precious minutes/days/weeks/months with her. Time goes so quickly, they grow so fast and we don’t want to miss time with her. We also feel like this is more than just waiting a few extra weeks or months. We’ve been waiting to start a family for over 5 years.
Again, we remain hopeful, but some days are sad around here though, that’s just to be expected.
I am personally committed to accomplishing as many of our personal and business goals as possible during this time. If nothing else, they are a welcome distraction. I am also foraging on with my Mandarin lessons each week and am excited at how much I will be able to converse with her when we do finally meet. Thank you to everyone for being excited for us and constantly asking if we know anything. We love that you’re in this with us. We promise to update you all as we know more.
Much love,
The Millers