Tuesday, April 30, 2013
The Little Couple Adopts A Little Boy from China
If you have a TV, tune in to TLC tonight at 10 (9 central) to see Bill and Jen, aka the Little Couple, become parents! I don't follow the show but I've seen a few episodes which I really enjoyed. I do know that they've waited a long time to be parents, so I imagine it's going to be fun to watch!
Another Bump In the Road
Just when we thought we were about to be back on track, we hit another bump. If you are an adoptive parent, or even if you're not but have ever trusted FedEx with important documents, make sure you are sitting down before you continue reading. This is like a bad dream and you hope it never happens to you.
FedEx has lost the envelope with our immigration approval. They say that it was delivered to our house last week but it never showed up. After many phone calls back and forth with FedEx and even talking to the regional and national offices, the best they could do is offer an apology and tell us to contact the person who sent the package so that we can get a replacement. UGH!
Our immigration officer was nice enough to send us a new one but "warned" us that if this one gets lost we will have to file more paperwork and pay $360. for another replacement! Seriously?! Does she not understand that *we* didn't lose it?! It never got to us!
I spoke with a courier (who has some of our other documents) and he said that he's heard of FedEx messing up like this only three times before in twenty years of being in the courier business. One time he said the documents were found two weeks after FedEx delivered an empty box to a very irate adoptive family. Their documents were floating around the FedEx sorting facility for two weeks before they were returned to the family. So, on the bright side, I guess they still might find the envelope with our approval inside.
We are feeling frustrated. We hope that there is still time to get our dossier to China before the end of May, when the Chinese agency that processes adoptions takes a two week break in receiving dossiers to do a software update on their computer system. We've been trying to avoid getting stuck in the backlog of work that will be piling up while they update their systems.
Please send us prayer, good energy or whatever you believe in! We could use a little bit right about now.
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
He knows we're coming!
We recently got an update on our little guy! He knows we're coming for him and he likes to look at our family picture (the one we had to send when requesting pre-approval), point to each of us and call us by name, mother, father and brothers! How sweet. Knowing that he knows we are his family makes it that much harder to wait!
We hope to have some more information and maybe a few pictures of our daughter in the next week or so.
In other news, our home study addendum, which approved us to bring home our daughter in addition to our son, was sent to USCIS last week. (Just getting the addendum was like pulling teeth...and probably not a story I can tell here.) I called USCIS to speak with our immigration officer to let him know the addendum was on the way. Remember the kind and helpful man who was ready to approve us and then was going to move our file to the top after he got the revisions? Well, he's not our officer anymore. It turns out that we were assigned another officer while waiting for our home study agency to wrap up the revisions. I've corresponded a few times with the new officer and she is not nearly as efficient or kind as the last one, and definitely not helpful. She seems not to care that the bulk of our paperwork has been waiting since the beginning of February! Seriously, how long does it take to read an additional two pages and issue the approval?!
According to the most recent email from our immigration officer, our paperwork is "in line to be reviewed". Not, "let's get this going", "I know your kids have been waiting two extra months already" or even a hint of kindness. I am trying to breathe deeply and be as zen as possible. Obviously there is nothing we can do but wait. And wait some more...and try not to have a pity party for myself. Haha. We just want to go get our kids!
I'm pretty sure that any parent going through this process is going to be impatient, but this woman is just really unsympathetic about the sense of urgency. Yes, I realize that she deals with other impatient parents every day and maybe she's jaded but these are kids and they are waiting to come home! I wanted so badly to tell her how to do her job and hurry up while she's at it, but I was on my best behavior! Nothing but a grateful heart and gentle words, I promise.
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
Big News
Big things have been happening in the Incredible Household! I know you all are dying to know what it might be, so I will just come out and tell you and fill in the details afterward. The big news is that we are now bringing home two children! A boy *and* a girl!
When we started the adoption process, we had planned to bring home one child, our son, so having the option of bringing home two children was a huge mental adjustment for us. We had talked about and thought about another adoption...a few years down the road. The timing of our second adoption was honestly a big surprise. If there is such a thing as a surprise adoption, our second adoption is probably as close as it can get!
We had been plugging along with our Little Guy's adoption and had already sent our paperwork to USCIS/Immigration to be approved to bring him home. While we were waiting on our approval, we got a phone call late one night. When the phone rang, I startled awake wondering who was calling. Who calls you at midnight unless it's bad news or an emergency? Apparently, our adoption agency does! They are a few times zones away on the west coast and I guess they don't always think about the time difference when they call us on the east coast. Plus, when the new shared list comes out, they are working on China time, which often means that they are up in the middle of the night anyway! I let the call go to voicemail and picked up the message when my heart stopped racing and I was a little more awake. The message was from the China coordinator at our agency and was very vague. I called her back immediately after listening to her message and was expecting bad news. Instead she told me that they had locked the file of a little girl who they thought was a perfect match for our family. Needless to say, I didn't sleep very peacefully that night...I tossed and turned, trying to puzzle it all out. It didn't help one bit that Mr. Incredible was snoozing peacefully right next to me! There's little worse for insomnia than listening to someone breathing deeply and sleeping calmly.
We had 72 hours to make a decision about a second adoption. We had some serious work to do! First, the soul searching-could we open our hearts to another child? How could we say no now that we "knew" her? We had our daughter's file evaluated by a doctor, and had to consider family dynamics, space, finances, you name it and we thought about it. Everything was mulled over, distilled and percolated....and then we said "yes".
But wait! It's not that easy. If you've read other adoption blogs or my previous posts, you already know that. After you decide that you would like to parent a child from China, you have to write an official letter to the Chinese agency that oversees adoption (CCCWA). This letter outlines how you and your family will care for your new child and what plans you have in place for him/her. And then you wait until they answer your letter. This can be quite painful because by the time you submit the letter, you've already made the mental shift to having another family member. The CCCWA will either decline your request or agree to process the adoption. China agreed to process our adoption so now we have six months to get all our documents (dossier) gathered and sent.
Luckily, we are planning on completing both adoptions concurrently which means that most of our paperwork is already done. We'll have to make some ammendments to our home study and that will hold up our immigration approval, but folks, we are close! I even called USCIS to let our immigration officer know what was happening on our end. Would you believe that he was a cheerful, helpful, kind soul?! I've honestly never had a nicer interaction with a government employee. Hopefully the rest of the journey will continue this way and all of our paperwork will land on the desk of equally helpful and kind people.
And, without further ado, here is a picture of our daughter
When we started the adoption process, we had planned to bring home one child, our son, so having the option of bringing home two children was a huge mental adjustment for us. We had talked about and thought about another adoption...a few years down the road. The timing of our second adoption was honestly a big surprise. If there is such a thing as a surprise adoption, our second adoption is probably as close as it can get!
We had been plugging along with our Little Guy's adoption and had already sent our paperwork to USCIS/Immigration to be approved to bring him home. While we were waiting on our approval, we got a phone call late one night. When the phone rang, I startled awake wondering who was calling. Who calls you at midnight unless it's bad news or an emergency? Apparently, our adoption agency does! They are a few times zones away on the west coast and I guess they don't always think about the time difference when they call us on the east coast. Plus, when the new shared list comes out, they are working on China time, which often means that they are up in the middle of the night anyway! I let the call go to voicemail and picked up the message when my heart stopped racing and I was a little more awake. The message was from the China coordinator at our agency and was very vague. I called her back immediately after listening to her message and was expecting bad news. Instead she told me that they had locked the file of a little girl who they thought was a perfect match for our family. Needless to say, I didn't sleep very peacefully that night...I tossed and turned, trying to puzzle it all out. It didn't help one bit that Mr. Incredible was snoozing peacefully right next to me! There's little worse for insomnia than listening to someone breathing deeply and sleeping calmly.
We had 72 hours to make a decision about a second adoption. We had some serious work to do! First, the soul searching-could we open our hearts to another child? How could we say no now that we "knew" her? We had our daughter's file evaluated by a doctor, and had to consider family dynamics, space, finances, you name it and we thought about it. Everything was mulled over, distilled and percolated....and then we said "yes".
But wait! It's not that easy. If you've read other adoption blogs or my previous posts, you already know that. After you decide that you would like to parent a child from China, you have to write an official letter to the Chinese agency that oversees adoption (CCCWA). This letter outlines how you and your family will care for your new child and what plans you have in place for him/her. And then you wait until they answer your letter. This can be quite painful because by the time you submit the letter, you've already made the mental shift to having another family member. The CCCWA will either decline your request or agree to process the adoption. China agreed to process our adoption so now we have six months to get all our documents (dossier) gathered and sent.
Luckily, we are planning on completing both adoptions concurrently which means that most of our paperwork is already done. We'll have to make some ammendments to our home study and that will hold up our immigration approval, but folks, we are close! I even called USCIS to let our immigration officer know what was happening on our end. Would you believe that he was a cheerful, helpful, kind soul?! I've honestly never had a nicer interaction with a government employee. Hopefully the rest of the journey will continue this way and all of our paperwork will land on the desk of equally helpful and kind people.
And, without further ado, here is a picture of our daughter
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
The Power of Family
This video is too awesome not to share. It's been floating around the adoption blogs that I read for a while now. Originally my sister-in-law sent it to me but I was reminded about it last week when I saw another video of one of the sons of this family playing the guitar. It might not sound that special at first. Except...this guy was born without arms. When you're done watching this one, Google "George Dennehy and guitar". You'll find several amazing clips of him playing his guitar...or piano...or cello. See the power of family. Watch and enjoy!
Saturday, February 9, 2013
Week In Review
What are the chances that on the day our home study is approved (finally- hallelujah!) I would unknowingly buy a loaf of bread with our new son's name on it?! First of all, I rarely buy bread because we just don't eat that much bread and when we do, I usually make it, so it was on a whim that i even bought the bread. Secondly, by the time I got to the store, I had exactly twenty minutes to tear through the store and shop for and buy a week's worth of groceries before racing off to pick up my younger son. I was charging through there like a crazy woman! I quickly squeezed a few loaves and chose the squishiest, freshest one. Imagine my surprise when I took the loaf of bread out of the fridge the next day, I was shocked to see "Julian", our son's advocacy name*, printed onto the bottom of the bag! I'm pretty sure that I've never bought a loaf of bread that had our other son's names printed anywhere on it! As our seven year old, Smushy, said, "That's called a coincidence, Mama". It sure is, son. I wonder if all the bread at Whole Foods says "Julian" on it? Do you think "Julian" made the bread? Inspected it? Bagged it? Maybe I should go back and check...because would it seem more or less weird if every bag said Julian?
*Most agencies give the children that they have listed an advocacy name, an English name that is meant to protect their privacy.
We also got a new picture the night our home study was finalized! Here he is in all his glorious cuteness!
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
"A boy? From China?"
Can you sense the sound of surprise in the title of this post? I can't tell you how many people have asked us this after hearing that we are adopting a *boy* from *China*. We have two awesome boys at home and are overjoyed to be welcoming another! We fell in love with our youngest son as soon as we saw him and that was that! However, people seem genuinely surprised to hear that we are adopting a boy and you can almost see the wheels turning in their head as soon as they hear "boy" and "China" in the same sentence.
One of the founders of Love Without Boundaries, Amy Eldridge, has been writing a wonderful series to help people understand the changing face of China's orphans, including why there are many boys available for adoption. There is still an (outdated) impression that all children adopted from China are girls. In fact, the shared list of children available for adoption from China is 2/3 boys! There are many more boys available for adoption than girls, and many fewer families wanting to adopt a boy. (This is generally true in international adoption, not just in China.) As the mother of two very sweet boys, I find it extremely sad that a child could miss out on growing up in a loving family just. because. of. his. gender. Having been involved in the Chinese adoption world for (I think) about 20 years, Amy Eldridge explains all of this much better than I ever could. Read more here about adopting a boy. You can also read about why international adoption is important.
Oh, and just in case you're wondering...and I know many of you are, **cough, cough** mom *cough, cough**, we might maybe one day consider going back to China to adopt a girl. I'm just basing this on a conversation with Mr. Incredible, but that's a whole other post.
One of the founders of Love Without Boundaries, Amy Eldridge, has been writing a wonderful series to help people understand the changing face of China's orphans, including why there are many boys available for adoption. There is still an (outdated) impression that all children adopted from China are girls. In fact, the shared list of children available for adoption from China is 2/3 boys! There are many more boys available for adoption than girls, and many fewer families wanting to adopt a boy. (This is generally true in international adoption, not just in China.) As the mother of two very sweet boys, I find it extremely sad that a child could miss out on growing up in a loving family just. because. of. his. gender. Having been involved in the Chinese adoption world for (I think) about 20 years, Amy Eldridge explains all of this much better than I ever could. Read more here about adopting a boy. You can also read about why international adoption is important.
Oh, and just in case you're wondering...and I know many of you are, **cough, cough** mom *cough, cough**, we might maybe one day consider going back to China to adopt a girl. I'm just basing this on a conversation with Mr. Incredible, but that's a whole other post.
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