An expensive mistake

I figured out AFTER I made my plane reservations that one of the many forms that I will carry to China with me needs to not just be notarized BUT state and Chinese consulate authenticated. I express mailed the paperwork to Indianapolis both ways but that didn't help with their 1 week turn-around-time. In a panic I was on the phone wheeling and dealing with driving to indy to pick up document and then overnighting to Chicago to have the courier walk thru before she took off for christmas vacation but in the end I couldn't handle the STRESS. I made the expensive decision to postpone my flights and the next consulate appt. I could get was for the 24th. Now I am leaving on the 14th of January. My GOTCHA day will be Jan 17th. I did get my state authentication before Christmas so I mailed it out first thing today. The Chinese consulate is open the week between Christmas and New Years but I'm not sure the 4 business day turn-around-time will include the 29th or the 31st so I promise not to panic till the 10th. I will be with 1 other family the whole time instead of alone 1 week and then with 3 other families the next week.----not sure how that translates into sharing expenses but hopefully they don't charge me more!!

My daughter doesn't speak CHINESE !!!!

What???? that's to say, she doesn't speak mandarin. You know that Chinese dialect that most of China speaks. Since she is from the south, she speaks Cantonese. All those years of practicing mandarin, the class I took, the dictionary I bought, the 37 Ni Hao Kai-lan's I taped, the story I wrote that I wanted to read to her in pin-yin. I guess it's back to sign language and pantomime.

Getting a referral at christmas time sounds romantic but what a pain in the ass !!!!!! I couldn't send off for a visa till I got back from my vacation to Mexico (yea 8 months ago, a vacation this time of year sounded like a fun thing to do) so I left everything at work to be mailed off first thing Monday. Did I mention I drove back Sunday night in a nice little snow storm?? So school was closed Monday and I got my huband to take off 1/2 day so I could go in and get it mailed. My courier service is off over the holidays but assures me she will have it in the mail and delivered by the 24th. I need to cut all my fingernails off now before I bite them to the quick. The American consulate in Guangzhou is closed till Jan 3rd but since the consulate appt. comes at day 10 of the trip I didn't understand why I couldn't leave as soon as my visa arrived (Dec 27th??) anyway they got me an appointment for the 11th so I am planning on leaving Jan 1st. I'm sure the plane will be very quiet and I hope the pilot doesn't have a hang over!!!!! I remembered to get some papers signed by my husband and notarized while we were both near the bank. Oh what's that in the fine print?? One of the documents needs to be notarized AND state authenticated AND chinese consulate authenticated. Wow, wish someone had mentioned that 6 weeks ago!! Since the post office will be closed for about 4 days I'm not sure I will be able to leave on the 1st. Good thing I haven't faxed in my travelers insurance yet. I'm gonna need that extended plan. So I'm doing what I can and not (externally) sweating what I can't. I hope to have some nice time off with the boys and my niece so I can get the tree up and looking a little like christmas. The big trauma will be getting Jesse moved out of JaLia's room and into my closet. Once I get the room dusted and fluffed I will feel so much better. I can almost feel the brass ring at the end of this carousel ride.

I have Travel Authority

Dated 11-22, 5 weeks earlier than projected timelines.

Nobody ever said why, but it was repeatedly suggested to me that I wait till I get back from Mexico to apply fro my visa. I am stressing the timeline. I would mail it the 13th of Dec. to the courier, it is suppose to take 4 business days to process but she mentioned getting it back the 22nd ?? and I would get it the 24th. USPS won't run the 24th so I can't possible take a flight out the 27th...I'm praying I can leave the 28th and my passport & visa will be here.

Letter of Acceptance

We signed and returned our Pre Approval on 10-29. China was suppose to review everything and get back with us in 4 weeks. Well.....it took 4 days and that included Saturday and Sunday!! Can you say "too good to believe?" I found a typo in the birth date on the Letter of Acceptance. My agency wasn't concerned about it so we zipped it back to China 11-3. Supposedly travel is 8 weeks away. Then China sent me a second LOA with the new birth date, we resigned it, sent it back and since there was a holiday we missed the cut off. It likly won't go back to China till 11-18. I'm keeping my fingers crossed they work with the first LOA date. Jesse is taking the week between Christmas and New Years off to watch the kids so it would be great if that was part of my 2 week trip.

We made it !!!!!!!!!

Finally after all the waiting, we have a referral. Our daughter was born around July 13th of 2008 so she is currently 27 months old. She is the size of an 18 month old and very quiet. She has a heart defect known as a VDS which is easily operable and we'll fix her right up to rumble tumble with her big brothers. Other than being a 22 lb peanut, she is healthy and developmentally on track. The referral came Oct 20th, our LOI went out the 22nd and we got Pre Approval the 28th. Projections for travel are late January but I would love to speed it up and leave before New Years !!

Well, I attemped to join the Special Needs line in May. There were more parenting workbooks to fill out, an application that had the same information as my annual homestudy update, a SN checklist to fill out (which my husband constatly said...I leave it up to you) and a Letter of Intent form which has all of 7-10 blocks and none of them could possibly be filled out until you had an actual child picked out but they want it now anyway.

I sent a follow up email in July and was told they weren't considering us yet cause I didn't have it ALL completed, oh and by the way, we need new passport photos and family photos.....it never stops. Put more information on the forms and sent them in again.

My homestudy gets renewed in Sept. so I need to add the consideration for all the Special Needs we would consider, update my home study info and then use the homestudy info to update my SN packet again. Are you enjoying the ride??

When I started checking around for girls on the SN lists, Jesse started back peddling on all my picks. Didn't I realize that a hearing impaired daughter wouldn't be able to hear the coondogs when he took her hunting?? no I hadn't thought of that. I guess that fact that our boys are hearing able but NEVER listen to us isn't the same thing. I guess the fact that a biological son turned homebody and will likely never go coon hunting is also beside the point. `haha

Back to sitting and waiting.............

When is the next blue moon??

We have now been logged in for 39 months. The bad news is that the wait has also lengthened. It moved from 44 months to 49months. Goodby birthday present...did I say 8's were lucky?? Maybe fate is making me wait till NEXT August, my 48th birthday.

Jesse has agreed to enter the Special Needs line and renew our paperwork 1 LAST TIME.Now if I can just get off my butt and get more paperwork filled out!!!!!!

here we go ....AGAIN

36 months seems so far away from zero. Have we really been waiting that long?? Of course 36 is so close to 44, which is what the wait was the last time I checked.

No reason to post if you've got no news to talk about. I'm getting real good at just putting it out of my mind..... till it's time to pay for that annual Home Study update, then I get an earful from the husband. I'm getting real good at putting the package together, I had everything done and sent off 5 weeks before it was due. Wouldn't you know it for the first time, the HS agency botched it up and I didn't get a copy back till 5 weeks after it was due. Then I misread the USCIS paperwork and didn't get it sent in for another 5 weeks. I freaked out....could I really go through all this and then lose out on a technicality?????? I decided to leave it up to fate. Did CIS really care about deadlines?? Yawn, no big deal...... they know I'm not going anywhere soon. Got renewed for another 15 months.......... Please God NO

Mostly the only time I really think about it is when I'm renewing my CD's.....do I buy the 6 month or the 9 month no penalty? Look at all the 12 month interest I've lost out on ~haha. So maybe the 44 month wait will hold (or shorted as many have predicted) and I'll hear something in August. Yes, that is month 43 but it's my BD month and the number 8 is considered lucky in China. 08-08-10 I will get a referral call, yea yea I know that's a Sunday.

It would be my dream to travel by late September, be back by the boys BD in October and take leave through the Fall.

That's my dream and I'm sticking to it.

28 months.....and counting

Tomorrow is my 28th month anniversary from when China accepted my family as a potential caretaker for one of their citizens. It was June of '08 before they had time to review my file and truly accept us. I know this is not to be taken lightly. As the wait gets longer, it gives me time to ponder.... I have two children and there are so many out there waiting who have none. Every month that goes by is two months more of waiting. In March the wait was 36 months, now it's the end of May and we are at 38 months. One thing I hold to is that if I was not waiting....I'd still be wanting, so I might as well do both.

A sad note

Today I saw this interesting article. It was in usatoday and got lots of negitive feedback.

While I too, am waiting (now at 25 1/2 months) I applaud China for getting it's head out of it's ass and starting to look at it's Human Rights policies. Of course, I think China is slightly biased towards us outsider's average weight ranges and if you have seen the air pollution in China, you'd know that second-hand tobacco smoke would be a step up.

Here is parts of the article, edited for length. ~ GUANGZHOU, China — The White Swan is empty. The five-star hotel here that historically has housed American couples looking to adopt Chinese babies now only sees a slow trickle of would-be foster parents after the Chinese adopted a raft of stricter rules a few years back. The cribs and baby strollers the hotel lends out sit idle. The tables in its 1980s-era lounge overlooking the Pearl River are gloomily vacant. None of this bodes well for American couples looking to adopt here, but it highlights the progress China has made as social mores here shift for the better. Since 1989, China has sent more orphans — over 70,000 — to the United States than any other country. American couples flock here because its system is far smoother and more transparent than most. And China's one-child policy has resulted in millions of baby girls left abandoned, not to mention millions more aborted. The likelihood that your adopted girl is an actual orphan and does not suffer from, say, prenatal alcohol syndrome, is greater in China than most places. And let's face it, Chinese babies are cute — something the authorities here play up. But adoptions are down dramatically, as a result of the restrictions imposed in 2007: just fewer than 4,000 Chinese babies were adopted by American couples last year, about half the total in 2005. Much is fair game to disqualify prospective parents: Age (nobody under 30), marital history and sexual orientation all matter now. Even issues of health — being overweight or taking antidepressants — can nix a couple's application. That has Americans frustrated.

But China's new adoption rules, while onerous, simply reflect its evolution into a more modern society. After all, Beijing is well within its right to decide its own rules and weed out unhealthy parents. Why shouldn't it try to prevent its orphans from inhaling secondhand smoke? China also appears to be relaxing its laws on the number of children Chinese families can have. Sure, it's partly a PR gambit. Ahead of last year's Olympics, the government did not want be perceived abroad as deadbeat caretakers. But it's also a concerted effort to reverse its gender imbalance. "China's feeling the stress of having lost so many girls," says Adam Pertman, executive director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute. As income levels in China rise, more couples are just breaking the one-child policy and paying the fine (about $5,000). Adoptions by Chinese couples are up. And social attitudes are evolving, too, resulting in fewer parents discarding their daughters. Half the Sky Foundation, a U.S.-based nonprofit, reports that fewer healthy babies are entering its orphanages in China. Of course, data are difficult to verify, but these anecdotal trends are positive. What's more, the notion of American foster parents rescuing abandoned orphans from Dickensian state-run institutions, while romantic, may be somewhat overblown. "Unfortunately, this story is largely fiction," E.J. Graff of Brandeis University wrote recently in Foreign Policy. Most orphans are older than 5, sick or disfigured — not the kind most Westerners want. Think of the baby in the newspaper staring up at readers with a cleft lip. Even so, it seems unfair: At a time when a California woman makes headlines for giving birth to octuplets, there are thousands of infertile American couples for whom foreign adoption remains their best — and least costly — option for parenthood. Their prospects are only exacerbated by China's tougher regulations. But it signals good news for Chinese society, which is becoming more welcoming toward its newborn daughters and domestic adoption. Were the White Swan to close, nobody in China would probably mind. Lionel Beehner is a writer based in New York City. Posted at 12:15 AM/ET, March 18, 2009

What happened to spring????

As I dance between winter and spring, dreaming of all the great things I can do with my kids this summer, I saw this article.

Just another slap of reality we all need to keep on top of. So hard to do in my little town in S. Indiana. Where is my daughter?? Who is looking after her??

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/05/world/asia/05kidnap.html

Jan 30 th Happy (????) Anniversary

Wellll.... I've been officially waiting now for 24 months. I am plowing forward with positive visualizations. All things will happen this year. I marked the occasion, my LAST waiting anniversary with a start to a Red Thread cross stitch. I started with the traditional red and black colors and am planning on doing another in purple/pink/yellow for JLee's room.

Jan 26th -Year of the Ox

That's certainly what we needed to get to work Tuesday, we got 6" of snow.

Of course, that's better than the sleet and 4" more we got before Wednesday.

They closed the base for the first time in years !!!

local "Families with Chinese Children" party

I found this invitation design on Smilebox. It was sooooo beautiful, I had to use it. I know Cindy thought I was being crazy but I got lots of positive feedback from the club.

Make a Smilebox invite

Jan 26th - I didn't take my camera to the party. Too busy running around and I knew the other parents would all have theirs ;0) Someone did post a bunch on photos online but the website has figured out how to block me unless I buy them !! :0(

Anyway, My niece Lily ended up going with us and was a great playmate for the tots. The boys had a fabulous time doing who knows what but they were happy, exspecially during the "Lion dance".

2009 Countdown

How many referrals am I away from my daughter???? Will this be my year????

Referrals came out on New Years Eve, that's twice in the same month !!! 3 weeks apart !! .....Please be a sign of a speed-up in turn around time !!

A few of them were for 6 month old babies...the youngest you can get. I worry alittle about the age gap with the boys if I received a 18 month old....Then I remember how cute, cuddly and fun that age is.

China has a policy of waiting 6 month after a babies is "found" to give time for family members to claim them, then they are considered adoptable. In the US, it is 12 months minimum in foster care before becoming adoptable. Many times that stretches and stretches for a variety of reasons !!!!

2 families had to decline their referrals (that always scares the hell out of me). 2 babies were from JiangXi province and were both named Yi Xiao with different middle names.

Happy 2009

I spent some time Friday playing around with my blog and all the design elements fell in place. !!!!!!!yea I'm not the ugly duckling any more. Maybe it means my time has come ? I changed my tag line on my email for 2009. It reads my favorite adoption quote.... "To the World, you may be one person..... but to one Person you may be the world" I found a website called Smilebox while reading another adoption Blog. It has lots of designs to work with and is so easy even I can use it. I spent some time over the holidays editing my photos into albums and then email or posting them. Here is a fall one I did of the boys. I love shooting them from the back....I wonder how old they'll be before they stop holding hands :0)

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Last Mandarin class

I'm no closer to learning how to jazzing up this poor page. I might have to switch to one of those cutesy websites where they have the panda bear graphics !! ~~ Dec '08 Look! I figured out the graphics and found my own panda bear. I love this guy balancing the Dim Sum (dumplings) I did have something interesting happen yesterday. Ok so it was the last day of my beginners mandarin class at the Asian Cultural center IU (love them). Since I was the first student there, I asked Yeshu if she would help me with the name I had picked out and see if it meant anything in Chinese. I spelled out Ja- Lee- a and she said that: Jia (1) means good Li (4) means pretty Ya (3) means classy She was pretty impressed that I came up with that without knowning what it meant first. I was just damn glad it didn't mean anything weird !! Now I just gotta figure out how to spell it.... JaLiah goes well with Jeremiah, JaLeea looks very weird but I want to call her JaLee after her daddy hummmmm. Then I worry that you shouldn't have an "a" at the end of your first and middle name (like who is gonna know). There is alot of debate over keeping children's chinese names. Technically they are assigned by the orphanage director and are not very "original". They could be the season they were born and the region they were from. After so many children per year, you wonder how many times the director rolls the list over and starts again !!! The only way to know is to wait for your referral and see if you like it.

Where to Start

I over heard my co worker say that adopting from China is the latest “fad”. Many of Jesse’s co-workers want to know why we aren't adopting from this country and I have been asked if I can’t “have any more” biologically, that is. For all of those who have questioned our decision to adopt and do so internationally, here is some background info before you pass judgement.............. My family lived for several years in Hawaii in the early 70’s. So I "grew up" there. My best friend was Japanese, my favorite cartoons were Japanese, I was surrounded by asian culture and loved the melting pot of all of them...............

My family moved to Taiwan in the mid 70’s. It is a beautiful country and I love the Chinese culture. I was also introduced to the status of women in that culture. We adopted a little boy while there and at some point in my life, I decided it was FAR more important to give children a family than to create a family by producing children................ When Jesse and I met, I made sure he understood adoption was in my future. I assumed he would regret not having a biological child so I got pregnant and behold had not 1 but 2 boys in 2003.................. I started looking for a daughter soon after. I was looking for a Native American girl, under 10, who was in need of a home. Then I learned something…. Existing children are not just adopted but must first be fostered. This meant we needed to foster with no guarantees of adoption. There are thousands of children in the foster system, most of them older, most of them sibling groups. We really just wanted 1 more child.................. I contacted my county child services office in Dec. 2004. By the end of February, Jesse and I had all our Red Cross certifications and our parenting classes done. Now we just had to wait on Child Services. It is an understaffed and inefficient process. We waited till April for our home study visit and then waited some more. I’d email and get no reply. Jesse bumped into the social worker in August, he asked him what the hold up was with our home study and Jack said he must of “FORGOTTON’ about us. I was livid to be treated so casually when all you hear about is how desperatly foster families are needed. So after several phone calls and emails to the boss, we got finally got certified in Dec 2005, 1 year later..................... We waited and waited about 6 months, then I learned something else…. There are no single girls in the foster care system in Indiana and the other states don’t want to bother with us. I had talked to several case workers within Indiana and around the Southwest. Nobody is interested in moving kids away from their extended families. There are visitation rules and kinship rules, so they just add children to the few good foster families they already monitor. We did TRY to adopt domesticly and after 1 1/2 yrs we gave up.................... In Summer of 2006, I got tired of waiting and prepared our dossier for China. After 6 months of paperwork, we were received in China on January 30, 2007. This is known as a Log In Date or LID. This is how all families are prioritized. At that date the wait was 15-18 months.