Merry Christmas!

Christmas is around the corner. We're enjoying our time in Ludington, but I'm also anxious to get home and finalize our dossier paperwork. I have one more piece of paper to collect, and then we'll head to Topeka to have our dossier certified. Then, we'll send the paperwork to be authenticated and pray that I-171H arrives quickly!

We're off to see the wizard...er, I mean USCIS...

Tomorrow we head to USCIS for our fingerprint appointment and to file the very important I-600A form. The I-600A is an application for the advance placement of an orphan. In other words, "We want to adopt a baby. We don't know who she is yet, but as soon as we do, we want to be able to bring her home and make her our daughter." When they approve us, they'll send us the approval in the form of the I-171H. This form will go into our dossier for China. It is the single most important document in our dossier -- 2nd only to the homestudy.

We have an appointment time (10AM), but everyone keeps warning me to take books, an iPod, etc. Apparently, the wheels of immigration can move fairly slowly. We shall see.......

Guess what I'm holding in my hands? The Home Study!!

Bless God, we're finished with our home study!!! I picked up two copies this morning from our social worker's office. One will go in our files (to take with us to China). One will go with us next week to INS for our fingerprint appiontment and our filing of the I-600A.

Next week, we'll hear back from Nancy Bean when she gets the final Dossier copy notarized and then she'll fed-ex it to us. Yay!!! When we get back from Ludington at the end of December, we'll be ready to go to Topeka for a little "Certification" trip. We'll take all of our dossier documents that have been notarized (which is all of them!) and we'll have the KS Secretary of State certify each. Then we're just one step away from having our dossier finished.

Right now, the job at hand is to take pictures ~ and I mean LOTS of pictures! We need 4 of our house, 8 family life photos (all of us, in different locales) and 6 couple shots (again, different locales). Ever see the movie "Green Card?" Well, then, you know just what we'll be doing for the next few weeks. LOL!

Home Study is COMPLETE!!!

Woo hoo! After weeks and moving and a round of the flu for everyone...our 4th and final home study visit (the one that is actually "in the home") was today ~ and it went well! Yay! Our report should be finished by the end of the week and we'll be able to file our 1-600A form with USCIS and wait for our fingerprint appointments.

The homestudy is the biggest piece of our dossier for China so this is a big day. :) We still won't be on the official "Waiting" list for Laney until that dossier gets to China we have our LID, but this is one huge step.

Feeling very happy, very relieved.... :)

P.S. We've officially decided...Laney Kate (with a K). :)

We've changed her middle name! :) We've decided we love the name Kate too much to let it go. We're going with either:

Laney Cate

or

Laney Kate


We can't decide on spelling yet, but we know we love the name. Now, if we could just go and get her!

A picture is worth a thousand words...

We have received so many kind words and excited smiles as we've told people about our adoption plans. But we've also had a few ask, "Why China?" "Doesn't it seem weird to think of raising someone else's kid?" "Why adopt when you can have your own?" and perhaps our least favorite, "How much is she going to cost you?"

Take 3 minutes and watch this movie. Every time I see it my heart leaps, and I just want to look at each questioning person and say, "We are the blessed ones! We feel so blessed to have been given the opportunity to bring home a precious daughter ~ our daughter ~ and to be her forever family!"

Where we're at today...

Good morning! Popping in for a minute to update our blog.

Today we're visiting with with our social worker for the 3rd time. The next (and final) visit will be at our home with the children. *scary* LOL! So far, I have completely enjoyed our home study. I'm not sure I've enjoyed it to the tune of $1400, but it has truly been beneficial and interesting. Nancy has been incredible to work with. She is very current on China affairs, as well as adoption issues. She has helped us sort through and think about our own desires to adopt, and she has educated us on so many things to expect. Laney's needs, attachment issues, how to incorporate her history into her present, etc. It's been excellent!

One of the things I loved the most was when Nancy talked us through how to create Laney's "Lifebook." It's a picture book of her life -- beginning at birth, not beginning at adoption. To learn more about Lifebooks, and to see examples click on the link I've posted in the bar to the right. Pretty powerful, cool stuff.

In other news, completely adoption un-related, I found a great new blog. It's

http://chocolateandzucchini.com

. Love the foodie discussions and topics. Lots of calorie-laden fun! :) (Good thing I'm back to running... LOL!)

Read this quote and loved it...

It certainly touches my heart as we near the beginning of the long wait.....


"If God, like a father, denies us what we want now, it is in order to give us some far better thing later on. The will of God, we can rest assured, is invariably a better thing." ~ Elisabeth Elliot

Sweetest thing...

Colby said the most adorable thing a few days ago. We were sitting together, talking about our adoption and he said, "Mommy, we don't know what Laney is going to look like yet, do we?"

I answered, "No, we don't."

He sat for a minute and thought about that and then he looked up, grinning and said, "But we do know one thing! We know Laney will be the best baby in China!"

How sweet is that? I love my children. :)

Chasing those darn papers...

The paper chase is surely that -- truly a fast-paced, wacky, frustrating, detail-driven ride that the Chinese government seems determined to keep you on before they'll let you in. But we're chasing just as fast as we can!

Tonight I'm working on typing up our adoption petition and our financial statements. I'm hoping to finish these up tomorrow and then fax them to CCAI for approval. I don't want to waste any time getting papers notarized that are incorrect.

The adoption petition is a one-page, typed document that introduces us as adoptive parents, states our adoption motivations (we want another kid!!), expresses our specific desire for the child we're wishing to adopt, and promises to the China Center of Adoption Affairs (CCAA) that we will love and care for our adopted daughter. Whew!

The financial statement is just a one-page typed statement that lists all of our income, assets, liabilities, etc.

I was getting so frustrated and down today, with all of the hiccups with our home address (house sale, etc), I ordered my new daughter a little gift. It's an adorable onsie/hat set (size 9-12mos) and it reads: "I was worth the wait." Truly she is!

We had our first meeting!

I'm going to write more later. I have so much information spinning through my head right now, but the most important thing is ~ we had our first interview with our Social Worker (Nancy Bean) and it went blazingly well! She is wonderful and we both (Troy said this, it isn't me putting words in his mouth ) really enjoyed it!

Guess who called?

Our SW ~ Miss Nancy Bean. We're so anxious to get the homestudy underway. She seemed great on the phone and we already have all four of our interviews scheduled. The first is set for October 11th. I'm sure I'll have a lot to debrief about when it's over. :)

Whew! Two autobiographies finished!

Today Troy and I cranked out the rest of our autobiographies. His was 6 pages and mine was 8 -- all single spaced. I doubt it comes as a surprise to any of you that mine was longer -- Miss Chatty!

Anyway, they're finished and we'll mail them off to our SW on Monday. Hopefully, we'll be able to start our interviews with her soon. Homestudy completion, here we come!

1st round of fingerprints....

Yesterday Troy and I went to Identix and had our electronic fingerprints done for the State Criminal Record clearances. It took awhile, but the gal said the prints looked good and we should have them back in 5-7 days. Not bad! We have to do another set of fingerprints for the FBI clearance later on.

I'm still about 3 pages away from being finished with my autobiography and Troy hasn't started his yet. He has to finish it next week though, because we have to forward it to our SW. So far, the autobiographies have been the biggest pains in the process. I haven't enjoyed it and I like to write!

Plodding ahead, though, because each piece of paper, appointment and little "hoop" we jump through is bringing us closer to our daughter. :)

Busy with the details...

Troy and I...Let me rephrase that, *I* have been (with lots of hugs from Troy) crazy busy with all of the various writing, gathering and appointment-making for our homestudy. Here are a few things I've been doing:


*Sent off for Child Abuse/Neglect Clearance reports for Mom, Dad, Myself & Troy

*Scheduled Criminal Record Clearance/Fingerprints appointments for Troy & I

*Scheduled our brief physcials + lab work with our doctor for the physcian reference forms

*Ordered new raised-seal copies of our children's birth certificates

*Working on writing my autobiography. Troy needs to start his this week. *hint, hint*

*Filled out employment verification request letters for Troy's work


The autobiography is hard to write! 6-12 pages, single spaced (I'm at page 4), describing your life from birth to the current time. There are so many questions I can't believe it, but I'm just following the guided outline and hoping to finish it up today. Adoption requires so much, but even in the midst of it, I'm feeling a continued sense of peace and excitement. All this stuff WILL get finished, and then the wait will be the hard part.

It arrived and the roller coaster is just cresting the hill...

The payment arrived at 12:00pm Friday to CCAI's offices. We got a confirmation email Saturday night that explained how to access the "expecting parents" portions of the website, download PDFs of our dossier packet (all 45 pages of it!!) and home study flow charts, etc. It's so overwhelming and scary. But we also feel like it's all a dream ~ a dream come true. Troy and I are already headoverheels in love with a child we've never even met. We talk with our other gifts (Lily, Colby & Landry) about her. We pray for her. We can't wait to see her sweet face!

We've decided on her first name:

~ Laney ~

It's sweet and feminine and innocent ~ and fits like it was always meant to be with our other daughters' names. (Lily, Landry & Laney). We still have bloody battles ahead of us to determine what the middle name will be, but for now, we're just going to focus on each piece of paper and appointment we need to complete and make in order to bring her home!!

Edited to add: For now, the winner of "middle name contest" is Rose. ~ Laney Rose ~

We have sent in the...

first payment to CCAI. We both had a little "gulp" in our throats as we wrote out that big check, but we know this is the right thing and so it was a little bit of nerves, mixed with a lot of excitment and joy. We paid extra for overnight delivery and written delivery confirmation. When they receive our check, we'll get our passcodes for the CCAI site...as well as full PDFs of the dossier workbook to go through with Nancy.

We're really doing this! :)

We have a social worker! Drum roll please....

Her name is Nancy Bean. Reminds me of Mr. Bean, but I hope she is more with-it than that. Actually, she's been referred with great marks by three different families so we have high hopes. She seems great..you know, from all that subtext and human emotion that grabs you through emails. LOL! No, but she seems nice enough. And she will play a critical role in our adoption. She is the person we needed to hire to conduct our home study. This is the cornerstone for our dossier.

A home study, for those of you like us who are new to the world of adoption, is a "study" that is written up like a report. It features US (the parents), our kids, our finances, our criminal/sordid or not-so-sordid backgrounds, health physicals, letter references from friends, the house, etc. Bascially, you spill your ENTIRE life into this gal's lap and then she evaluates it and tells you whether or not she thinks you'll make good parents. Lovely, eh? And you get to pay her $1300 for the pleasure!

She's supposed to send us the packet and paper work in a week. Yippee! :)

Nancy Bean...Gotta get used to that name....

About ready to write the first big...

check. Ahhh, the money part of the adoption journey. Everyone keeps asking me, "Why in the heck does it cost so much?" I'm a little offended, because we're already "emotionally" there and the thought of putting any price on our future daughter seems almost inconceivable. On the other hand, there certainly is a reality to the cost involved in adoption -- particularly, International Adoption.

However, we're happily pressing forward in a journey of love, excitement, faith and dollars. :) We have to re-read our final fee agreements, and then sign them in front of a notary public. Thankfully, the secretary at Troy's fire station is a notary so she'll be helping us a lot!

We hope to have the first big check written and mailed off by next Monday.

We've been approved!!

Tonight we received our application approval letter from CCAI!! YAY!! We have an orientation packet to look through, first fee to send in (praying about the $$ already!) and we're down the road motors! Troy and I are equally thrilled and nervous. :)

Here is the email:

September 9th, 2006

Hi Troy & Becky,

Thank you for choosing CCAI. Your application has been approved. Please open and print your Orientation Packet which I have attached. You will find a cover letter with detailed instructions.


There was more about dossier requirements, website login codes, etc. But the important part is that we're in!! :)

This is our "Word Cloud." A generated image composed of the most common words on our adoption blog. Yes, the name does remind one of the infamous "brain cloud" from the classic film, Joe vs. The Volcano. But this is different. Word Clouds are cool. And you can get them printed on tote bags and mugs. I think this one is pretty nifty. :)

Helpful Paper Chase links....

One of the first things new IA parents need to do (and something we'll be doing shortly) is filing a 1-600A form with the USCIS. The 1-600A form is an "Application for Advance Processing of an Orphan Petition." Bascially it means, we want to say *now* that when we go to China we'll be bringing back a child that will be ours.

This form, and others, can be downloaded at: http://www.uscis.gov/graphics/formsfee/forms/


Also, throughout the chase you need several copies of birth certificates, your marriage license, divorce decrees (if you've been so unlucky...or lucky, as the case may be), etc.

These can all be ordered, fresh & crisp, from http://www.vitalchek.com/?clicked=1

One more piece of our application...

Today I mailed in our Medical Checklist for CCAI's Waiting Child Program. China keeps an ever-changing, comprehensive list of children (infants to older children) who have special challenges facing them. Some are babies and children with special needs: physical handicaps, heart defects, vision problems, etc. Others are older children who are perfectly healthy, but difficult to place because of their age.

Troy and I are praying about the possibility that a baby from the Waiting Child list may be "waiting" for us. :) We don't know if this is where we'll find our daughter, but we wanted to add that form to our application so we would be notified if any babies come through CCAI that fit within the parameters we set. CCAI allows you to go through a comprehensive medical checklist and make note of special needs you feel confident and prepared to handle. Troy and I talked through each area and feel good about the addendum we mailed off today.

It's difficult to think that there are precious babies left behind for any reason, but particularly when you see how minor some of the "special needs" are from the list. Things like a birth mark or partial hearing loss may make a child so difficult to place he/she will spend an entire childhood in a SWI (Social Welfare Institute...aka "orphanage.")

We are praying we will find *just* the glorious girl who is meant to be a part of our forever family! If this means an NSN baby ~ wonderful! If it means a precious baby we discover on the waiting list ~ then that will be amazing too. :)

US Postal Service Delivery Confirmation Receipt...

Guess what? For the 1st time EVER (at least for me), a USPS delivery confirmation receipt number worked! YAY!

We tracked our application to CCAI and the website says:

Label/Receipt Number: 0306 0320 0003 9194 6101

Status: Delivered

Your item was DELIVERED at 12:14 pm on September 05, 2006 in ENGLEWOOD, CO 80112.


Yay! I'm such a sentimental dork. :) When you're adopting, every "paper" in the paperchase is precious.

Names

The journey has barely begun and we're already having baby "name" debates. I swear, we've used the only 3 names IN THE WORLD that Troy and I can agree upon with our first three children. This next precious bundle may have to go nameless! LOL! Actually, we're hoping to come up with a name by the time our dossier leaves for China. Then we won't have to go around calling her the "Chinese baby" any more. We can call her by her name! :)

Here are 7 names in the current running:

Cara
Cate
Violet
Vivienne
Stella
Mercy
Lucie

The debate continues......

Adoption Language....the world of acronyms

So Troy and my father have been teasing me about how many acronyms and "letters" I've been tossing about since we began this crazy adoption journey. I keep trying to explain to them that it's easier than saying everything the long way ~ but I realize if they don't know what the letters stand for, then perhaps it isn't. :)

Here is a brief run-down on the adoption acronyms and their meanings:

AP: Adoptive Parent
CA: Consulate Appointment
CCAA:China Centre for Adoption Affairs (in China)
CCAI: Chinese Children Adoption International (our Agency!!)
DOA: Date Of Adoption
DOB: Date Of Birth
DOR: Date Of Referral (This is the day you receive your child's picture and are "matched")
DOT: Date Of Travel (The day you're to leave to pick your baby)
DTC: Dossier To China (The day your huge pile of papers -- your dossier) is complete and sent to China.
FCC: Families with Children from China: www.fwcc.org
IA: International Adoption
I-600: Petition to Classify Orphan as an Immediate Relative
I-600A: Application for Advance Processing of Orphan Petition
I-171H: US federal approval to adopt foreign-born child
I-797: The new I-171H
LID: Log In Date (official date recorded in CCAA logs) (This means they've receive and approved your dossier!)
LOI: Letter Of Intent (Used in special needs (SN) adoptions)
NSN: Non-Special Needs
PA: Permission to Adopt (SN adoptions)
SN: Special Needs
SW: Social Worker
TA: Travel Approval
USCIS: US Customs & Immigration Services (Dept. of Homeland Security)
WC: Waiting Child (This a child has a physical handicap or is an older child)

It's in the mail !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Our application is in the mail! Troy and I are both just grinning at each other. I paid for "Delivery Confirmation" just so I could have a mail receipt to tuck into a future baby book. :)

Sweet moment

My mom shared this story with me and I just thought it was so sweet. She said she and Lily had been shopping in Costco earlier this week. While they were looking around, a young Asian mom and a little girl -- around 1 or 2 walked by. She said Lily stared at the baby, with a mixture of curiosity and new awareness, and then said (quietly and almost to herself), "Sister." Then she smiled.

Guess what???? Our application is finally complete.

Today is a huge day in our journey toward adoption. We've compiled all of the initial information (1st step in the paper chase) and we've finished filling out our application to CCAI. I will mail it tomorrow. We're so excited!! It's like taking a giant leap off a cliff......

Interstingly, I feel exactly as I always have whenever we've decided to start officially "trying" for a birth child. Nervous, excited, emotional, distracted, hopeful... It's all so overwhelming and excitng -- and now we're just praying that God will help all of the details fall into place and we'll be united with just the child meant to be with us!

The journey has OFFICIALLY begun...

Procrastination....

Troy and I are meeting with the insurance agent tomorrow....and along those same lines, we *need* to get our will done. We've talked about it, put it off, bought the computer program, personally know 2 notary publics....but have we made the will? No. Do we need to do that? Yes. THIS WEEKEND. Done.

I love my husband.

Last night, feeling emotional and exhausted by all the changes we've been through in the last several weeks ~ as well as nervous about the upcoming paper chase and obstacle course we're facing with our adoption, I just starting venting to Troy. As usual, he listened and really helped me regain my focus.

A friend had asked me recently, "Are you prepared for your adoption to *not* be a storybook experience?" I said, "Yes, of course." But then I started feeling wiggling doubts.

I sat with Troy and really shared my worries, and he reminded me that there is never a guarantee a child's life will be storybook. "Look at Lily's arrival as an example," he said. "Everything was looking good and suddenly she has atrial tachycardia and has to be taken to Children's Mercy hospital for treatment. Thankfully, she is fine, but that certainly wasn't what we had scripted."

And he is right. Either we believe God is leading us and in control, or we don't. Fear shouldn't be part of the equation.

Interesting musings...

I found a blog by a Korean adoptee and I'm intrigued by her perspective. So many things I've been mulling over about our upcoming adoption, she reflects.

Her writiing is vulnerable, transparent, bold, a tinge angry and utterly heart-renching at times. Here is one of the most interesting of her recent posts.

http://twicetherice.wordpress.com/2006/08/18/adoption-in-the-land-of-make-believe/#more-569

Excerpt:

“An invisible red thread connects those that are destined to meet regardless of time, place, or circumstance. The thread may tangle but will never break.” ~ Ancient Chinese proverb

I am so glad (I’d even venture so far as to say “grateful”! OMG!) that my parents never threw this kind of “destiny” mumbo jumbo in my face — much less this Orientalist brand of destiny talk in the corresponding calligraphic font.

As if my Korean mother was destined to be abused and not allowed to keep her fourth-born child, and as if I was destined to be merely birthed from her Korean body so that my Korean body could come of age in a white Scandinavian-American community in the dairy-rich U.S. heartland.

Destiny? Fate? That’s too much sugar for me to stomach, and I wouldn’t insult my parents’ intelligence by asking them if they subscribe to this kind of artificially sweetened goo.

Big picture: I think it’s a pretty bizarre thing that I should be born to a family of five in Seoul, yet wind up the youngest daughter of white Americans of Swedish lineage on a farm in Iowa. Far from wishing for a different family, I embrace my family and see them as nothing less — yet at the same time, I’m unwilling to minimize the significance of my Korean family and the ethnic heritage that’s as plain as the nose on my face.

I will not relinquish my cultural birthrights to convenient bits of lore that are plagiarized, contorted and respelled as “F-A-T-E.”

Fate and destiny are nice ideas for fortune cookies, but I will not abide by the suggestion that children are destined for abandonment or abduction, or that mothers are destined for abuse, poverty, rape and coercion.

As a fantastic KAD friend of mine summed it up, ascribing adoption to “destiny” absolves everyone of responsibility.

“Destiny” is a two-sided pacifier to comfort the APs who swear by it and to silence the adoptees who dare to ask questions.

Brave stuff indeed. It isn't that I don't love the "idea" of ladybugs and moonbeams and red threads and destiny... But how can I wish abandonment on any child? Troy and I are not destined to adopt...any more than our daughter will have been destined to be abandoned. Instead, we are making a choice. A decision. An agreement we feel God is leading us to make -- to love and cherish a daughter from China.

Books, books and more books

As always, I'm spending my time reading and researching like a madwoman. :) Here are a few of the books I've read so far. I've tried the list the books I've found to be extremely interesting and helpful:

Daughter from Afar, by Sarah Lynn Woodard

Intercountry Adoption From China -- Examining Cultural Hertiage & Other Postadoption Issues, by Jay Rojewski

The Lost Daughters of China, by Karin Evins

Wanting a Daughter, Needing a Son, by Kay Ann Johnson

From China with Love, by Emily Buchanan

Are Those Your Children? by Cheri Register

Beyond Good Intentions by Cheri Register

Wild Swans, by Jung Chang

Daughter of the River, by Hong Ying

When the wait gets long, I'm wanting to spend some time studying the history of China, Mao, cultural revolution, etc.

Pre-pre-paper chase

When couples begin compiling the *endless* things required for the dossier that is sent to China, it is commonly referred to as "The Paper Chase." Troy and I just beginning this whole process, but we've got a few things done.

So far we have:

* Received brand-spanking new copies of our birth certificates
* Applied for and received our passports
* Filled out our agency application and in so doing, found a few things we need to get organized before we send it in.

This last point led us to call our new life insurance agent, Blake Stanley, to help us procure some life insurance for me. Then, if something happens, Troy will have $$ for child care help, etc. It's depressing, but smart ~ so I'm going with it. :) As soon as we have this nailed down, we'll be able to include that provision on our application and then send it in.

We have decided on our agency...

We have decided to work with CCAI (Chinese Children Adoption International) as our agency. They have a wonderful 16 year history and were recommended highly by our dear friends, the Wilburns. Dan & Laurie have adopted twice through CCAI and we are looking forward to a similar experience.

I called CCAI today and talked through some of questions I had regarding our application. It's unbelievable how many details and papers are involved in this process! None of them seem insurmountable, but it is certainly daunting at first. We're praying and taking one step at a time.

Tomorrow, I'm going to sit down with Troy and fill out the application (I did the first draft today). I'll need to make a photocopy of the application for our records and attach the extra papers I've typed up as well. They pose a question like, "Why do want to adopt from China?" and then leave you one line to fill in an answer. Ummm....not long enough folks! :) I wrote several paragraphs and just jotted in "Please see attached paper" on the application. :)

I'll post as soon as we've mailed it!

Beginning the journey

Tonight I decided to start a little online journal. If for no one else, it will be a place for Troy and I to record our thoughts and experiences as we start down the road to adopting our fourth child!

God has richly blessed us with three of the most amazing children on the planet. :) Our daughter, Lily, is smart and confident and kind and we are constantly amazed at all she knows and shares. Colby, our son, is funny and strong and loves to be the other "mister" in the house. And Landry, sweet baby Landry, is such a joy! She makes us laugh and is the best cuddler.

But somehow, our family doesn't yet feel complete! We believe there is one more precious daughter out there for us in China, and we're starting down the road to find her. We are so excited to at the beginning of this journey and although it is a long road ahead of us, we are anxious to get started!