We had a wonderful Christmas!

Both of our families bought our little girl presents! We are going to be sending some of the items we received for her to China in our first care package. We got clothes, hair bows, books, sweaters, and toys for her. Thank you so much to everyone who thought of her over the holiday. We have one box all ready to ship to China as our first care package.

The day after Christmas, we received our fingerprinting appointment for our USCIS approval. We are scheduled to go to Orlando for our appointment next Wednesday, January 6, 2010. We are thrilled that we are almost there!

I received a Ross gift card for Christmas and went shopping on my lunch break. I bought some of the cutest clothes for Saiya! Last night we wandered around the mall and my mother bought some really cute dresses for her. I showed Chris, but he didn’t seem interested. He is excited, but I think he completely misses the appeal of CUTE clothes!! Haha! It’s a girl thing I guess.

We got our Pre-Approval from CHINA!!

We received our pre-approval from China today! This means that China has received our petition to adopt You Ai from the Ningxia Children’s Welfare Institute. We will be getting tags and the orphanage address very soon so that we can start to send care packages to our little girl! We are so very excited and can’t wait to see her and bring her home! We are one step closer and I know that this process is going to fly by.

Have a Merry Christmas! We have received the best Christmas present EVER!

>>>From China Center for Adoption Affairs<<<
中国之爱收养组织:
你们递交的Christopher Bonnett 和 Tina Bonnett收养宁夏(省、市、自治区)宁夏儿童福利院儿童尉迟友爱的申请已收到，经过对该家庭的基本情况及其为该儿童制定的医疗康复及抚育计划的审核，中国收养中心同意在该申请文件到达（截止日期2010年03月23日，含当日）后，按照收养特殊需要儿童的程序处理，特此告知。

So much excitement!!

It’s been one week since our referral and we have finished all of the additional paperwork needed to accept the referral of You Ai. We have submitted additional photos, an addendum to the USCIS and other paperwork for the Chinese government. Now we are planning the first care package to be sent to China as soon as we get the tags and orphanage address.

I’m so glad that this is close to Christmas as we will be able to buy her Christmas presents and put them in the care package box! Our parents are having a little too much fun picking out presents for her!

We even got a little overzealous and went wandering through the little girl department at Walmart! They had the CUTEST monkey pajamas. We almost bought them, but we refrained… barely!

This is going to be a LONG 6 months!

What a Wonderful Christmas Present!!!

We received a phone call on Tuesday afternoon asking if we would like to review the file of a little girl who is 3 (going to be 4 on February 28). She had a HEMANGIOMA (strawberry mark) which was treated early last year and is currently resolving. We were a little wary, wondering if reviewing a file meant that we would then be committed to this particular child. Once we cleared it with Meg (of CAWLI) that we could review the file and, in the event that we thought she was not a good match for our family, be placed back into the waiting pool, we went ahead and took the opportunity to review the file.

The file Meg sent me was filled with several pages of medical information, lab tests, and pictures of a little girl named You Ai. I did some (A LOT of) research on hemangiomas and later Tuesday night, Chris and I discussed this little girl.

Neither one of us could come up with a reason not to accept this referral. This child is PERFECT for us in every way! She dresses herself, walks, speaks full sentences, albeit in Chinese, and sleeps soundly. She is a little quiet and shy, but we can handle that, especially with my super-outgoing niece and nephew for her to play with. I’m sure she will come out of her shell quickly.

We had her file reviewed by a physician where I work and Chris’s mother took it to work with her as well. Once we were sure that she was as healthy as can be expected, we went ahead and ACCEPTED THE REFERRAL!!!!

We are still in shock as we thought this process would take a couple more years! We are still waiting on our approval from the USCIS, so we were not expecting a referral until at least next year. All I could think about was that we are SO not ready!! Haha!! But then again, according to most mothers, you never really are!

So right now, we are busy submitting the paperwork to adopt this specific child to our agency and the CCAA, as well as filing addendums for the USCIS (not to mention making final arrangements with the room and checking out child care/VPK programs in our area). We could not have gotten a better Christmas Present!!! Hopefully, if everything goes smoothly, we will be able to travel to bring her home around my birthday in July 2010!!!




As a side note to those expecting pictures of her to be posted: I am VERY wary of posting pictures of children on the internet, therefore you will not find any attached to this blog for now. If you would like a picture of our little girl, feel free to leave a comment or e-mail me (tting5@aol.com) and I will e-mail a picture to you. Thank you very much for your understanding.

If you would like to leave a comment with your e-mail address I can make this blog private and once that is completed I can post pictures and invite you as a "reader". This will more than likely happen by January 1, 2010 as I'm sure everyone wants to see pictures! :)

Moving Right Along!

We submitted our application to the USCIS today. My heart was fluttering the whole time I was at the post office! All I kept thinking was that my entire life was there in the envelope in my hands. Everything, from our birth certificates to our marriage certificates and passports. I dropped in into the slot with the money order enclosed and I couldn’t stop smiling!

I am so glad that we are moving right along with the adoption. We are one step closer to bringing our daughter home! And the closer we get, the more excited we are!

Short Update

We have approved a final copy of the Home Study report and sent in the acceptance letter. As soon as we get our original copies we can send in our packet with the I-800A form for the government. We are super excited!!!! I'm glad we are moving forward and that things are actually going pretty smoothly.

Have a Happy Halloween!

We are DONE!

We had our last meeting with the social worker last night. We turned in the last of our paperwork and went over some of the information we learned in the Heart of the Matters DVD program. Overall, it was a very nice meeting. We are very excited to finally be moving on to the next stage of the adoption process! Lori sent me a rough draft of the home study report and I read through it this morning. I didn’t have to make many changes, just a few things here and there. All in all, it looked good, so I made a few comments and sent it back to her for further review. Once it is finalized, we can approve and accept the home study report and send it in to the USCIS. We are at the end of the paperwork stage!!! FINALLY!!

We hope to be approved by the USCIS by the end of the year. What an AWESOME Christmas present that would be!

Almost Done!

Our last meeting with the social worker is this Thursday. We will be turning in the last of the paperwork (Heart of the Matters Certificates and a new Verification of Employment letter) and hopefully be looking at a rough copy of the home study report. Our DCF abuse/neglect research requests came back and all of our reference letters are in! This means by the end of the month, we should be able to apply to the USCIS and get our fingerprinting scheduled. YAY!!

Other than that, things have been pretty normal. The hectic flurry of paper has dissipated finally. We are focusing on the holidays now and trying not to think about all the waiting we have ahead of us.

Waiting for Paperwork

So, we have completed the Heart of the Matter Seminar DVD program, our local background checks are done. We are still waiting on Abuse Checks to come back and there are three people who have not returned the reference forms... Ahem... Ahem... We hope that our friends and family (you know who you are) will return those as quickly as possible so that we can move forward with the Home Study and complete that by the middle of October. We have everything we need to apply to USCIS and we are waiting patiently for the Home Study to be completed.

Aside from that, not much is going on. I recently accepted a new position within MIMA, so we have to re-submit some of the paperwork relating to employment verification. I know, I have really bad timing! But its a great opportunity and I'm super excited about my new job!

The Heart of the Matters Seminar

We took the test last night. Poor Chris was very grumpy about it. I agree with him a little bit that we shouldn’t be required to do something like the seminar or DVD, but at the same time, I think that the information is very important. Parenting an adopted child is not as straightforward as parenting a biological child. I think that the DVD series had a TON of really valuable information and that we learned a lot about attachment, the cycles of need, and how these things relate to the parenting plan. I only wish that it was done in a more interesting format.

The tests were not that hard, but the last part was a short answer/fill in the blank kind of test. That part was the most difficult and it was from the section of the DVD series that covered the most information. We had to go back to the DVD for reference several times.

All in all, we both did well on the first portion of the test. The latter portion must be hand graded, so we are waiting for the results from that part of the test. Once those come back, we should be completely done with paperwork. Next Monday we are heading to the police station to fill out local background checks. After that the home study is complete! I can’t wait!!!

Our Second Home Study Visit

The second Home Study visit was very short. Lori collected our physical exams and Chris’s biography and gave us information on some of the paperwork we were missing. We have to get local police background checks done for the home study, which we will do this afternoon at the police station. After that, all we are waiting on is the Child Abuse Records Search, the Heart of the Matters certificates, and the reference letters from my friends and family. So far, only one letter has come in. I’m hoping to have the home study process complete by the end of the month so we can get our approval from the USCIS by the end of the year.

Overall, the home study is going really well. We are learning quite a bit of valuable information from the Heart of the Matters video series as well. We discussed some of the things we learned from the video, our visit with CAWLI, and our thoughts on older children as well as children with special needs. Lori is great and I think she is really learning quite a bit about us, China, and our family.

The Cleaning Begins Again!

Well, our second home study is scheduled for Thursday afternoon. We plan on cleaning the house top to bottom (yes again) for the visit. My sister graciously offered to help. Fortunately, since the social worker already went around the house on the first visit, I don’t think she will need to do a thorough inspection this time around. And, since there are only two of us in the house, how dirty could it possibly get in just a few weeks?

We are down to our last bits of paperwork (we just need to get the doctor to sign the physical exam forms and collect the reference letters from our friends and family, and last but not least, finish the Heart of the Matters DVD series). The DVD series is very dry. We know we have to watch it, but the format is very much like sitting in an actual seminar for several hours. At least we can sit there in our PJ’s eating popcorn! Haha! We hope to complete the DVD by the end of the week. Well… At least I hope to complete the DVD by the end of the week. We have to have it completed by the time the home study is complete. That doesn’t give us that much time since everything else is nearly done!

Now if only I could get my mother to fill our the reference letter before the next millennium comes around…

Our Trip to Boston

We spent the weekend in Boston last weekend. The weather was perfect and we had a wonderful time. We spent some time touring the city, seeing the New England Aquarium, and taking in the sights before we had to meet with CAWLI. We spent Sunday with some good friends of ours at a cookout just outside the city. They adopted two of their children from China through the same agency we are using and it was a really great experience to be able to speak with them about their adoptions and how they handled their children in China. It made both of us feel so much better to know what types of things we should expect.

Our meeting with CAWLI was great! Meg is awesome and we did get the chance to meet with Lillian. Lillian’s first comment to us was that we were so young! But she was thrilled to hear that we were looking to adopt an older child rather than a baby. I feel very secure with her at the head of the agency and I know that she will do everything she can for us. We spoke with Meg for about two hours. She told us stories about some of the adoptions she has placed through the agency and gave us a lot of insight into the orphanages and foster homes in China, as well as what we can expect from children who have been in the Chinese system for any length of time. She also explained how the orphanage system works as well as what we should expect while we are in China. We know its going to be a challenge, but I’m glad that we had the opportunity to hear about both the good things and the bad things so at least we have an idea of what to expect. She also explained the Waiting Child program a little bit more and I think that we have opened a few more doors as to children with special needs. It is definitely food for thought. Both Chris and I came to the conclusion that we would be more than happy to adopt a child with a minor, repairable/repaired heart defect (ASD or VSD). We know a family here who adopted a son with the same condition and I’m glad that we had the opportunity to speak with them about their experiences. After some extensive discussion with Meg and our friends, we are very confident that we can handle something like that.

Overall, it was an awesome trip. We even got to travel through Chinatown and enjoy some really GOOD Chinese food. I’m glad that Chris is being more open to yummy foreign foods! At least we know he won’t starve in China!

Home Study- the Aftermath!

After a full week of cleaning and scrubbing and driving everyone crazy, we finally calmed down...

A big THANK YOU to everyone who helped get the house clean! Special thanks to James and my sister for taking the time to dance around with the water hose and scrub the orange stains off the fence!

Our home study visit was on Friday. Overall, it went well. It was not nearly what we were expecting. Lori, our social worker, was super nice and very easy to talk to. She fell in love with our animals at first sight! She spent the first 20 minutes there petting Rhaina and Nike, and of course, they were all about the LOVE!

We handed over all of the paperwork we have been collecting for CAWLI and we hope that it will make it to the adoption agency in one stack. We have a few minor items that we were waiting on the social worker for and then we are off to USCIS for fingerprinting and government approval. After that, the paperwork is OFF TO CHINA!! And then the real waiting starts. We hope to have the paperwork process and USCIS approval completed by the end of December.

So, the social worker asked us pages of questions about how we grew up, what our relationships were like with family members, and how we were disciplined. She asked how we plan on raising our own child in reference to religion, discipline, school, and support networks. She looked at the house, the room for Saiya, and went over some of our finances. Much of the paperwork she had brought with her was duplicated from what we already filled out for CAWLI. So, I tried to let her know as much as possible so she didn’t have to make double work for herself or us.

She seemed very competent, but not that informed on China’s adoption regulations. I got the feeling she has done most of her work with South America. I can only hope that she is in constant contact with Meg from CAWLI so that we all know what has to happen next. All in all, the home study visit went really well. We are almost done with paperwork and super excited about that! All we have left to do is send out the reference letter forms and get a physical exam along with completing the adoption education video course.

After that, we are DONE!

Busy Busy Busy!!

Our Home Study is scheduled for this Friday and we are slowly getting the house in order for our social worker. I was away last weekend helping my sister move and while I was gone, Chris weeded the garden, hung the chandelier in the entry way, and swept the house. (Did I mention that I have the GREATEST husband in the WORLD!!) So now all we have left to do is dust the ceiling fans and sweep (yes again) and vacuum the carpets. I might give the dogs another bath before she gets here.

My sister registered her children in the same school that our little girl will be attending. I think it’s a great idea to have them all in the same school. This way our daughter will have cousins she knows at the school. Of course, by the time she gets here, Sebastian may be in middle school, but at least Syrafina will still be in the same school. At the same time, it makes it easier for pick-up after school.

Next weekend is our trip to Boston. I am really excited about that trip as well. It’s almost like a mini vacation! We are meeting up with a friend of ours while we are there and we are going to tour the town and the New England Aquarium. It’s the perfect time of year for a walk in the park! And on Tuesday, we get to meet with the CAWLI staff and they can answer any questions we have as well as collect some of the paperwork we have gathered.

Ok, back to cleaning!

Today is a Great Day! Pictures as promised...

The blanket for the room came in yesterday and the room looks BEAUTIFUL! The first pictures at the top of the post are the before pictures and the pictures at the bottom are the after pictures. Panda bears EVERYWHERE!! I think the room is almost done. Because I already have a quilt in the works, my mom offered to take some of the left over fabric and make curtains and a window ruffle to match the quilt. Also, at the bottom is a picture of the panda lanterns I made. They are battery operated and make great night lights! The two in the picture are in the opposite corner from the single lantern in the pictures of the bed. So the room is framed with panda lanterns.

Also, I heard back from the social worker on the paperwork and she said that we can turn in our paperwork according to CAWLI procedures. So no extra notarization! YAY! I’m so excited about next Friday!

Let me know what you think about the room. The quilt I am making is very purple, so don’t worry if the room looks too blue and green. It is actually very girly. :)

Our First Home Study Visit!!

Our first home study visit is scheduled for next Friday, August 28, 2009!!!! I am a mess (so is the house!) I really need to take a deep breath….

Ok…

We have plenty of time to clean the house and get stuff together. We have most of the paperwork ready to go. The social worker (Lori) was talking about all sorts of paperwork needing to be notarized and such (for example, the physical exam, letters of employment, etc). I hope that she is wrong in that respect, because that will mean that we have to redo some of the paperwork we already have completed. Our agency didn’t say anything about those items needing notarization, so I’m hoping…

That actually has me a little worried. Chris’s HR department already had to do his employment letter twice. I would hate to make them do it a third time, and where are we going to find a notary who will follow us around to get paperwork signed? If she is correct, it would almost be like starting all over again with the paperwork… UGH!

I gave her Meg’s number (from CAWLI) and hopefully she can clarify some of the paperwork needed for the home study. Keep your fingers crossed!

YAY!! We are finally getting started!

Panda Lamps and Nesting

Well, we received the contract and invoice from Florida Home Studies and Adoption. I sent that in on Tuesday. I was hoping they would have processed it by now, but the check has still not cleared my account. Hopefully by Monday or Tuesday we will hear from the social worker and get the process underway. We have most of the paperwork ready to go, so it shouldn’t be too bad.

In the mean time, I put together three of those ADORABLE panda lanterns and hung them up in the room. The room needed color so I added pastel ribbons to the ceiling hook and they look awesome! We also ordered a Korean mink Panda blanket for the bed. I am waiting to take pictures of the room until the blanket comes in (which should be Monday). I promise to take pictures of the room as soon as the blanket gets here. I also bought some panda fabric so I can start a handmade quilt, too. If I have enough fabric, I will make one for her bed and one smaller blanket to take to China when we go to pick her up. That should keep me plenty busy!

So as we are waiting for the home study, I am noticing all sorts of imperfections around the house. For example, the molding on the top of the cabinets was knocked down by the cats, I fixed that on Wednesday. The wall in the kitchen needs spackle from when we replaced the cabinets. The dogs need baths, the cat litter drives me crazy, there are cob webs on the chandelier in the dining room, dust on the ceiling fans…. The list goes on and on. Maybe I am just panicking?

…..no “maybe” about it… I am panicking!

Ugh! We need a maid!

Panda Lanterns to Pass the Time!

Hello Again! Nothing new to report, yet. We are waiting for Florida Home Studies and Adoption, Inc. to contact us about starting our home study. They should have received the application fee and paperwork by now (I sent it out on Friday). So, as soon as that is processed, we will hear from our social worker and get the ball rolling on the home study. We are very excited.

In the mean time, I am going to work on a mini project my friend suggested. There are these SUPER CUTE panda lamps you can make out of those Chinese lanterns. The template is pretty simple and I have a TON of those little ball-shaped lamps at home left over from our wedding, so I can hang those in her room all over the place!

To see how the lamps are created, click the link. Thanks Denise!!!

http://www.nickjr.com/crafts/panda-lanterns.jhtml?path=/crafts/ni-hao-kai-lan/all-themes/all-ages/index.jhtml

I will post pictures when I have them made and hung up in the room! I’m so excited!

Disappointment, Setbacks, and starting our Home Study

It has been exactly one month since we turned in our application to CAWLI. During our intake interview, we voiced concerns about using a different agency to do our home study simply because we would feel more comfortable with a social worker who knows CAWLI procedures and needs. So, we waited until now to hear back from Meg about their social worker here in Florida (who was on vacation until recently). To our surprise and dismay, unfortunately, she is unable to do our home study for us. So we are left scrambling to find another agency to complete the home study for us, trying to make up for all the time lost waiting for the CAWLI social worker. Fortunately, yesterday, Meg gave me a couple of contacts for agencies who could do a home study for us.

After several e-mails to different home study agencies, I was contacted by Florida Home Studies and Adoption, Inc late yesterday afternoon. They have agreed to complete our home study and have a social worker located right here in Melbourne! I sent in the application this morning, so I am hoping that we can be well into the swing of things by the beginning of next month!

So yesterday was a mixture of emotion, from disappointment, to frustration, to elation! It amazes me how quickly things can change during this process! So we are back on track after a very small bump in the road! YAY!

Panda Bears EVERYWHERE!!!

Clearly we are very excited about adopting our daughter. If there was ever any doubt about the level of excitement, all one has to do is poke their head into our guest room. While I was on vacation last week, I ended up getting TONS of stuff for that room. I bought everything from books and stuffed animals to posters and wall decorations. I think I brought home more stuff for her than I brought for my husband!

We have been decorating the room with panda bears. They are cute, cuddly, and give us the chance to incorporate some of our child’s culture into the décor of the room. At the same time, we hope that the panda bears will help her be a little less shocked by the transition from China to America. This is a bit of a problem when I go to places like the San Diego Zoo, where they have a Panda exhibit. Oh My God! The CUTENESS is mind-boggling!

I just hope that she doesn’t hate panda bears… if that is even possible. Who could hate panda bears??

In either case, my husband suggested we have a back up plan-- Just in case. Any ideas?

"Have you picked your child yet?"

I have had numerous people ask me “have you picked out your child yet?” I wanted to take today to explain to everyone exactly how international adoptions work (at least through our agency). You do not get to pick a child you want from a wide array of choices/photos, the child you get as a referral is a child that is matched with your family (using the criteria you gave in your application) from the CCAA (China Center for Adoption Affairs).

Step One: After you make the decision to adopt a child from over seas, the very next step is looking at adoption agencies. They really are plentiful and you want to make sure that the agency you pick has the best interests of the child and your new family in mind. The best idea is to talk to people who have used that particular agency, ask for references from the agency staff, and READ— a lot.

Step Two: Apply to the agency. Most agencies have an application and associated fees. Once the agency receives your application, they will most likely want an interview with you and your partner.

Step Three: After the intake interview, it’s time to get busy collecting paperwork and applying for passports, copies of birth certificates, marriage license, etc. During this time, you will also be contacted by the social worker who will be conducting your home study.

Step Four: Home study. The home study takes about a month to complete. During this time, the social worker will explain about adoption, answer any questions, and make sure your home is safe and suitable for a child.

Step Five: USCIS Application. Once the home study is complete, it’s time to apply to the US government for approval to bring a child into the country. The reason for this is because the child becomes an American citizen as soon as the flight from China lands on US soil. The approval and fingerprinting process for the USCIS application takes about 2-3 months to complete.

Step Six: Paperwork to Agency and Dossier to China. This process takes about a month and a half. The paperwork and fees must be certified, notarized, and sent to China with several other dossiers of families waiting to adopt. It takes the Chinese government about 2 weeks to file the paperwork in China with the CCAA.

Step Seven: Waiting, waiting, and more waiting. This can be the longest part of the whole process, and sometimes, the most grueling. This is the time where you are waiting for a referral from the CCAA. Depending on the age, health status, and gender of the child, this wait can be anywhere from 18 to 39 months!

Step Eight: Referral!! This is when the CCAA sends the referral to the agency. The referral will have a photo, health history, and short description of the child that the CCAA has matched with your family. (So, as you can tell, it is nearly 2 years before you even get to learn your child’s name!)

Step Nine: Approximately six weeks from the referral day, you travel to China to pick up your child. You spend 2 weeks in China sightseeing and visiting various provinces and orphanages.

Step Ten: Come home from China and complete adoption in US— Become one happy family!

So, as you can see, the process is long and very in depth. You do not get to pick your own child, but we are certain we will be matched with a perfect little girl from China! The waiting is the worst part and I can only hope that we have more than enough to keep us busy.

Until Tomorrow!!

Happy Birthday! (Well, two days early...)

I can’t believe I’m turning 30! Before we decided to adopt, I was rather upset about the whole prospect. Now, because the Chinese government requires that you be at least 30 years old to adopt, I’m ok with it, even happy about it. I even had to wait on filling out some of the paperwork so that I would be 30 on documents that go to China.

I guess there comes a point where you realize that there’s nothing you can do to stop time. At least I still LOOK like I’m in my early 20’s! LOL I guess I just thought I would be somewhere else by the time I got to this point in my life. Not sure where, exactly, but somewhere else. Or maybe I just hoped I would see Europe before I got too old! HAHA!

So, Happy Birthday to me, and anyone else who has a birthday this month! Cheers and all that! Enjoy it! Life is way too short to be upset about the passing of another year. Its just the Earth traveling around the sun like it does every 365 days…

Buried Beneath the Paperwork...

Just to give you some idea of the paperwork process for adopting a child from China is like, take a look below. This is a list of paperwork and items need for the adoption process given to us by the adoption agency. The list on the top is paperwork that will eventually be sent to China (that we will never ever see again). The stuff on the bottom of the list will be held on file with the agency. As you can see, most of the documents need to be originals or certified copies. This means that we have to submit requests for documents from places like the New York State Department of Health, Indiana State Department of Health for birth certificates, the State of Florida Civil Department for marriage certificates, etc. All the while, we have to apply for new passports (Chris has never had one before and my name recently changed). Each of these places can take up to 6 weeks to process a request, thus turning the paper-chase into a bit of a waiting game.

Unfortunately, some of the paperwork, such as the criminal background checks, reference letters, and DCF record search cannot be completed until we are assigned a social worker and the homestudy process has begun. That will not happen until at least early August.

At least we are most of the way there with the paperwork we need to gather prior to the homestudy process (see the little x’s? those indicate that we have already gathered those documents and put them into my “adoption book”). We are currently waiting on birth certificates and passports and then our stuff is complete (except for the physical examination which will be done in late August).

So, take a deep breath and exhale, we totally understand. It can be a little overwhelming. Fortunately, I am fairly organized and all of the paperwork (tax forms, original birth certificates, and marriage license) were all on one easy to find place, neatly organized and in labeled folders. See? Being obsessive about some things DOES come in handy!

Yay! Plane Trip in September!

I’m so excited! Today, I booked our tickets to travel to Boston to meet with Meg, Lillian, and the rest of the CAWLI staff. We plan on traveling over Labor Day weekend (first week of September—happy birthday Chris!). Hopefully, we will have our homestudy done by then and be working on our USCIS approval. I can’t wait!

I have e-mailed a few friends we know in the area to see if they want to get together for lunch or something while we are up there. One family has actually used the CAWLI to adopt both of their daughters. They are the main reason we chose that particular agency. I hope that Chris can meet with them. I’m sure it will be an awesome experience!

Speaking of meetings, at the end of this month, we are supposed to be meeting with a friend of my father’s who also adopted a little girl from China. I’m sure getting to sit down and talk with these families will definitely do us some good.

Now if only I can get Chris on the stupid plane!!

Chinese For Dummies!?!

HI there and welcome to day 2 of my Blog. Since not much has changed since yesterday, I thought I would share with you some of the things we are doing to get ready for our trip to China. Of course, I already mentioned the room, and between getting passports and filing paperwork we are also ATTEMPTING to learn Chinese.

…OMG Chinese is HARD!!! My loving husband bought me the Rosetta Stone for my birthday and that by itself is hard. So I bought “Chinese for Dummies” as a supplement. Yup, it’s still HARD!! I think I can identify man (Nan Ren), woman (Nu Ren), and eating (Chi Fan), but that’s about it… I think I need to work on it a bit more! Good thing we have LOTS of time….

Of course some of us decided that since Chinese is too hard, let the wife handle it… Gee thanks, Chris.

Chris's point of view "She’s smart! See the funny hat? That means she’s smart!"

Riiiiiiight…..

I can only hope that English is much easier for our daughter to learn than Chinese is for us. I plan on sending lots of books and other materials while we wait for our travel papers so that she can get a jump start on learning english. Good Luck little Saiya!

Ni Hao!! (that means "Hello")

Hi there!

I'm Tina (and that's my husband Chris), and this is a journal of our adoption of a little girl from China. We are going to call her Saiya when she arrives, so I will refer to her by that name throughout this blog. We have only just begun the paper chase to send a dossier to China, so we are still in the very early stages of the adoption process. Our intake interview was last week (July 7, 2009). We are very excited and hope that you enjoy this journey as much as we do!

This Blog is as much for her as it is for us. For her, I hope that someday she will look back at this journal and really see how excited we are to have her join our family. We hope that she can look back at this time and remember how she felt and the challenges and adventures we experienced together. For us it is an outlet to help pass the time in the waiting game. This is a long process and we are only at the very beginning... Almost two long years ahead of us.

We have chosen to go through China Adoption With Love, Inc. as our adoption agency. This particular agency came highly recommended by several close friends who have adopted children from China. We have spoken to the agency on several occasions and each time we are more and more assured that we are in good hands. So far we have gotten together the majority of the paperwork required for our USCIS application and homestudy. We are currently waiting for our social worker to complete our homestudy (which we hope will happen by the end of August).

We are looking for a girl between the ages of 4 and 6. Because we are looking at a six year old, we are automatically put on the "waiting child/special needs" list. Hopefully this will help with the wait time a little bit. Also, we are more than happy to take a 4 or 5 year old with minor scars or marks. So, again, this should help with the wait time. We are so excited about this whole process!! I've already started to get the guest room converted to a child's room, much to the dismay of many friends who sometimes spend the night... I guess there is something unnerving about being stared at by cute, cuddly teddy bears while sleeping! Haha!

So follow my Blog and enjoy the pictures and news of our adventure with our new Chinese Daughter!