Our Adoption Blog

Laura and I are still around, still waiting, and still wondering if the process will ever speed up.

In the meantime, we are pursuing other adventures.  We figure that instead of watching the web for news, and counting the ticks on the clock that we would do some of the things that we won’t be as able to do when we have a little one in our lives.

I have taken back to writing again, although I am still a little gun shy about digging up the old novel to get that going again, but I found a great site that lets me exercise my writing in small bursts.  It is called [ Ficlets ] and it limits you to writing a 1046 character story.  You can add prequels or sequels to your stories, as can other ficlet authors, which makes for some interesting stories.

I have also become a full-fledged blogger over at [ For the Love of Geeks ].  It is quickly becoming a highly trafficked site and a full-time job in itself.

We will be in Palm Springs this next weekend (Fourth of July), soaking in the sun, and relaxing by the pool.

Laura is pursuing a career in crafts, and doing her volunteer work , she is in marathon mode for that this summer, so I doubt I will see much of her during the day.

So that is pretty much it for the time being …

Hopefully news will come soon

Yep, you may have forgotten about us, but we have not forgotten about you.

Time does fly, and many months have gone by.  CCAA is up to January 9th, 2006.  As a reminder, we are June 27th 2006.

So…  another three years or so…

See you in a few months.  In the meantime, you can read me at [ For the love of Geeks ].

I remember posting last years year in review post, thinking next time I post this it will be really long since I will have a whole adoption process story to include and talk about…

Of course, as you know, I have little to talk about with the adoption. That is a big reason why nothing has really be posted lately.. it just gets a little depressing to keep saying - “no news, still waiting”… The highlight of the year was in this post [ Hurray!! ]
Yep, we have been reviewed and deemed worthy to parent a child by the Chinese government. We would like to thank them for that.

Otherwise, our life has been about normal, although we have been pretty busy doing fun stuff.. You may be aware, from past post like this one in March [ Backyard Woes... ] that we have been working on getting our backyard usable. I am happy to report that we have done that.. I promised pictures and I swear that I will post some, but I want to put a few final touches on before I do that. Currently we have our grass in, a “built-in” fire pit and a patio with a gazebo, and a grill.. We have had lots and lots of relaxing fires in the backyard with some brews and good friends. I still have some paver work to do , and I want to put in some walking stones.

We have done some traveling.

As you know from this post [ Update on the Johnson's ] I went to South Dakota and visited my friends Kevin and Michelle and the kids…
Over the thanksgiving holiday, Laura was back home visiting her family (her brother opened a Cold Stone Ice Cream shop in Marshall, MN so if you are ever there stop in). Meanwhile, I took the opportunity to visit Mexico with some friends or the weekend. Here is a picture of what I would put on my top ten list of things I don’t ever want to see in Mexico..

Yep - that is the police… and in Mexico, you really really really don’t want to be stopped by the police. Fortunately, they were not after us, but the lights scared us, and they completely just blew past us and cut us off going after their real target… FUN TIMES…

We also did some horseback riding, site seeing, and of course eating lots of Mexican food. I have a picture of me horseback riding, but I choose not to post that.

Here is one of the crew though at Papa’s and Beer in Ensenada. The guy in the middle was the waiter… as I think back, I probably just should have had him take a picture with me in it, rather then the other way around… but whatever.. LOL

We also spent this last weekend in Big Bear California… That was probably one of the best weekends I have had in a long long time…

We got a cabin up there, which had a great view of the mountain, and the ski slopes, and a hot tub on the deck. There is nothing quite like kicking back in a hot tub outside when it is 30 degrees… I was warm and toasty, and the air was brisk and cold… it was great. We went snowboarding (or at least tried to.. ) I didn’t do as well as I had hoped and fortunately there are no pictures of that event.. LOL We all took a private lesson to try and get the basics down. After mastering falling and getting up for a couple of hours, I decided to switch back to skis and give that a whirl.. Now, mind you, it has been about 12 years since I went skiing…. so I was a little scared the first time. Turns out it is like riding a bike. I had a blast.

Here is a pic of me on the slopes…

I am completely addicted… I forgot how much I love to ski. So expect to see more pics in the near future of me swooshing down the slopes.

Laura also tried snowboarding, but after taking out a nearby fence, she decided to take the rest of the day and chill in the lodge.. LOL She is going to try skiing next time, but she will forever be a cross country fan…

Here is a great shot from our deck at the cabin of the mountain.

The Newcastle just makes the shot…

This has been a year of waiting, a year of drama and emotional heartache, a year of discovery, a year of rebirth and a year of fun.

Hopefully next year we will get to meet our daughter.

We are still waiting…

That is pretty much it. CCAA has just posted completion of dossier’s from 11/30/2005 (we are 06/27/06) .. so… We still have some time to wait.

Our 171-H needs to be updated, and for that we need another home study, so we are ramping up to get that stuff done.

At this point, I estimate referral for us sometime in September of next year with travel in December or January.

The CCAA has finished the review of the adoption application documents registered with our office before June 30, 2006.

We are officially out of the review room…

I am web programmer by trade, and I just finished a rather massive website for a client, that I thought some of you adoptive folks might be interested in.

http://www.thumbnailresume.com

The concept is pretty simple, if you have need of passing your resume off to people, you can have your resume put onto a business card and give that to people instead of a big huge piece of paper. People are more likely to hold on to a business card then an entire resume. Technically speaking the site is something I am pretty proud of, but I won’t go into all the details with that.

Now, I know what you’re thinking… “what do resume cards have to do with adoption, or why would we care about this website… ”

Two words for you… “Referral Cards”…

It dawned on me while working on this site, that referral cards would be the coolest way to spread the joy of your new baby on the way. The card system even allows you to include a picture of the baby… SO.. you could include whatever information you wanted to broadcast, as well as the picture that was sent from China, have 1000 cards made up and just start handing them to everyone you see to share your joy…

So — give it a try..

For the past few weeks we (June 2006 LID’s) have been in what is called “The Review Room”. This is where the CCAA goes through the dossier, officially, and makes sure that all the paperwork is in order and that you qualify under China’s guidelines to be an adoptive parent. May went through very very quick which is nice, and makes me feel a little more optimistic about the process speeding up a little. I have heard from a few people that have an LID of a few days before us that they have already received questions on thier dossier. That means that they are moving through June fairly quickly too.. Yay!!..

With the review room, the old adage, no news is good news, really hits home. Anyone of three things can happen with the review room.

1. Questions are submitted to your agency in regards your dossier, and updated information is requested. Anything from medical issues, to re-writing your cover letter to include specific wording. This is not necessarily a bad thing. It just means that clarification is needed.

2. The CCAA can reject your dossier all together. If this is going to happen at all through the process. This is when it is going to happen. While it is in the review room. You can be rejected for any number of reasons, some that don’t even have anything to do with your ability to parent a child. This is a standard part of the adoptive process, no matter what country you adopt from.
3. You could hear nothing. If your paperwork is in order, and they are happy with your dossier, then it is simply put in the line for a referral.

Obviously we are hoping for line item number 3. We don’t have any concerns that our paperwork won’t be accepted, or that anything out of order, primarily because of our Agency. They are sticklers about the paperwork and they jump through many many hoops to make sure that all is in order.

So… I am now checking on a regular basis for the update on the CCAA site that says :

???????2006?6?30???????????.

or in english…

The CCAA has finished the review of the adoption application documents registered with our office before June 30, 2006.

This latest Disney / Pixar movie has created quite a stir in the adoption community.. lots of people who like/love the movie and others that are offended by the messages portrayed in the movie.  Personally, I liked the movie.

Bear in mind, I have not completed our adoption and I am not a parent, so I would not purport to tell you how you should feel about the movie, or how you should handle your adopted child seeing the movie.

A few things about the movie.

1.  Orphanages are no longer a part of American culture.. At least I have never seen one, so this is a bit of a misnomer through-out the movie.. However, movies have historically painted orphans in orphanages, so I am not sure that is too big a deal.

2. Many of the adoptive parents that have an issue with this movie, have an issue because they have the mistaken notion that Louis (the main character) builds a time-machine to go back and see his mom.  HOWEVER, this is not true. It was never Louis intention to build a time-machine.  He invents a device that read the hippo campus (memory center of the brain) so that he can remember what his mom looks like since he knows that he saw her originally as a baby.  The time-machine comes from the future from two other characters and that is when he gets the idea that he can just go back and see him mom.
3. Most of the movie is NOT about him finding his mother.  Most of the movie is about the future kid trying to restore the time-line properly, while the bad guy continues to try to steal Louis’ memory recall invention. The underlying promise to take Louis back to see his mom is carried through the movie. I will get back to this in a bit.

4. Overall I think  this is not the most impressive Disney movie, and the story was stretched and at times there was WAY too much going on.  It is a good movie though and I was happy with the way that adoption is presented and I think that the final message was good.

What I got from this movie was that Louis wanted a family, and ultimately wanted to be with his biological mother.  This is a typical response for adopted children - especially US adopted children.  However, what Louis learns through the movie is that your family is who you make your family.  The collection of people who form the Robinson’s are ultimately together because they want to be, and not just because they are relatives.  In fact, at the end of the movie (SPOILER ALERT) Louis has the opportunity to speak with and possibly stop her from abandoning him.  He doesn’t though.  He backs away and let’s her abandon him, maybe realizing that she is no longer the most important aspect of his life, knowing that this other family has accepted him, and love him.

In the eyes of an adopted child, old enough to understand the themes presented, I can definitely see how this would be a tough movie to watch, and maybe they would not find the same message.  So there is definite need for caution and I think that you should watch this with your child.

I promise this will not become a movie review blog.. I just really wanted to ramble about this movie for a few minutes…

I know that I will be asked this question sometime during the life of my child.

I hope that when the question is asked I have the composure and ability to answer the question as well as it was on “Heroes” last night.  If you don’t watch the show, I won’t bore you with character and plot description, but suffice to say it is a great show.  Anyway, Claire asks her adoptive father (who didn’t want her initially, but was forced into the adoption by the “company”) who her “real” parents are..

He says:

“We are your real parents.  We don’t know who you’re biological parents are.  You may not have grown in your mother’s belly, but you grew in both of our hearts.”.

I thought that was a great response. Especially considering it came from Hollywood, who is notorious for fouling this particular topic up..

SO, I add more item in which Heroes desrves kudos for.  They have dealt with Claire’s adoption and how she deals with it VERY well.

The lesson?  If you see an adoptive couple with a child, what question should you never ever ask ?

“Who are her/his real parents?”   First off, if you need to ask that question, it is not likely any of your business… Secondly, you are looking at her/his real parents..

So the other day, a work associate told me that Laura and I are having kids “the easy way”.. What made the statement more humorous to me is that this was a man… I thought to myself, “In what way is conception and pregnancy hard for you ?” Now if a woman had said it to me, then I may not have thought too much about it.

However, let me state for the record that adoption is NOT the easy way to have kids. In fact, it is my belief that this is the most difficult emotionally draining process that I have ever gone through.

When we decided to start the adoption process, the standard wait time was 6 months from LID to Referral. Now, let’s for one moment pretend that a 6 month wait time was not a thing of the past. Even with a short 6 month wait, you are looking at about 6 - 9 months of paper chasing BEFORE you can even think about sending in your paper work, so a “normal” China adoption will take at least 12 months. Pregnancy is a 9 month (generally) process.

Now, believe me, I am not saying that pregnancy is easy either. My point is that since both process are intensive and both process take a long time, and both processes can wreck all sorts of emotional turmoil on the prospective parents, couldn’t we all just say that both are endeavors of love that take thier toll, and make the day that you get your child that much more special?

This comment is made all the more difficult to hear since we do not have a 6 month wait.. No good reader, we are, as of today, officially 7 months into our wait. So does that mean that we will hear any day now about our child? No. Right now the CCAA has been able to process up to September 27, 2005. We are June 27,2006. That means there are another 9 months ahead of us, full of people who are also waiting for a child. So we are anticipating at least another 12 - 18 months before we can even think about a referral.

This is all part of the process though, hurry up and file, and then wait… and wait… and wait… We know that the CCAA is doing thier best to meet the needs of an incredible increase in the number of dossiers being sent over, and so we patiently await the time we will be united with our daughter … Is it easy? NO… It is worth it.. ABSOLUTELY…