It's Official--dossier approved

YAY! We got the word this afternoon that our dossier was "perfect" according to the email. WOOHOO! Huge chunk of paperwork done and getting ready to head to Ethiopia.

Feeling relieved and excited. It was nice to get some good news with all the other stuff going on.

So now what? Well, we still need to do our I-600A form and get fingerprinted in Milwaukee. We are likely going to wait until early next year to do this. Why? Well, strangely and stupidly your fingerprints expire after 15 months. You get a one time free extension but it is kind of a hassle. We are hoping to avoid this. Even dumber the actual form expires after 18 months. I know doesn't make sense but such is government paperwork. So we wait. We just need to have it before we can travel.

We are one more step closer to having Little Man in our home. I can hardly believe it. We have lots to keep us busy as we continue to wait.

Little Man Update

I haven't talked much about our journey to our Little Man as they just hasn't been much to say until now. We are DONE with the paperchase. Dossier went out in the mail today. It took me so much longer to complete the paperchase this time but I have a little more on my plate than I did 2 1/2 years ago when I did this last time :)

So as I wrote out more checks than I write in 6 months today, photocopied a bazillion pieces of paper twice and tried to figure out how to fit all of this paper in an envelope, I got a little misty eyed. The journey seems more real now. Before it was just kind of out there like yeah we are adopting and we are officially waiting etc. But today it kind of sunk in. This is real. We just mailed off our entire life to bring our son home. We still have lots of waiting left to do but today I feel like our Little Man's space in my heart got a little bit bigger.

We are still at least 1 year away from seeing his face for the first time. Next summer. We could see his face in our email next summer. Wow. As to when he will be with us forever. Tough to say. The process is taking a lot longer with the two trip rule. Based on current estimated wait times which I am well aware may change but it appears we will wait around 20/21 months for our referral which puts us in July/August of next year.

We would then need to travel for court. However we will very likely hit court closure again next year. This year courts in Ethiopia are closed from August 6 (or so) until the end of September with the reality that it will likely be weeks into October before things are fully up and running. So if that stays true for next year, the earliest we would travel for the first time is next fall sometime. We had hoped our son would be home for Christmas 2011 but reality is setting in that he will likely not be home until 2012. I hope I am wrong but I am trying to not be overly optimistic only to be disappointed when things change. Been there done that and it is a nasty roller coaster ride that I am trying to avoid this time around.

I know the wait is long but really I am okay with it. First, I have Kiya to keep me plenty busy. It gives us time to work on her needs and medical stuff. It gives us a chance to hopefully get her out of diapers before baby brother comes home. Second, we stuck with the same agency even given the long waits because getting a son fast is not our goal. Sure we could have switched to some agency that would have produced a son for us in no time at all but at what cost???

So we hit 8 months of officially waiting this coming Sunday. Little Man, just know that Mom, Dad and your Big Sister are waiting for you. We will wait as long as it takes. We are praying for you, your first family and all those that will be taking care of you along the way.

Full plate

My plate is getting VERY full. With all of the things written on the calendar for Kiya, appointments for me and a major landscaping project in the works, the next couple of months are going to be a tad hectic.

I was ready for this and then today I got THE email. The email that gives us the go ahead to start our dossier for Little Man. We have been waiting just over 6 months so the time has come. So in the next 2 months I have A LOT of paperwork to do and gather. The paperchase has begun again....:)

Add to this already full schedule and I am committing myself to being a better transracial parent. Recently I have added a few new blogs to my blog roll. A couple of blogs written by adult adoptees and a transracial parenting blog started by other adoptive parents who are taking a Crash Course in Transracial Parenting suggested by John Raible.

Being a parent is a tough job. Being a transracial parent is a tougher job. My daughter and my son will face things in life that I won't truly be able to understand but I need to try. I have to try. No I have to do. My daughter is young and as she gets older we will have to face some challenges as will my son. Judgements and assumptions will be made about them and it is my job to be the best advocate for my kids when they aren't able to speak for themselves.

My children will have questions, lots of questions. They will face stereotypes, they will face racism which are things I have no first hand knowledge of. How do I get this knowledge. Learn from others. Hence the crash course and my new blogs. I can learn a lot from adult adoptees who have walked the path my children will. Struggling with who they are, where they fit in, how to feel about birth family, culture, etc.

I am ready to learn, ready to be open minded and ready to focus on the tough stuff.

Little Man Update

Our home study is just about done :) Our social worker has all of the paper work she needs.

I contacted our agency and learned something today. The process has changed. For Kiya, we had to have our home study approved, then we did everything for our dossier and once that was approved we were added to the list or deemed officially waiting.

This time....once our home study is approved we are officially waiting. That's right, our home study could be on it's way to CHSFS for approval this week. Which means, that by Thanksgiving (hopefully) we should be officially waiting for our son. That is just a few weeks away.

So what about our dossier? Well, after a few months of waiting, a dossier specialist will contact us for that part of the process.

It is exciting to think we will be officially waiting again soon but I was looking forward to having the bulk of the paper work finished too. Oh well, at least I can get through Kiya's birthday, the holidays, etc and not have to worry about paper work.

We are on our way, Little Man :)

Let the paperchase begin :)

It's official. We have started the paperchase for our Little Man. Our social worker came over today to update our homestudy. One of these times, just maybe I could get through the homestudy update without tears...Guess we will find out at the next update.

So what is next? I am going to begin gathering dossier documents. CHSFS won't review our application until the first week of November so the plan is to have everything mailed into them prior to that so when we hit the magic date all paperwork is in. If I can pull it off on my end and all things fall into place on the receiving end, we hope to be officially waiting again by the end of November for our Little Man aged 0-18 months.

WOW! Could we maybe bring home a toddler? Yes we could or it could be an infant we are open. The only thing we know for sure is that our Little Man will be younger than Kiya. We are super excited and ready to just get the paperwork in and focus on our little girl. Little Man will be always in our hearts and we will wait for him with more patience (hopefully) as we are more prepared for all that the wait means.

Current quoted wait times are 12-18 months for a referral with 3-5 months post referral for travel. We are expecting to wait much closer to the 18 month plus mark for a referral and are hopeful the post referral wait stays about the same. So we are planning for at least a 2 year process but more likely 2 1/2 years to maybe even 3 years. Kiya will likely be over 3 years old when our Little Man joins the family.

As we have learned things change all the time in international adoption, we are just hopeful for a smooth process without a lot of unnecessary delays. We will wait and pray as long as we need to for our son. It will all happen when it is supposed to. We just pray that Ethiopian adoptions stay stable and ethical and that we will be blessed with a little boy who shares the cultural background of our daughter.

Little Man update

So we turned in our application and as I posted we were told that we were going to have to wait until Kiya is home 6 months to continue. Well we got a glimmer of hope last week that we might not have to wait after all.

We got an email and our application part 2 packet in the mail so we were excited to think that we were moving forward with the paperchase. Then the call came last Friday, that nope we are in fact in a holding pattern until November. Oh well....

Could we push it? Maybe. Would it work? Probably not. Could we switch agencies? Yup. Are we going to? Nope. We picked CHSFS for a reason. We trust them. It is a good fit for our family. It may not be a good fit for other families but for us it works. Will we pay more and wait longer? Maybe. But in the end it isn't about how long you wait but how ethical is your agency. In fact I get a little suspicious of agencies that pop up with just a few months to referral. Sure it could just be that they are a new agency, totally ethically and just don't have a lot of families waiting yet. Or maybe it isn't....

Also, the time spent finding another agency and learning their system may make these extra months not worth it. Our local social worker is also very familiar with the requirements for CHSFS so we know that their won't be a delay there either.

So Little Man's paper chase will pick up again in September.

One more step....

Well here are the two envelopes that went to the post office today. One is Kiya's certificate of citizenship application and one is the application headed to CHSFS for our Little Man :)

Today overall was a great day minus one little detail. The good stuff is:

1) We got all of the important paperwork out of the house and in the mail.
2) We found out from Kiya's doctor that all of her vaccines from Ethiopia were valid and did in fact take.
3) We cosponsor a child at AHOPE with a group of other families and when I got home today the info was in the mail. A very beautiful 9 year old girl who loves basketball and math. It warmed my heart to see her face and makes me want to do more.

The not so good stuff:

1) CHSFS changed their reapplication process. It now states that you have to have been home for 6 months with your child before you can reapply for a 2nd adoption. I found this out after going to the post office and mailing our application. So technically the process for our Little Man is on hold until November. I will still try and get some things together while we are waiting to officially start again.

When I first got this news I was really bummed and part of me still is. This extra few months could be the difference of waiting through 1 court closure versus 2. Then it hit me. Our son will find us when the timing is just right for both of us. God has a hand in this whole process and we trust that and believe that. Little Man we are here for you when you are ready and we pray for your family now and always. You aren't even a glimmer yet but we love you already and will wait for as long as we need to.

What's new??

Sorry I have been gone awhile...this week was a little nuts. Peanut has been sick. She has been vomiting her solid food but not always just sometimes. It is kind of gross but she seems to be feeling better.

We took her in to see the doctor and she advised us to stay off of solids through the weekend to give her stomach a break. We were going to do that but since she successfully had eaten some bananas before the doctor told me this we are just doing away with cereal for now. The doctor thinks stomach bug; we think it might be a texture thing. The cereal was getting too thick so she would play with it in her mouth, get too much then gag and sometimes vomit.

It has been a roller coaster ride with Miss Peanut and her food issues but we are working on it and will get it straight eventually.

Other than that our readoption hearing is next Wednesday. YEAH! Then there is some more paperwork for Peanut after that and then we move on to the paperchase for our son. Still working on a nickname. Butter is out (sorry). In the running are Finch (think To Kill a Mockingbird), Sprout, Pickle, and Lil Man.

We hope to be officially waiting again by mid-November at the latest.

Still waiting....

We are still waiting on the news. We should hopefully hear something tomorrow or at least this week. Hopefully...don't people know I HATE waiting. Oh well....

Peanut is such an amazing baby. She now sits up by herself and she is making new sounds every day. She also stands when assisted and this for the baby that was bearing little weight on her legs just 2 months ago. She has outgrown the 3-6 month clothing and is comfortably wearing 6-9 month stuff.

She is becoming a little picky in the food department in that her bottles need be warm and the right warm and she is not a fan of peaches or it appears apricots.

She still LOVES her sleep and sleeps 10-12 hours a night. Her random night time crying has phased out and when she does do it it is for less than 1 minute and she is back to sleep. She is still taking 3 naps a day though we are trying to phase out the 30 minute or less mid morning nap as half the time she rarely sleeps so it doesn't appear necessary.

We are 15 days away from our readoption hearing and 16 days away from officially beginning the paper chase for our son. I am working on a nickname that goes with Peanut for him.

Peanut pictures!!

How could you not fall in love with that smile?? Isn't she sweet? She is hopefully getting over her ear infection on this new medication. She is sleeping through the night 10-12 hours and then has the morning nap thing down. She will go down between 8:30/9am for a nap and then wake up between 10:30/11am for food. Afternoon naps are a work in progress but she will usually take a short one sometime after 1pm and then is in bed by 8pm after a bath of course.

I made up some leave in conditioner for her hair and that works fabulously. I haven't tackled a hairstyle beyond putting a headband in but I will soon. She has so much hair and it is a little intimidating.

We have also filed our court paperwork and are awaiting word on when our hearing will be so things are moving in the right direction.

As I write this Peanut is alternating between sucking her finger and thumb and squealing/laughing in delight while playing in her swing. So very in love with this little girl.

Birthday, paperwork and Birth to 3

Today is my birthday. I am officially 33 years young and finally realizing my dreams of motherhood. I couldn't ask for a greater gift than my beautiful daughter.

I started the morning meeting with our social worker as we have more paperwork to do. We have to readopt Peanut in Wisconsin so our social worker dropped that off today. After a follow up phone call with her, I have it all filled out and just have to take it to the county court house. We are hoping to get a court date in the next 4-8 weeks. Once we are done with that we can apply for a certificate of citizenship and social security number for Peanut. And we can start the paper chase for her little brother. We would like to be back on the wait list sometime this fall since the wait for referral has gotten a lot longer we want to get a jump on it. Maybe by the time Peanut is 3 we will have her little brother home too.

After our meeting, I called the Birth to 3 program to set up an assessment for Peanut. We are a little concerned about how little weight she bears on her legs but she is getting better every day. We figured it doesn't hurt to call and see what they have to say or even offer in terms of one time or continual support. She may not qualify for additional resources but we won't know unless we have her evaluated. I am waiting for them to call me back to set up the appointment. It is great that they will come out to our house even.

You may wonder how so much has been done today, well PEANUT IS NAPPING!!! I can hardly believe it. She was up at 8am took half a bottle and was asleep again a little after 9am and has stayed asleep on her back in her crib. Could this be a sign of a regular nap time??? I sure hope so. Her naps are so all over the place right now. She is teething which isn't helping but maybe just maybe this is progress.

Keeping Busy

I am tyring to keep myself busy so I don't count the days until our court date (38) all the time. February has been a good distraction with lots of plans on the weekends but my days off are what is tough.

I really have no desire to keep cleaning closets and organizing stuff yet that is the stuff that needs to get done. So what did I do today??? Nope didn't clean any closets...

I ordered copies of my birth certificate, copies of our marriage licence and copies of Dave's birth certificate. Now why did I do this...Well we know that we are going to adopt again and most likely again after that (Yes if you are the counting type, we would LOVE to have 3 children).
And me not knowing what I was doing the first time around didn't order enough copies of vital records so I figured why not order them now and then when we can start filling out paperwork again I won't have to wait for those. Yeah! Just wish I would have thought about this the first time. Getting vital records from CA is a process.

Other than that I am ordering new blinds for the back of our house. You see we only did the front of the house and just hung cheap curtains in the other windows and those just don't keep the light out of a sleeping babies room.

I am also going to schedule carpet cleaning for sometime in the next 2 months that way all the carpets will be clean for Peanut's arrival. I will most likely jump back on the cleaning/organizing wagon soon. I want to clean out the pantry, finish the office which I haven't gotten back to since referral day and plan a list of food to cook in advance and freeze for when we are first home with Peanut.

So I definitely have things to do but it is just so hard to put down a good book. Yes, still reading "There is no me without you". My heart just aches for these children and yet I am inspired by the kindness of some and shocked by the greed of others. Still pondering all of this and my what my role could be to do more...

Watercolor inspiration and more paperwork

I just picked this watercolor up from being framed. We purchased this watercolor at least 8 and maybe 9 years ago at an Art and Wine show in California. Long before having a family was really in our hearts. I just loved it. It was the inspiration for the mural on the wall in the nursery. I can't wait to hang it on the wall and check that off on the list on things to do to get peanut's room ready.


We sent in our paper work to officially accept our referral today. We had accepted via email last Wednesday but had to sign some things and turn those in. I was so excited to open my email today and find 3 emails from my specialist. We have to sign some more paperwork and get that notarized and turned in hopefully next week. Then we got some travel instructions, and examples of how to fill out some paperwork that we will need to take to the US Embassy in Addis Ababa.

I also found out that our state requires that we get an adoption bond and we have to send that to the Department of Family Services once we get it. It took a little doing with our insurance agent but they figured it out and our sending us the application.

So other then learning about all the new paperwork, today I am washing the new things we bought for peanut and then in a couple days after they have our scent, I will send those off to her. Peanut, we hope you like what we send you. We wish we could send ourselves to hug you and love on you in person but our pictures will have to do. We think of you every minute of every day. We fall more in love with you each moment. May these next months pass quickly and we can be united as a family.