My Little Ponies

YAY! Today we went to Toys R' Us and bought (well not really) 8 My Little Pony toys for only $1.55 total. That was just paying for tax. It's cool that we're able to start putting aside some fun toys for dirt cheap now. I'm hoping our little one will have the same love for Strawberry Shortcake and My Little Ponies that I had! Jason even mentioned that we'll have to get a Cabbage Patch doll and let her fill out the adoption card.

We'll wait on that until she understands more. I don't want her to think we adopted her from a cabbage patch! ;)

Visiting Homeland Security

I'm a little delayed posting about our adventure to Jacksonville, but here we go.

We were scheduled to appear at Homeland Security in Jacksonville this past Monday at 8 AM. After map questing the address and plugging it in the GPS we learned it would take about an hour and a half. Of course giving the fact that we'd encounter rush hour traffic AND that we had no idea where we were going, we decided to leave at 5:30 AM and allow an extra hour.

Well, needless to say, at 7:40 AM after traveling about .4 miles in 30 miles and just chilling out on I-10, panic was the name of the game. We immediately got off the interstate praying that our dear friend TOM TOM would give us an alternate route. Well, he did. However, as we approached our last little turn we watched the clock...

7:50, 7:55, 7:58...okay, we're cutting it way too close! 8:00! Ahhhhh we weren't there on time! Oh no! We didn't arrive and step foot out of the car until 8:10 AM. We were so worried they wouldn't let us in. What would happen?

We approached the non-threatening building (nothing like the very tall and daunting building I'd envisioned) and went through a customs-like protocol. Instead of passing over our passports, we gave our ID's. Well actually, since Jason's license expired the week before on his birthday he DID use his passport. OH GOODNESS! I just realized, he SHOULD NOT have been driving! Thank goodness we didn't get pulled over!!!

Anywho, after going through the metal detector I quickly realized there were different areas inside this small room. Some people were instructed to place their yellow papers in a tray clearly marked for "yellow papers." We on the other hand, had to go and fill out a paper on a clipboard. A friendly employee showed us what to do, we filled out a short paper, turned it back in, and then waited. I thought this would take a while, but as Jason got up to go the restroom I warned "they are probably going to call you as soon as you walk away." Yup! Sure enough, right again Stacy. =)

Since I explained he'd stepped away, the same lady who had helped us fill out the correct paperwork called me back to get started. What I expected was a really bitter, unfriendly, underpaid, customs like official who was going to treat me in the most impersonal way possible. I couldn't have been more wrong! She was so nice. We exchanged personal thoughts (she's from Miami too) and I learned that there had been a terrible motorcycle accident which caused I-1o to back up. As she was working with me the other employee had called Jason back and helped him. Ten minutes later, we were done. Very surreal, but done!

Although everyone was very nice, I am not interested in going back any time soon.

On a side note, Jason heard someone on the yellow paper side of the room say "anyone here for ....'s naturalization, please come with me." Several people rose and approached the official. I'll have to say, as frustrated as we can all be with our country at times, it's pretty cool that this event could take place and that so many friends and family would feel so privileged to come witness it!

USCIS

We received our second letter from USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) today. They have scheduled us to visit their Jacksonville office on March 29th at 8:00AM. I will say...they were VERY speedy getting our second letter to us. Hopefully this is an indication of things to come.

I feel like I'm in trouble though. The fact that I have to visit USCIS makes me feel like they think I'm harboring illegal aliens or that they are going to quiz us to make sure our marriage is legitimate. Of course that is not what will happen, but it's just odd. I'm thinking we are going to leave the house VERY early that morning JUST IN CASE. That is NOT an appointment I want to miss.

I believe after that the estimation is 4-6 weeks to get clearance. At that time we'll have the last piece of documentation needed for our dossier and it can go to China. Hooray!

Another step in the right direction...

First Immigration letter and Chinese Consulate

This week has been pretty exciting! First,we got our first letter from immigration on Monday. This was to notify us that they received our application and let us know that we should be receiving directions for fingerprinting shortly.

Also, I had to send Yu Ping (our China liaison through WACAP) some pictures for our dossier. She responded to my email and let me know that our dossier documents are already at the Chinese Consulate. It has only been a couple of weeks since we mailed them out to Washington so I was very surprised (happily, of course) to learn that. That means that our dossier documents had already traveled from Washington State to Washington D.C. to be verified by the Secretary of State (thanks Hil!) and made the trip to Dallas to be authenticated by the Chinese Consulate. From here they'll go back to WACAP in Washington and be ready to send to China. The last document to complete the dossier will be our final immigration letter. Unfortunately, this is a few weeks away (4-6).

Yu Ping also explained that once our dossier reaches China it will be logged in and from there we can start looking for a match. So exciting!

On a different note, I got to catch up with a former co-worker today. She rattled off about 3 other past co-workers who are much younger than me and all having/had babies. She also let me know that she is expecting number 2. You know, that is still tough. It is not that I'm unhappy about our path...I actually couldn't imagine a more special route to parenthood. However, constant reminders of the path not taken are painful. I wish the hurt was completely gone. Maybe one day. I do know one thing though. Even when those situations become less painful, they will never be less memorable. I hope I'll be able to use my experiences to help those struggling with infertility or the choice of adoption.

Individual meetings & home visit preparations

Last week was a busy one! It was happy and tumultuous all at the same time. We finally announced our plans to the world, we had our individual meetings with the social worker, and are preparing for our home visit tomorrow morning.

The individual meetings were a unique experience. I just can't help but feel that every parent should have to go through this experience. She asked about domestic violence, substance abuse, our families, each other, strengths and weaknesses, and for us to rate ourselves and each other in many areas. At the end of my meeting she said that we did well and most everything was answered the same. She said we'd go over what didn't match at our next meeting.

After Jason and I compared notes we realized that we are SO on the same page. When she asked me what Jason would say my weakness was I told her that I get my mind set on things sometimes and can be quite relentless. Yep, that's what he said. She asked him the same question about what I'd say his weakness was...which had to do with communication. I said that sometimes he'll hold in his feelings, especially during challenging times, because he doesn't want to burden me when I'm already down. Of course, he hit the nail on the head. I'm thinking we need to go on the newlywed game or something. I couldn't believe how much we knew the other would say. The only thing we can think of that was off had to do with spirituality and religion. We had to rate each other and ourselves in this area on a scale of 1-10. I gave Jason a 5 but told her I thought it might be higher, but that this is not a big topic in our home. He told her he was a 7 but that I might guess lower. Hmmm... that's pretty accurate if you ask me!

We've been preparing our home this weekend for the home visit tomorrow morning. It feels good to do thorough cleaning and organizing, which we've been doing for weeks now. We've gotten rid of so much stuff! I am definitely in the nesting stage.

I'll update everyone tomorrow about the home visit.

LOTS of updates!

Okay, for today, I hope to explain a little about what we've been up to, breaking news and also a little more about the experience and things to come. We've actually learned a lot over the past 2 weeks which has been very exciting.

Let me start by saying that today was the day that we officially "broke the news." A few of you may have received paperwork to fill out on our behalf and some of you are receiving the news right now. In any case, there are no secrets and we feel very confident that everything will go our way.

Over the past few weeks we've been plugging along trying to complete the info contained in our homestudy packet. Not only are we completing paperwork for Catholic Charities, who is doing the homestudy, but also for the adoption agency itself. WACAP, the adoption agency has a homestudy coordinator who is working with us to make sure the homestudy is complete, providing additional paperwork, and making sure we fill out our immigration paperwork. We've also begun and completed several home improvement projects. Yes, I'm nesting! I just want everything perfect for the baby. With the help of my family we renovated our guest/baby bathroom, painted our hallway, did some thorough cleaning (dusting the blinds and all the crummy stuff nobody wants to do), and Jason laid the wood floor in the baby room. There is still a lot to do but we've made a lot of progress. Some of you will recruited shortly so I don't blame you for screening your calls if we give you a ring!!!

As far as the homestudy goes, we are meeting with Geralyn from Catholic Charities on Wednesday. This will be our individual meeting. We'll each speak with her for about an hour. I'm looking forward to seeing her because I have a couple of questions about our paperwork. She needs to sign off on a document stating we have had 10 hours of training (which I really think every parent should have). She also needs to help us fill out a portion of the immigration paperwork. Hopefully from there we'll schedule our next and I think last visit, which will be the home visit. I'm hoping to have all of the WACAP and Catholic Charities paperwork complete by Wednesday so we get hand it over. Once WACAP receives a copy of the homestudy they'll verify that everything is acceptable and send it along with our I-800A (immigration form) to be approved. Once immigration approves, they'll send us a lengthier form, instructions to be fingerprinted (again), and we'll begin our dossier.

We also got the instructions for assembling our dossier over the weekend. This is a list of documents to submit which will be sent to the issuing state to be verified, sent back to WACAP, and then sent all together to the Chinese Consulate in Houston to be authenticated. Then, all systems a go!

The great news is that we've almost finished the collection of documents for the dossier also. Some of these items will be notarized and some must be certified copies. We'll also need to do another local background check but we may wait until we receive the instructions from immigration about our fingerprinting so that hopefully we can complete both at the same time.

Finally, today was a very exciting day for another reason. We got the bedding I ordered!!! It is sooooo cute. The theme is Chinese cherry blossoms. When we get a little closer to final approval we'll order the furniture, which will be PINK. So fun!!! We're going to get a 4 in 1 crib because we may need more of a toddler bed then a crib or will not need the crib for too long. It seems more economical to purchase something that can stick with us for a while. If you want to see what the bedding looks like, google cherry blossom baby bedding by kidsline. Oh, and did I mention we're going to make a cherry blossom tree? It will be SO Extreme Home Makeover! I guess this is what happens when you have 5 years of pent up thinking and planning for this moment.

I'm sure I'm leaving out tons of info but I guess that's it for now. Let us know if you have any questions about the process. We're happy to share. Unfortunately, we don't get to "wear" our expectancy like most women, so it's nice to be able to share and relish every moment.

Homestudy, check...application in, check...excited, check!

Wow! A TON has happened since my last post. To start, we really sealed the deal with our decisions. We determined that WACAP was the agency for us, China was the country for us, and Catholic Charities was the homestudy provider for us. Not to mention, we came to a conclusion on which special needs we are willing to accept since we are adopting a waiting child.

This past Monday (12/14/09) we met with Geralyn Ryan from Catholic Charities. She is the social workers we have decided to use. It was very nerve-racking since her stamp of approval is such a huge deal. Anyway, she put us at ease (or should I say, "put ME at ease") right away. She was very kind and knowledgeable. She gave us a wonderful stack of papers to begin filling out. The stack includes things we need to gather like our marriage certificate, birth certificates, and pet vaccinations. It also includes documents to fill out all about us and our family as well as the info to get our background screenings done. Don't worry, we'll pass those without a problem! I came home right away and started plugging away at them. We also scheduled our second meeting which will be January 6th in which Geralyn will meet with each of us separately. After that she'll visit our home. I actually think we can have this part done by the end of February and begin to work on our dossier for China (if they've approved us by then). Once the dossier is complete, we wait! Hopefully within a reasonable time frame we'll be matched with a child and then will travel 3-5 months later to get her.

Yesterday I sent our WACAP application. Actually, I called and asked if it could be faxed since they are in Washington and I'm impatient. They said "yes" so now I'm just waiting to hear back from them. I spoke to Lieba yesterday and she said we'll have to fill out a pre-approval packet for China to determine that they'll qualify us. Some of the documents may be redundant from the homestudy so I'm waiting to find out what that will include before I do things like the background check. The fact that China has to pre-approve us is a little scary, even though I'm confident we'll be approved.

Off of the infertility roller coaster and on to the adoption roller coaster I guess. The good news is I know how this ride ends! :)

Jason asked over the weekend if we can name our little girl whatever we want. We still love the name Sophie so that may end up being the one we use. However, we'll be fortunate in that we'll see her face before we have to solidify a name. I guess that's one benefit we have with this process. We'll be looking at her picture for several months before we travel to pick her up.

On that note, I had my first adoption dream Monday evening. I dreamed that we arrived in China to meet our daughter and that she was beautiful. Jason took her in his arms. Next, my mom (played by my old next door neighbor) picked up the baby second. When I reached for her my "mom" said "she's my granddaughter, I'm holding her." When I replied "well I haven't held her yet and we're just meeting" the grandma backed away with her so I KICKED HER! I guess I'm already protective over what is so far a non-existent child. Watch out people!!! LOL

Well, to be continued... Time for me to go to bed and see what wild dream I have tonight!