The Dreaded Needle

On Monday we finally got our physicals completed.  All four of us which was quite a shock seeing as the boys were just supposed to be "checked in" since they were new patients.  However the doctor was super awesome and did all of them that day because he said he wanted to be sure we all had our results at the same time so we wouldn't have to wait any longer.  I thought that was super nice of him, he really is a great doctor.

I totally hate needles, especially that darn TB test.  Being in the education profession I knew what I was getting myself into and this time around she jabbed me so hard it bruised me, and I don't bruise easy. :(

On May 1st my notary will be coming with me to the local police station to get our records notarized and then we will head over to the doctors office to notarize our physicals.  I hate that everything is only open during business hours since I work business hours.  Taking off work while trying to adopt is frustrating.  I get out for the summer the second week of June, but I hope to have my Dossier done by then so we can go to Chicago in June for authentication.

I'm excited to get our home study finished so I can file my I-800 and apply to the Waiting Child Program. So much rests on just having that done.  The hardest part is all the waiting!!

In the meantime I will just keep reading other people's blogs, pray, and rejoice with them.

So close I can see a little light

We have been working for quite some time now on pulling together our Dossier.  We have worked diligently on getting everything we need as quickly as possible so we can move onto the next step and get our baby girl here quicker.

A couple things we are waiting on:

• Two reference letters
• Jordan's Employment Verification letter written by a CPA
• List of our Month Bills / Financial statement
• Police Clearances 
• Our physicals
• And our picture pages
• Jordan's Passport
• Home Study to be completed
• File our I-800 and then complete that process (fingerprinting)

Looking at the list it seems like a lot but when I see that list I see the end drawing near and it excites me!  

I know one of the reference letters is already completed we are just waiting for it to be notarized. We actually found a CPA and will be talking to him on Monday and he has already agreed to write the letter for us. Jordan can just take an hour and compile all our finance stuff with no problem. The doctor did ALL of our Physicals today even when he wasn't originally going to.  Picture pages are a snap to put together.  Once our physicals and Jordan's passport comes in we can send them over to our Social worker and have our final meeting with her to close the study.  Once we close our study we can file our I-800 papers.  

I'm so stinking excited!  What started out as a dream, and casually talked about through the years is finally coming to fruition and I will have my baby girl with me.  

When I write this I know it will sound like we will bring her home soon, however this is just the end of the first BIG step.  We will still have a lot of wait time on the government and other agencies.  The referral process can take a long time too.  

Nevertheless it is still very exciting to be able to put a check mark next to this step in the process.  

We've all got Questions

Currently I am reading a book called "Cross-Cultural Adoption" How to Answer Questions from Family, Friends, and Community. It is such a good book and has given me many tools to be able to answer some of the most common questions about adoption.  

If any of you know me on a personal basis you know that I am a talker so I love to answer questions.  So should you ever have any please feel free to ask.  In the meantime I loved this book so much that I wanted to post some of it's contents on here to benefit others.  

This post is specifically for my friends/family who have young children.  I am asking you if you would please have a discussion with your children about adoption and about us adopting.  In the book it gave a real life story about a family who brought home their 3 year old daughter from China, Lily, while at a family gathering Lily's cousin was asked to go sit by her at the dinner table.  "Daniel go sit by your cousin at the dinner table."  Daniels response; "But she's not my real cousin!  She's Chinese!"  

Although his remark was innocent it was also painful for Lily's family and for Lily.  Even at 3 children can still understand and Lily was effected by it.  The error in this story was not so much the comment that Daniel made about Lily but rather that it happened because his parents did not prepare Daniel and explain to him what adoption is.  

So what does "adopted" mean?  Seeing as I'm asking you to talk to your children about this, I wanted to take an exert from the book that lays it out in a way for children to understand.

Adoption is one way of making a family.  Families are made in many different ways.  Most times, to have a child, a mom and a dad get together and make a baby.  Another way that a child joins a family is through adoption.  That means the child grew in one woman's  belly but another family raise the child.  The child is "adopted" by the family.  A child can be adopted at any age - from a newborn baby to a teenager!

Lots of people are adopted, and every family is different. Some families have one parent, and some have two.  Some children are raised by grandparents or step-parents.  What makes people a family is that they love and care for each other.

-Cross-Culture Adoption by Amy Coughlin and Caryn Abramowitz.