This morning, I received a call from our case worker, Jenny, and she had great news for us! We have been matched with a beautiful baby girl in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC=formerly Saigon). She was born 6/22/07 and is residing in an orphanage in HCMC. I'm not allowed to post pictures of her on the internet yet--she is not officially "ours" until the Giving & Receiving Ceremony in Vietnam--but she's a chubby little cutie with a enormous shock of black hair!
I will be meeting with our pediatrician tomorrow so he can look at her pictures and review her medical records. Once we get his opinion that there doesn't appear to be anything amiss with her health or development (as much as he can tell from a few pictures and some lab tests anyway), then we will officially accept the referral and begin the wait until we can travel to get her. Unfortunately, that may not be until mid-February, according to Jenny. I can only hope and pray that it will be sooner, but I don't know how likely that is. I just want to hop on a plane right now and go scoop her up! It's going to be awfully hard to look at her pictures every day and wonder how she's doing and if she's getting enough love and attention. (She's obviously getting plenty of food, no worries there!)
At least that will give us enough time to agree on a name for the poor child. She has a Vietnamese name--I assume the orphanage director named her, but I don't really know-- but we will be giving her a new name when we adopt her. Let's just say her current first name starts with a "ph" and rhymes with "duck". And to think--I was worried about Richard getting the nickname "Dick" later on!
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Nothing new on the adoption front
Still waiting for our referral. I'm hopeful it will come soon. Meanwhile, I am keeping myself very busy planning that trip to Disney World. Heh, heh.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Soccer and baseball and swimming...oh my!
The kids' sports are keeping us hopping and summer is just flying by again. The Walmart flyer that came in the mail today had back-to-school stuff advertised. This always makes me a little sad, because summer is my favorite season and I hate the thought of another winter approaching.
I try to tell myself that this is a good thing this year, because it will make the wait for referral and travel to Vietnam seem quicker, but I'm not falling for that line. I still want summer to last all year 'round! My sister-in-law told me that my niece is moving to Florida, and I'm so jealous! Shorts-weather forever!! That's what I'm talkin' about! Someday....
I try to tell myself that this is a good thing this year, because it will make the wait for referral and travel to Vietnam seem quicker, but I'm not falling for that line. I still want summer to last all year 'round! My sister-in-law told me that my niece is moving to Florida, and I'm so jealous! Shorts-weather forever!! That's what I'm talkin' about! Someday....
Sunday, July 8, 2007
Did you miss me?
Ok, so it's been awhile. What's new on the adoption front you ask? Well, let's see...many fingerprints later, we finally finished our dossier and are officially DTV (Documents To Vietnam) around June 7th or so, and now are patiently awaiting a referral of a baby girl. According to our caseworker, this should happen in the next month or so, and then we would travel to Vietnam around 8-10 weeks later.
I'll tell you why I've been negligent toward this blog; I've been spending all my free time stalking the blogs of other adopting families. While this may seem unproductive, I've learned a great deal from those who have gone before me. We will be incredibly well-prepared when it's our turn to go. So it's all time well spent. Yep.
Lauren is home for the summer, staying at my mom's. She got a summer job as a housekeeper at Eagle Ridge Inn, so that's keeping her busy. Since it looks extremely unlikely that we will be able to travel to VN before she goes back to college, I don't know if she'll be able to go with us. I know she still wants to, but she'll have to see what her professors have to say about missing 3 weeks of classes. Doesn't look good. Possibly she could go with us, but return by herself in a week or something, but I'm not thrilled with the idea of her trying to make her way from Vietnam to Illinois by herself, and I don't think she'll be comfortable doing this either. We'll just have to wait and see.
In other news, I've joined CruiseOne as an independent home-based travel agent. I'm with a CruiseOne franchise in Dubuque; the owner was looking for someone to book cruises in our town. It sounded like fun, and something I can do at home with the kids and keep homeschooling, and maybe earn a little to add to the breadbasket. So I'm busy learning everything I can about cruising, sending out postcards, trying to get my name out there. Now I just need a dang customer!
Anybody want to take a cruise? Call me!!
I'll tell you why I've been negligent toward this blog; I've been spending all my free time stalking the blogs of other adopting families. While this may seem unproductive, I've learned a great deal from those who have gone before me. We will be incredibly well-prepared when it's our turn to go. So it's all time well spent. Yep.
Lauren is home for the summer, staying at my mom's. She got a summer job as a housekeeper at Eagle Ridge Inn, so that's keeping her busy. Since it looks extremely unlikely that we will be able to travel to VN before she goes back to college, I don't know if she'll be able to go with us. I know she still wants to, but she'll have to see what her professors have to say about missing 3 weeks of classes. Doesn't look good. Possibly she could go with us, but return by herself in a week or something, but I'm not thrilled with the idea of her trying to make her way from Vietnam to Illinois by herself, and I don't think she'll be comfortable doing this either. We'll just have to wait and see.
In other news, I've joined CruiseOne as an independent home-based travel agent. I'm with a CruiseOne franchise in Dubuque; the owner was looking for someone to book cruises in our town. It sounded like fun, and something I can do at home with the kids and keep homeschooling, and maybe earn a little to add to the breadbasket. So I'm busy learning everything I can about cruising, sending out postcards, trying to get my name out there. Now I just need a dang customer!
Anybody want to take a cruise? Call me!!
Monday, February 26, 2007
Still chasing those papers!
We had our home visit with our social worker on 2/22; I'm glad that's overwith! Thank goodness she didn't do any white-glove tests. She's writing up our homestudy now.
Things seem to be moving along pretty well now. We sent our I-600A application (applic. to bring an orphan into the US) to the USCIS (immigration) on 1/31; received our fingerprint referral notices on 2/17 (invitation from USCIS to go get our fingerprints taken), and we went to their Naperville office to have our fingerprints taken on 2/24. Unfortunately, my fingerprints are worn, and might be rejected. If that happens, I'll have to go back and have them retaken. They will send me a notice if this is the case, but I'm not sure when. Evidently that office just takes the prints (electronic scan), and they're sent to a different office to be read or whatever. This fingerprint issue did not surprise me, because I've had this problem before. Would you believe that in Illinois, you have to have your fingerprints taken 3 different times for international adoption? First is for DCFS--electronic scan--to be checked for history of child abuse. The woman who took my prints for that told me that they would probably be rejected because they were worn. Luckily though, those did pass.
Then the 2nd time was for FBI criminal clearance. That time we had to go to the sherriff's dept. and have the old-fashioned ink-and-roll prints taken on paper cards, and then we had to send them to the FBI in West Virginia. Don's passed, no problem, but my 1st set were rejected as poor quality prints, so I had to have them taken again and sent in a 2nd time. I'm still waiting to hear if they passed. So it came as no surprise when the woman at the USCIS office said they weren't very good prints. What can I say? I guess I just wore them away with my life of endless toil, lol!
SO, once we get my FBI clearance (if my 2nd prints pass muster), our social worker can finish our home study and send it to USCIS. Then (assuming my prints THERE are sufficient), we will be issued the all-important I-171-H form, which is our official government permission to adopt a foreign orphan and bring her/him into the US to become a US citizen.
(When I worked at Finley Hospital, we had a drug cart that required putting our index finger print on a little screen to be read, and this would open the cart for us to remove the med we needed. I could NEVER get that stupid cart to open for me--now I know why!! I suppose I could embark on a new career as a criminal of some sort--they'd never be able to catch me by using fingerprints!!)
I really hope we can get everything finished up and sent to Vietnam by late April or early May; then we might travel this summer. Lauren can only go with us if we travel in the summer.
Things seem to be moving along pretty well now. We sent our I-600A application (applic. to bring an orphan into the US) to the USCIS (immigration) on 1/31; received our fingerprint referral notices on 2/17 (invitation from USCIS to go get our fingerprints taken), and we went to their Naperville office to have our fingerprints taken on 2/24. Unfortunately, my fingerprints are worn, and might be rejected. If that happens, I'll have to go back and have them retaken. They will send me a notice if this is the case, but I'm not sure when. Evidently that office just takes the prints (electronic scan), and they're sent to a different office to be read or whatever. This fingerprint issue did not surprise me, because I've had this problem before. Would you believe that in Illinois, you have to have your fingerprints taken 3 different times for international adoption? First is for DCFS--electronic scan--to be checked for history of child abuse. The woman who took my prints for that told me that they would probably be rejected because they were worn. Luckily though, those did pass.
Then the 2nd time was for FBI criminal clearance. That time we had to go to the sherriff's dept. and have the old-fashioned ink-and-roll prints taken on paper cards, and then we had to send them to the FBI in West Virginia. Don's passed, no problem, but my 1st set were rejected as poor quality prints, so I had to have them taken again and sent in a 2nd time. I'm still waiting to hear if they passed. So it came as no surprise when the woman at the USCIS office said they weren't very good prints. What can I say? I guess I just wore them away with my life of endless toil, lol!
SO, once we get my FBI clearance (if my 2nd prints pass muster), our social worker can finish our home study and send it to USCIS. Then (assuming my prints THERE are sufficient), we will be issued the all-important I-171-H form, which is our official government permission to adopt a foreign orphan and bring her/him into the US to become a US citizen.
(When I worked at Finley Hospital, we had a drug cart that required putting our index finger print on a little screen to be read, and this would open the cart for us to remove the med we needed. I could NEVER get that stupid cart to open for me--now I know why!! I suppose I could embark on a new career as a criminal of some sort--they'd never be able to catch me by using fingerprints!!)
I really hope we can get everything finished up and sent to Vietnam by late April or early May; then we might travel this summer. Lauren can only go with us if we travel in the summer.
Tuesday, February 6, 2007
Here we go!
Ok, so I'm totally new at this. No clue what I'm doing, but I want to document our adoption journey, so I guess I'll give it a try.
A brief introduction: I'm Sue. My husband is Don, and we have 5 kids: Lauren (18), twins William & Anna (10), Richard (almost 7), and Thomas (4). Shortly after Christmas, we decided to expand our family thru international adoption. We initially planned to adopt from China, but China recently changed their rules and apparently Don's too old for them now, at his advanced age of 50! Also the wait time for a referral of a healthy child in China is rumored to be up to 2 years or more. We would still be eligible to adopt a special needs child from China, and we did consider this for a while, but we learned more about the Vietnamese program, and have decided this is what will work best for our family. The wait time is much shorter (Don's not getting any younger, ya know!), and we meet the requirements for that country.
We're now in the midst of what's known as "the paperchase". Just like it sounds, lots and lots and lots of paperwork and gathering forms and documents. We're also having the required home study done; we've met with the social worker twice at her office, and she'll be coming to do our home visit in late February. We hope to have all of our paperwork finished and sent to Vietnam by May, and then we wait to be matched with a baby. We're requesting a baby girl. Our agency is saying that right now, there is a very short wait for this match, also known as the "referral". Once we receive and accept our referral, (which I think amounts to a couple pictures of the child, basic info like name and birth date, and medical exam info) , then we wait about 2 months or so until we are given the go-ahead to be able to travel to Vietnam to adopt her.
The trip requires spending about 3 weeks in Vietnam to complete all of the appointments and paperwork there. At this time, we are planning to take the whole family on the trip, but Lauren will only be able to go if we travel during summer break. Taking 4 kids & a teenager on a 3 week trip to Vietnam may sound crazy, true enough; but no one at home is crazy enough to want to keep them that long either, I'm sure!
Time to make supper for the hungry hoard.
A brief introduction: I'm Sue. My husband is Don, and we have 5 kids: Lauren (18), twins William & Anna (10), Richard (almost 7), and Thomas (4). Shortly after Christmas, we decided to expand our family thru international adoption. We initially planned to adopt from China, but China recently changed their rules and apparently Don's too old for them now, at his advanced age of 50! Also the wait time for a referral of a healthy child in China is rumored to be up to 2 years or more. We would still be eligible to adopt a special needs child from China, and we did consider this for a while, but we learned more about the Vietnamese program, and have decided this is what will work best for our family. The wait time is much shorter (Don's not getting any younger, ya know!), and we meet the requirements for that country.
We're now in the midst of what's known as "the paperchase". Just like it sounds, lots and lots and lots of paperwork and gathering forms and documents. We're also having the required home study done; we've met with the social worker twice at her office, and she'll be coming to do our home visit in late February. We hope to have all of our paperwork finished and sent to Vietnam by May, and then we wait to be matched with a baby. We're requesting a baby girl. Our agency is saying that right now, there is a very short wait for this match, also known as the "referral". Once we receive and accept our referral, (which I think amounts to a couple pictures of the child, basic info like name and birth date, and medical exam info) , then we wait about 2 months or so until we are given the go-ahead to be able to travel to Vietnam to adopt her.
The trip requires spending about 3 weeks in Vietnam to complete all of the appointments and paperwork there. At this time, we are planning to take the whole family on the trip, but Lauren will only be able to go if we travel during summer break. Taking 4 kids & a teenager on a 3 week trip to Vietnam may sound crazy, true enough; but no one at home is crazy enough to want to keep them that long either, I'm sure!
Time to make supper for the hungry hoard.
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