Play date

Today we had a play date at my sister's house. We met up with a mom who adopted her son from Guatemala. He's 2 years old and just as cute as can be. He got along great with my nephews and his mom showed us all her pictures from their trip to Guatemala. You can see pictures I took today here.

Punish the brave

I'm going to climb up on my soapbox for a minute just so I can rant a little and wave my fists around. It won't change anything, but it will make me feel better. The picture above is of my Effexor XR. I take them for anxiety. And since China changed their regulations, the simple fact that I take the above pills on a daily basis means I can't adopt from China now. China can do what it wants, and some of the new regs I understand. I don't agree with a lot of them, but I can see where China would feel the way they do. But the one that really sticks in my craw is the one where they say that depression and anxiety are severe mental illnesses and if you've been treated for either in the last 2 years you're barred. I think you'd be hard pressed to find a whole heck of a lot of people who've gone through the agony of infertility and come out without some sort of depression or anxiety. And to those who then went and got help, I say bravo. Would China rather a give a child to a woman who desperately needs help and lies or denies herself treatment just to get the child? Or a woman who realizes hey, depression and anxiety can be treated and I can have a normal, positive life if I just admit I need help? A correctable chemical imbalance does not a bad mother make.
Ok, getting off my soapbox now.

One door closes...

I realized that I haven't explained yet if we're still adopting from China. As our social worker told us "That option is closed to you now". So no, we're not adopting from China. It feels like a break up. We've been in love with China and our Chinese baby for 2 years. We've collected books, art, toys, all sorts of stuff about China. I even started learning Chinese (of course I only got as far as the basic phrases including "I'm an American and don't speak Chinese". A fact that I'm sure was painfully obvious).
We're still going to be parents of a child of another race. But I need to keep the country of her origin private for now. Until we get a referral. When will that be? Our dossier will be complete in about 100 days or when we get our 171 H (immigration approval) and then it will be sent to the country. When we get our referral will then be based on how many available babies there are and how far down the list we are. We're hoping for 3 months or less after dossier submition. Then some legal things need to be taken care of and our dossier will need to get processed in country. Bottom line is we're hoping to have our baby home by or around Christmas. But that could always change, as international adoption is unpredictable. We're still asking for a girl. Not holding our breath for twins. Apparently they are extremely rare in this country. After we get our girl we'll go back for a boy. Jon's decided he wants one of each and we figure we might as well take advantage of the one thing we can control in this whole adoption and build the classic family. I just can't wait.

Oh, by the way, hello and welcome to my new readers! I've noticed some new names in the comments lately and I appreciate you stopping by. Sit back, relax, have a cup of tea! Enjoy the insanity that is my life while we stumble along toward parenthood.

Adoption Update

That my friends, is our i600A form heading off to the USCISSCIS whatever, office on Monday. It arrived safe and sound on Tuesday. I was so nervous sending it off with the check. And I mail a bigger check than that every month for our mortgage. But this check made me sweat. I wanted to hand deliver it. But I trusted UPS and they delivered. And now we count. Our SW is saying there's about a 100 day wait on approval so that's our estimate on about when our dossier will be complete. And then we wait for a referral. Some of you have asked about when we should get our child. We don't know for sure, but we have an estimate. Until then we're keeping things hush hush on the bloggy front. Don't wanna jinx it, and we'd like to keep this at least semi private until it's kind of a done deal with a referral. I will tell you we're still asking for a girl, would like twins but hear they are incredibly rare. So you'll still hear about Ling Ling. We are sending our periodic adoption updates via email to friends and family. If you aren't on the list and would like to be, shoot me an email heyshannyATgmailDOTcom.

Mama & Daddy to be

Thank you for all of your good luck vibes! Our SW visit was nice and laid back. SW even brought her adorable little girl who was adopted from China. She's 2 now and was so sweet. By the end of the 2 hour visit she was climbing all over me, shoes and socks strewn about the family room, and playing with the pugs. So, we're approved and now we start the NC paperchase!

Snork

Well, I spent the weekend trying to get over this nasty plague. I'm up to the sneezing, coughing, snorking phase now. Meanwhile, CSP spent the weekend installing all of the lighting fixtures we've had sitting in boxes for weeks. He put up ceiling fans in the family room, kitchen, screened in porch, & master bedroom; lighting in the entry, hallways (up & down), breakfast room, laundry, half bath, master closet & master bath. AND he hung the big mirror in our master bath. Our house is finally starting to look more like a home. I CAN NOT wait to be able to start painting! And hanging things on the walls! Ooh, just remembered I need to take a photo of the m.bath, but I have been updating my 365 project with photos of his hard work. Click here to check, check, check- check it out.

Oh, and please keep good thoughts for us as we have our social worker visit tomorrow. She has to check out the new digs and make sure we're still fit to be parents.

Just gimme a sign

So, as we've discussed, CSP & I have been discussing what to do about our adoption. I've been praying on it every night. Well, I've been praying for children for a loooong time, but just recently I've been asking for guidance and direction about our adoption and what to do. I know some might find it kooky or whatever, but I really do feel like God has a plan for us and that everything happens for a reason. There's a quote I saw recently that summed up what's been going on lately.

"We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the
life that is waiting for us." - EM Forster.

And then Thursday a man walked into my home and basically told me exactly what we needed to do about our adoption. I mean, he didn't lay it all out with a Power Point presentation or pie graphs. He basically heard me on the phone with Jon talking about it and told me he didn't mean to over hear but...... And the next thing you know it was just all so clear. I don't want to get in to too much detail until we have something concrete to really tell you, but I can say I feel a whole lot better about the situation. And it feels good to have a plan in motion again. I'm excited. And Jon's excited. And I really think it's gonna work out this time.

In stitches

I got my stitches out on Friday. That's what my wound looked like before. It's healing pretty nicely now. My doctor said I'm doing really well. I still have some achey pain if I try and lift anything too heavy or bend my hand a certain way, but I can't tell you how cool it is to wake in the morning brace free and be pain free!

As far as the 365 project goes...I'm using Photoblog for this project. They put your pictures in a cool calendar format so it's easy for me to keep to the project. Click here to see my progress so far. A whole 2 days worth!

Something else I wanted to share with y'all is this beautiful box my little sister Morgan made for Jon & me for Christmas. It's to hold mementos from our adoption journey. I love it so much. Please click to enlarge. She stained the wood and hand painted the lady bug. On the edge of the lid she painted "Our Journey". I've planned on writing letters to Ling Ling and this is the perfect place to store them with other mementos.

Adoption Update: the new regulations

So, as many of you have already heard, the CCAA has issued new regulations for adopting from China. I'm touched by the amount of email I've received from you guys regarding the new regs and how or if they could effect us. When the rumors started I got in contact with our agency to discuss our options as there are a few of the requirements that we will not meet.
Here is where we stand: we could send our dossier to China, have it go through the process there and wait for who knows how long up to and including a year, to have China turn us down if they make their new regs retroactive. We would lose a LOT of money and time and would be emotionally devastated. Plus then we'd have to start the process over with another country.
Or we we could send our dossier to China, have it go through the process there and wait for approximately 2 years and be referred a child or twins. That would be ideal (minus the looooong wait).
Or we pull out of China and go with a different country within our agency. We're not crazy about this option as we would prefer not to adopt from the other countries that our agency works with for various reasons including cost, multiple trips, etc. CSP's job will not allow for multiple or long trips to Eastern Europe, and our bank account won't allow for the higher costs that come with adopting from there or Guatemala.
Or we could pull out of China and go with another country and another agency. This would mean forfeiting the approx. $5000 we've already paid to our agency, but we'd be able to go with our 2nd choice for country.
Or we could go domestic. We'd discussed this before we chose China, and for various reasons we are not crazy about that idea. We don't want the birth parents finding us or bumping into us at T@rget. And we especially couldn't handle it if the birth parents changed their minds on us and took our baby away. Fostering is another option but neither of us could handle them taking a child away from us after we'd bonded with him/her.
Our social worker is scheduled to come here for our new house inspection on the 16th. Before she comes we have some decisions to make. We've been talking everything over and doing a lot of praying and consulting with our nearest and dearest on our next course of action.

Whatever we decide we may keep it a private decision for a while. This whole thing has been emotionally draining. I've been very blue over the last few weeks because of it. The idea of abandoning China breaks my heart. We've been in love with China and Ling Ling for 2 years now. We've worked so hard to prepare for her. Leaving China feels like leaving Ling Ling and that hurts. But when we discussed adoption at the start we knew we didn't care where our children came from, we just wanted them to come home.

Picking up where we left off

We're all moved in, the checks have cleared. We've taken care of all the business necessary when you move across state lines- new driver's licenses, car tags, etc. Now, we're ready to begin again with our paper chase and get this adoption finished! There are lots of things we have to do differently now that we're in NC vs SC, and some things we have to revise- like parts of our autobiography that describe our home and its proximity to hospitals and schools and whatnot. I've already got my call in to the social worker to come check out the new house- unpacked boxes and all! I plan on doing everything within my power to make this the fastest dossier put together the world has seen. We're tired of waiting. We've sold our house and made our move for our girls, and now, we want our babies home.

We have an aggressive agenda today folks

Lots to tell you, so sit back & get comfy.

-If you're participating in the Halloween BPOH- remember to post your pics tomorrow! I can't wait to see everyone's spooky haunts!

-We closed on the old house today. Woohoo! It's done! We no longer own 2 homes AND we cleared enough $ to finish our dossier! So excited about that! We'll still need to save for the China trip, but I'm just thrilled I can get this finished up. I totally cried at the closing table because of it. Also because I was literally running on 1 hour's sleep. We procrastinated and frankly just have too much crap, and I can barely walk cause of my knee so it took forFREAKINGever to clear out the old house. We pulled an all nighter and got to bed at 6:30 this morning to get up at 7:30 to leave at 8 for the closing. We came home and crashed til 6pm today. I'm seriously doing some major purging of stuff and having a ginormous yard sale.

-Got my MRI results finally. Too bad I'm not a pro athlete, I would have had those results by the time Sports Center came on. I have an old football injury. I tore my ACL, I have a ton of fluid in my joint that must be drained (don't like the sound of that), and there is deterioration around my patella. Patella sounds like a dish at Olive Garden. I go in the morning to the Orthopedist (sp) to see what's next. I pray I won't have to have surgery. Or if I do maybe they can do a 2fer and take care of my arms at the same time. I wouldn't mind if they threw in some lipo, a tummy tuck, butt reduction and a pedicure while I'm out.

-I'm officially an old fogey. Lots of those combo restaurants going up- you know half Taco Bell half KFC? Those types. I don't like it. Don't mess with the formula. I don't wanna go somewhere where they are a seafood/Mexican joint. Stick to one theme. I don't want my egg rolls hanging out with my pizza.

-Sharing is caring: if you need anything from Sephora now's the time to get it. Enter JACKPOT for your coupon code and you'll get a goodie bag FULL of fabulous super sized samples. Everything from lotion to perfume to lip gloss.

Ok, I think that's it for now. Thanks for your time, you can go back to your day now.