5150 Miles to Motherhood

2012? How did that happen?

2012-01-25T08:32:00.004-06:00

Hi all! I have nothing profound, cute, witty, or even informational to post. But I just wanted to say HI and Happy New Year!! We are still here, and still awaiting being matched with Klaudia's little bro or sis.

The holidays and 4th birthday were great -- a very busy time! Klaudia is all 4 year old now, and we are impressed and amazed every day at her growth, wit, and plain old cuteness. I know everyone thinks their child is the most amazing child, but mine really is. ;-)

Here is a photo of K at her school holiday program, and a photo the morning of her 4th birthday.

Where Are My People?

2011-11-15T15:55:00.004-06:00

The other day while driving to school, Klaudia asked me, "Where are my people?" I knew exactly what she meant. But instead I said, "Your people? Well…that is your family. Mommy, Daddy and Klaudia, we are family, and we are each other's people." She responded, "No, I mean my other people." Well now. It had come back to me, the times she asked about her jewelry box, kitchen magnet, and the angel on her wall, when I had said, "Those are from Poland, made by people from Poland, your people." Now, I said that in the most light-hearted affectionate way (months ago, by the way). But it really stuck.

She followed with "And my brother or sister is in Poland?" "Yes," I smiled, "just like you, your brother or sister was born in Poland." "I want to see her," she responds. "Me too." "I want to go there," she whines. "Me too." "How do we go there?" Fair question. "Well, when it is time, we will get on an airplane. Mommy, Daddy and Klaudia will get on an airplane and go to Poland, and stay there in a hotel with your brother or sister." I continued, "We will spend time together, and see lots of places in Poland, then we will bring your brother or sister home to Klaudia's house forever." "Forever?" she questioned and laughed. "Yes, because we are family." She was quiet the rest of the drive, but went happily to school after giving lots of kisses.

No real news to report on the adoption. We remain in the waiting stage. We have begun the process of updating our homestudy and will have to redo our immigration approval. Ah well.

We are very much excited for fun holidays this year. And Klaudia is excited for her 4th birthday that is around the corner too. She has already asked for about 100 things for her birthday!

Polish Fest?

2011-04-29T15:01:00.000-05:00

Who's going?? WE ARE!! Will we see you there? I've never been to Milwaukee before, let alone Polish Fest, so I'm super excited. Even better will be meeting families that have adopted or are in the process of adopting from Poland.

In other news...4 months waiting done. While it is possible a referral could come any time, we expect some more months of waiting. The waiting isn't too painful (yet), but I am starting to want to do something...buy something...prepare in some way. That is just super hard to do since we did not specify male/female, and we don't even know if he/she will be in a crib or a bed. Ah well -- we should be spending time learning some Polish (or at least refreshing the little we have learned).

We recently got back from a trip to California - we had a blast with my parents and Klaudia was a trooper going to wineries, seeing Bodega Bay, and exploring some kid-friendly and some not-so-kid-friedly sights. I think her highlights were the swimming pools, the Dora Easter basket and eggs from G&G, the orange mini-van rental, a Spongebob DVD, and the cats at Preston Family Winery.

We had a great Easter with Ryan's family and enjoyed hunting for eggs and opening thoughfully put together Easter Baskets - we'll have treats for quite awhile! I'm glad spring has sprung. We have been enjoying the nice weather and being able to be outside. Klaudia is much better at her tricycle now and she LOVES playing with the neighbor kids.

Hope everyone is having a nice spring! Klaudia is looking forward to exploring new places in Milwaukee...and she is an expert traveler now...

I'm Ready to Hear Some Good News.

2011-01-21T11:18:00.004-06:00

It doesn't have to be my news, but I want to hear someone's good news! It would make my day/week/month to hear about one of the waiting families I know to accept a referral! I'm ready to start living vicariously through someone's journey. So...who's it going to be?

All is fine with us. We had great holidays and Klaudia had a great third birthday. She is very proud of being three. She moved into her big girl bed, and is getting very good with the potty. Winter is in full swing and Klaudia has been asking "where did the grass go?" Yeah...we hope to see it in March...lol.

On the next child front, we do not expect any news for several months. But nothing is predictable in the world of international adoption! :-)

We Are Officially Waiting!!!

2010-12-20T08:29:00.008-06:00

It really is unbelievable - but we are now officially waiting!! We have completed our Dossier. Everything was reviewed and approved by our agency, each notarized document was apostilled (approximately 40 of them!), and it is out of our hands now!!

On the right is a photo of our Dossier copies. It doesn't look like much, but it is!!

I'm so excited to have this done before Christmas. It feels like the biggest Christmas present to ourselves.

So....off we go into the painful world of waiting and wondering and hoping and praying. I already know it will be "easier" this time around because of the joy our little girl gives us every day. If a referral comes sooner, that will be wonderful, but if it comes later, well, that is just more time Klaudia has to grow, be more confident, move into her big girl bed, use the potty more, be more willing to eat new things, touch new things, wear new things, etc. All around, if we wait for a year or more, she will only be more ready to handle the shock of a sibling.

When we ask Klaudia if she wants a brother or a sister, she says "I want both." Unfortunately (for her), that won't be possible this go around. We have only had our home study and immigration approval be for one child! If she wants "both", she will have to hope we are crazy enough to do this again one day, or she can hope for a biological miracle, lol.

We have not specified a preference on sex, and we really do not have a preference. People ask us if we would prefer a boy since we have a girl. That would be great, but so would another girl!

I am SO excited for Christmas and Klaudia's 3rd birthday is on the 29th!! She has already been singing happy birthday to herself - cute!!

Have wonderful holidays all!!

Dossier Copies Off to Agency!

2010-12-01T13:25:00.002-06:00

Yay! We got our I-800A approval. We made copies of everything and today have sent a set of it all to our agency. We await their approval or changes before apostilling everything. Still looking good for sending everything to Poland by the end of the year (if not much sooner!).

Klaudia seems to be excited about having a sister/brother...although she has no clue what that really means. She sometimes holds her baby doll and says she is feeding her little sister or brother...it is sweet. It will be challenging and traumatic in some ways (isn't it for every sibling who becomes the co-center of the universe instead of the sole-center?). But it will be awesome for her in so many ways - more love, more sharing, more caring, more family, etc. Also, the girl hates to be alone, so a sibling is instant companionship (she may learn to love being alone, lol).

I truly cannot believe that we are almost "waiting" again!

Waiting for the Last Piece of Paper!

2010-11-16T12:59:00.002-06:00

Wow, have we really gathered all of our Dossier items? I guess so!! And last week we were fingerprinted, so now we wait for the very last piece of paper (hopefully) that we need to send our in our Dossier! We are waiting for the approval of our I-800A, then we will get that notarized and be able to send all of our docs to our agency for review. How cool is that? It looks like we really may have our Dossier in before the end of the year!

With Thanksgiving coming up (too fast if you ask me), I hope we all can take some time to reflect upon family and other things for which we are thankful.

I especially want to thank my fellow Polish adopting/adopted families, fellow Bloggers, facebook friends, email buddies, etc. You are really a second family to me! Your support during our first adoption and first year home, and now during our next adoption means a lot to me. Many of you I have never met face to face, and some of you I have -- but all of you have provided support and an empathetic ear when I needed it most. There are so few children adopted by US families from Poland, so it is great we have each other!

I will post when we get our immigration approval (hopefully soon!). And have a great Thanksgiving all!!!

Fingerprints!

2010-10-19T15:28:00.002-05:00

YAY! Yesterday we received notice of our fingerprinting ("biometrics" for those in the know) appointment with the Department of Homeland Security! The appointment is scheduled for November 10, 2010 at 11:00 a.m. Sweet! We are hoping that it only takes 2-3 weeks after that to receive our immigration pre-approval. That will be our last piece of paper to obtain before finalizing the dossier to send to Poland!

We also sent off a couple documents to be apostilled already (the homestudy, birth certificates and marriage certificate). Dare we hope to have our dossier to Poland by the end of the year?! We are so happy to have progress.

I hope everyone is enjoying fall. I just LOVE this time of year. The crisp air is wonderful! Klaudia is doing great. She loves swimming lessons and she had a great visit with Grandma & Grandpa California and Uncle Night Night (Kevin) recently. She is talking a lot and has the biggest smile.

Status?

2010-09-28T14:51:00.008-05:00

During our first adoption, I think I posted at least weekly as to updates, non-updates, etc. On this go around, I apparently am going to be less active. Perhaps that has something to do with having a 2 year old in the house?! Also, since we have pretty recently been-there-and-done-that, I haven't felt as anxious about each step, and we know more about what is in store for us in the whole process.

I am excited to report that we have made PROGRESS! Yesterday we received our completed, finalized, and notarized HOMESTUDY!!! YAY!!! It took several months, but, hey, what doesn't? Needless to say we immediately completed our I-800A (immigration advanced processing) and Fedexed it today!

Now we get to wait for our Homeland Security fingerprint appointment (aka "biometrics"). How long has everyone's wait been for those? I'm thinking it could be 1-2 months? Once we complete that we hope for the government's stamp of approval that will be our last item for our Dossier.

At this rate, we could potentially have our DtP (Dossier to Poland...lol...I just made that up), by the end of the year!!! That would be awesome!! Ideally we would complete our next adoption in 2011. The adoption tax credit is extended through 2011, but I understand its future is uncertain beyond that.

I will report back at the next stage of progress (likely the fingerprint appointment).

Hope everyone is enjoying a nice start to fall!!

Here are a few recent photos of our favorite little girl!

Happy girl at the Wildlife Safari Park

She wanted to wear her bathing suit over her PJs

A standard breakfast at the Andrews house - face in peanut butter.

5150 Miles to a Sister or Brother!

2010-06-08T10:29:00.000-05:00

I haven't posted in forever...so I thought I would make up for it with some VERY exciting news. We are going back to Poland to add to our family! Klaudia is going to have a brother or sister!!

We are doing everything essentially the same as last time: same country, same agency, same homestudy agency. We are close to finishing our homestudy and are off and running on the paper chase. It feels a bit easier the second time around. The paperwork is basically the same (although we were I-600 before and are I-800 now), but we know what to expect now. We wont have everything to Poland for a few months at least (need to finalize the homestudy, get immigration approval, finish dossier, etc.) Oh, and we are not specifying boy/girl - leaving that one up to the powers that be!

Meanwhile...we are enjoying our time as a family of three. You'll see some photos of Klaudia below. She is just blossoming! She is talking so much, she is walking and running great, and she sings too (she gets the "Hairbrush Song" stuck in hear head and will occasionally burst out with "oh where, oh where oh where...brush!"). Klaudia is doing well with school and they teach her so much every day.

She is also very much a two year old, is discovering her independence, and is learning how to express herself (read she is learning to say "NO" a lot, is testing us, tells me I am "naughty" and to "sit down", etc.). She goes through spurts of clinginess, but overall she is much more confident that we aren't going anywhere. I can now do some things around the house or kitchen without her screaming for me to hold her.

Klaudia's been loving the warmer weather (with the exception of the week or two our A/C was out). We got a water table that she loves, Grandpa A put a swing up in the backyard, and we head out on walks and local adventures in the evenings and weekends. That girl can go-go-go and will push herself to the limit!

On the wing of Marikay's aiplane in Santa Paula, CA (note the pink and purple stripes - she is so cool!)

In Grandpa California's lab

With Dad and Mickey (she is over her fear of soft things!)

With cousins on Easter

I will try to blog more and keep everyone up to date on Klaudia and the next addition. I haven't even thought yet about a new timeline, countdowns, etc. One day maybe I'll spruce up this Blog a bit.

Settling In

2010-01-12T22:11:00.000-06:00

I know, I know. How long has it been? Too long. Well, let me just start by saying Klaudia is doing GREAT!! She has grown in so many ways - she is taking steps, talking LOTS, loves going to school and giving hugs. She is a happy girl and just a joy.

This is just a very brief update. But I wanted to post a few photos and give at least a bit of an update since we came home 4 months ago.

Since arriving home on Labor Day weekend, Klaudia has transitioned into school (it took a month or so of easing her in, but thankfully she LOVES it), she allowed us to put her in a Spidergirl costume for Halloween, she has begun to get to know her grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins, she celebrated Thanksgiving and an amazing Christmas, got used to a carseat, dealt with two blizzards, turned 2 years old, developed a love for Dora and the Imagination Movers, learned to tell mom to "shhhhh", went out to a steak dinner with parents, grandparents and uncle Kevin, took lots of steps, learned hand motions to "Twinkle, Twinkle" (and other songs), and made her parents smile A LOT.

Here are a few photos of the last couple of months:

Happy Girl at Dinner

Christmas Eve 2009

December 2009 - the Tree!

Out to Dinner

Pigtails!

Playing with Cousin Kaylee

Spidergirl 2009!

I will try to update more soon! Happy New Year all!!

HOME!

2009-09-10T15:26:00.000-05:00

We made it home! It is wonderful settling in with Klaudia, and she is doing great! She has been her shy self with new people, but is starting to warm up. She has been tentative about her new environment, but has been exploring and figuring it all out. She has been eating pretty well, and sleeping pretty well, which is good!

Klaudia did surprisingly well on the plane. Perhaps my expectations were so low that it could have only been better. She took a 1.5 hour nap about an hour after take off, and then didn't sleep for the rest of the travels until 5 minutes before landing in Omaha. My recommendations are the same as anyone would give: dvds, many food options, a mirror, favorite books and non-noisy toys, changes of clothes, etc. It worked well to take the airplane books and toys out of her usual mix for the two days or so before the flight. Then there was a little re-discovery on the plane. The only tragedy on the plane was changing diapers on Lot (no changing tables). I don't know how people do it with infants, but Klaudia just stood and held on with all her might to a bar and cried until we were done.

Despite the fact that she was exhausted and cranky when landing, it worked out so well for acclimating to the time change. We had a great welcome at the airport by both of our families too - a warm welcome home.

Klaudia is still a mama's girl, but she is warming up more and more to dad and to other family. There are things to work on (speech, walking, a little trust that mama isn't leaving her forever when she leaves the room), but these will all happen in time. There is so much I could post - but, as naptimes go, I only have limited time! Here are some photos:

Happy girl on the plane - yay!!

Figuring out the seat belt

First night at home

Playing with cousin Keaton on the first full day home

Playing with friend BJ on the last full day in Warsaw - yes, that is the oven

All Done! Klaudia Is Coming to America!

2009-09-04T02:35:00.000-05:00

The Embassy appointment went well today and Klaudia has her immigrant visa to travel to the United States. In other words, we are done and can travel and will make our flight on Saturday!! Here is Klaudia’s “all done” pose taken soon after we received her immigrant visa:

Klaudia will be a citizen upon entrance into the United States. That will be in Chicago on Saturday afternoon. After that, we fly home to Omaha and will be greeted by Ryan’s family and my parents – yay!! It will be so interesting to see how Klaudia reacts. She will be shy, no doubt. Who knows, she could be asleep and out of it. We’ll see! Either way, we are thrilled to go home to all of our comforts and begin settling in.

We now only have one more full day in Warsaw before our Saturday flight. I will say that, while I am thrilled to return home with my daughter, I can’t help but be sad that she won’t grow up Polish. We have taken her away from all she knows, including her country. Of course she will always be Polish and be a citizen. We will do our best to help her identify as Polish and embrace it as much as she wants. On the other hand, she will grow up in America. And there is certainly something to be said for that.

This is likely the last post from Poland. It is almost the end of the journey, and it is the beginning of our new one as parents. All the paperwork headaches, heartache, waiting and frustration are now starting to fade with every one of Klaudia’s smiles. We are blessed.

We’ll see you in America!

Polish Passport Received – Embassy Tomorrow – Home on Saturday!

2009-09-02T10:11:00.001-05:00

We are on schedule to return home on Saturday! Today we picked up Klaudia’s passport (with the priceless mug shot). Tomorrow we have an appointment at the U.S. Embassy to obtain her immigrant visa. After we receive that (hopefully by Thursday afternoon), we are free to travel. Klaudia will be traveling as a Polish citizen and, upon arrival in the United States, will become a U.S. citizen. She will be a dual citizen – cool, huh?

The plane ride will be quite an adventure. Hopefully, for other passengers’ sake, the screaming will be at a minimum. It will be long and annoying for Klaudia, but home is on the other end. It will be interesting to see how she reacts to family upon arrival. Please no one take offense if she buries her face and gives mean looks! Magda, or facilitator and translator here, says that she gets mean looks from Klaudia all the time.

The last few days have been good. Klaudia has been a trooper on some long walks, a visit to the uprising museum, shopping adventures and cab rides. She seems to be doing well with us, and communication and trust are improving daily.

I will report back after the Embassy appointment to let you know that we are good to go!

The Order is Final

2009-08-29T04:15:00.000-05:00

As of Wednesday this past week, the adoption order is final and no longer appealable. Klaudia is officially, fully, finally and forever ours!

Because of the order's finality, we were able to obtain Klaudia's birth certificate with her new name and a Polish social security number. Yesterday we submitted the application for her Polish passport. This week we also completed Klaudia’s immigration-required medical examination by a doctor on the embassy’s approved list. At this point we just need to receive her Polish passport then we can go to the embassy for the final immigration “interview” to receive her immigrant visa, and then home it is! Cross your collective fingers that we receive her passport on Wednesday or Friday of next week. That should ensure our September 5 return.

We continue to enjoy our days in Warsaw. We met another family who has just adopted a little boy from a town a couple hours north of Warsaw. He is an active little three year old guy, and Klaudia was really motivated to try to keep up with him. We went to their apartment the other day and, although she was shy and clingy for about 10 minutes, she was off and crawling and laughing and following him and his 5 year old brother around the apartment. She wanted to walk so bad, but at least crawled a lot, wanted to be near them, throw their toys, and just laugh. It was like a little breakthrough for her. When we got back to our apartment, she wanted to walk (with help) so much. She would stand and grab my hands and just take off into each room and turn around and go to other rooms. Then she stood in front of a full length mirror and just admired her tall self. She has been wanting to walk more and more since then. So, thank you boys for the encouragement!

Klaudia is no doubt getting a little bored with just Ryan and me. She needs kids around in a bad way. I know she spent her days, and nights for that matter, around other children, and to be mostly only with us, has to be a shock to her system in many ways. We try to get to parks daily, but it isn’t the same because she can’t really get up and run around and play with them like she could at that apartment with the other family. But at least she has some hours of at least observation and minimal interaction.

When we are home in a week (crossing fingers), she will have her cousins Keaton and Kaylee – yay!! We are thrilled for her to meet our families, and for our families to finally meet her. We have been showing her photographs of her cousins and grandparents – it probably isn’t sinking in, but maybe there will be at least a little familiarity there.

Ten Days Remaining

2009-08-25T08:38:00.000-05:00

Just when it felt like we had moved to Poland, we are actually starting to envision the end of the trip. We now have (depending, of course, on multiple pieces of the puzzle falling into place) 10 days left in Poland. In the next 10 days we need to do the following:

1) Obtain the final adoption order from the court in Gliwice
2) Obtain Klaudia's revised birth certificate
3) Obtain Klaudia's Polish SS# with her new name
4) Get a US Embassy Approved doctor to do a routine medical exam
5) Get Polish passport and US visa photos
6) Apply for and receive Klaudia's Polish passport
7) Do the US Embassy intrview and obtain the immigrant visa

It is all pretty routine, except that Klaudia's Polish passport can take a few days, a week or more. In the last couple of months, the country "upgraded" the Passport processing technology which, as with any "upgrade" means at least a temporary lack of efficiency. Two months ago it was taking 2-3 weeks. One family that we know of last week got their passport in 1 week, and there was an intervening holiday. We are hoping for 1 week which will mean we will leave on Saturday September 5.

In the next 10 days we hope to continue to enjoy the city, buy a few mementos and explore a bit more. We are planning on doing the zoo one day, and possibly the Warsaw Uprising Museum, along with plenty more visits to parks, old town, and cooking kielbasa and pasta (yes, she eats both!) .

The city is truly amazing. Warsaw is cosmopolitan, a contrast to Krakow which has more older buildings and was relatively unharmed by WWII. Because Warsaw was so damaged, it has taken that opportunity to modernize and become quite an international city. The people take pride in being Polish, even though that has meant being under others' rule at various points in relatively recent history. I could write pages on the people, sights, sounds, smells, food and the hustle that is Warsaw. Perhaps I will do that in the next week or so as we begin to say do widzenia.

I will say that I have an entire new respect for my Grandfather's heritage. One that I wish I had when he was alive.

Here are a few recent photos:

"Sprinkler" still works

Ouch

Klaudia doing a Blog post

Dad and Klaudia at the Chopin Monument

Klaudia watching mom and dad drink wonderful and beautiful lattes at Green Coffee

First playground activity beyond watching the other kids

Klaudia is doing great. She is crawling a lot, and walking with help quite a bit. She is drinking out of a sippy cup just fine and has mellowed out on a lot of her food issues. She knows who mom and dad are, and is trying to figure out if there are rules in this new environmnet. Despite wanting her to be happy and do whatever she wants whenever she wants, we do say "no" when she reaches for an electrical outlet, stove, etc., and we laugh at her petty whining over our taking things like pens away. Our biggest issue is sleep. We will get there, but right now, she despises the crib. We won't fret too much about establishing routine until we are home though.

10 Things About Klaudia

2009-08-19T06:51:00.000-05:00

1) Hates anything soft (blankets, stuffed animals, etc.)
2) Loves to people watch
3) Hates the sun and the wind, but loves the rain
4) Barks at dogs
5) Sleeps through loud thunderstorms
6) Throws right handed...and hard
7) Sings in the stroller
8) Makes you earn a smile from her
9) Hates to sleep because she will miss something
10) Has very happy parents :-)

Things have been good this past week. Last Thursday, we were fortunate to meet two other families who have recently adopted from Poland. One of the children, B.J. (parents James and Melanie), is only 3 days older than Klaudia! You can see a photo below of them meeting. B.J. is so friendly and outgoing, such a smile!! Klaudia was shy, but has managed a couple smiles for the family since the meeting. It was also great to meet the other family, Jeff, Debbie, Bartek and Kasia. The kids are so great - and so loved by their parents! With the small number of children adopted to the U.S. every year from Poland (somehere around 80), we were truly happy to have been in the position to meet these folks! We expored the Old Town a bit, had traditional Polish food, ice cream (it is mostly like very good Gelato here...yum!!), received some provisions from Jeff and Debbie and family who were leaving the next day, and shared our experiences as new parents.

Today we checked in at the US Embassy and got "into the system" to facilitate Klaudia's immigrant visa processing in two weeks or so. Right now the ETA in Omaha is September 5. Below are a couple of recent photos. Note Klaudia's use of a sippy cup (yay!).

Klaudia Eve Andrews

2009-08-12T14:44:00.000-05:00

Her proud parents present to you...
Klaudia Eve Andrews!!!

As of August 11, 2009, according to the court in Gliwice, Poland, Klaudia is our daughter!! Needless to say, this family of three is ecstatic!

The day was quite a journey...only fitting, considering the journey the entire process has been. We woke up at 6 a.m. (Klaudia wakes up soon after the sun, no matter when she goes to bed), and were picked up at 9 a.m. Rain storms and insane toll booth lines lead to us being about an hour behind schedule. This meant we were not able to stop by the orphanage on the way to our 11:45 a.m. court hearing in Gliwice. We were supposed to stop by and pick up Klaudia’s medical information, and leave her there during the hearing because children are not permitted in court. Let’s just say, we were not disappointed that we were not able to leave her at the orphanage during the hearing. I can’t imagine what she would think about us leaving her there. Maybe she would have been fine, but it was still the last thing we wanted to do.

Instead, our driver, Tom, was going to watch her in the court hallways. However, when they called our hearing, our lawyer asked if Klaudia could come in, and the 3 judge panel agreed. Apparently this is pretty rare. I’m glad that Klaudia reciprocated with being very quiet and attentive. She fussed at little at some points, but hey, the rest of us would too, if we could.

The court hearing took about an hour. We understand this is on the relatively short side. The panel was three judges, all women. I was glad to see that at first, but despite that, I do not think we received one smile! I think they want to make sure the seriousness of the hearing is not compromised by emotion. The lead judge went through our whole file. They looked up our passport numbers in some database, read through all of the documents in the file, stated the evidence for the record, asked us questions individually, and asked the orphanage director (who has been listed as Klaudia’s guardian) a series of questions. It was serious enough, that it made me wonder if there was a chance they would find that it was not in Klaudia’s best interest to be placed with us. There was no fact that made me think that, just the reality of going through every detail of our application, our reasons for adopting, our reasons for adopting from Poland, etc. added a seriousness that I had not expected. Perhaps it was just making a good record.

The director of the orphanage was wonderful. She is thrilled to place children in homes, and despite the great care they give at the orphanage, she admits that the children thrive immediately on being placed in homes. Although there have been times that I felt mean for taking Klaudia from the place and people that she knows, the directors confidence in her placement in our home and all children placed in good homes, has helped us get through some of the more difficult moments. Her testimony at court was great. She explained Klaudia’s history at the orphanage, knowledge of her biological parents, and her thoughts on Klaudia’s placement with us. She and I do not speak the same language, but we exchanged several words and smiles that, at a minimum, said thank you. It was touching when she said goodbye to Klaudia and gave a blessing with the sign of the cross on her head. I do not speak Polish, but I understood every word she said then.

Also at court, there was a prosecutor present. She is in the position of scrutinizing adoption petitions to ensure the placements are in the best interests of the child. She asked us both one question related to the care of Klaudia when we return to work. We answered to her satisfaction, and she did not have anything further.

Following the hearing, we waited for the court to issue the decree/order. After about 20 minutes, they called us back in and read it to us for accuracy. It was all good in our book, so they said it would be issued that day, and considered final after 21 days. Then our lawyer stood up and talked, and the prosecutor responded. Magda turned to us and said, the prosecutor is fine with shortening the waiting period from 21 to 14 days! Apparently this is VERY rare in Silesia, but she agreed to it because our US Embassy expiration date is approaching in 2 weeks. We were amazed and grateful! This means we should be able to return home on September 5 instead of September 12, giving us one more week to settle in at home. 

Following the court hearing, we lugged all of our luggage to the train station and took a 3.5 hour train to Warsaw. The train was fine, and Klaudia (although getting tired, but not tired enough to nap) was a trooper. In the pouring rain, we got to our Warsaw apartment and are thrilled with it. It has a washing machine, bathtub, deck you can stand on without getting accosted by pigeons, a couch that you can get up from, internet access from one spot in the kitchen window, and a bed that creaks, but not every time you breath. Sigh . . . we can stay here for a few weeks just fine!! We had our first day of exploring today, and there is a lot to see here. It will be a fun few weeks. We even went out for thai food for dinner.

Klaudia is doing well. She loves the apartment, probably even more than we do. She has been crawling like crazing and pulling herself up on every doorway, chair, etc. She only crawled once at the Krakow apartment, and now she doesn’t even want us to hold her, she wants to explore! She even drank out of a sippy cup tonight for a few minutes (here is hoping it wasn’t a fluke). She despises naps unless she is in mama’s arms, but we will work on that one.

OK...enough for now. We will update more soon! Looks like we are meeting up with two other families in town tomorrow – yay!

A Few More Days in Krakow

2009-08-07T07:33:00.000-05:00

It is kind of crazy to think that now we only have a few more days in Krakow! Although we have been here for 10 days or so, I feel like we have barely scratched the surface.

We did venture to the Wieliczka Salt Mine yesterday. It is an incredible labyrinth of hundreds of kilometers of mining passageways. It had been worked for about 900 years until pretty recently when it was retired in favor of tours only. The sites are amazing, complete with sculptures, caverns, carvings, and recreations of some of the technology used over the years.

The tour was supposed to be 3.5 hours or so, and we perfectly timed it before lunch and naptime. However, 3.5 hours was Polish time, and that really meant 5.5 hours! One of the hours was spent waiting in line outside in the pouring rain. We just huddled under our little umbrella until our tour was called. It was slightly miserable, but eventually worth it.

Klaudia did great on the tour. She was (rightfully) a bit frightened by the mining elevators, the dark passageways, and the massive groups of people. Thank goodness for snacks and a baby carrier! All in all, we were glad we did it, but we need a day or two off before undertaking the next tour/adventure, which will likely be Auschwitz.

Other than the tour, we have been on many more walks and to more parks. The city isn't the most kid-oriented, but wherever there is a fountain, usually some families follow.

We had our visit with the social worker on Wednesday, August 5. It was about an hour long and Klaudia was great! She was reserved at first, and quiet and clingy, but opened up a bit and stacked her stacking cups, threw them, clapped, and talked a bit. The social worker talked about Klaudia's improvements and attachment to us, and her sleep and food habits. She seemed impressed with her progress. Since the social worker saw us and Klaudia in April, she could see the difference herself. Magda said it all went well, and she will be in touch to discuss next Tuesday's court hearing when we will be official!! Then the plan is to be in Warsaw for about one month before coming home.

P.S. Klaudia is doing better with Daddy - As I type, she is sitting in his lap eating her favorite chocolate hazelnut yogurt.
P.P.S. She still hates bottles and sippy cups. We are still doing the straw thing, but are headed back to the mall tomorrow to buy every other sippy cup option that we haven't tried yet!

Sprinkler!

2009-08-04T15:00:00.000-05:00

Yesterday morning we received our first Klaudia smiles! Since then, we have had 100 more smiles and all kinds of giggles and doubled-over laughs!! She is a totally different girl when she smiles. Her face just lights up...amazing!

The first smiles came because of sprinklers (thus the Blog title). We were walking around the grounds of Wawel Castle, and there were sprinklers watering the lawn. She seemed interested so I pointed and said "sprinkler"! She cracked a huge smile! I couldn't believe it (because we only got a half smile in April, and hadn't seen one since), so I called Ryan over. Sure enough, every time we said "sprinkler," she smiled and sometimes laughed! I wonder if there is a word in Polish that is similar that would have made her laugh? Or, maybe she was just ready?!

We also went to a real sit down restaurant for lunch yesterday. She did so well and tried a bit of our food. She was a typical toddler - grabbing for anything within sight on the table and trying to throw things on the ground. We were able to complete the meal without getting too many dirty looks though...so, a success indeed!

We have done a bit of sightseeing around town. Krakow is incredible. It is beatiful, tragic, rich, artistic, deeply religious, and cosmopolitan. The events of Schindler's List took place here (and much of the movie). Auschwitz is not far, and we are planning a visit later this week. It is just unfathomable to imagine all of the events that occurred here during the occupation. We saw a Jewish cemetary yesterday that the Jews covered in trash to convince the Nazis that it was a dump, and not a coveted place. We also saw a synagogue that survived the occupation, only because the Nazis coverted it to a stable. Seriously...did this really happen? Right down the street? It is all difficult to believe. But the city seems to take pride in their perseverence and finds strength in the history.

We have the visit with the social worker today - wish us good thoughts that it is routine! Then...countdown to final court next Tuesday! After final court, we are headed to Warsaw. We were originally headed back to Krakow, but have changed our plans and will be in Warsaw beginning on the end of August 11.

Here are recent smiles and sleepy time...

Report from Krakow

2009-08-01T07:01:00.000-05:00

Hi All!

Well, we are settled into our apartment in Krakow with Klaudia. (That is, if you can call no laundry, pigeons roosting above our back door, no air conditioning, no bathtub, a horrible 5 inch mattress of a bed, a hot water heater that you have to periodically turn on, and constant construction, including jackhammering, outside our window throughout the day, settling in).

Other than that...we are doing well. Klaudia is the sweetest, and has gone through a lot this week. She is confused, but is doing well. She is eating fine and sleeping pretty well (despite the crazy dreams or anxiety she has that make her toss in her sleep). Favorite foods include bananas, McDonald's hamburger bun, fruit juices, this Polish cheesy fruit thing, yogurt, and cereal. She also eats this milk/formula stuff, but I don't think she likes it all that well.

She refuses to drink out of the bottle we brought, even though it is very similar (glass) to the orphanage's bottles. She also refuses to drink out of the sippy cup we brought. I take total blame for that one, because I was the one who decided to bring the neon green and hot pink one. The interim resolution is feeding her juice and milk with a metal spoon. She takes it just fine then, it just takes 30 minutes to drink a bottle!

Despite my already apparent shortcomings in the motherhood department, Klaudia has completely (at least for now) attached to me. She wants me to hold her all the time...and I mean ALL the time. We can hardly put her down on a blanket, crib, stroller, to Ryan, etc. without a bit of hysteria (complete with arching the back, shrill screaming, etc.) As soon as I pick her up, she is calmed immediately. This is a great problem to have right now though. She is feeling attached, and we can work on detachment another year.

It is just a bit frustrating in the past day or two that she hardly lets Ryan hold her. That will change, no doubt, just hopefully sooner than later. She is very interested in everything he does though. She barely lets him hold her, but when he leaves the room she watches the door until he comes back.

Our last few days have been busy trying to help her feel comforted and trying to best meet her needs. Our next days are more of the same, and that is alright with us. We are very fortunate to become her parents!

Speaking of becoming her parents, that is scheduled to happen on August 11, at our final court hearing. Prior to that, on August 5, we have a visit from a social worker to see how things are going. She will report back to the judge and recommend her placement with us.

Three photos are attached. The one of Klaudia on Ryan's lap is Klaudia viewing the Wiggles (and a dvd for that matter) for the first time. She is wide-eyed to say the least.

Another photo is leaving the orphanage. I debated whether to put this one in, but is a major part of the journey. That was probably the hardest part. I felt so mean to pull her away from all of her comforts, and everything she has. They even asked us to bring clothes for her to change into so that they could keep the clothes for the other children. They gave us some old pjs for a familiar scent. Other than that, she left with nothing but her new parents whom she barely knew.

The orphanage has more children there than beds...they need to place the children in homes and know it is the right thing, but that doesn't mean that the sisters there don't get attached. It was difficult for Klaudia's main caretaker to say goodbye...she even ran to the front of the orphanage as we drove away and was waving with a huge smile...an image I will never forget.

The last photo was taken a block away from our apartment. Krakow is covered in graffiti. It is a stark contrast to the architecture. But we had to capture this one example.

Jen, Ryan & Klaudia

We've Arrived and Have Visited with Klaudia!

2009-07-27T12:29:00.000-05:00

We arrived in Gliwice, Poland! We got in yesterday and are now pretty much acclimated. We explored Gliwice this morning and just now got back from spending the afternoon visiting Klaudia! A few photos are attached.

Klaudia cried immediately upon seeing us, but that faded after 10-15 minutes. After that she was very tentative for an hour or two, and then began warming up to us. By the end of the afternoon, she cried when she went to the nun who took her away and she reached back for us! Our hearts melted.

She has changed a little bit since we saw her three months ago. The first thing Ryan noticed was a mouthful of teeth! She just generally looks a bit bigger and stronger. Also, her hair looks a little longer and a bit darker.

Klaudia is sitting up really well on her own, and standing comfortably. She wants to take a step or too...it is coming any day. Personality-wise, she is very tentative, in general. She is very scared by the orphanage dog's barking, and it takes awhile to get her attention focused on something to the point of her being ok with being engaged. It literally took an hour to get her to touch a toy. Once she was playing with some plastic shapes, she was picking all kinds of shapes up and chewing on each one and moving on to the next ones.

We learned a lot about her food and sleep schedule today. We have it all written down, along with a list of foods she is eating (milk, juices, baby foods, mashed potatoes, bananas, this fruit cream cheese baby food thing, yogurt, cereal softened in milk, anything soft, etc.), and the size diapers to get. We fed her a couple of spoonfuls of that fruit-cheesy baby food thing - one of the highlights of my day. :-)

It looks like we will be visiting her again tomorrow all day, and then picking her up on Wednesday morning to go to Krakow to an apartment. The plan is 2 weeks of court-ordered bonding period, and then court on August 11.

Last post from the USA

2009-07-23T14:46:00.000-05:00

The car seat is installed, the bags are just about packed, the itinerary is printed out and our ride to the airport is arranged. We leave on Saturday and this is my last Blog post before our voyage. We will arrive in Krakow on Sunday and we hopefully will be with Klaudia on Monday.

We are absolutely amazed that the time is finally here. After an incredibly long journey of deciding how to create our family, researching, paperworking, waiting, hoping, praying, waiting, loving, hurting, laughing, crying, getting matched, falling in love, waiting and traveling, our day has finally come. The preparation phase is done, and our time as a family is beginning. After this, I feel like Ryan and I can accomplish anything together. The three of us will be a great team.

On a sad note, Ryan's great uncle Dick passed away this week. We hope for comfort and peace for the family. We saw him a week or so ago and he smiled as he asked us about Klaudia. We showed him pictures and he commented on a photograph of Ryan and Klaudia and said Ryan looked like he was under a spell. Dick said he wanted to meet her. We are sorry we could not make that happen. But she will know about Dick and the strong, bright, and warm person that he was.

We will keep you posted. Next stop . . . Poland!

Packing

2009-07-06T13:26:00.001-05:00

Just a quick update - we are finalizing our packing list, finishing up Klaudia's room and doing things around the house (to prepare it for a little change). It has been fun going through her clothes and pulling out ones to bring. (It will be much less fun to pack our own clothes). It is tough to know what will fit her exactly - but we'll see! I'm trying to bring a combo of 18 mos to 2T clothes. We also got her a cute dress to wear for our court date when we will be "official"!

Hope everyone had a nice 4th!

More Photos of Klaudia!

2009-06-19T11:01:00.000-05:00

We are busy packing, finishing Klaudia's room and preparing to travel. Thanks to friends and family, Klaudia has received SO many clothes. We spent a little time yesterday organizing them all. Our packing list is pretty much done and we are just finalizing a couple of items.

I figure since we have a date now, I will post a few more photos:

Countdown!!

2009-06-16T21:05:00.000-05:00

We need to be in Poland on July 27th!! It isn't as soon as we would like...but it is the date and it is on the court's calendar! YAY!!!

The judge has scheduled us for a hearing on August 11, and we will have 2 weeks of bonding period before that. We will do this all in one trip. So....we are scheduled and it is official (finally!).

We had sparkling wine to celebrate tonight and will have some time to finalize our packing list and get ready. These days will go slow, I already know that. But once we have her, I know we will just have no idea how we ever lived without her.

Thank you for all the prayers, good thoughts and support. It worked!

Klaudia - we're coming soon!

Come on Judge!

2009-06-16T09:29:00.000-05:00

According to our facilitator and lawyer in Poland, we have a pretty non-responsive judge. But our lawyer there says to give her three more days and she will do her best to get our date. She is still optimistic that everything will be able to be finalized without our having to renew our I600A (which means updating the home study). We hope that is true! But more than anything, we just want Klaudia in our arms ASAP.

Hopeful that we will have news this week

2009-06-07T17:49:00.001-05:00

We are hopeful that we will have a travel date this week. We haven't heard anything new, but I base this on our agency having been told that we should be able to travel by the end of the month. We pretty much need to have a travel date this week in order to do that. So...say a prayer, think good thoughts, cross your fingers, and it will happen soon!

We are thinking lots about other families adopting from Poland. Another family is waiting for their dates, one family is in Poland now with their two kids, another has just been matched, and we know several waiting families. It is all so exciting! All our best to everyone in the process.

Note the new counter on the right side of the page - you can see how old our little girl is. :) Also - for obvious reasons, I had to change the blog color to the "rose" template.

Thank You!

2009-06-02T11:02:00.000-05:00

We have been completely showered by everyone's generosity, encouragement, support and...presents!

Our close friends threw us a wonderful party this past weekend. It was a great time to celebrate our soon arrival. They even had Klaudia's pictures in a slideshow on the TV. What shower can you go to that has pictures already?!

Before that, we had two other wonderful showers. One with family, and one with my friends and work peeps.

Klaudia's room is all ready for her now, and so are we! She has more stuff than she will ever know what to do with. We will introduce these things to her a bit slowly. But we are set for great educational toys, books, clothes, and other cute things.

So many have expressed their excitement. It means a lot to us. It has been a difficult road, and the time for happiness and excitement is finally here. It also helps get us through these last weeks while we wait for a final travel date.

Speaking of time...we do not yet have our date to travel back to Poland to get Klaudia. We are hopeful that it will be sometime this month. If not, we will have to get an extension on our immigration form. It wouldn't be the most horrible thing to do, but we would need an updated homestudy and to redo a couple forms. At this point I don't mind the paperwork. I just don't want to wait any longer to get her!

Since this Blog title is "Thank You" - I need to give our biggest thanks to our parents. Throughout our entire adoption journey our parents have been supportive, interested, available and excited. How fortunate are we? And how wonderful for Klaudia to come to a family with such great grandparents. :)

Stay tuned for a travel date.

No Date Yet

2009-05-22T10:02:00.001-05:00

Well, we are still waiting for a court date, but we should have one any day now. All of our documents and the petition for adoption have been filed with the court, and we need the judge to focus on our case and assign a hearing date. When we get that date, we can book our tickets and finish packing!

The date that the court will be setting is the beginning of the bonding process. Basically at that first hearing the judge will tell us that we need to spend X amount of days with Klaudia as a bonding period before a final placement hearing takes place. During the bonding period, we should be able to have Kladuia with us day and night. We will likely be in Krakow and rent an apartment there for the bonding period time. From what I understand, that is usually around 2-3 weeks.

At the end of the bonding period we will return to court and at that hearing the judge should order adoption placement with us. At that point we can leave Krakow if we want, but we won't be able to leave Poland until the order is considered final. An order in Poland is usually considered final (not appealable) after 21 days. The judge, in his or her discretion, can shorten this to 14 days. So, we will then have 2-3 weeks and may split the time between Krakow and Warsaw.

Once the order is final, then we can get the paperwork done (get her birth certificate with her new last name, passport, etc.) and embassy work done (issuance of visa) and then head home! It is quite a process!

Once we travel, we will plan to put a checklist on the Blog. Also, I will post pictures then. I have been hesitant to do that until we have appeared in court and have her with us. Bare with us though...pictures are coming!

For now we wait for the court date. If the judge is taking his or her time about scheduling it, then our contact in Poland generally starts to inquire and encourage the judge to schedule the date. I have heard that sometimes she even has the orphanage director call and encourage the judge to schedule court dates. I would love the Director at Klaudia's orphanage to do that...she is a pretty senior (in experience and rank, not age) sister there and she could inflict some Catholic guilt on the judge!

Have a great Memorial Day weekend all! We will be grillin', chillin', sleeping in (while we can), doing some things around the house and in Klaudia's room. I will be doing my best to avoid work for three days. Should be fun!

A Miami Couple Adopted a 4 and 7 Year Old from Poland

2009-05-11T10:03:00.000-05:00

Here is a link to an article about a Miami family who adopted two children from Poland. Since there are so few adoptions to the United States from Poland, it is always interesting to learn of others' experiences. It is also wonderful to hear an adoption story on Mother's Day this year!

A Choice of the Heart

Have a good week all!

Home Without Klaudia

2009-04-27T15:31:00.000-05:00

We are home . . . back to work, back to life, and we left a big piece of our hearts in Poland. Oh how painful it was to leave without her!

We had a fantastic trip and time with her though. I figure I should at least memorialize a brief summary of the whole event:

Saturday: Left Omaha - through Chicago - knew our bags wouldn't make the connection because we were 2 hours late.

Sunday: Arrived in Warsaw - sure enough, the bags didn't arrive. We were met at the airport by our facilitator in Poland and a driver (yes, it was Tom :-)) and we drove south for 3-4 hours to a town near Katowice. Our facilitator completely impressed us with the airline and baggage and our suitcases arrived at our hotel an hour after we did (after they connected through Krakow). We stayed near Katowice for one night. I had a cold, we were jet lagged, and we were thrilled, excited, curious, anxious, scared, eager, happy, relieved, etc. Needless to say it was a long night before meeting our little girl!

Monday: Monday, April 20, 2009 was the day we met Klaudia. Before we met her, we had a meeting with Central Adoption Authority officials. That seemed to go fine and be pretty routine. Well, it wasn't routine for us, but it seemed to be pretty standard for them. One of the employees/officials then came with us in the car, and we were off to meet Klaudia.

We traveled for 45 minutes or so to Gliwice to the orphanage. It is run by sisters and is a pretty nice, cared for and clean environment. We first met with the orphanage director along with our lawyer and interpreter. The director told us mostly information that we had already learned about her history, but it was good to hear again and as read straight from her file there.

Then...they brought her in to us. Oh my! What a moment. This beautiful little girl came in the door held by one of the sisters. She had a little bonnet hat covering her head, and was dressed all in pink. Everyone in the room was commenting (in Polish) as to how adorable she is and then they handed her to me. She looked a little confused and had a slight timid expression on her face, but she didn't cry. She did very well and let me hold her for quite some time. Then Ryan held her, and despite probably never being held by a grown man, she did great with him.

Our first meeting was such a success. We played with her a bit, we talked to her, she muttered a little bit now and then, and we got to know just a very little bit about her. We then met with a pshychologist and doctor and learned a bit more about her and areas of improvement and development over the previous months. We also discussed areas to work on over the coming months.

We then left and let her have a nap, and returned a couple of hours later. We had an afternoon visit of 2 hours or so, and it wasn't quite as picture perfect as the first meeting. She got a little fussy and cried a bit, probably due to teething, being hungry and because we were in her face engaging her attention for such a long period of time. We also threw so many toys at her, I have no doubt we were over stimulating her. We had some great moments in the afternoon though and I also got to feed her a bottle. So sweet!

Tuesday-Wednesday: We had two meetings each day. One was in the morning for 2-3 hours and one in the afternoon for 2-3 hours. She seemed to respond the most to blocks and toys with music. Once she heard children singing a song or chant outside and she started trying to sing along. Another neat moment we had was when she took a nap in my lap. I was so glad she felt comfortable enough to do that. She slept for an hour and looked sweet.

We said goodbye to her on Wednesday evening. It was sad, but we know we will be back soon.

We had a nice moment with the sisters after we said goodby to Klaudia. They were happy that we love her and are giving her a home. We thanked them for the great care they give Klaudia and for their warm reception of us.

Thursday: We left to come home, and 24 hours later we were in our own bed.

So, it was an amazing trip. We hope to be back to get her really soon. We are waiting on the lawyer to file our petition and the court to schedule a hearing. Hopefully we will have a date within the next couple of weeks! Supposedly we have the benefit of being under the "old" regulations (pre-Hague), and that involves a little less paperwork. I like to hear that!

Wonderful!

2009-04-21T13:46:00.000-05:00

We met Klaudia and she is wonderful. How will we ever leave her here! We have been able to see her 2 times a day for the last two days - each visit for 2-3 hours or so. One more day tomorrow. She is sweet and tentative. It will take her a while to warm up. But it is probably a good thing that she isn't jumping into strangers' arms entirely willingly. But, it didn't take us any time at all to fall in love!

I will have many more details later. Wish I could do a longer note, but our power converter is broken and we have no charge left on the computer. Will write more soon.

In Poland

2009-04-19T13:32:00.000-05:00

Hi all! Just a quick update...

We made it to Katowice today. We haven't really slept since Friday night, with the exception of an hour or two on the plane. That's the plan for tonight though. Big day tomorrow!

It is nice here. Spring is springing. The countryside was very interesting on the drive south of Warsaw. We have not seen much of Warsaw, and we likely won't on this trip. But there will be time for that one on the next trip.

The drive down to Katowice was an adventure with a motorcade of motorcyclists that makes Strugis look like an amateur parade. We also had pierogi and sausage at a very popular restaurant about halfway to Katowice.

On this trip we are being well taken care of and just have to show up and be brought to where we need to be at the appropriate time. The facilitator we are working with here took charge of our baggage situation (let's just say it didn't make the flight that we made and we were planning on having to shop for entire outfits for a 10 a.m. meeting tomorrow) and it was delivered to our hotel this evening.

Assuming we have an internet connection tomorrow (we are staying near our a.m. meeting but are moving hotels tomorrow to be closer to the orphanage), we will post some pictures.

So, you ask, what is going through our minds tonight? I mean, it is the night before we meet our daughter! Well, I think we are a bit nervous and are feeling some guilt for the impending change that we will be inflicting on her. Traveling this entire journey made me realize what an entirely different world she lives in. And she may really have only experienced one small corner of this side of the world. There will be a lot of firsts for Klaudia in the coming months. I only hope that we can introduce them to her as gradually as possible and earn her trust.

We will try to report tomorrow with details about our first meeting.

What to Pack?

2009-04-08T15:00:00.001-05:00

OK - the countdown is on. We leave in 10 days! Packing for this trip won't be quite the process as the next trip. But we want to make sure we're covered. So, in addition to our normal clothes, toiletries, camera, etc., we are bringing:

-A stuffed animal to leave there
-Plush photo album to leave there
-Set of 4 soft/interactive blocks
-Plush apple with caterpillar and animal toys to put inside
-Bubbles

I think our visits will be relatively short (1 or 2 hours) and will just be at the orphanage, so we do not need changes of clothes, stroller, diapers, etc. We pretty much just need some activity items so when we are with K there is something to do other than just look at each other the whole time. (Which, incidentally, would be just fine with me). I think we have picked a couple of good ones, and depending upon space, I may bring one or two more.

Now I am trying to figure out what to wear. I know, it sounds silly. But this is a special occasion. It isn't a dressy dress special occasion, but to date, it will have been the most memorable and important moment in my life. I am thinking nice-casual, something I can be happy when I look back at pictures and something I can crawl on the floor in. Perhaps a shopping trip is in store for the weekend. I think after the first meeting it will be jeans and sweaters.

Fingerprints...Again

2009-04-02T11:13:00.000-05:00

Yay! Since our fingerprints expire in May, we sent in a request to get new ones. That was in mid-February. We just got notice from our local Department of Homeland Security office that we have been scheduled for our re-fingerprinting. They scheduled us for April 17, which is fortunate because we leave on April 18th to go meet K!

Travel Dates - Kind Of!

2009-03-25T16:16:00.000-05:00

We got a call today and are scheduled to meet our little girl! Turns out we have to do a first initial trip to meet her and then will have a second trip later to bring her home. So, while we will be traveling soon, it won't be the forever trip just yet.

We are to be in Warsaw on April 19th. Then, we will meet K on April 20th!

I cannot even begin to express how excited we are. We will finally meet her and hold her in less than a month! We are a bit bummed that we have to do this in separate trips, but whatever it takes to bring her home is what we will do.

Then, we understand, that the second trip may be about 2 months after this trip. Here is hoping that it comes sooner than later!

So now we will be busy getting her room together and figuring out what we need to pack, buy, have, etc. We registered at Target and my work is having a shower this Friday! I love that we are doing it now because it will give us some stuff to really get the room underway and some things to bring with us for the first trip. It will also help us figure out what we don't have and what we need.

Thank you for following our journey and for your support and encouragement. Boy, hasn't it been a long and tenuous one? It isn't over yet, but this is the light at the end of the tunnel...and the whole goal of the process. Finally, after all of these years, we will meet our daughter in April 2009.

We Got Some More Info on K and Are Still Waiting for Travel Info

2009-03-16T13:59:00.000-05:00

As far as we understand, we can get more information about potential travel dates tomorrow, next month or any time in between. In the past, I think adopting parents got travel dates relatively quickly. I think now with some new international laws (thank you Hague Convention), there are additional steps in place that make this take longer. I know that Poland has instituted some new regulations to be Hague compliant, and that this has extended much of the process at all stages of international adoption. Most of these regulations have the purpose of preventing potential human rights' violations, black market issues, baby stealing, birth mother contracts, and other historically troublesome issues that have plagued international adoptions. I do understand that the regulations are for the protection of the children, and I appreciate that. However, isn't it in the children's interest to be placed in their homes? And, isn't it in the countries' interest to have the children placed in homes and no longer under the care of the state? Ah well.

So, long story short, we are waiting for Central Adoption Authority approval and I think also for a petition to be filed in K's region. Once that happens, we should be getting much closer to travel dates.

OK, other than waiting, we got some new information on K! When we received her initial information and referral last month, we asked some further questions about birth family, medical info and we requested updated physical statistics. We received all of that and it appears she is growing well!

Getting her information was encouraging and it was exciting to learn a bit more about her. Hearing more about her makes it more difficult to wait, but at least we know someone who is taking care of her was writing up answers to send to us! I guess it is some sort of proof that the process is moving in one way or another.

Note on the Blog. I am now leaning towards not making it private. I am thinking I will keep this pretty public, but not put too many personal identifiers and I will create an email list to distribute some pictures and more personal info. Those of you who have sent me your email address or indicated a desire to have access, I will put you on the email distribution list.

Hope all is well with everyone and that you enjoy Spring/March Madness/St. Patrick's Day!

The Next Steps

2009-03-04T09:48:00.000-06:00

First of all...we are definately going forward with adopting the girl about which we got the call!! We are so excited and wish we could buy plane tickets immediately!

Now, and before I post more details, I am considering whether to make this Blog private. You would all, of course, be welcome to read it. I am just considering making it password protected so that I feel more comfortable about posting pictures, her name, details about the process and our trip, etc. I guess I feel like I will be putting a lot of personal identifying information out there, so I don't want that to be abused or the procedure to be compromised in any way.

That is why I have been hesistent to post too much on here lately. But, the purpose of the Blog is to keep everyone up to date and informed and journal a lot of the experience. Especially when we travel, we want to be able to post pictures and notes frequently. I know I have loved experiencing other families' blogs especially through the travel. The best part of this all is when the family is finally together!

In the meantime, here is our quick update. We said YES to our little girl (her name starts with a K). Now we wait for some final approval and wait for approximate travel dates. We also have to get our fingerprints done again because they are expiring soon. We sent in a request for re-fingerprinting to Homeland Security last week and hope to get a new appointment very soon!

A Call!

2009-02-23T15:40:00.000-06:00

We got a call on Valentine's Day! Our agency informed us of a referral of a 13 month old girl. We received some photographs, background and medical information. We have been reviewing this all and considering as much as we can in making a decision.

Once we are done talking with our families and close friends, I will post more. So...stay tuned!!

Szczesliwego Nowego Roku!

2009-01-05T11:22:00.000-06:00

Happy New Year All!

I hope everyone had memorable and enjoyable holidays. Ours were fantastic. We went to some fantastic holiday parties, spent Christmas Eve with Ryan's family, and headed off to Paris and London on Christmas night and returned yesterday. The trip was wonderful, and when I get the pictures loaded in I will upload a couple to the blog.

There was no news related to our adoption over the holidays. That is not surprising because I imagine no one has been working over the past couple of weeks in Poland. Goodness knows I have not been working much!

We are hopeful about the next couple of months though. Stay tuned!

The Most Difficult Decision

2008-12-15T10:26:00.000-06:00

On November 19 we received a call. It was outside of our "parameters", but we listened anyway. It was for three children. Three beautiful children whose parents are not able to parent them anymore.

We had not considered three children. We have always said 1 or 2, and maybe one day in the future we would have a third. But we started considering it. We thought these kids would have each other and that could only help the transition to a new place with a new family and a new language, etc. We pictured them in our home and looked up the ESL program in our local school district. We talked with a doctor who specializes in international adoption, we talked with others, we read, etc. We looked into the region where they are from, looked into traveling there for an initial visit and we asked follow up questions. We prayed, thought and talked a lot knowing it was the most important decision we would ever make.

Long story short, we said "no". How do you say no to human beings? In the end I guess we concluded that it was too much. We were afraid of attachment and bonding issues and we were afraid of immediately being outnumbered. Although we know many families who have three children and we know families who have adopted three from another country, we do not feel prepared for the challenges. Our hope is that there is another family out there that is ready and looking for three children and these kids will be placed into a great home and have the family they deserve.

We hoped that making this decision would be a weight off our shoulders and that we would know it felt "right" after we finally communicated our decision. But my immediate thought was that I wanted to retract our decision and it has been tough to think about it ever since.

Forgive me for taking so long to post, but it has been quite a roller coaster. In any event, we are back to waiting.

On a lighter note…the holidays are coming up and we couldn't be happier about it. There are some super exciting things going on that I will post in further detail about soon. In short, I made partner at my firm and we are going on a fantastic celebratory vacation. Also, this weekend we have three holiday parties in a row. What previously seemed like it might be the most difficult Christmas ever, is now seeming like one of the most fun and memorable.

Getting Used to Waiting

2008-11-11T15:19:00.000-06:00

I had to post before I let this Blog go a month in silence! To be consistent, I suppose I can address the topic of the year: waiting. Ah...I believe we are getting used to it.

Every time the phone rings I still think it could be the call. Every time I drive home I think Ryan may tell me that he just talked with our agency. Every time I look in the empty bedroom in our house I think one day it will be filled with a little person and lots of stuff. And every time I hear of someone getting a referral or finding out they are pregnant, I get a little jealous and cranky. I should be a little better at focusing my energy on learning more Polish, reading more on adoption and parenting and fixing up the house.

So...long story short, the wait continues. No news yet. We remain in contact with our agency and we are not yet in danger of any of our paperwork expiring.

Ryan and I just celebrated our 5th anniversary this past weekend. We went out to a great dinner and really enjoyed the evening together. Five years has gone pretty fast, but has been awesome. He is a great balance to me. If it weren't for him, I may have made some not-so-responsible decisions in my life. I think he would say the same about me. In other words, separate we would be a mess, but together we are superstars. Besides that, he is my absolute best friend and we have so much fun together.

We are very excited about the upcoming holidays. We are headed to California in ten days (yes, we are counting) for a week over Thanksgiving. We are even going on vacation while we are on vacation (yes, you read that right), and are doing a wine tasting trip with my aunt and uncle and parents. Thanksgiving will be at my parents and it will be great to see everyone.

Minor Blog Changes

2008-10-14T16:17:00.000-05:00

I just made a couple of changes on the blog:

1. I changed my age to 34. Thanks to my family and friends for the sweet cards, generous gifts and good wishes. Ryan and I had a fabulous dinner complete with flaming baked Alaska, we hung out with his family at the pumpkin patch (which is more than your average pumpkin patch), went shopping and watched football. 34 sounds like a pretty uneventful birthday, but for whatever reason, it was a pretty good one.

2. I changed the pictures. We really should make more efforts to take some photos. I tend only to like the ones where I hold out the camera and take them of ourselves. This one was from our vacation to Oregon/No. Cal. this past summer.

3. The to-do list. OK, I've not made any changes to that yet. But I looked at it. Man, we accomplished a lot! It is crazy to go from being so busy doing all of those tasks to just waiting. I wish there was something more in our control, but we are a bit helpless I suppose. I thought about revising it to include more to-dos that will eventually be necessary. There will be quite a bit more to add once we do get a referral. But how do could one possibly list out everything you do to prepare for a child?! Well, there will be some distinct tasks related to the adoption and once I figure out what those will be (procedure in Poland, U.S., immigration, etc.), then I will post that too. Perhaps I will have a separate list for Poland once the time comes.

Happy October!

2008-10-01T13:04:00.000-05:00

Hello faithful readers, and Happy October! Isn't October the best? It is the beginning of autumn, the leaves are changing colors, Halloween is coming up and right around the corner are the holidays! To top it off, I have a birthday (my 34th) this month.

Know what would make this time even better? Some good news! But alas, none to report today!

We remain in contact with our agency who reports that there are no developments. I imagine (and I base this on nothing in reality) that there is a pile of families' dossiers sitting on a desk in Poland (remember this is completely imaginary), and the longer we wait, the more families are matched and the closer we get to the top of that pile! Our only problem is, we just don't know how big that stack was when we were put on the bottom.

Now, I am sure the truth is that there is no pile and no getting in "line" so-to-speak. There is probably no formula and no organization to it all. I have heard of some families get referrals after a couple of months, and some wait close to a year. I (being the optomistic person that I am) had hoped for the couple of months side of that equation. Ah well!

Hopefully the fact that we have been waiting for nine months (no pun intended here...just the facts) means that the chances are only increasing that it will come sooner than later.

An Introspective September

2008-09-09T16:53:00.000-05:00

How wonderful is autumn!? I am so thrilled that it is around the corner. It has been a little chilly, football has started, Halloween candy is in the stores and the holidays are in the not-so-distant future.

This really is a fantastic time of year. I think I will make a resolution (a three-quarter's-year resolution, instead of a new year's one), to enjoy it. I have this tugging feeling that if the holidays come without a referral, it may be a bit difficult. I am pledging now to get through those tough moments by being excited about the present!

Through this whole journey, I have come to realize some things about myself. I am not sure if I have always been this introspective. Perhaps it is impending parenthood and the wondering about what I will be like as a mother. Or maybe it is having been married and in the same job for about five years and having a chance to stop and realize where I am.

Whatever the reason, I have come to learn that I am an optimist, I am happy, friendly, selectively outgoing, am happily married and am good at what I do. I suppose it is good to figure these things out about myself now. When kids come, it will no longer be about me!

So, obviously, there is no news on our front yet. I have been hearing some good news about others in progress with their adoptions. I know of one family who has a referral in Poland and things now seem to be on track and going well. I know of another family adopting from Poland who is busily getting their dossier in. And, another family (from Nebraska) just brought their son home last month! The good news is that Poland is stable and children are getting placed with their families.

Anticipation

2008-08-19T10:08:00.000-05:00

OK, so that horoscope was optimistic, but not entirely true. Ah well!

Every post lately seems to be about waiting. Well, maybe because that is what we are doing! We are impatient, that is clear. We are hoping that the call comes today, and we have hoped that every day for the last four months or so.

While the call could come today, it could come next week, next month or next year. More likely than not, it is going to take more time and very potentially into 2009.

While we wait, we want to be sure we are not wishing away our time together. The preparation and anticipation need to be enjoyed as well! So, I think we need to continue to make concerted efforts to have things to look forward to, especially ones that we would not easily be able to do once having a child.

So, here is my preliminary list (posted without spousal collaboration so it is subject to amendment) of things we want to do this fall:

1. A getaway weekend in September or October,
2. Lots of fall football Saturdays and Sundays with friends and beer,
3. A movie or two in a real live movie theater,
4. A nice dinner at a great tapas restaurant we know,
5. Miniature golf on the real grass course in town,
6. Serious sleeping-in on the weekend,
7. A nice long bike ride, and
8. Lots of grilling out while the weather is still nice.

OK, that is a good start. I'm sure we will be adding to it.

I will admit that while just briefly brainstorming about things Ryan and I can do this fall, things popped into my head like "research daycares and schools" and "look for kid's room furniture." But the point is to have a lot that we want to that doesn't involve waiting. I think there is plenty to look forward to and enjoy while in this part of our lives.

I will leave you with this quote by Jonathan Swift:

"May you live all the days of your life."

Will the Stars Be Aligned?

2008-08-13T14:08:00.000-05:00

I recently posted about a Catholic saint. Now I am posting about astrology!

My cousin recently pointed out an interesting horoscope for me this month. (Thanks fellow Libra Donna!). Believe me, I do not generally believe these, let alone do I look at them. But this one is a good one! Apparently there is a full lunar eclipse on August 16, 2008. The following is the August Libra page from Astrology Zone.

"Should this eclipse emphasize a child, you may find out that you're pregnant or if you or your partner is expecting a baby soon, the baby could easily arrive within five days of August 16. If you have put in an application for an adoption, you might hear that you are about to become a parent this month. Exciting! "

If it comes true I may start believing!

Saint Thomas More

2008-07-31T10:04:00.000-05:00

Saint Thomas More (1478-1535) is the patron saint of both adoption and lawyers! He was a scholar and devoted husband and father. Apparently he believed women were just as intelligent as men. I'm going to have to read more about him. If you trust Wikipedia, here is the entry on St. Thomas More.

Hello?

2008-07-22T16:06:00.000-05:00

Yes...a month has gone by and we have nothing to report. Sorry about that! Believe me, it pains me to keep repeating the "no news" response...but it is what it is.

It is now late July - I wonder when I should dust off our dossier and see when we would have to start having things updated? Some documents essentially expire or need updating if too much time passes. I believe our homestudy is good through November...hopefully we do not need that update (or anything else for that matter). But it is always a possibility, and we wouldn't be the first to have to do that.

We are still having a great summer. Our vacation was fantastic, although quick. Ryan went on a golf trip for a long weekend too. We are enjoying our time as grown-ups. I will miss our at home happy hours and frequent dates!

I'll post more soon...

Vacation

2008-06-24T14:17:00.000-05:00

Hi All! No updates yet...we are still patiently waiting.

In the meantime, I think the best way to spend waiting time is to go on vacation!! So, on Friday we are headed out for a week of sightseeing, road tripping, dining, wine sampling and adventuring. We are flying to San Jose and will spend the week heading up the coast with the final destination being Portland, Oregon.

We will spend the first couple of days in Napa and Sonoma, then a day or so exploring the redwoods in Northern California, then see the coast of Oregon (Bandon, Coos Bay, Tillamook, Astoria, etc.) and finally have a day or two in Portland. We will be in Portland for the 4th.

We are finalizing all of our plans, but have the plane, car and most hotels already booked. We are completely looking forward to the break from work and the time together. Ryan and I road trip very well together...it will be a blast. There is so much we want to do, but we will want to balance it with a little relaxation too.

So, that is our biggest news for now!! We hope to have more news soon.

I've been studying my Polish, and have finished 4 of the 8 lessons in the CD set that my mom sent. I have all the words down from the lesson, but if confronted with actually having to speak in Poland, I may be slow and have stage fright.

How long?

2008-06-10T09:35:00.000-05:00

How long are we going to have to wait? Yeah, wish I knew the answer to that one. Sometimes I feel like we could get a call any day, and then sometimes I feel like maybe they forgot about us and we will have to re-do everything! The waiting has been going OK - but our patience is being tested!

When I feel impatient I just need to do the math again:

Our Dossier was sent to Poland on February 5, 2008, but it was to take 2 months or so for translation and authentication. So that would put it at about April when we were good-to-go and be matched. Well, since it is June now, that means we have really only been waiting for 2 months! I should touch base with our Agency to see how the process is going and get their thoughts on timing. I just don't want to be a pest.

We are still hopeful to receive a referral any time this summer. But who knows!?

The waiting is tough...but we are having a nice summer. Work is busy for both of us, but manageable. We are planning a summer vacation around the 4th of July. We have held off on booking anything, pending any "call", but will probably book something by this weekend. We have no idea where we are going yet, but it will be somewhere fun!

Other than that, I have been learning (or at least trying to learn) my Polish. I have mastered "Excuse me, do you speak English?" I can say that to a man or a woman. I can also say "I do not understand Polish very well," "I understand a little Polish," "good day," "goodbye" and "I am American." My friend Carrie suggested that instead of the last phrase I should learn "I am Canadian." Good idea!

Hope everyone is having a nice summer!

Still Here

2008-05-03T21:56:00.000-05:00

Thanks for the encouraging words all!! I've not posted here as frequently as I have planned, but just know that we are still here and waiting. We have really appreciated the kind words, encouragements and the sharing of experiences by people who have been through this whole process.

We are doing well with the waiting (so far). I am hopeful that we will hear something soon, but who knows!? I do know that we will have A LOT to do once we learn about our child!! We just have one empty room waiting for a crib, bed, who knows! And we can't exactly buy clothes, toys, etc. until we know the age/sex, etc. I will say that books are something that we can always collect, and I'm hopeful that we will create a good little library.

Things have been extremely busy at work for me. There are great opportunities for me and my role in my firm advances all the time. I am really excited about my professional path and there is not a whole lot that I could imaging changing about my situation. I will say that there will be much to do in terms of figuring out a balance when our family grows. I will be taking 12 weeks leave from work to travel to Poland and to continue coming home and settling in.

Our goal will be to work 100% on bonding and establishing routines. Ryan and I are not good at routines for ourselves, so it will be a learning process to establish rules and such. Now that I think about it, I am almost entirely opposed to having any sort of routine for myself. If you asked me what time I go to work, I would tell you that it is anywhere between 6 a.m. and 9 a.m. depending upon the day. Then I leave work anywhere from 6 p.m. and 9 p.m., again depending upon the day. And if you asked me when I went to bed, I would say it is anywhere between 11 p.m. and 1 a.m. depending upon my work or TV involvement. The only type of routine that I have is the fact that I watch "The Office" every Thursday night. And half the time I miss it and end up watching it on the web over the weekend anyway. (p.s. don't tell me what happened this week, I've not seen it yet!).

Well, our lives are going to change in so many ways, establishing a routine will only be part of it. We're open to it and know that it is important to settling in to our new way of life!!

I hope everyone is enjoying spring. Our tulips are blooming and the trees are all flowering, it is great!

OK, We're Ready!

2008-04-13T22:01:00.000-05:00

I declare that we are officially ready to adopt. The kid's room is cleaned out and ready to go. It is empty and ready for the onslaught of kid stuff. The closet is ready for clothes, the electrical outlet is ready for a night light and the room across the hall is ready to have parents sleeping in it (or not sleeping as the case may be).

We've been educated, we've saved money, we've researched, we've prayed and we have thought long and hard about our path and role as parents. We've talked with counselors, our Priest and people who have been there and done that. We are ready for the new job description.

We also know that we know nothing about being parents. We know there is child proofing to do, but that will be by trial and error. We know to expect diapers, tantrums, lots of hearing "no" and lots of tired whiny times. We understand that there will be bonding and attachment issues to work through. But we also know that our hearts will grow like never before.

We are ready to see Christmas through our child's eyes, to carry a tired child up to bed, and to introduce a child to Loony Toons. We are also ready for a messy house (and openness to a cleaning service), sleepless nights, lack of time to ourselves and an entirely new routine. So...again...we are ready.

I guess that is about all I want to post for now. The call can still come at any time. But we still don't really expect it for another few months. Send lots of good thoughts and prayers towards Poland!

Guess what?

2008-04-01T08:19:00.000-05:00

Ha! Still waiting. We expect to be waiting for months still. But at this point it is possible that we could get "the call" any day. I know our agency is looking out for us. They have recently assured us that Poland loves us because of my family's Polish heritage, because we are Catholic and because we are young. Yes, 33 and 34 is young.

There are some things we should really be doing including reading up more on bonding and attachment, and popping in that Polish language CD. We've been lazy about that, mostly because we have felt that we still have many months until a referral. But the fact is, a referral could come at any time, and the last thing we will want to do at that point is sit down and listen to a CD or read a book! When we get "the call", we will move into high gear and will need to prepare the room and prepare to travel and will only have about a month to do that (of course that can be subject to change depending upon the Polish court, etc.)

Admittedly, we are VERY excited.

I also wanted to pass on an interesting find we saw this past weekend at Costco. They had a stand with some gorgeous Polish pottery. These are hand painted pieces that have some very distinct colors and patterns. The pieces are very fun and apparently you can put the pieces in the oven, microwave or dishwasher! I don't know that I would though. My Aunt Bette gave us 2 great Polish mugs a few years ago. We use them every time we drink coffee. We plan on getting more pieces at some point. This site is similar to the pieces we saw this weekend: http://polishpottery.com/.

Waiting...

2008-03-06T10:13:00.001-06:00

I've had a couple people ask me how the waiting is going. So...here's my response. The waiting is going well. It seems way too soon to get "the call," so in some ways it doesn't feel like we are really waiting yet. Our Dossier was sent to Poland just over one month ago. I know there is translation time and time that we need to be approved by the court. I assume that if that is supposed to take 2-3 weeks, then it will really take 4-6 weeks.

I also know that we've had roadblocks before (infertility, homestudy delay, etc). So I actually have very low confidence that our Dossier is actually in Poland! I do trust our Agency, they are obviously very adept at the process and well-connected in Poland. So, my brain does believe that it is happening.

The waiting is exciting. I do know that our child is right around the corner. He or she is alive and breathing and waiting for us, just like we are waiting for him/her!

We are enjoying our last adult-only time right now. We are going on lots of dates, drinking at bars, trying to plan a few getaway weekends and we are staying up late and sleeping in on weekends. (Jealous?)

In my own little world, I don't anticipate getting a referral for at least 2 more months. I base that on nothing other than thinking that it takes time to get in "the system." Then I anticipate having one or two referrals that we may not accept. I've heard often that people are not entirely comfortable with their first referrals, so we are trying to prepare ourselves for that. We have to balance the fact that every child needs a home, with the reality of what we feel like we can really handle.

Immigration - I 171H Received

2008-03-05T10:37:00.000-06:00

We received our immigration approval! Good news! We received the I-171 H form in the mail the other day, and it provides that the U.S. has given us advance approval for adopting an orphan in Poland. We were pretty unsure as to when we were going to receive this approval, partly because the USCIS's website is really off on its estimations (as least as to Omaha), but we got it. We completed the filing of our application with immigration on December 1, 2007 and the approval was dated February 28, 2008. So that was just about three months. I sent the document off to be apostilled today, so we will send it to our agency very soon.

This was really the last piece of paper that we were waiting for before getting a referral. I don't think that waiting for this has slowed anything down, as everything has already been sent off to Poland. That reminds me...I should ask our agency if they can confirm that our Dossier has been translated and filed yet.

Names (Cont.)

2008-03-04T10:54:00.000-06:00

My mom reminded me that her Grandfather's name was Hipolit, which seems to be the Polish version of "Philip." Also, my Great-Aunt used to call my Grandfather Francheski (which may have stemmed from Franciszek), although we always knew him as Frank.

Names

2008-02-28T11:04:00.000-06:00

No - I'm not giving you names that we are considering (yet). But I will say that I am thinking about them!! We are still convinced that we will wait and see what his or her name is before inflicting our idea of a cool name on another human being. If he or she has a name that would likely avoid being beat up on the playground, we will consider keeping it (or its American counterpart.) However, if it is something hardly prounouncable by others and not easily translated, we will likely explore alternatives. I will say that I am a fan of good old fashioned Catholic names.

Here is an interesting tradition. Wouldn't this just be frustrating to family and friends! This is from a Blog called the Iceland Report:

In Iceland, babies' names usually remain under wraps until the child is christened in church. That's when the name becomes public for the first time. It's a big unveiling, akin to when Rod Roddy used to yell "a new car!" on The Price is Right. Before the baby has her "day in church", the parents use a nickname between each other and with their friends and family. This nickname will be something like "kríle" (small thing) or "stubbur" (stumpy). Last year I made the mistake of asking some friends what was the name of their new baby, and they glowered at me. (She's since been christened Júlía Jökulrós, or Julia Glacier's-Rose.) But to new parents the innocent "What's the name of your baby?" is a question best left unasked in the Land. http://icelandreport.blogspot.com/search?q=stubbur.

Interesting!

Hmmmm....Now What?

2008-02-15T13:29:00.000-06:00

OK, so the ball is in their court. Now what do we do? Wait patiently, I suppose. But what if we are not patient? Well, I guess we have to learn!

There are always things we can do around the house, and there is more reading to accomplish on bonding, attachment, parenting, travel, etc. I'll tackle that a little at a time. This is the perfect time to prepare ourselves. I should come up with a list of topics on which to post (i.e. bonding, attachment, language, travel, names, etc.) and then periodically assign myself one of those topics to research and blog. I do essentially research and write for a living.

I know our dossier probably isn't even translated yet, but I am starting to really get excited. There is a child out there somewhere who will be a part of our family, and that is a crazy concept to grasp!

After years of infertility, can this really happen?

We Are Officially Waiting!

2008-02-07T17:13:00.000-06:00

Ta-da! Here is a photograph of our Dossier! I know it doesn't look very impressive, but there was a lot of effort put into that stack of papers.

We got confirmation from our Agency that it looks wonderful and that Poland will love us. The affirmation felt good. On Tuesday our Dossier was sent to Poland for translation and authentication. After that we can be matched at any time. We don't anticipate any news for quite a few months. But I suppose anything can happen.

We had our immigration fingerprinting appointment today. It went smoothly and we should have immigration approval some time in the next weeks (or months).

I know friends and family will be eager for news. Believe me, we will give it at soon as we can! In the meantime, I'm thinking we should get shirts that say "no news yet." Although if we did that, we would have to wear them every day. Perhaps we should get just a button or something. :-)

Just because we are in the waiting stage does not mean that this blog will go quiet. It is now that we are finally beginning to believe that we will actually become parents, and I may well be posting more frequently. We are going to be trying to figure out how we should spend the time preparing our home and our hearts, and we are very open to advice and suggestions as to how we do that!

Also, it is the Season of Lent, a time of preparation and sacrifice -- indeed a good time to reflect.

We've Sent Our Dossier!

2008-02-01T14:21:00.000-06:00

Last night we sent our Dossier to our Agency! I've got a picture of the stack of papers, I'll try to post that later.

We had received our last authenticated documents back on Wednesday, so on Thursday we piled it all up, copied it and sent the originals to our Agency! It felt a little surreal to let it go. I kept thinking that after all of that work, it comes down to one stack of paper? It didn't even look that big!

Our understanding at this point is that our Agency will be putting it in the proper format and will attach anything else they need to, and then send it to Poland. It will then be translated and we will need to be generally approved by the court as parents who can adopt.

It still feels a little unreal that we have actually sent the Dossier. We still somewhat anticipate that something may still need to be changed. I can't image what though, because our Agency has already looked through it all and we corrected the couple of issues that existed.

I'll report back when I hear from our Agency. But essentially, we are officially waiting!

(P.S. There is another secret meaning to 5150 that I will post soon.)

I Love Nebraska

2008-01-25T22:12:00.000-06:00

I love the small government that is Nebraska! After speaking with a live person at the Health and Human Services Department on Wednesday, I faxed our request with releases and specific instructions for the child abuse clearance letter that we need. Well, guess what we received in our mail today?! Perfectly completed and notarized letters! I am amazed that someone took the fax, completed the check and prepared the letters and mailed it all on the same day. Impressive!

We will now mail these last documents for apostilling, and should get them back on Wednesday or so. Then we can finally send everything on its way.

We have had a nice bottle of champagne waiting for the day the dossier is sent. I have not wanted to put it in the fridge for fear of jinxing things. I think I am just about ready to get it chilling!

Not just yet!

2008-01-24T13:52:00.000-06:00

I went to Lincoln yesterday to get our remaining pile of documents apostilled. I sat in the Secretary of State's office crossing my fingers and thinking good thoughts about the State of Nebraska in general, hoping that somehow that would help things along. Well...it probably didn't hurt, but we were not able to get everything apostilled. There were two issues to fix.

The first was not too bad, and I was able to get that one taken care of while in Lincoln. The other one is taking a bit of effort. The issue we have concerns our child abuse clearance letter from the State's Health and Human Services Department. It wasn't a big deal getting the letter, and in fact we got it months ago. However, they did not have it properly notarized. They had the notary stamp and signature, but they did not include the "attestation clause" or language such as "subscribed and sworn to me by…" or "I hereby attest that…." I should have caught this earlier, but I think I just assumed that it came from an agency that does this all the time, and they must have done it right. Well, they didn't, and we need a new letter, and it has to be properly notarized.

I went to the HHS Department while in Lincoln and talked with them about it. They said they needed releases of information (new ones, because the ones from months ago are no longer on file), and then they would run the check and send us the letters. So, last night I drafted releases and an awesome letter setting forth what we need (and thanking them profusely), and faxed it to that gal's attention. Here's hoping small state government pulls through!

I was initially a little bummed about the whole thing, but then realized that we have everything else notarized, apostilled, and done! This is now the last thing that we need to do in terms of the dossier. So, while I was hoping to send the dossier this week, next week (hopefully) will be just fine!

Almost officially "waiting"

2008-01-22T22:28:00.000-06:00

I'm off to Lincoln tomorrow a.m. to get our last items apostilled. Wish me luck that everything is in good shape and that it goes smoothly. Hope to be DTP ("Dossier to Poland"), via our agency, within 2 days!

Think of it as being 2 days before one could possibly get a reading on a pregnancy test. Only our "cycle" was a wee bit more than a month!

Getting Closer

2008-01-18T12:16:00.000-06:00

We are getting much closer to having our dossier sent. We may be able to send our Nebraska documents for apostilling/authentication as early as tomorrow. I would hope for a Wednesday return. Then we will have everything done except our immigration approval! I have a question into our Agency as to whether we can send our Dossier now, or if we must wait for the immigration approval. I'm hoping we can send it all now, and then follow with the immigration document when we receive it.

Immigration Fingerprinting Appointment

2008-01-15T17:09:00.000-06:00

We just got notice of our fingerprinting appointment from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) today. This is a great step and means our immigration application is being processed. Our fingerprint appointment is scheduled for February 7. I'm not sure how long approval will take after the appointment, but at least we know it is moving!

Other than the fingerprinting, I sent off Missouri and North Carolina documents for apostilling today. We should be able to finish off our apostilling (we still need to do Nebraska) by the end of next week!

Dossier Back From Agency!

2008-01-14T17:08:00.000-06:00

Whoa, that was quick! Our Agency has already reviewed our draft Dossier. We have been given a few items to fix, but they are not too bad. We should be able to have those done within the week. We will do these, and then send the items for apostilling. Then, Dossier to Poland ("DTP")! Could we really have this Dossier on its way by about February 1???

I must say that it is all starting to get very exciting, and much more real. I am starting to look around our house and think about various projects to prepare the family room and bedroom. It is still tough to do very much (not knowing age/sex), but there are some things I have in mind to get going on.

I am also thinking about a scrapbook/album to document the process. I have not wanted to document (other than this blog of course) things like doctor visits and paper chasing, but I think keeping the reference letters would be nice. I would also like to begin actively working on some sort of an album as soon as we are matched with a referral. I am not a big scrapbooker (although I admire those who have a talent for it), but I want to make an effort to capture this exciting time.

One thing I've actually been thinking a lot about is school. Now, we could potentially get a 1 year old, and school won't really be an issue for a while. But I want to do preschool as early as possible, so I am trying to attempt some research in that area. I've also been looking at all sorts of books - especially focused on adoption. I want grown-up books for us (to help "prepare" us) and children's books that are adoption focused. I remember having books that had the "you're adopted and you're special" focus, and I would like to have a collection for our child. I would love any recommendations if you've got them.

Looks like I am posting more and more these days. I think I will continue to, because there is much more exciting news to post and interesting info to share in the "waiting" stage as opposed to the "paper" stage.

"Oh, I'm sorry...You couldn't adopt?"

2008-01-12T13:27:00.000-06:00

Dossier to Agency!

2008-01-10T15:16:00.000-06:00

This is a great step! Today we are mailing our draft dossier to our Agency. Well...it isn't the finalized/authenticated version of the dossier, but it is close! We have completed all the requirements and are sending it to our Agency to examine it and be sure everything is OK before we have all of the documents authenticated.

Our Agency will review everything and tell us if there is anything that needs to be redone. If there is anything that must be fixed, we can do that immediately. We then will send all notarized documents to the Secretary of State who will apostille (a form of authentication) each document (for a fee). When that is done, the pile of paper can go to Poland!

Things seem to be moving along at a brisk pace now. I can't believe we will be out of this stage very shortly!

Then what? Well, I think we will start planning and preparing our home. We do not know an exact age or the sex of our child, but we do know that there will need to be room for more "stuff." I'm looking forward to cleaning out "the room" and getting some bookshelves and baskets and such for the basement.

We still cannot even think about names. I think we are going to wait and see what his/her given name is and evaluate the possibilities then.

New Year - New Motivation

2008-01-04T16:39:00.000-06:00

Happy New Year! Hope everyone had a great one. Ours was nice - had an early Christmas with Ryan's family here in Omaha. Before Christmas we had a mini-getaway in San Diego for a couple of nights, then we took the train up to my parents and spent a week with my parents, including visits with my bro and his girlfriend. We got lots of nice presents too!

I am very overdue for an adoption update! Things sort of lulled over the holidays, but we are back and attacking our dossier with a new motivation. There are some international happenings involving the Hague Convention and Treaty that (long story short) mean we must have our dossier sent to Poland by April 1. This is exciting, although it means we have a few things to get done ASAP.

We must have everything to our agency in the next couple of weeks so that they may verify things, tell us anything that must be redone/fixed/etc. and then we have to send all documents to be apostilled by the Secretary of State.

Our remaining to-do list consists of completing our online adoption courses, getting our priest's recommendation form and collecting pictures of our pretty selves. We've got an appointment with out priest scheduled for next Wednesday, we have started the courses, and we are looking for the pictures, so we should be done soon!

The exciting part of this all is that (assuming it all is done correctly) our dossier should be in Poland before April 1 and we will then be officially "waiting" for our referral soon!

Holidays

2007-12-20T08:12:00.001-06:00

Don't you love this time of year? I think there are few things that beat the lights, music, food, and good times of the holiday season. Ryan would beg to differ I'm sure, as he favors shorts-weather over just about anything. We will both get our wish since we are going to CA for Christmas.

We had hoped that our adoption would be a little further along by now, but it isn't, and that's OK. I expected I would be particularly contemplative and distracted around the holidays and be bummed about not having our child by now, but I'm OK. Ryan and I are excited to have a nice holiday together.

Things are very busy at work, but I am hoping to take most of next week off and enjoy family, friends, food and fun. I'm hoping to put the blackberry down and only boot up the laptop to surf the internet and check our fantasy football teams, but that may be a little optimistic.

I just want to send all kinds of good thoughts, vibes, feelings, prayers, etc. to a couple of families who are very close to having their children home. We're thinking about you, and learning from you!

Merry Christmas all!

Immigration Processing

2007-12-11T12:55:00.000-06:00

On December 1, we sent the final homestudy report off to immigration (USCIS). We understand that this processing can take 3 months or so. This approval letter will be the last item we need to send our dossier to Poland. I would love to post here on March 1 and tell you that the dossier is on its way. We'll see how the timing really works out though!

There are a couple of steps for us to do in the meantime:

(1) Get our priest referral letter;
(2) Take pictures of us and our house;
(3) Finish online adoption classes;
(4) Have all documents authenticated/apostilled; and
(5) Have USCIS fingerprinting done (we are waiting for the appointment to be scheduled).

So...there will still be things to report on while we await immigration.

Omaha Mourning

2007-12-07T09:45:00.000-06:00

This week's shooting at Westroads Mall has shocked and saddened all of us, and there is nothing I can add to the comments of many in the newspaper and on television.

One of the victims was John McDonald, the father of a partner in the litigation department at my firm.

One of the wounded is a 34 year old lawyer in town with whom I went to law school.

Please keep the victims' families in your thoughts and prayers during this very difficult time.

One of the best days ever

2007-11-30T23:49:00.000-06:00

OK, no, we didn't have any amazing news about our future family member today. But I will say, I just had one of the best days ever. I don't know if the stars were aligned or something (and I don't even believe in the stars being aligned), but everything went my way today.

I really don't know where to start. I guess I will just list the amazing things that happened today:

1. I prepared and filed an awesome brief at work today.
2. I had a great lunch with people at work.
3. We got news at work that raises are likely coming (and I got paid today).
4. WE GOT OUR HOMESTUDY!!! It is IN HAND, and we will mail it to immigration tomorrow.
5. I got 2 items for our dossier notarized.
6. I picked up another item for our dossier from our homestudy agency.
7. I brought my secretary a beverage at 4:30 p.m. and it made her happy.
8. I got news that I had an awesome victory in a case that I knew was a close one, and it had tough constitutional first amendment issues involved.
9. I got a new laptop bag that is the cutest and most lightweight bag ever. I put it on my shoulder at I just felt confident and happy - it is awesome.
10. I got a notice that I am getting $25 from a class action suit in the mail.
11. I used my new "Prada" purse that my Dad got me from China. It rocks.
12. I got 6 Express Jet bucks in the mail today, just for signing up for the frequent flier club, that is the equivalent to 2 glasses of wine, or 6 beers on our flights to California for Christmas.
13. My husband and I had a great date at the best steak place ever in Omaha (the Drover), it was incredible. I told the host that I had a great day. And when we left, he said he hoped my awesome day continued into tomorrow.
14. We saw my in-laws tonight after our date, and I had this wonderful white russian drink, and my father-in-law paid for the tab to make sure my perfect day stayed perfect (it did).
15. We got the forecast for a rainy, snowy, icy day tomorrow, and I have NO WORK that I have to do, so I can bundle up, put wood in the fire, watch The Office dvds, and do nothing for 2 whole days.

What more could one want in a day?

I will just say, that I am very blessed, lucky, happy, and fortunate to be where I am.

Roller Coaster...

2007-11-29T15:08:00.000-06:00

It is inevitable that we will have ups and downs in this process. We just need to learn to accept that! There is no major "up" or "down" this week, although the relative inertia has been a general downer. Things are moving along a little better now, so here were are on an upswing again.

Earlier this week I was feeling very frustrated at this all. What is supposed to be a joyous period of excitement and anticipation was feeling very much like studying for the bar exam (ok, it isn't that bad.) But I vented a bit, and began to feel better. I think I just need designated venting time, and I need to admit that it is OK to be frustrated. It also helped that I found the right people to talk to. I really do need to make more friends that are adopting or have adopted.

I have gotten some wonderful suggestions this week. I should start learning a little Polish. I do have a great CD set my mom gave me. I also can start thinking about planning "the room." Of course we will need to know age/sex to determine some things, but I can certainly start to plot out the options. We can also work on the rest of the house, like where are we going to put all of that luggage and extra "stuff" that is just being stored in "the room?" We also need to take a few adoption classes, in addition to the one we completed a few months ago. This is a good time to do that.

Unstuck!

2007-11-16T13:38:00.000-06:00

OK! Homestudy report complete! We are officially unstuck! (insert applause here).

As of today, our homestudy agency in Nebraska has officially completed, finalized and printed out our homestudy and sent it to our main agency. That agency will attach its certification (they've already reviewed the report) and send it to us so that we may send it to Citizenship and Immigration (CIS) for processing.

Right now it appears that CIS is taking about 3 months to process these petitions. Ours could take more or less time, who knows. With the holidays in there, I imagine it could take longer. Somewhere in this processing time, they will schedule us to come in for fingerprints. We have had fingerprints done for our background checks and homestudy report, but these will be for the federal government, and they have a special requirement and set an appointment for it.

After CIS is done, then we can finalize our paperwork (dossier) and have it sent to Poland.

At this point, it feels like we are moving again. We can get going with those last few loose ends for our dossier while immigration is processing. I also will have a new answer for people when they ask "how is the adoption going." My new answer will be, "immigration is processing our petition." I can deal with that one for a few months!

I'll be sure to check in more on the Blog though. I know how you rely on me as a source of information (and as a distraction from work, etc.).

Stuck

2007-10-25T09:55:00.000-05:00

I think we are stuck. I think this homestudy report will never be complete.

If I have to answer the question "how are things with the adoption going?" with the response "fine, still waiting for our homestudy report to be finalized" I think I will spontaneously burst into tears right in front of the innocent unsuspecting questioner. It doesn't matter if that person is a friend, co-worker, boss, family member, whatever...that person is going to get more than they bargained for.

That being said, I am hoping that the fact that I am admitting frustration will somehow align the stars so that things will move along. It is akin to this: when you lose your keys, and you finally give up and go get new ones made, then you find your old ones. I can hear a voice in my head saying "ok already! I understand this is a tedious and frustrating process, I've learned enough from this part of the process, lesson learned, OK, let's move on now!" So, I completely expect to have an email later today saying it is all done and that we can send it to immigration now. (See crossing fingers picture below).

I would love to place blame somewhere, but I am afraid it is inherent in the process and in the country we chose. We didn't pick China, Guatemala, or Russia and there aren't thousands of adoptions from Poland every year. There are 67. Yes, 67 children were adopted from Poland into the U.S. last year. That reason alone probably explains why our homestudy report isn't an easy form that has been done billions of times before. Right now, I would love to blame our homestudy agency for not moving things along faster. But they could point to us taking 2 months to get our doctor visits and reports completed, or to our agency for not giving explicit instructions from the start. So we are all to blame, or there is simply no "blame" at all.

So, we feel stuck, but we somehow have faith that things will move along. They have to. Other families have gotten through this and adopted from Poland, so we know it is possible. If nothing else, our agencies won't get paid until things move along! We at least have faith that we are working with businesses that are motivated by completing services and receiving payment (among other more human motivations, I am sure).

Final Review of Homestudy

2007-10-18T13:18:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, our agency sent us the draft of our homestudy report so that we could review it and suggest changes where necessary. The report is a solid 16 pages single spaced with 20 documents attached. We went through it last night, made a few changes and sent it back for finalization. They couldn't possibly want anything further from us, we have nothing left to give!

The report looks good. It makes us look like perfect, moral, financially stable, healthy, clean people who will be better parents than anyone in the universe. Now...a couple of those propositions are admittedly true, but not all of them! But I suppose a Polish court would rather hear that than hear "they will probably be OK parents, but I am sure they have no idea what they are doing."

One of my personal favorate parts of the report has to do with Ryan's family. Bascially, we had written a paragraph on each of his parents and his brother and sister. Well, they have added the following language: "[family member] is supportive regarding the adoption and accepts being a [grandfather/gradmother/aunt/uncle] to children not born to Ryan's wife." Funny. I can't imagine it being anything different.

So, now the report is back in our Agency's hands. Hopefully we will have the signed and finalized copies soon.

Crossing Fingers!

2007-10-03T11:07:00.000-05:00

Crossing fingers! We just got word that our homestudy report is complete (again), and that it is off to our agency for approval. I think it should be good to go because it was modeled after a sample that was recently sent to the person writing the report. Hopefully we will have approval in-hand in the next couple of days!

To make a (slightly) long story short...we spent quite a bit of time in the past week or two gathering info. We had to put together some descriptions of each family member; compile a multitude of documents (proof of life insurance, health insurance, employment letters, mortgage deed, car insurance, birth certificates, credit card statements, retirement account info, etc.)and; answer a few questions. Much of it was already compiled before, so it wasn't difficult, just a wee bit time consuming.

We are getting closer! I'll report back soon.

Autumn

2007-09-24T16:15:00.000-05:00

Changing seasons - I love it!! Isn't autumn the best? And perhaps this is our last autumn as an adult only household? One can hope!

Good headway on our homestudy report. We had a few changes to make and things have been rewritten, but I beleive that is coming along now. Hopefully our dossier requirements have not changed in the meantime - I should probably check on that!

I have had several comments about the last post. I thank you for your support and comments. I imagine some of you are surprised that I would be so open about such an intense subject. I suppose that I am just in a good place about it all. I also want people to know that they can talk about it - either to me, or someone else.

People who deal with infertility share a huge and powerful secret. But we don't need to suffer in silence.

OK - I'm going to lay off the fertility subject for awhile. Let's start talking about fun stuff - about kid stuff! More to come...

Infertility

2007-09-12T17:49:00.001-05:00

OK, perhaps it is about time that I discussed this one. Now is a good time to post about it, because I am not feeling emotionally wrapped up in any particular aspect of it. I am not waiting on a cycle to start (or not start), I am not taking any fertility medications, and I am not counting days between cycles. Let me tell you…it feels really good.

I will say this: infertility sucks. It is horrid. It is a heart wrenching, emotional rollercoaster that no one should have to go through. And it is entirely unfair.

Why is it that one person can get pregnant without trying (or even while preventing), but another can try for months or years and nothing happens? Why is it that hospitals are overflowing with babies being born and the population of the world increases daily, but fertility increases annually too? Why does it affect me, but none of my friends? And why can I not have a baby that is a gorgeous combination of me and my husband? Not fair.

Here we are, completely beyond ready to be parents (well, as "ready" as someone can be). We are financially comfortable, we have the house, live near great schools, have a great support system, and we are not too young and not too old. On paper, we are good to go.

Once we were "paper ready", we went for it. We stopped preventing and decided to see what happened. OK, well, nothing happened for 4-5 months. Then we started actively trying - you know, timing things and such. Still…nothing. After about a year, we sought help. I was tentatively diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS). This is an obnoxious syndrome that messes with your ovaries and can prevent ovulation. It can also go hand in hand with insulin resistance. To make a long story short, we worked on treating the symptoms.

My doctor put me on glucophage/metformin to treat the PCOS. I don't know if it did anything other than give me annoying side effects.

A year or two later we moved back to Nebraska. I began seeing a different doctor here who agreed with the PCOS diagnosis. The new doctor did not agree with the insulin resistance part, and saw no reason for me to be on glucophage/metformin. They ordered a bunch of tests to be done on me and on Ryan. After quite a few months of "fertility workup" it pretty much came down to my ovaries being a bit dysfunctional and not releasing eggs.

So, the next 8-10 months involved frequent visits to the fertility clinic. I would go at the very beginning of my cycles to get a "baseline" ultrasound measuring follicles on my ovaries. (One follicle is supposed to release an egg in the middle of the cycle - hence, ovulation.) I would then take Clomid for 5 days. Then I would return to the doctor on about day 11 of my cycle to see if the follicles had grown and if there is a dominant one that looks like it would release an egg. If there was one that appeared dominant, then the doctor would give me an injection with the intent of triggering ovulation on day 15 or so. One bummer was that more than half the time I couldn't even do the Clomid because I had small cysts, which are exacerbated by Clomid. So, we didn't even have a chance of taking the medications each month.

To make a long story short - the months of this were (obviously) not successful. They were heart wrenching months full of disappointment. Each month brought tears - sometimes from leaving the doctor's office, sometimes over negative ovulation or pregnancy tests, and sometimes over just thinking about it all. We then had our next decision to make: How far would we go with fertility treatments?

I will admit that there was much more we could have done with fertility treatments. We stopped short of doing intrauterine insemination, and stopped well short of in vitro fertilization. My doctor didn't seem thrilled with either option for me. The first, intrauterine insemination, wouldn't work unless I ovulated and an egg was actually released. If that was possible, then we would be successful without artificial insemination. The second, in vitro, is very expensive and doesn't have very good success chances based on the cost. After taking much time to weigh these options, we were ready to throw this disappointing phase behind us and be excited about having a child. Adoption was the decision! And that is where this blog begins, in January 2007.

This is really the short version (although I'm sure you beg to differ based on the length of this post). I am actually very content to discuss this with anyone. It is part of our journey. Too many people are confronted with infertility in one way or another. I think our society should be a bit more open to comforting those who go through this. It is a real issue. It is an issue of grief, loss, love, and family. It tests your strength, your relationship and your faith. It is the worst, and quite possibly the best thing that has ever happened to me.

More Homestudy and Dossier Progress

2007-09-06T11:33:00.000-05:00

Well, hello there. Welcome September. How do the weeks and months fly so fast!?

A couple of positive steps in the adoption have taken place since the past update. We don't have our homestudy report yet, but we have been communicating with our homestudy gal and it is moving along. Last week we had a bit of back and forth on some issues to be addressed in our homestudy report.

Basically, Poland wants to know that we intend to maintain the child's heritage. There appears to be a concern that we will take said child, call him/her an American and live happily ever after without considering his/her Polish heritage. Well, that certainly isn't our intention. So it was good to put in writing that we consider it something to be very proud of. It was a good opportunity to discuss my grandfather's heritage and distant relatives that live there. I don't have current knowledge or contact with them, but it feels comforting to know that we can tell our child that we share his or her connection to Poland, at least to some small degree.

We also were able to say that we intend to return to Poland one day (or multiple times in the future), so that our child may visit the country and maintain and revisit the connection. Perhaps one day we would find occasion to meet and visit with my distant relatives there as well.

In addition to the homestudy progress, we continue to complete our dossier items. We have everything done with the exception of our Priest's letter of recommendation, our homestudy agency's license and pictures of us and the house. We rock! We'll get those last couple of things done and then have our agency make sure we did it all properly.

OK, now one positive item that is not adoption-related. I had my fantasy football draft last night (yes, I am a geek), and I drafted first! That has to be the first time ever that I had the number 1 pick. So, yes, I selected LaDainian Tomlinson. That is fantastsic because he is only the best running back ever. AND, he is a Charger. I hope I don't jinx him...

Progress

2007-08-21T10:39:00.000-05:00

I know you think I've forgotten about this blog. But I haven't! Here's a brief update on the latest.

Our homestudy is virtually done. Everything has been completed on our end. We understand that preparation of the report is in progress, and we hope to have it in hand any day. That will be a great step!

As soon as that is done, we will immediately send it to the USCIS for their processing of our I-600A. (The petition to make our "orphan" a citizen). That can take a couple of months. Right now, according to the USCIS website, they are currently processing applications dated May 15. That sounds like 3 months, but I know people who have said it has gone faster.

While the immigration stuff is processing, we will complete the last couple of items for our dossier, and get the apostilling done. I will update our checklist on this site soon.

I've been hearing of quite a few families uniting with their children in Poland recently. Some have just returned home, some are there, and some have travel dates. It is very exciting! Congratulations to those families. You are a great encouragement, and we know our day will come too.

Where did July go?

2007-07-31T21:50:00.000-05:00

How can a month have gone by and I feel like we have nothing to show for it? I had really hoped our homestudy would have been done by now, but it isn't. One little thing needs to be done and then the report can be written up and we can send it to immigration. I will be so content when we have it in hand.

In the meantime, we continue to get our dossier together. There are a couple of things we must do, but we are dependant upon other things happening too. Hopefully we will be checking more things off soon.

I started to write a post on infertility. It is somewhat difficult to do that because we are so thrilled with our adoption decision. The post I was drafting seemed a bit heavy. But dealing with infertility is akin to grief...so that would be a bit "heavy."

I will post on infertility soon though. So many of us are dealing with it. The more we talk about it, the more we can get a handle on it and learn to deal with it.

Overdue Post and 5150 Revealed

2007-07-14T08:49:00.000-05:00

Yes, I know this post is entirely too delayed. There just has not been a whole lot to report on. I was hoping that our homestudy report would be finished by now, but not quite yet. I think it should be done any day now though. I think our agency should have everything and is probably completing the report and interacting with our international agency to be sure that it is all completed properly.

I know plenty of people that have gone through the homestudy process in much less time, but it hasn't been too bad. At the same time that the homestudy process has been ongoing, we have also been accomplishing the other items for our dossier. There are really only a couple of items that we still need. We need one reference form completed from our Church, the license from our homestudy agency, pictures of us and the house and the I-171 (which is approval to adopt from U.S. Citizenship and Immigraton Services or USCIS). We will accomplish those last few paperwork items while USCIS is processing us.

Once we have those done, we will send them to our agency to verify that everything has been completed properly. Then we will send items for apostilling/certifiacation with the secretary of state.

So...it is coming along. Just have to make this final push with the paperwork.

My apologies if the posts have become boring. As I look back it appears I have resorted to just checking in and updating on the next paperwork that we are doing. How dry is that? I am sure that it would be much more interesting to read about our preparations for becoming parents. I know you would rather read about whether we hope for a boy or a girl, what kind of stuff we will buy to prepare the child's room, what names we are considering or how we expect our lives to change when we become a family of 3 as opposed to 2.

These are mostly areas that we have not even thought about yet. It is like we don't believe there is a child at the end of the process. I don't know if that comes from our infertility disappointments or what. I just still feel like something may go wrong, like our agency may suddenly cease to exist, Poland may quit permitting international adoptions, or, if they don't stop adoptions, maybe we will never get "matched."

I need to have a little faith though. I have followed quite a few families that have completed adoptions through Poland, and other countries. The chances that something will interfere at this point are minimal. I just need to get over myself and realize we are doing the right things to make this happen.

So, that leaves me to the 5150 issue that I left you with on the last post. Yes, besides the mileage between Omaha, Nebraska and Poland, there is another meaning to it (and there is no way I would have expected you to know this, unless you are a police officer in California.) 5150 is the California police code for insanity and it is a call-in for a mentally unstable person that causes disrest to the general public.

Well, there is a little insanity in all this, and definitely mental instability. The 5150 on the blog title signifies the journey, the distance, but it also conveys the difficulty and the emotional journey. We came to adoption after some tough experiences, and those are things that will always be with us. Adopting our child will be the best thing that ever happens to us. 5150 is the journey that takes us from one of the worst things that we have gone through to the very best. This necessarily implicates some sort of insanity in the meantime.

Task Oriented

2007-06-24T14:26:00.000-05:00

This adoption process has become very task oriented. We basically just do the things we have to do, and then tackle the next item on the list. That is ok for now, but I know that lurking around the corner is a whole different world!

Extra credit points for you if you can figure out the dual meaning of 5150. The obvious side is that it is literally the mileage between Omaha and Warsaw. That in itself conveys the journey, the distance, and the difficulty we are faced with. But there is another significance to 5150. As a hint, I like the band Van Halen. It isn’t anything personal or especially meaningful – it is just something that the number represents. I know you are biting your nails with curiosity, so I will post the answer in a couple of days.

I want to say a special “hi” to my favorite brother, Kevin. Hey dude. Yes, I just gave you a “shout out” on the blog. I know you have been clamoring for a new blog entry for some time, so this one had to at least mention you. The truth is, I am very excited for you to be an uncle, and I wanted to put that in writing. I know you will be the coolest uncle to your future niece or nephew, just like you will be a great dad one day. :-)

OK, for those keeping score at home, we crossed off a couple of items from the list this week. We hope to cross off quite a few more in the next two weeks also! Stay tuned...

Checklist

2007-06-02T18:18:00.000-05:00

I have created a checklist of the entire process which is now located on the right column of this page. It is basically a list of things we have to do and it shows our progress and what the next steps are. It is essentially in chronological order, although not necessarily. I'll try to cross things off as they are completed.

In writing out this list it makes it look like we still have so far to go. That is alright though, we know that things are coming along fine. I am sure there will be a point that everything will move very quickly.

Mother-To-Be?

2007-05-24T23:20:00.000-05:00

Ryan's Grandparents gave me this card on Mother's Day. How sweet!

It had not even crossed my mind that Mother's Day had anything to do with me. But I suppose it does! I guess it is like we are pregnant. Although, instead of morning sickness I get papercuts. Instead of being tired and having a sore back, I get documents notarized and suffer pains in understanding all of the requirements we must follow. Instead of frequent doctor visits, I have trips to the bank to get documents notarized and visits with a social worker.

But it is all good! One day (soon, I'm sure) I'll allow myself to indulge in the fun stuff like thinking of names, clothes, furniture, hugs, car seats, pediatricians, day care, play dates and being called mom.

Medical Exam

2007-05-16T22:07:00.000-05:00

This week we had our medical examination. I use the singular form of "examination" on purpose. Ryan and I literally had our doctor visits together! I don't think I've had someone else attend a medical exam with me for quite some time, perhaps almost 20 years. I'm sure my mom came with me to exams as a pre-teen and teenager, but that was almost 20 years ago now!

But, it all went just fine. In fact, like most parts of this adoption that I thought would be challenging, it wasn't anything to really worry about.

We went to Ryan's old family doctor. This doctor delivered Ryan's sister, and has been treating Ryan's family for 25 years or so. Ryan had good memories of him and the doctor treats all ages, so we figured he would be a good one to go to for these general physicals. And, so far so good.

At the visit we first saw the nurse. She took all our vitals and got our files in order. Then the doctor came in and spent about 30 minutes chatting with us and doing a solid basic examination. The best part was that we didn't have to do any bloodwork! We already had all the necessary tests taken at another doctor not too long ago, and this doctor was happy to use those results. Ryan lucked out there - he was dreading the needle!

Basically, we need to give the doctor a week or so to complete the forms, then I will follow up and see if there is anything else we need to do. Barring that, we should be able to get the forms and check that one off the list.

So, it is all going well. I'm still not ready to seriously believe I will be a mom though. It still feels like we are just applying for something...like a mortgage, or a general background check like for the bar exam. I've pretty much told myself I can start feeling things when our dossier is sent in. And again, I picture that being August. I did get a super "mother-to-be" card from Ryan's Grandmother on Mother's Day. That was the sweetest thing, and it is the closest I've come to realizing this might really happen.

Happenings this week

2007-05-04T11:24:00.000-05:00

A couple of happenings this week. Most importantly, we made our doctor appointment. We will both go in at the same time for our appointments and hopefully get all our tests and the exam done in one visit. Our doctor has a notary in the office and will fill out the forms and send them back to us within days. Glad we will soon be able to check that one off our list.

We've been working on other items for our dossier as well. We need notarized letters of child abuse and criminal clearance. I've sent in letters to the appropriate agencies along with return envelopes. Hopefully we will get those soon. After that, we need to take some pictures of us and the house and finalize our references.

I still think we are on track to have the dossier on its way by August 1!

Other than our adoption, there are lots of happenings in our lives right now. Most importantly is Ryan's sister, Jessica. She is having a difficult time right now. We love her so very much and know she will be better soon.

We've been Visited, Interviewed and Educated

2007-04-26T18:13:00.000-05:00

This is slightly overdue - I have a few things to update on. First, we had our international adoption class last Friday. Second, we had the "home visit" yesterday. Third, we had individual interviews with our homestudy agency today. It's been a good week and the end of the homestudy is in sight!

The Class

The class we took was an 8-hour course on issues related to bringing home internationally adopted children. It was required by our homestudy agency, and probably the state too. The subjects ranged from bonding and attachment issues, to specific behavioral issues related to being in orphanages, to approaching the adoption subject with the child. It was eye-opening to say the least and it sure brought us down to earth.

The class basically started with video clips from orphanages around the world. The conditions in these places are very tough, sterile and institutionalized. There is no giggling, there are no hugs and no individual attention. You can only imagine what the conditions are like for any length of time. It was easy to understand that there will be certain behaviors that will likely result from living in an environment like that. It won't necessarily be easy to figure out how to handle that. But we did get pointers, and things to look for. We got advice on how to react to certain behaviors - as opposed to resulting to discipline. It seemed to make sense, but again, we'll see how we do in real life!

The Home Visit

OK, was I really worried about this one? It was a piece of cake. Let's put it this way. If you read this whole entry, then you probably spent more time on this than the social worker spent at our house yesterday.

I'll give you the blow-by-blow anyway. Basically, we sat down at our dining room table for about 5 minutes. We chatted for a bit about how the class went, and how she is doing with getting our background checks and such done. Then we took her on a tour of our abode - um, 2 minutes upstairs and 2 minutes downstairs. She had a couple of documents I wanted to make copies of - then, poof, it was over. Easy.

Before we knew it, Ryan and I were off to happy hour and had a great little dinner of cocktails and appetizers.

So, nothing to worry about. She didn't look in any cabinets, drawers or our pantry. Really the best thing about it was that it made us pick up around the house and clean out the "kid's room." (I have to put that in quotes, since it isn't really anyone's room right now.) So, we can check this one off our list.

Interviews

At our happy hour dinner last night, Ryan and I talked about issues that might come up in our individual interviews today (yes, to get our stories straight). Again, we over-prepared. Our interviews were about 45 minutes long and they both went well. Mine was second, and I got confirmation that our answers were consistent!

Essentially we had to talk about our relationship, our upbringing, our views toward parenting and thoughts on discipline. I don't really like talking about myself that long, but it was over soon enough. And, check that off our list!

So we accomplished a lot this week. We are really in the home-stretch of our homestudy. Our next immediate steps are the medical exam and getting notarized criminal background letters. Hopefully I'll be reporting back on those very soon!

After that, we have a few tough steps for immigration and our dossier (the packet sent to Poland), but it is manageable. My hope is that we have all of this done and our dossier on its way to Poland by August 1. That is a realistic date, but a lot of it depends upon the government, so we'll see!

Coming Soon: The Home Visit

2007-04-17T16:01:00.000-05:00

We've been in the "home study" process for a few weeks now, but next week is the official home visit (or at least the first one). This is when the social worker will come to our house to get a picture of what our living environment is like. So what do we do to prepare for that? Well, one camp says clean up and start childproofing. Another contingency says tidy up a bit, but look normal - have some normal clutter around. Then I've even heard tips like put coffee on, have a plate of cookies out, etc.

I'm pretty sure I know where I fall…right in the middle. I think there is something to be said for presenting a clean home that at least has the beginnings of childproofing. I don’t think that I will go around and put plastic covers in every outlet, put breakables on high shelves or childproof all low cabinets just yet. And I don't think I want to clean so much that it looks like we always live that way and will be intolerable of messy little people.

Perhaps a little tidying up, checking the smoke detectors and getting another fire extinguisher will be sufficient. Of course we will put away some of the booze too. And I'll put on coffee…but not do cookies. Seems a bit over-kill.

I think we are ready for it. I don't really have anxiety about it, just want to be prepared! Want to see an explanation of what they do in a home study? See Adoption at About.com.

We have our all-day adoption class this Friday. Time to get some education. I'll report in after that.

Thoughts: Globally and Locally

2007-04-13T10:42:00.000-05:00

So many people are adopting!! I swear, every time I tell someone new about this, they tell me of someone who is or just has adopted. So many are adopting internationally too. The most common countries have been China, Guatemala, Russia, Ukraine, and Ethiopia. I still think we may be the first in Nebraska to adopt from Poland though!

I do want to address the whole Angelina Jolie factor. She has really put a spotlight on international adoption. People joke that she has popularized it to the extent that picking out children is like picking out a new purse. I'd like to think that she is giving homes to children in orphanages who otherwise would grow up without a family. Also, she isn't exactly adopting newborns - her recent addition was a three-year-old from Vietnam. Once the children are toddler age and older, they become "harder to place." And their chances of getting adopted fall dramatically every year.

When asked about preferred age, many adopting families say "the younger the better." I suppose we say this too. I mean, we are going to be first time parents. Of course we want to have our child with us from the earliest point in their life possible. It is arguably better for adjustment and attachment issues for the child. (Although I've heard plenty of people say that the older children transition better because they understand that their parents have come for them.) But is an older child any less deserving of a family and a home? Of course not. OK, enough of the age subject. I'm sure I will go more into it when we are officially "waiting."

I will say this - the more people adopt internationally, the more colorful and interesting our local world becomes. (This is coming from monochromatic West Omaha, Nebraska). One benefit is that our child will not have to look far to find people who came to their parents in the same way he or she did.

I guess these are just some miscellaneous thoughts for the day. I was considering writing on some infertility stuff. I know some people are coming to this Blog who are dealing with infertility. They may have decided on the adoption path, or be considering it. We came to adoption after about 3 years of not being able to get pregnant. I'll write more on it soon - it is certainly part of our journey.

Adopting a Culture

2007-04-07T21:38:00.000-05:00

My Aunt sent me an email stressing how important Poland and being Polish is to the Poles. It got me thinking that it is time to immerse myself more into learning about the culture and history of Poland and in embracing the links that I do have to Poland.

My understanding is that the powers that be in Polish adoption are very keen on placing children with families that have this connection and hope that the children will know their heritage. Beyond this, I think it is important to embrace the culture and history that one has; especially for internationally adopted children. By the nature of being adopted, a child will always have the wonder of where they come from, and what could have been. They likely know very little about their birthparents and will naturally have curiosities about the people of the place of their origin. I'll be proud to have some essentially ancestral connection to my child.

I think when we are done with this procedural paper pushing, and when we are officially "waiting", that we will make more efforts to learn about the culture and language. Right now, honestly, we are still a bit in disbelief that we will really be parents. I think that must be the infertility issues talking. I mean, we've been disappointed before. We have this sort of, "I'll believe it when I see it" attitude. I don't want to have this attitude. But it is what it is.

I truly believe that it will take having our dossier being finally submitted to Poland to really be able to enjoy the anticipation and believe that this is real.

OK - back to the "ebracing a new culture" part of this post. OK - I've taken a brief glance at Polish linguistics. Holy crap! I know nothing about Slavic languages. I mean...I've taken Spanish, French, Latin, Greek...I understand a bit of other romance and germanic lanugages and even some Cyrillic (just insofar as the Greek characters are similar). It looks very difficult, to say the least. Well, we will probably just take it one word at a time. Our aim will be to try to pick up enough to get around when we visit Poland and maybe have a few words in common with our child when we meet him or her!

Quick update - we just got our homestudy fingerprinting done. It was easy. Then we sent a few things to our social worker. Next step - medical exams and reference letters.

The Ball Is Rolling

2007-03-30T11:20:00.000-05:00

We had our first homestudy meeting yesterday. We met with a social worker/therapist at her office for a little over an hour. We went over a lot of the paperwork for the homestudy including their application, background check forms, releases of information, etc. Then it was basically a session questioning us about what drove us to adoption, how we are dealing with infertility, what we are doing to prepare ourselves, etc. They are all pretty much things we've talked about together and are really on the same page about. I was worried that she would get deeper into specific parenting issues that we will have no idea how to respond to! But she didn't go there, yet.

At the meeting we also scheduled our next couple of meetings. First, we scheduled the home visit. It sounds like the gal we are working with will come visit our house one time - probably for no more than an hour. We will give her a tour and talk about our home environment. The day after that we will have separate hour-long interview meetings with her. So we better get our stories straight! Then I think that may be the last of the homestudy meetings, so that isn't too bad!

In the next few weeks we need to get fingerprinting done, have medical exams, and take a day long class. That is all doable. Then, there are some other things we need to get going on for our dossier. So…the ball is rolling!

Here's another question - what the heck are we doing for these few months before we submit everything to Poland?

2007-03-27T11:19:00.001-05:00

Right now we have a list of everything we need to do for completion of the dossier (dossier being our whole packet of info sent to Poland). Sometimes I look at it and think it will be virtually impossible. Then, somedays I think we've got it all under control! Today, I think we have it relatively under control…but we can only do so much at a time.

If I recall correctly off the top of my head, our dossier will be comprised of 17 items. Some seem easy - like copies of our passports. But, nothing on this list is easy. The passport copies will require more than just photocopying. We have to get a passport oath form from the secretary of state, have it notarized, then send it to the secretary of state for apostilling (which is away of authenticating documents in a format that foreign governments will recognize) with 10 bucks per copy (of course we need 2 originals). Once those apostilled copies are returned, then 1 thing will be done!

Some of the other items include our completed homestudy, immigration approval, notarized doctor exams (following visits to get all the right tests done), reference letters (supposedly one coming from a priest) and multiple background checks, to name a few. Now…we can't get immigration approval until the homestudy is done. We can't get the doctor form filled out until the right tests are done and we transfer our current doctor records. We are doing background checks for our homestudy - so those may be the same ones we need for the dossier. I guess what I am trying to say is that it seems like so many parts of this dossier are dependant upon getting other parts done! It is a bit overwhelming, but I keep telling myself that many people have completed this, so it is all possible!

OK. I realize that hearing about my complaining is not the most entertaining read. So, I will try to focus on the steps that we are getting done, as opposed to whining. I also want to document a little more than just the paper process. I mean seriously, we are adopting a human being here. One day we will look back on the paperwork as a very minor part of this whole deal.

One thing that made this feel real was seeing someone else's referral recently. ("Referral" is what is sent to you when you are matched with a child by the powers that be.) One gal's blog that I've been following reported that they had just received a referral! She posted information and pictures! Wow. Imagine that - one day getting a picture and info sent to you and then having to decide to accept a referral. Or, put plainly, deciding on whether or not to accept a child! OK…there are so many questions and thoughts that come to mind regarding this referral and acceptance process. I will post more about that when we are officially "waiting." For now, we focus on accomplishing the tasks that we have to get done to get to that waiting stage.

We told Ryan's Grandparents about our news last night. They were very happy for us. They had a couple of questions and comments that really got me excited. First - Ryan's grandpa asked if he was ready to be a dad! That got me warm and fuzzy inside just picturing him being a dad. His grandma said exactly what I was thinking: "is anyone really ever ready to be a dad?"

The other question was asking if we have thought yet about names. Names! Yes - we get to do that! I mean, our child will probably come with a name…but we can keep it, change it, Americanize it, whatever! Thinking about names is exciting because it is thinking about an identity - and picturing where we will be when this "process" is all done.

OK - one last thing about our conversation that I want to mention - they want to know the age/sex so they can know what kind of toys they can buy! Toys! I mean, I know it is obvious that kids play with toys. But we are talking about OUR child playing with toys. I've never even imagined grandparents buying toys for OUR child. I think that infertility crap has us so jaded and unwilling to accept excitement. Gotta change that.

FAQs

2007-03-22T09:26:00.000-05:00

OK... I'm providing some responses to frequently asked questions. I'm sure this list will grow!

Q. How old will your child be when he/she joins your family?

A. Dunno! Our agency says that between 1 and 2 years old is realistic and possible. We are young -- 32 and 33 is young for adopting, but um, middle-aged in terms of natural parenting. We've heard that the Polish adoption authority tends to place younger children with younger parents. But who really knows the magic placement formula. We do know that most children placed in orphanages have had to remain on a national registry for some time (6-8 mos.+) before becoming available for adoption. I think that is because they want to have this time to be sure that terminating parental rights is appropriate and see if there is some placement possible by an extended birth family member. Our agency has placed children as young as 8 months, although over a year old is much more likely. We have checked the 0-3 box.

Q. Do you get to choose your specific child?

A. Nope - our child will pick us! OK…well, at least the Polish adoption authority will match us. Our understanding is that they meet periodically and place children with adopting parents and then send a "referral" to the parents. This referral will come with pictures, medical information and any other info that they can send. Then, we will have time to think it through and talk with a doctor about any medical concerns. If we are comfortable, we accept the referral. If we are not, we can decide to wait for another referral.

Q. Will you be getting a boy or a girl?

A. Dunno! Whatever happens, happens. We thought about this for about 2 minutes. Then we checked the "either" box. In some circles I hear that boys are generally more "available" than girls…but that is not necessarily the case. We'll roll the dice on this one.

Q. Why Poland?

A. The beauty of responding to this question here is that I've written a blog entry on that one below. See January 25, 2007.

Q. Do you have to go to Poland?

A. Yes, twice! The first trip will be to officially meet our child, they call this a bonding trip. It is also when we will have our first court hearing to state our intentions to adopt the specific child. The court will then set a final court hearing about a month later. Then, the second trip will be to return for the final court hearing and bring our child home.

Q. How long does this process take?

A. Approximately one year. Our agency says they like to see adoptions completed within a year. I've seen some take less time, and many take more time. A lot of it depends on if you accept the first referral that you are sent. If we do, I believe we could travel on the first trip by the end of this year, or beginning of next year. If we do not accept the first referral, it could be well into next year when it is all completed.

SNL - Comedy Sketch

2007-03-21T11:58:00.000-05:00

Here's a funny little Saturday Night Live sketch for your viewing pleasure. I really wanted to post a clip from the comedy series, The Office, where Michael Scott talks to Pam about adopting from China. If anyone comes across it, send it my way!

The Cat is out of the Bag

2007-03-15T14:08:00.000-05:00

Alright - the cat is out of the bag! The parents have been told. My parents were in town this last weekend, and we had Ryan's parents over for dinner on Saturday. We didn't have much of a plan as to how to tell them, other than telling them all over a toast. So, I poured our sparkling wine and we lifted our glasses and I looked at Ryan. He said "we have an announcement…" and that they were going to be grandparents. Before they could raise concern over my sipping my second glass of wine, I said "we have decided to adopt."

They all seemed excited - albeit surprised! I could feel my mom's jaw drop and my dad was immediately beaming. Ryan's parents were happy as well. Ron said he couldn't wait to tell Keaton. We explained a little about the process and why we chose international adoption as opposed to domestic. We also talked a bit about Poland and my mom's connection to it.

Ah yes, my mom was indeed surprised. She has been the one more in-the-loop than anyone with our infertility stuff. I could have (and perhaps should have) told her before hand, as opposed to springing this on her. I forgot how she hates surprises! There was a time in law school when I came home at Thanksgiving when they had not expected me. That gave her enough of a heart attack. And this is a bit bigger than a surprise visit! Ah well, what's done is done. She assures me that it is sinking in now.

So, after our news we had a really nice dinner and visit. Relief set in and I was glad that it was "out there." We've been so secretive for so long as we have not let many people in on our fertility difficulties. It is nice to be on a journey that essentially has guaranteed success, and wonderful to now have the support and interest of our families.

I'm a bad sister though. I just realized that I haven't called Kevin to tell him about this all! That is my mission for tonight.

I do have more to update on - just with some of the homestudy and dossier process. I am almost done with my 4 page autobiography. That one is a bit of a challenge. It is tough to fit your life into a few pages and pick and choose the right stuff to make it sound like you'll be the world's best parent, but are realistic at the same time. I am sure I am over-thinking it. Beyond that, there is a long list of stuff to get done. Some of it seems logistically impossible (like getting a medical exam and having the doctor's signature notarized and having our references submit notarized letters), but that is why it takes a few months to get it all done. Many people have completed these very same steps before us, so we know it can be done.