The Home Study!

We pushed and we pushed and we finally finished our autobiographies last Monday! What a trial that was trying to get it all completed and out to Plan, but we did it. Now we wait for our fingerprints to come back, which should be any day now.
In the mean time, Plan has assigned us to a social worker and we are expecting our home study to begin within the next 2 weeks! This is a huge step for us! When we finish the home study, we will again have to get fingerprinted and have all our paperwork authenticated and translated. Then it is off to China! Keep your fingers crossed that we can get everything in by the end of February........

We are also pushing ahead with our remodel. It is a good thing too, because it is keeping our minds off of the wait for our daughter. We have started with the little back room off the kitchen, which was quite a mess! Patrick and Steve have found some interesting "modifications", but nothing that can't be dealt with by those two! Patrick also found a decorated wooden block that said "Merry Christmas" on it! What timing!
We have now enlarged the doorway between the kitchen and the new mudroom/utility room, purchased a exterior door and window, hired an electrician, and are deciding on floor tile. Oh, and we are trying to figure out what to do about cabinets. The stock cabinets that you can buy at the big chain hardware stores don't really go with the house. We might need to have something custom built, or just purchase a nice piece of furniture for the space. Any ideas??

I'll try to post some before and current pictures when I have a chance.

The Certificates Are Here!

This may not seem like big news to all of you, but our Birth and Marriage Certificates have arrived and are on their ways to being authenticated! This is great news to us because sometimes these states take their sweet time to get official documents mailed out. One small hurdle is behind us! I was actually pretty nervous about my birth certificate from Michigan because it was the last one to come and it was taking quite a while. The other two states at least responded quickly so we knew that they were processing the requests. Michigan, however, was completely silent. In fact, I was nervous enough that they hadn't recieved my request that I sent a new request through the internet. So, I'll end up with 3 new birth certificates to add to my pile of 5 others with older dates.
Our advocate at the agency thinks that things will start to speed up now, but I am trying not to get my hopes up too much. I keep thinking to future dates of when things might start to happen, but I know this is a dangerous game. We have already been delayed by almost 2 months, and more delays wouldn't be unheard of. I just keep hoping that by Christmas 2006 we will have our daughter home with us.

We are still pressing on with our autobiographies and they are taking much longer than I had hoped. It's not easy summing up 34 years in a short essay. I keep finding interesting (at least I think so) parts of my life that I want to write about. Will anybody really want to read all this? I wonder how bored the social worker gets reading about everyone's *exciting* lives?

Time moves like molasses

Time keeps ticking by and we are no closer to adopting then we were a month ago. We are still waiting for our fingerprints to return from the state, which is as slow as you would expect. The prints were sent to the state on October 17th, so I really don't expect any word before December 17th. Then with the holidays and all, I can't imagine we will start our homestudy until the beginning of the new year. Our timing just seems to be so off.
I'm also still waiting on my birth certificate from the fine state of Michigan. They had no problem cashing my check over a month ago, but still no word. Our other certificates are already back, which makes me wonder if I sent my request to the wrong office. You would hope that they would at least let you know if there was a problem. I even went so far as to reorder the certificate over the internet today. It should only take about 2 weeks, according to their website.
Patrick is continuing to attend the pre-adopt classes without me. I'm a bit jealous that he gets to meet and talk with other people who are adopting. I hope that he is getting lots of good information. When I get home I'll grill him. :-)
I guess this is going to be another short entry, but everything is moving so slowly that there is nothing much to tell.....

Gathering paperwork

We finallly finished our correspondence pre-adopt course last week! I really had to push Patrick to finish all the questions, but he did a wonderful job on the book report! Yes, we had to write a book report, although it was not as bad as you might think. In fact, I think we both learned a lot from the particular book "20 things adopted children wish their adoptive parents knew" or something like that.
When we sent our answers into the agency I reallly thought that would be the last obsticle to beginning our homestudy. We had completed our medical forms, our financial forms, and our personal references had sent in their letters. And we were working on our autobiographies.
And then, we got the dreaded note from the International coordinator. We are going to have to wait another 6-8 weeks to begin the homestudy portion. It turns out that because Patrick and I haven't lived in Oregon for 5 years, we need to have fingerprints taken for a state background check. Once the fingerprints get to the proper authorities, they take about 6-8 weeks to return the results. Everything is on hold until then. The real bummer is that it means that our dossier probably won't get sent to China for almost 5 more months. Argghhhh, the waiting! Once it is in China it will be at least 8 months before we are assigned a child and then another 4-8 weeks before we travel. So, we are really still looking at maybe 15 months from now. It really seems like way too long.
Back to the fingerprints....
This morning we went to the sheriff's office to have ours taken. They are now doing everything digitally. It is pretty cool. No more black ink, we just put our fingers on a scanner and the computer scanned them in. Then they were printed on the traditional cards and we have to snail mail them to our agency. You'd think with all this technology they could just transfer them electronically, but no way. Just to top that off, we will have to go back for more fingerprints in a few months when the INS needs them for our international petition. It's funny that the different offices cannot just share the information. But I guess that is nothing new.........

So here we are, only one small baby step farther than we were a month ago. It is a pretty slow process and we are only at the tip of the iceberg.

Starting the pre-adopt class

I guess we are on our way to adoption, although it really doesn't feel like it. We are working with an agency called Plan Loving Adoptions out of McMinnville, Oregon. So far we really like the people we have spoken with, although at this point we really haven't had too much contact with anyone.
So, the process goes something like this:

Mail in an application and wait to be approved to continue (give them a little $)
Take a pre-adopt class (learn about the difference between families joined through adoption vs childbirth)
Contract with the agency (give them lots of $$$)
Have a homestudy done - a social worker meets with us 4 times to determine if we get approved for adoption
Put a dossier together for China - lots of paperwork, dealing with the government, and more $$$
Receive an assignment of a child - decide whether to accept the assignment
Go to China to pick up new family member
Come back to US and meet with social worker more times
Live happily ever after :-)

Currently we are in the pre-adopt class stage. We are required to read 2 books and a manual and then answer a TON of questions. Most of the questions are short answer or essay, so I expect this will take us some time to complete. We can't even get started on the next step until we finish the course. Everything just feels so slow. I'm hoping we can finish up the course by the end of September........ Is it just wishful thinking?

The books are pretty interesting, especially one titled 20 things your adopted child wished you knew (or something like that). There is so much good food for thought in the book, mainly about how adoption loss effects even those children adopted as infants. Can you imagine being ripped away from the only human you have a connection with as soon as you enter this world? Your only comfort is the mother who carried you for 9 months and already she is gone. I wish that our child didn't have to go through that pain before coming to us.

Speaking of our current family, just thought I would share a photo of the cat and the dog in their favorite positions. Hobbes (cat) thinks that Frisbee (dog) is his girlfriend (both are male). Frisbee is not too happy with the situation, but is tolerant when he is sleeping.

Can we start a family?

Patrick and I have been living in Eugene now for over a year. We have bought a house and have filled it with family of pets. While a dog and 3 cats seems like enough of a family for some, it is really time to start a human family. Actually, we have been trying to do just that for over a year now with, obviously, no success. Aparently, it runs in the family, although I didn't know that until just last night. Sure wish someone had told me that a long time ago, maybe I would have started sooner :-).
Actually, it all falls right into my big plans for life. Well, sort of. I've always loved children, but never thought I would have my own BIOLOGICAL, children. There are so many children out there who need families and the world is really too overpopulated anyhow. So, we've decided to go the route of adoption.
Adoption, it turns out, is quite a lengthy and involved process. We have decided to adopt from China, because they seem to have such a large number of unwanted girls and because the process seems the most streamlined. Currently, we are trying to just decide which adoption agency we will go through.
So, over the next year and a half I will try to blog about our experience!
Cheers!

Isla Mujeres

Cec and I came to Isla Mujeres yesterday and have spent the day sunning ourselves and eating lots of tacos. I must say that I am a bit disappointed with how touristy this island is. Really I should expect it by now. At the very least it is a very laid back place with little harassment from the local vendors. However, I will be glad to leave tomorrow.
Tomorrow we head for Tullum - the Mayan ruins on the water. Probably won´t be able to escape the tourist scene just yet, but we are working our way away from the worst of it. It looks like our travel plans take us down to the very south of the Yucatan peninsula (Caribbean coast) close to Belize and then back north on the Gulf coast side. Hoping to find some jungle hut away from the masses!

In the "New World" (Mexico)

Well, I have certainly done a terrible job of keeping up on the blog after returning to normal life. But this trip presents a new opportunity for redemption.

Yes, I am in Mexico! Cancun to be exact. Just arrived this afternoon but I plan on leaving this awful town by tomorrow. I am on this trip as a sort of last hurrah before starting a more serious life back in Eugene, whatever that is suppose to me. I´ll let you decide.

Cecily is meeting me here tonight for a 2 week vacation of beaches, temples, diving, and anything else we can think of. Probably a few cervesas will be involved.
Cancun is anything but a Mexican town. I did manage to take the public bus from the airport into downtown with mostly locals and a couple of Italian girls. The just arrived after 30 hours of travel from Bologna, which included an overnight in the NY airport. I remember those days......
The bus is about the most Mexican thing I have observed yet. This place is overrun with Gringoisms. Just on the short drive to town we passed a Walmart, a Home Depot, and an Outback Steakhouse. Huh? Who wants to eat there when you´re in Mexico. I´m just waiting for the Taco Bell around the corner. Phew, thank god for the little luxuries, I wouldn´t want to go somewhere different. I do understand that this is what Cancun is - a playground for tourists who don´t want to experience local culture. Get me outta here ASAP!
Tomorrow we may head for Isla Mujeres or perhaps just jump on a bus for anywhere else.
Anybody with suggestions please email them to me as apparently internet is no problem here.

hasta manana

Shula