Here are some pictures!

Well, we have now been home a week and what have we learned?

First of all, it is horrible having to go right back to work after adopting! Not only was I completely jet lagged, but looking at Anh's sweet face in the morning and then having to leave was no fun. Of course, he is at his best first thing when he wakes up and I am getting to miss all of that. Thank god for weekends!

Patrick is an awesome dad! He and Anh are bonding really well thanks to his commitment to being an at home dad for a few months. Patrick is seeing the value in having a parent at home for the transition. I think that he is also realizing just how much work parenting is. Before we left for Vietnam, he had these high hopes for getting lots done around the house. Reality is starting to set in that maybe it is not so easy to watch a baby AND finish a remodel.

Parenting Anh is great! He fits so well into our family! Luckily he has no fear of the cats or dog (nor does he seem to be allergic) and the animals are all pretty tolerant of him. In fact, Hobbes is quite friendly toward Anh, allowing the boy to pull his hair! I don't know how we got so lucky - good with animals and will eat anything - but we feel that there couldn't possibly be a better child for us.

Co-sleeping doesn't work for us. We had these grand aspirations that we would co-sleep with Anh for at least a few months to gradually ease him into his new home. In his foster family in Vietnam, Anh had slept in bed with the family. We naturally assumed that he would be more comfortable sleeping in bed with us. Well, in Vietnam it worked fine, because even if we got up in the middle of the night with him, we could always sleep as late as we wanted. However, at home, I was having a hard time getting the rest I needed for work. Every little peep out of him would wake me up - and he seems to have a lot of nightmares - so I wasn't able to get more than a 4 hour stretch. That all ended on Thursday night when we decided to try the crib out. A full night of sleep later and we are hooked! He really slept a good 7 hour stretch, thankfully, and now we can actually function in the daytime. Perhaps it also has something to do with jet lag, but I'm not changing it now.

One very surprising discovery is how many people love babies! So many people that we interact with on a daily basis are turning out to be real children lovers. Most of these people I never would have guessed it about. We have had plenty of offers for babysitting and we have been given more baby items than I think we will ever use. I love the hand-me-downs and there are so many toys that I would never have thought to buy that Anh absolutely loves.

To be continued.....

Back in the USA

So much has happened, I don't know where to start! Well, we had our second interview and it was pretty uneventful. They gave us Anh's visa the following day and he is ours forever now! All in all, the whole experience in Vietnam has been great and everything has gone very smoothly. Couldn't have asked for a better adoption.
As soon as we were assured the visa, we started trying to book an earlier flight home. As much as we love Vietnam, the thought of going back to work on Monday with only a day of rest was not very appealing. In the end, we were able to fly back to San Francisco on Friday, stay the night with Grandma and Grandpa Quinn, and then fly home to Eugene in the afternoon on Saturday. We will have 3 full nights of sleep in our own time zone and be able to see our pets and home for at least a little while on Saturday!
We are now enjoying our time in California, and Anh is loving meeting his new family!

We Have our 2nd Interview!

Well, the wait was not nearly as long as we expected between interviews, and we are scheduled for tomorrow, Wednesday, at 3:00pm! We should have Anh's visa in hand sometime on Thursday and then we are free to come home. Yeay! The funny thing about it was that the Embassy didn't even call us, they called the other family at our hotel and asked them to let us know. How weird is that! In the end, it doesn't really matter how we found out, we are just glad that we get to come home with our sweet little boy!

Why worry?

In life, there are only two states of being, you are either healthy or you are sick. If you are healthy, there are many things to worry about, but if you are sick, there are only two things to worry about: whether you will get healthy or whether you will die. If you die, there are only two things to worry about: if you will go to heaven or if you will go to hell. If you go to heaven, you have nothing to worry about anymore. If you go to hell you will have lots of time to meet new people coming to hell, so you won't have time to worry about anything. Therefore, you shouldn't worry at all!

Vietnamese cooking class

First off, I've added new pictures to the album and the link is on the right side of this page and right here

http://ahnvietnam.shutterfly.com

As adoptive parents to a Vietnamese child, Patrick and I decided that we had better start learning the fine art of Vietnamese cooking soon! It is definitely one cuisine that we both enjoy greatly, but have never attempted to cook at home. Yesterday, we set off to try our hand at cooking up some seafood dishes, under the experienced guidance of Mrs. An at Hidden Hanoi
cooking school. Although this class is listed in some guide books, it is conspicuously absent from our trusty LP. Even quick searches on the internet failed to turn up reviews of this cooking school, although we did find some bad reviews of another class in town, so we had no idea what to expect. Mrs. An asked us to meet her at the Sheraton hotel on West Lake, a swanky place where they tried to shuffle us off as quick as possible - we must have been looking extra scruffy yesterday! This part of Hanoi seems very much like an old European city and very quite compared to the old city. We found out later that 80% of the people living in this area are ex-pats. After a bit of confusion, we finally met up with Mrs. An, a friendly woman who owns the cooking school and also offers unique walking tours around Hanoi. Her English was excellent and we later learned that she is married to an Australian, which explained her Aussy accent.
Our class started off with watching a quick scene from "The Scent of Green Papaya" where the young girl from the country is being taught how to cook for the masters. Mrs. An then discussed with us the importance of different types of food in Northern Vietnamese cooking and gave us a bit of a history lesson in the culture of food in Vietnam. We learned that "no rice, no zao (green vegetables), no meal" and that MSG is an important spice that most Vietnamese would never cook without. Luckily, Mrs. An has developed Vietnamese dishes that do not use MSG and as far as we could tell they were just as good as those with MSG! In Vietnam, the meal is based around the type of vegetable that is being cooked and each vegetable has a specific cooking method. Only green vegetables, and herbs, are considered "zao"; one would never serve potatoes or carrots as a vegetable. A meal typically consists of rice, at least one vegetable dish, and one kind of soup, and if the family is very fortunate, some kind of meat. The soup is eaten at the end of the meal, to sop up the remaining rice and as a liquid instead of a drink.
As we talked about food, Mrs. An's assistant set up the cooking area so that Patrick and I could make the 4 dishes plus dipping sauce that constituted our meal. After surveying the counter with all the ingredients and recipies, An said "Ok, now you cook"! Patrick and I jumped right in, with the assistant of An and her friend, to make sweet and sour shrimp, shrimp and pork spring rolls, snake fish soup, green papaya salad and the fishy dipping sauce. We made everything from scratch and An showed us step by step how to prepare each dish, but allowed us to do the actual cooking. I was surprised at how well our spring rolls turned out, even though I managed to turn the shrimps upside down in one :-) In the end, we cooked for more than an hour and turned out an amazingly good meal! All the while we kept up a lively conversation with Mrs. An, who we found to be interesting and very knowledgable. After dinner, we ate grapefruit dipped in salt and hot pepper and a type of sticky rice that is not cooked! It was all really fantastic. Our class was topped off with a gift basket containing cooking chopsticks, a mortar and pestal for peanuts, and the recipies that we made.
This class has got to be one of the best experiences of our current trip, although it would have been made better if Anh could have joined us.

One down, one to go

Well, we had our first US Embassy interview today and it went fine. All of the questions they asked us were pretty standard: what are our jobs, do we live with anyone else, do we have other children, is this our first adoption, etc. No surprises, although the interviewer did ask us why Anh was kept in foster care and not at the orphanage. I would have thought that would be pretty obvious - babies get better physical and mental care in a family - but he just didn't see it that way. Oh well, perhaps he doesn't have any kids of his own. Now we just wait. If we are very lucky, we might get our second interview as early as Tuesday or Wednesday and then we would have Anh's visa the following day. We are not holding our breath, though, and we are getting out enjoying what time we have here in Hanoi! So far, we have a local tour booked to see the nearby villages, and we are trying to arrange a cooking class. Of course, there are still so many things to do and see around Hanoi, that I don't think we will ever get bored.

Attachment

When Patrick and I started the process to adopt from Vietnam, we were excited to find out how young many of the babies being referred were. In fact, we were hoping that our baby would be no more than a couple of months old. We didn't want to miss anything with our child and we were also concerned about attachment issues of an older baby. At referral, Anh was only 5 months old and without medical issues, so we accepted him immediately. I am ashamed to say it, but when I found out that other families were being referred 2 month old babies, I was jealous. I really started buying into the idea that at 8 or 9 months, Anh might be too old! And I thought this knowing that the child we adopt from China will likely be much older. Sad, sad, sad. However, now I have no regrets! Eight months is a perfect age - Anh is curious, independent, learning to crawl and stand, fun to play with, interactive! But what does this all have to do with attachment?
When we first picked Anh up, he didn't smile too much and would just allow anyone to pick him up. Our first dinner out with Anh, the wait staff whisked Anh away and played with him while we ate - to his delight. He was fine when Patrick or I would hold him and care for him, but mostly he was just indifferent. Over the past week and a half everything has changed! Anh loves to play and is mostly a very happy baby, only getting cranky when he is hungry or really tired. And he would rather be in my arms than anyone else's. Today, we went back to that original restaurant for lunch and again the women offered to hold Anh while we ate. Within 5 minutes of being away from us, Anh was inconsolable - of course until he was brought back to my arms! A week ago, Anh would have rather been in any Vietnamese woman's arms than mine, now he reaches out for me when someone else is holding him. I think he is very attached - and even actively so!
These are definitely the little joys of motherhood in adoption. Now, I just have to work on getting him to sleep without having to be rocked in my arms.......

Tam Coc

We decided today to brave a one day tour to Tam Coc with Anh. Tam Coc is suppose to be the Halong Bay on land because of it's tall limestone cliffs that grow straight up out of the plains. As usual, booking through the hotel meant being cramped into a 14 seat "van" with every seat occupied. It always amazes me that they can fill every tour we have been on no matter what day it runs. Also, as usual, we were the lucky recipients of the rear seats, squished in with no way to escape unless all the other passenger disembarked first. Figures for a person who is claustrophobic - luckily working around an MRI has greatly reduced my fear of tight spaces :-)
The ride was a very bumpy 2.5 hours, with a stop to see the ancient Vietnam capital. Anh's sweaty body in my arms made it difficult to fully enjoy the ruins. Not to mention that I was looking for a good place to change him the whole time we were there. I didn't suppose it was proper to change a screaming baby's diaper near one of the sacred rooms!
At Tam Coc itself, we all boarded small row boats, 2 passengers per boat, for the 2 hour trip on the river. It was very kind of the locals to provide us an umbrella and a hat in exchange for a few dong. Aside from the scenic nature of the boat trip along the cliffs, there were no car horns, no people yelling, no motorbikes trying to run you down. Peace and quite and a chance to relax. Well, at least until Anh blew his diaper! Yes, our first explosion experience, in a small row boat, with no spare clothing, but at least a spare diaper. It was fairly hilarious trying to hold Anh and his umbrella while cleaning the bottom of the boat, my pants, and his bottom. It was probably the highlight of the day for our "guide".
Other than that small mishap, the rest of the trip was leisurely. We saw everyday life on the river - people fishing, praying at shrines, and selling their wares to tourists. There were brahman cattle, mountain goats (!), and a strange bird with iridescent wings and a long beak for catching fish. The river itself has carved its way through 3 caves in the cliffs where stalagtites grow from the ceiling and you must crouch down in the boat to pass. It was a day of wonder away from the bussle of Hanoi.
Back on the bus, and after a short formula induced nap, Anh decided that play time had started. He has become more and more vocal, and was talking and singing to himself and anyone else who would listen. As soon as the woman in front of us took notice, he began squealing with delite and putting on his best flirt face. I had to pull him back for fear of him grabbing hold of her hair. He is quite strong and has a death grip. So, Patrick and I spent the 2.5 hour ride back distracting Anh so that he wouldn't pitch a fit. Unfortunately, a new bottle wouldn't do, so instead the bottle top became a play thing. Play time continued back at the hotel, through dinner, and right up until 9pm. One second he was bouncing his hands on the bed talking up a storm and the next second his hands came down, he became quite, and he started snoring. Ahhhh, a boy who takes after his mom and can fall asleep in seconds flat!
Another day down in the books!

oops

I finally saw the last picture I posted on this blog and realized that it is actually Trang, another family's little girl! Well, you can still follow the link to see all the pics of Anh, and some of Trang.
It is now the weekend and the family seems to be recovering from a little illness. Nothing terribly bad, but it kept us in bed for the last day. Tomorrow we are going on a tour to Tam Coc. It is a full day tour and hopefully Anh will manage OK. I think he will probably sleep much of the time anyhow.

One thought that keeps weighing on my mind is how we are going to keep Vietnam alive for Anh. I think about all the sights and smells that are so different back home. The crazy traffic in Hanoi, with no obvious rules of the road; the nuoc mam (fish sauce) smell that permeates everything; the little sidewalk cafes that only appear during meal times; the tiny plastic tables and chairs that everyone sits on to eat and drink bia hoi; the love that all people shower on the babies of Vietnam. He will miss all this and grow up in our organized, impersonal, sterile environment. I want him to know all that he has in both cultures and hopefully, he will still find a place in his heart for Vietnam, his homeland.
Today I ate pho at a small street stand. The woman making the soup decided to feed Anh small pieces of chicken skin, which he loved! He even loved the very slightly spiced broth, which he demanded by the small spoonful. He is a good eater and currently not picky. As long as he remains open to different foods, he will fit into our home easily!

Food, glorious food

Vietnam has some of our favorite food, so we thought we would share just a few dishes that we love in Hanoi. This post is also somewhat for our scapbook, so that we always remember.

Bun cha (pron. boon cha) - really yummy fried pork patties in a broth with noodles and fresh herbs. There is an excellent bun cha restaurant around the corner from the Lucky. Head out the front door and take a left, another left at the corner, and another left at the next corner and it is right there on your left. They have 3 floors of tables and you don't have to speak any Vietnamese because you walk in, they seat you, and then bring you their specialty. It is good and only as hot as you make it yourself. We ate there yesterday, and they wait staff whisked Anh away to babysit while we ate.

Cha ca - fried fish patties, also with some kind of broth and I think noodles. There is a place called Cha Ca La Vong which is a taxi ride from the Lucky. We ate there a few years ago and it was wonderful. Again, they only serve one dish, so no need to speak any Vietnamese (although learning "thank you" and "that was delicious" might not be a bad idea :-)

pho (pron. fa-a, with a slight uplilt in the tone)- the famous Vietnamese noodle soup, served in the morning mostly. You almost can't go wrong if you find a small Vietnamese cafe with lots of people eating. Just remember to pronounce it correctly, otherwise the Vietnamese have no idea what you are looking for!

Thursday

We finally had our Giving and Receiving (G&R) ceremony yesterday afternoon. This is the official Vietnamese adoption ceremony where we become the real and legal parents to Anh. Yes, it is finally legal. Now we just have to convince our government that it was also legit. Today Anh had his medical exam for his US visa and we applied for his Vietnamese passport. At the medical, the doctor checked him out from head to toe and then pronounced that he was "too healthy"! I guess he is accustomed to other babies who are ill from the orphanage. It is true that Anh seems to be the exeption, as most of the children have at least some kind of virus. Anh officially weighs 19 lbs, which is actually less than we were speculating. I guess he just feels heavier.
So to recap our in-country timeline thus far
Arrival on Sunday Sep 10
Received Anh on Monday Sep 11
G&R ceremony on Wednesday Sep 13
Medical and passport on Thursday Sep 14
We are still waiting to hear about the US Embassy appointment

It still amazes me how much the Vietnamese, women and men alike, love babies. Every time we go anywhere, Anh is always getting touched and cooed at and smiled at. Everyone is curious whether he is Vietnamese and where he is going to live. This morning, our driver was so thrilled when I handed him Anh and he planted a million kisses all over his head. And yesterday, the men working at our hotel wouldn't let Anh down and just kept playing with them. This is something I can't imagine happening in the States. Restaurants are always fun because the staff come and whisk away the babies so that parents can eat in peace. Last night our whole group went out for dinner and all the babies were taken by the wait staff while we ate. One by one, each baby returned to the table except Anh. After a while I felt strange that he was being passed around the staff (and even around the tables of Vietnamese) so I took him back. A few minutes passed and one waitress came over under the guise of determining whether I was finished. When I said "yes, go ahead and take my plate" she replied "can I take your baby" and she whisked him away again, leaving my dirty plate! Again, at lunch today, Anh went off with the servers and they just loved him! I think that he eats up all the attention.
Speaking of lunch, we discovered that one of the best bun cha restaurants is around the corner from our hotel! We were so pleased to have found it and had a wonderful lunch there. Bun cha is a traditional Hanoi dish of fried pork patties in a soup-like broth with noodles and fresh herbs. It was delicious - I think we might become regulars.
I am trying to add photos to our album daily. The link hasn't changed, but here it is again
http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8AYuGjJu0cuXQw
Cheers,
Shula

Continued....

Since everyone keeps asking...
Anh is 8 months old exactly! We don't know how much he weighs, but we are guessing it is more than 20 lbs. He is mobile and vocal - loves to talk. And, he is pulling himself up to standing on his own and will take steps if I hold his hands. I think it is amazing that his little legs can bear all that weight :-) The other families here think he will be walking before we go home. This is somthing of a problem, because 1) we are stuck in a hotel room waiting for the phone to ring and 2) because we are NOT prepared for quite so mobile of a little boy back home! I guess we will just have to adjust.
He is sort of sleeping through the night. He woke up once last night and wanted a bottle, then wanted to play for a little while, but Patrick rocked him back to sleep. Then he was out until we woke him up in the morning.
We found out today that he was being fed some rice cerial, so we went out and bought cerial and baby food. Boy did his eyes light up when we started preparing "real" food! And he grinned the whole time he was eating it. One problem, he wants to feed himself, but mostly just gets it all over the place. He even ate some banana and was eyeing my pizza.
Unfortunately, we haven't had our G&R (the official Vietnamese adoption ceremony) yet. Without that we can't get Anh's passport, which we need to get our first US Embassy appointment for his visa to come home. Apparently, the Embassy is slowing down, so there are no appointments until next week and then it will take another week for our second appointment. Yeah, these babies might be terrorists! There is now the possibility it will take us longer than 3 weeks to complete this part of the adoption!
Wish us luck and good carma and all that, that things will go smoothly and quickly!
P.S. We have chosen the name Quinn but are still calling him Anh. Old habbits are hard to break!

more pictues!

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8AYuGjJu0cuXQw

Anh is HUGE!

All of the 6-9 month old clothes that I bought for Anh will not fit! He is ginormous! He seems like a well loved, and well fed baby - definitely will not fit in the bassinet on the plane ride home.

This morning, we left Hanoi at 11am for the 1.5 hour drive out to the orphanage. As we left the city and drove along the rice paddies, I kept thinking about how I would be able describe to Anh what Vietnam was like. It is easy to see that, by the time he is old enough, there will be little left of the marsh like country side.
The orphanage was much better than I expected and the women caring for the babies seem to really love them. Anh was transfered to the orphanage about 10 days ago when the police decided that they didn't want any babies in foster care. Apparently, the foster mother was crying when she dropped off Anh. Luckily, he doesn't seem too worse for the wear. He has a few bug bites, but is big, strong, and curious! We feel very lucky.

Baby Day!!

Today is the day we get to finally meet Anh! We will leave our hotel at 11am our time for the drive to the orphanage. Not exactly sure why we are going to the orphanage unless Anh is being brought there for us or if he was already transferred there a while ago. I guess we will find out! Unfortunately, they couldn't schedule our G&R until tomorrow, so we will not be official until then.

Hello Hanoi!

We made it! After 24 hours in transit we are finally in Hanoi. China Airlines turns out to be a fine airline, although their seats are a bit small. Poor Patrick had to fold in half to fit.
On the last leg of our trip, we were on the plane with a big group of Vietnam Vets from the Marines. They were on a sort of pilgrimage to visit the sites where they had been stationed 40 years ago. Amazing that it was that long ago. I sat next to a man who had been retired when he stepped on a land mine and lost a leg. He was still quite the supporter of our nation's military and it was very interesting speaking with him about the war. Quite a different perspective from that of the Vietnamese we talked with the last time we were in Vietnam! He spoke of how proud he was of the soldiers he fought with and how the US really should have won, but we gave up instead. I have a feeling that our political beliefs are a bit different, but luckily we didn't get into politics at all.
Landing in Hanoi was quite a relief and it felt good to smell the smells and see the sights on the way to the hotel. It seems that very little has changed, although perhaps there are a few more cars on the road. Of course, we shared the road with many motorcycles piled high with people, luggage, shoes, boxes, and other things I couldn't determine. The highway wound through rice paddies where people were up to their knees working along side of enormous billboards advertising all of the current Western amenities you could buy if you could afford them. New tall buildings, clean and sparkeling, with beautiful gardens, sat next to shanty towns and their markets. Ahhhh Vietnam.
Our hotel, The Lucky 2, is much better than I expected! At first, we were put off at spending 4x as much for a guesthouse as we had the last time we were here. However, this hotel is centrally located, has big rooms with nice bathrooms, WINDOWS in the room, safes, and a great staff! And besides, there are other adoptive families here, which is nice for the support. So far I am pretty pleased.

One day until liftoff....

Our bags are packed and we are ready to go.......
Sort of.
We finally head off tomorrow evening for Vietnam. It still does not feel real. I suppose that we won't believe it until we land in Hanoi. OK, at least when we get onto the plane we will know that all our preparative work is over. Maybe not completed, but finished for now. A bit scarey, if you think about it. In just 4 short days we will be "mom and dad". Wow!
Actually, I feel like we are pretty much ready to leave. Somehow, this thought scares me because I wonder if there must be something we are missing. We have hired a house sitter for the dog and cats, stopped our newspaper, paid our bills, gotten our passports in order, packed for the three of us, cleaned the house, prepared the baby's room... hmmmmmm, anything else?
I am so excited to be visiting Vietnam again! I know this trip will be nothing like the first, but it will still be nice to be in SE Asia again. Although I am looking forward to the visit, I am dreading the plane ride. Twenty-four hours in transit and a 14 hour single leg is nothing to look forward to. Keep your fingers crossed that there are good movies on the flight.
For now, and until we receive Anh, I'm signing off as:
Shula, future parent :-)

We are going to Vietnam!

Our travel approval arrived, so we will be leaving Eugene on September 8 and arriving in Vietnam on the 10th. Looks like we will be there for 3 weeks! Everything is pretty hectic at home, trying to clean the house up, buy last minute items, and pack our bags.
Oh, and we have a new picture of Anh!

The waiting game continues

We are now 3 weeks out from our first tentative travel date - September 10. I am trying not to get my hopes up because I have already seen 5 families travel before us who had their paperwork done after us. A bit frustrating, but all a part of the experience, I guess. We were told that we would not have a definitive travel date until 2 weeks prior to travel, which doesn't give us much time to find and book a flight. I'm guessing that it also means that travel will be expensive.
Our nursery is all set up! We have a crib (thank you Rob and Crystal for letting us borrow this very special piece of furniture), a toy box, some clothing (thanks to Jason and Melissa), and a very cool wooden kitchen. Patrick's dad and step mom sent us the Ergo baby carrier, which will make tending to the baby while working around the house easy for the stay at home dad :-)
I also ordered a car seat off of the internet. In our usual form, we had to have the "best" one avaliable - the Britax Boulevard with side impact head pads. Today I cleaned the car in anticipation of installing the seat. As soon as I get word that we will travel, that seat is going in! Then things will start to get real.....
Tomorrow, a friend is throwing me a baby shower. It feels a bit funny to have a shower, when I am not pregnant and we still don't know when we will have our child in the flesh. But, it is nice that some friends are coming down who I haven't seen in a very long time. I guess it is all good!
Keep your fingers crossed that we get our TA (travel approval) soon!

Our Vietnam visas are in hand and we are ready to travel at a moment's notice! I guess the Vietnam government is pretty laid back about handing out visas because we had no problem getting the 3 month version. When I originally called, they told me that they only approve 1 month visas for tourists, but apparently if you just tell them on the form you want a visa for 3 months, and you say something vague about visiting family, then they will give it to you. Good for us, since we still don't know exactly when we will travel, but are hoping it is sometime before November 15th, when our visa will expire.
Luckily, the new job is keeping me pretty busy! It is so nice to feel like I have full time work again. It is definitely a totally different culture, though, in industry. Much more bottom line driven and not so much on the actual science being done. But, it kind of satisfies the business side of me.
Well, my better half and a half has just arrived home so I will sign off!

Life keeps rolling on....

Things have been kind of crazy lately, and trying to post has been impossible! Nothing new with our adoption, however, I started a new job 2 weeks ago at Invitrogen. So far, I love the job - good supervisor, interesting project, cool people to work with. Although I still miss everyone at LCNI, it was the right decision to take the new position. Of course, I can't really talk about what I do at Invitrogen, but suffice it to say that I am finally doing the kind of research I was trained for. Yahoooo!
One good piece of news is that the first two families adopting from Vietnam through PLAN are traveling in the next week or two. So, we should have lots of details about what their experience is and it might make it a bit easier to plan for our trip. I am still hoping we will get to travel in September, but it is likely we won't have definite information until 2 weeks before we have to be in Vietnam. Scarey!

Our nursery is started to get crowded. We borrowed a crib from a friend and now it is set up in the room along with the queen bed already in there. Something has to go, because it is starting to look like a big storage room. It's a bit weird to have the crib - everything is starting to feel real.

Oh, I almost forgot, last weekend I went on my first long bike ride! Kathleen and I rode in Cycle Oregon (weekend ride) from Eugene to Oakland, OR and back. 70 miles each day! It was hotter then hell last weekend (112 at one point) but we both made it none for the worse. It was a beautiful ride and I sure hope that I get back to those country roads on my own sometime. It was also great to realize that I can do long rides (although, next time it will have to be a bit cooler and I need a granny gear for the mountains).

That all for now. I'll try to keep up on the posting a bit more, but summertime is the worst time for me to try to stay inside.......

Waiting, waiting, waiting......

I can't stand the wait!! Finally emailed our agency this morning and found out that our paperwork has been translated and will be filed Tuesday morning (tonight, our time). Keep your fingers crossed that they decide to approve us! Still no word on how soon we might travel, but it looks like our agency's first families will travel mid August. Does this mean we might travel in September sometime? I sure hope so. I keep dreaming that the China program speeds up and we end up with two small children at the same time. Yikes!

Dossier en route to Vietnam!

Yup, I just got the email that our dossier is back from the Embassy and on its way to Vietnam! I have no idea how long it takes to get there, but I am guessing only a couple of days by DHL. Wow, can you believe that it was less than a month from the time we decided to go ahead with this adoption to having all of our paperwork completed and on its way to Vietnam. The planets are aligning for us!

It's Picture Time!

I wasn't going to, but now I have to! We received new pictures of Anh today and I am just getting giddy! One of these pictures shows Anh with the PLAN coordinator in Vietnam. I sure wish he was home already with us, but these will have to do for now. Still no word on where our dossier is - it should come back to the agency this week sometime and get sent off to Vietnam next week. But, sometimes there are delays as we well know from our experience getting ready for Vietnam. Keep your fingers crossed!

We're off to the races...

I feel like we are really moving so quickly with this new adoption. It certainly has helped that we had a relationship with our agency, our fingerprints were clean, and we wanted a boy. We are now getting closer and closer to picking up Anh.
Yesterday I spent nearly the entire day driving around picking up documents, having them certified, and then delivering them back to our agency. It was nearly 6 hours of driving, but it saved more than a week's worth of mailing back and forth! And, it meant that sometime yesterday afternoon our documents were mailed out to the Vietnam Embassy in San Francisco to be authenticated. Once they are back from SF, they will move on to Vietnam for translation and logging in. They could be in Vietnam by the end of June, but more likely it will be in the first week in July. Darn 4th, mucking everything up ;-).
We were told by our agency that travel could happen as soon as 4 weeks after log in, but I am guessing it will likely be longer. I'm still hoping that we will go before the end of the year, maybe in October or November. Every time I sit at my desk I look at my picture of Anh and I just want to go get him NOW!
Shula

A Bullet Was Dodged.....

We are blessed to have such great family! Not only has everyone been completely supportive in our decision to adopt, but the whole family seems truely excited to meet our new son. Top that off with the following story of an incredible helping hand from across the country...
As soon as we decided to pursue this second adoption, we knew we needed to put our paperwork together quickly. The only document which we could not pick up in person was our certified marriage certificate. Going through our old paperwork from China, I found a second certificate that we had not used and sent that off right away for re-certification by the state of Rhode Island. I was expecting the finished document to come in the mail sometime during the week of June 12-16 and sure enough we had an envelope in our box on Friday afternoon. Imagine my surprise when I opened the envelope to find my original certificate and the uncashed check! Unfortunately, RI could not certify a marriage license issued from a town, only a state issued copy would do. By some chance, I was home during the day and was able to catch the department in charge in RI, even with the time difference before the close of business for the week. The result? There are only two ways to obtain the proper document: (1) mail a request with the proper checks, a signed letter, and a postage paid return envelope or (2) have a blood relative appear in person to pick one up. The first method would take about 4 weeks, the second could be done in one day! Unfortunately, my mother had just left for Europe and would not be back for 3 weeks. Quickly, I called my aunt Karen in Rhode Island and asked if she might have the time to help. She too was about to leave out of town on Tuesday, but might be able to go to the city on Monday! Now mind you, the city is on the other side of the state - a small state, but the other side none-the-less. I don't like to ask people for favors, but I really felt like I had to in this instance - the time until we could pick up our child depended on it! She was cautious about promising it could happen, but I had plenty of hope.
Of course, I didn't just sit back and wait to see what happened. Immediately, I put all the required documents and fees in the mail with an overnight envelope for the return. I would rather pay a little extra and have two, than not have any.

On Monday morning I got the call. Aunt Karen was able to get the necessary documents and seals and had sent it on its way to our agency. We also found out that my cousin would have helped us out, had Karen been unsuccessful. We have a wonderful family and I am so proud to say that I am a part of it. I can't wait for our son to meet these wonderful people who helped to bring him home.

THANK YOU SO MUCH AUNT KAREN!!

Medical on its way

In complete contrast with the adoption process in China, not only do we already have a tentative referral from Vietnam, but all of the paperwork on this little boy is on its way to us. We will need to have the medical information looked at by a pediatrician familiar with these things and then if everything looks good..... well, we will have a little boy!
Our HS will be completed by early next week, and then I will drive up to Portland and Salem to have all of the paperwork certified. Wow, I just can't believe how quickly everything is moving!

Picking berries

One of the most relaxing things that I do these days is to pick rasberries off of the bush outside our house when I get home from work. Even though I always come away with scratches all over my arms, it is very meditative. Today, I was picking berries and thinking about how much fun it will be when I can do this with my children. Yes, I said children, as in the plural of child.
Now you may think that I am thinking about sometime in the future after we come back from China etc etc, but actually I mean much much sooner. No, I am not pregnant!
As you may or may not know, the wait time for adoption from China has quite quickly increased from the 7 months it was when we started our process to close to 12 months now. Most agencies are telling their clients that the wait is between 12 and 18 months from log in date (LID). You can see from our time-line at the top of the page, we still have quite a long time to wait. However, the program for adoptions from Vietnam has recently re-opened and the wait times are quite low so far. In an unusual move, our adoption agency has allowed us to begin another adoption so that we will have two concurrent processes!
So, what does this all mean? Last Monday we gave the idea some thought and by Tuesday our paperchase had begun! In this short week we have completed all of our paperwork except for the homestudy and our social worker says that she can complete the 4-page study quickly! Keep your fingers crossed that these things go as quickly as we hope. In fact, our agency has already assigned us a boy and we have a picture, although we are not going to look at it until we are sure that the paperwork is in good order. Once our HS is ready, it will take a week to be authenticated by the Vietnam Embassy in SF and then off to Vietnam it will go to be translated and logged in. This process is taking about 3 weeks, and then there seems to be about a 3 month wait to travel. It is very possible that we could be coming home by the end of 2006 with a son!
All that said, the adoption process is an ever changing landscape, so who knows how quickly, or slowly, this could go. There is also the possibility that this will take a bit longer and the China adoption a bit less time and we could be coming home with two children back to back. A little scary, but OK, I think.
All in all, it has been an exciting week!

Unplanned Adoption

I'm sure this is on every adoption blog by now, but I just had to add it to mine. I thought it was funny and it has some special meaning to us now - to be explained at some later date!

Unplanned Adoption
Have you ever noticed that you hear all the time about "accidental" pregnancies, but never about couples who experience "accidental" adoptions? Can you imagine:

Honey, sit down. I have some news for you.

What is it?

Well, I don't know how to say this, so I'll just come out with it. I went out to the mailbox today and ... well, we got an I-171H.

A what?!? An I-171H? As in, we're going to have a(nother) baby?!?

It looks that way.

But how? We've been so careful! I put away all the blank I-600A forms. Didn't you hide our homestudy update?

Of course I did. But don't forget, there was that one night...

What night? (pauses) Ohhh, that night. But it was only once. We were just messing around. I didn't print clearly. I didn't even use ink! (pauses again) But it was kind of fun.

(giggles)

It was, wasn't it? I'll never forget how cute you looked getting your fingerprints.

So now we've got our I-171H, eh? But that doesn't always mean you'll adopt, does it? I mean, shouldn't you see the agency or something, make sure everything's okay?

I already did.

And?

I'm five documents along.

Five documents! And they're all notarized, certified and authenticated okay?

Just great. There was one small scare when the agency couldn't see the Notary's middle initial, but it showed up just fine under the magnifying glass.

Thank God. And you, honey? Are you feeling okay?

I'm feeling fine. As long as I know you're happy about this.

Happy? I'm thrilled! It's always a shock at first when something like this happens, but of course I'm happy.

--Anonymous

WE'RE OFFICIAL!!

We got our log in date -- APRIL 29th!! Can you believe that it was only a week from the date our documents were sent to China! Even our agency was surprised. Usually, it takes 4-6 weeks to log in. Finally, we are ahead of the game. It is almost like we sent in our documents in March.
The wait is still at 9 1/2 - 10 months, but could get longer (or, less likely, shorter). We are going to need all this time to get the house ready for another human being. We still have big plans to remodel the kitchen and bath before the little one arrives. Hope everything can get done!

The waiting game

Now that we have begun the "Long Wait", I thought I might share with you a little something. This picture shows the room where all our painstakingly collected, notarized, authenticated, stamped, sealed, and translated documents are now sitting. In this room, all of the dossiers from all over the world are stored until matching day. I'm assuming that each cubby represents the LID (log in date) for the stack of dossiers within it. I have been told that each colored folder holds the dossiers for an individual agency. Does this show the enormity of the job ahead, or what? Hopefully they are better organized than I am and nothing gets lost in the shuffle!

photos from last night

The cabinets are in! The counter is drying and we are priming the cabinets for painting. Here are some pictures to peak your interest. Notice what a beautiful arch Patrick made!

It is so close, we can taste it.....

Yes, folks, the remodeling of the back room is almost done! The plasterer did a fantastic job and we painted as soon as we could. I chose a color called "Navaho White", which went on a bit more yellow than I expected, but looks great now! The cabinets are in place and will be bolted to the wall tonight. The last little bit will be installing the floor heat and then the tile floor on top. It all sounds so doable now.
I am posting a few pictures which now seem a bit out of date. They show Patrick's beautiful arch in the "raw" state and how the room looked with only the blue board up. Oh, and there is a nice shot of Patrick's window sill all painted to match the house. I'll try to get some photos of the painted plaster tonight, so keep your eyes tuned!
Shula

We have a Group Number!!

We are now almost completely officially a waiting family. Read on for the letter we received this morning!

PLAN Loving Adoptions Now Inc.

1975-2005 Celebrating 30 Years of Excellence

---

Dear Patrick & Shula,

Your dossier was sent to China 4/21/06! Your group number is 127B and it looks like you will be traveling with about 10 other families. Three of them are direct PLAN families. The wait is still about 9 1/2 months from your official log in date. Your dossier should log in with the CCAA in 2-4 weeks, but we won't know what the exact official date is for several months.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Congratulations!

Susan

Adoption update

Our dossier was received by the translator yesterday. This is the last North American stop before heading to China. I guess everything went smoothly at the state and national levels because all our approvals, signatures, stamps, and seals are in!
The latest is that we should expect our paperwork to be sent to China on or around the 25th of April - just another couple of weeks. Our agency said it will probably take 2-3 months once it is sent before we are "logged in" and are given an LID (log-in date). This is an ever so precious time because it is the start of our *real* wait and we are then considered a "waiting family" by the International adoption community. Kind of silly, since we feel like we have been waiting since we started this whole process, last September. The current "wait" to referral from China once a family has a LID is 10-12 months, followed by a 2 month wait until approval for travel. This time frame could change at any time, but we hope it gets shorter and not longer. So, folks, we are now looking at bringing home our daughter sometime mid to late 2007, if we are lucky. It's like the gestation period of an elephant.

We return from the White Rim and are approved by the INS!

Can you believe that the US government has completed part of our paperwork FASTER than they were suppose to? Yes, folks, we received our I-171H approval to adopt a foreign orphan last Friday. And somehow, we managed to get it signed, notarized, and Express mailed to our agency today! One more hurdle is jumped, now all that is left is for all the documents to be authenticated by the State of Oregon, the US State Department, and the Chinese Embassy. We are so close to having our paperwork sent to China I can almost feel it. And then the REAL wait will begin. At this time, the wait is about 10 months........

Our trip on the White Rim last week was an unqualified success. The weather was surprisingly beautiful, even though everyone kept claiming it would snow on us. We did see a short snow storm one night after we were tucked away in our sleeping bags. Big gusts of wind scattered our camp around, but the only remainder in the morning was a little crust of snow on the bikes.
I am hoping to write up a series of posts detailing our trip, but for now you can chew on the following data that was collected by Bob on his GPS during the trip. One graph shows our altitude and relative speed, the other shows humidity and temperature. Since his GPS was sitting in his camelback next to the water bladder the entire time, the temperature data is probably a little off. But you get the general idea.

Our new cabinets are here!!

Ok, so 2 months have passed without so much as a peep. We've been crazy busy, but I guess that is no excuse, considering the lives of other bloggers out there. I'm going to keep it short and simple...
Adoption update: We finally went for our INS fingerprinting last week. It took our agency almost a month and a half to approve our homestudy. There was nothing wrong with it, people just kept taking vacations. The fingerprinting is the last part that we have to take care of. Now, we wait for the INS to approve our application. Once that happens, in a month or two, then our paperwork goes to the state for authentication. After that, a courier takes it to DC, first to the state department for their seal, then to the Chinese Embassy for their seal. It is then sent by FedEx to our translator who does the translation and then sends it directly to China. If we are very lucky, the whole process will take only 2 months until it is sent to China. But that is only if we are VERY lucky. More waiting.....

The house: We managed to open up an outside wall in our house and close it again, none too quickly. Patrick fabricated new siding to match the original stuff and a window sill that is beautiful! I'm posting pictures, but without seeing what the window looked like originally, I'm not sure you can have any idea the magic he worked. Another big accomplishment was installing most of the sheet rock. I say most, because as we were installing we realized that there are some fairly important issues we need to resolve before finishing the walls. For example, we had ethernet cable coming out of one wall, but it was not integrated into a box. I quickly learned how to wire a phone and DSL line, and we now have a real outlet for both. But, these little things take time.
Ooooh, our cabinets came and they are beautiful! I am so impressed with the job that the Cabinet Factory did. The fit the space perfectly! The designer even surprised me by including a cap for the half wall that I wasn't expecting. I hope you can get an idea from the pictures, but I just invite you all to visit and see for yourself. Well, maybe wait a couple more months until we are really finished with the project. We've decided to take on plastering ourselves. Will be heading up to Portland for a class in early April, so will give more details then.

Tomorrow we are heading off for a week of biking in Moab. A little respite from working on the house constantly! Hope you all are well

Shula

Pouring the new slab

Another small hurdle

We finished our Home Study!! Ok, so it's been almost 2 weeks, but I was hoping to include that our fingerprints had come back too. No such luck.
For our home study, our social worker came over and interviewed each of us individually and then together. She asked us to recite our life stories from birth until today and then asked us a bunch of personal questions. Although these interviews can last for more than 8 hours (usually split up over 2 or more days), ours was a quick 4 hour appointment. Phew, I think we got through it unscathed. Our social worker is great and we all really seemed to get along. She even loved Frisbee!
The next step is to get approval from the INS, but we can't even send them our paperwork until our state background check comes back. We were assured that it would be any day now, but this is the government we are talking about.
I also found out today that we have to redo a bunch of the paperwork for our dossier. It isn't holding us up yet, since we are still waiting for the state to get their gears moving. However, it is a bit depressing to have to go back to all these people and ask them to redo work that they spent so much time putting together in the first place. The main person is our doctor, who has been so patient and understanding. He has had to redo a form twice and write us each personal letters. Now they have to be redone just because a date was incorrect. I feel awful calling and asking, but it has to be done.
Once our dossier is in order we send it to the INS for approval, which also may take a while. Then all the paperwork is taken by courier to DC to be authenticated by the US government, then translated, then sent off to China where it sits for a month before being logged in. It isn't until that point that they actually consider us a "waiting parent", and we will be "waiting parents" for at least 7 months. The length and complexity of this process is all very discouraging.

In other news, we are well into the remodel of our mud/utility/pantry room. Maybe someone out there can think of a good all-encompassing name for it....
Yesterday we were framing in a new wall and tearing up the old vinyl on one floor. Unfortunately, as the vinyl was removed, we realized that half of the floor was rotten. The problem is two-fold:
1. The side of the house was originally left open to the elements and water was allowed to come in. This meant that with all our wonderful Oregon rain, the boards on that side of the room always remained damp.
2. The floor boards were attached to flooring joists which were laid directly on top of the dirt. Yes, we did find some pests, although no termites, thankfully!

After careful consideration we decided that the only course of action was to tear up the remaining floor and replace it with a concrete slab. This sets us back at least a couple of weeks, which is only really an issue considering we have scheduled the new electrical to go in next week. Since we don’t want to have to reschedule the electrician again, you all can guess what we will be up to this weekend…… Get in that floor and let it dry a couple of days so that people can at least walk on it!
We had also hired a guy to install our new doors and windows. He had planned to start work today however it seems that he has bailed on us. Not too surprising, since our job is really small potatoes. Perhaps we are going to have to learn the art of framing and installing the new openings.
I guess when all is said and done it is a good thing that the adoption is taking so long. Maybe we will be finished with this stage of the remodel by the time our daughter arrives!