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!

We have our Visas!

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