Baby S is a...

Girl! We had our 20 week ultrasound today where they look at Baby's parts in great detail, and she revealed herself to be a girl. We are so excited to welcome another little girl into our family, because we love our girls! We can't wait until she makes her arrival in about another 20 weeks.

Thanks and other topics

This post is a big thank you to everyone who supported us financially and emotionally during our adoption journey. Our journey didn't end the way we had planned. Though Hadley is still waiting in an orphanage and we didn't get bring her home to her family, the journey and story are not over. If we are ever allowed to adopt her, we will. If we cannot, we will adopt another waiting child.

We wanted to let everyone know where your money is waiting while we wait to determine the best time to embark on another adoption journey. If you donated to us through Reece's Rainbow, it is being held in an account for our family to use at some point in the future. If you donated directly to us, it is being held in our personal savings account, earmarked for a future adoption.

We remain committed to adopting a waiting child. Our eyes have been opened to the thousands of children waiting for a family, and we won't turn our backs on these kids. If you want to see some of these beautiful children visit:

http://www.reecesrainbow.com/ or http://www.rainbowkids.com/

You might find the child or children who are waiting for you! And there are kids waiting in the U.S. foster care system too, so don't let money or distance discourage you from adopting, if you feel that this is your calling.

And now we move on to the other topics section of the post. I decided to do a redesign of our blog. Since, our adoption is on hold for now, I thought I would remove the adoption stuff and go for a redesign. So, that's why the blog looks different. I have no idea what this blog will become, but I'm sure it will evolve over time to tell the story of our family.

Thanks to everyone for your support and for reading this blog! 

While we're waiting...

we will be growing a new addition to our family! Yes, we are expecting a "home grown" little one! In the midst of all the craziness and changes happening with our adoption, we got a positive pregnancy test! We had even started exploring other adoption options, and had tentatively settled on venturing to China. Now, we will be putting our globetrotting plans on hold (unless something changes in Rus*ia), until a later date.

The new Baby S is already showing signs that he or she will be very much like our dear daughter Abby. During the last 2 ultrasounds, Baby S was flipping and turning so much that it was hard for the nurse and ultrasound techs to get good measurements. Most of you don't know that Abby was born breech. I had a scheduled C-section which turned out to be a very good decision. Abby had the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck 5 times! So, she physically couldn't turn herself, and she must have been doing all sorts of crazy moves to do that to herself. I hope to not have a repeat of that situation this time!

Here's Baby S's first picture on our blog! This was from an ultrasound on March 7th. This Baby truly feels like a blessing and a gift...more than I can explain with words!

The past 2 months...

I wasn't sure what I should title this post. Maybe "when bad politics affects you personally". Or "when you are waiting for news that never really comes". Or "Rus*ian politicians who make you want to tear your hair out" and "Could they be any crazier? Yes, they can!" But, I think the title I chose is a little more diplomatic. Even though I am pretty much over being diplomatic. Rus*ian politicians are enjoying making the U.S. their chosen enemy at this point and we don't see that changing any time soon. I won't go into all the political wranglings because the details aren't really that important. The bottom line is not much has changed since this country signed their law at the end of December banning adoptions by U.S. citizens. But, the political climate seems to be getting worse by the week.

So, what have we been doing for the past two months? Communicating with our placing agency, who happens to be one of the few that is continuing to attempt to work in Rus*ia. They have asked us to send them documents here and here and we have dutifully done it. Will it make a difference? Realistically no. We've been on numerous conference calls with the U.S State Dept. as they try to do what they can to advocate for the many families who are caught up in this mess. And we've read hundreds of news articles from various U.S. and international news sources so we can stay current on the situation.

So, what is the result of all of this? Well, it remains very unlikely at this point that we will be able to adopt Hadley. The political situation between the U.S. and Rus*ia remains volatile. And it seems to be continuing down that road. The Rus*ian politicians are now twisting the purpose of this ban from a retaliation for the Magnitsky Act to "we are trying to protect our children", which we all of know is a lie. They are using the 20 children that unfortunately have died since being adopted by U.S. families to perpetrate this lie. Even if the U.S. repealed the Magnitsky Act (which they aren't planning on doing), I don't think that Rus*ia would repeal this ban. Justin and I are getting tired of Rus*ia's twisted politics and so we are choosing to begin to tune out a lot of it. When and if things change in Rus*ia, we will move heaven and earth to get on a plane to Rus*ia to complete our adoption, but at this time, it's just not going to happen.

Everyday, we think about our girls. Abby is in a safe place, but Hadley isn't. Right now, Hadley's future seems grim. I hate even thinking about it because it sends me to a dark place where I imagine the worst for her. And it makes me desperately sad think of how she has a family that loves her and is waiting for her, yet instead she will spend her childhood growing up in an orphanage with other orphans who have been forgotten and hidden away. We are definitely not giving up on Hadley or any of Rus*ia's orphans. We will continue to fight for their freedom and their right to a family. But, we will likely be taking a different direction while we wait for something to change in Rus*ia. Rus*ia has closed their doors (for now), but there are hundreds of thousands of other orphans in the world that need a family. We plan to be the family for a least one of these children.

I will leave you with one of my favorite quotes. And a picture of our sweet Hadley.


“We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty." ~Mother Teresa

Hadley, you will always be wanted and loved!

We are not giving up!

I do realize that it has been over a month since I've written anything. First, that was due to no news on the adoption front. Then the holidays came and life seemed to speed up a little. And then 2 weeks ago we heard some political rumblings from Hadley's home country. The rumblings quickly moved on to the reality that something big might happen and our adoption, and the chance for Hadley to have a family would be over.

Well, we got the see the worst of politics happen when two of the largest and most powerful countries in the world went at it. Unfortunately, the leaders of Hadley's country decided to use the weakest members of their society as their weapon, their 600,000-700,000 orphans. I don't even know if you could call these children members of society anyway since they are hidden away in orphanages  And many of the orphanages are tucked away, and outside of town. Some of these orphanages are okay places, and some are absolutely awful. These children are usually forgotten. Until they are used as political pawns.

So, is our adoption over? Not yet...Our adoption agency, the US State Dept. and others are working to see how this is all going to play out. As soon as the law was signed, amendments to the law were presented. This is not over. How long will it take? So much longer than we originally thought. We really don't know at this point. But, we are committed to Hadley. If there is a chance we can bring her home, we will. We are likely to be the only family she will ever have.

Here's the truth of the situation for the orphans in her home country. Out of the total number, about 100,000 are available for adoption. And an even smaller number are available for international adoption from that large number. Most of the children available for international parents are not wanted by their own citizens, so they are unlikely to ever be adopted. This is for any number of reasons, including their medical history, family history, the way they look, the color of their skin, etc. And Americans are more open to adopting children with medical needs and disabilities because we have the resources in our country to care for these kids, and our country welcomes them. So, for many of them, an American family is their only chance of being adopted. This is why this new law and ban is so tragic for these children. For many, it's a death sentence.

We believe that Hadley fits in this "unwanted" category. And the older she gets, the more "unwanted" she will become, in her home country. But, she will never be an unwanted child to us. Unless she is adopted by another family, she will always be our daughter, no matter what. She will never be an unwanted child. She is deeply wanted by her loving family in the United States, and that is why we won't give up. If there ever is even a crack of an open door to adopt her, we will be there with open and loving arms, ready to take her home.

And so we continue to wait...

Visas and USCIS approval

I just read my last post and it sounds like I promised more interesting posts but never delivered. Well, this one might not be super interesting either!

In the past 2 weeks we are still making slow progress. We are truly now at a point of waiting because it was finally confirmed by our agency that we will not be traveling until mid-January at the earliest. We are now hoping that they will be able to give us our exact dates of travel before the end of the year, but we will have to wait on that because we found out that the Ministry of Education is on vacation. Yes, a 3 week vacation. Only a few weeks before they will then have a 2 week vacation. Now we don't know, but the MOE could consist of just 1 person. And in this country, if the person who does a particular job is on vacation or out on sick leave, well nobody else does their job. Everything just stops. Yes, very different than the good ole USA where the idea of the country shutting down for even a week for a vacation would bring shock and horror to everyone.

But, anyway we think that is really why we're not traveling. We were told something about quotas and what not but I'm starting to think otherwise. It doesn't really matter, the end result is the same. I'm trying to keep some perspective about this whole situation. Even with delays here and there, this adoption from start to finish will likely take no longer than 12 months. That's really not that long. We have dear friends adopting from a particular Asian country and they've been waiting for over 4 years now. They finally have a referral for a child, but they're now waiting to pick up their son, and they've been waiting for that since May.

Being the independent person and traveler than I am, I starting looking into getting our visas for our eventual travel to Eastern Europe. Recently the US and this country signed an agreement (they've been doing a lot of that lately) to make it easier for Americans to visit their country. It was like a gesture of good will or something. Well, I suppose it's easier once you get the visa, but getting the visa isn't much easier. With the new agreement, Americans are now allowed to get a 3 year tourist visa. These will be the one's we are going to attempt to get. It will save us a good amount of money if we have to make 3 trips and it will probably still save us money and hassle if we only have to make 2. Though we could make the trip to the consulate in S.F. ourselves, we're going to pay a little extra to have a visa company do it for us. We would have to make at least 2 trips to the consulate and you can only go at certain times and well I don't want to deal with all that. I was thinking of posting a picture of a visa from that country to make this post more interesting, but then I realized that I would be revealing the country, so no picture!

And we finally finished our online education. I'm actually really glad we had to take it. I feel much better prepared for the potential challenges of parenting an adopted child. There truly are differences that need to be taken into consideration that are different than parenting a biological child. I might write a post about that and include the link to a great book I read on the topic. We are now taking some free foster parenting classes through a local community college. Hopefully, we can use these hours for our required 30 hours of face-to-face training. These classes are making me think that if we choose to adopt again, it will likely be through our foster care system. You just never know where life will take you, and what will lead you there!

And one last thing, we have USCIS approval! So, we are approved to bring an orphan into the US. When we got the notice from USCIS, I realized that my middle name was spelled wrong. It sort of took some of the excitement away because I knew that it needed to be fixed. But, I sent an email to them, and they replied on a Saturday to tell me they would fix it. I was very impressed with the USCIS's prompt service!

Making sloooow progress

I had been waiting to update the blog hoping for some exciting news like our paperwork has been registered and we should be getting a travel date soon. Well, our paperwork is registered! We think... Our agency didn't really tell us that we're registered but they did tell us that our facilitator was going to talk to the Ministry of Education about when we could travel! Yes, we were very excited and yes that should mean we are registered! Of course this process is more of a roller coaster than one of those smooth, boring, and predictable rides. After we were all excited and stuff and we found out we might not be traveling until next year!! Okay, I know next year is only 8 weeks away, but it sounds like a very long wait. Really we could be traveling at any time. So, it could be in a few weeks (doubtful) or it could be 8 weeks from now or even longer. The country we are adopting from celebrates their Christmas holidays in January. So, we know we won't be traveling the first week or two of January. So, now we're hoping for a second half of January travel date.

I will admit that I was originally very upset that we were going to have to wait. I think I had it in my mind that December would be latest that we travel, so the news was just so surprising. I'm now more at a point of acceptance. This will give us more time to plan, read about our little girl's country, and try to learn a little of the language! We're also planning on trying to get all of our court documents finished so we can take them over with us on our 1st trip. This will hopefully help us get a court date more quickly, which might make up some for our delay in traveling on our 1st trip.

In other adoption news, we had our USCIS fingerprints done on Thursday at 8:00 a.m. It went smoothly and if anyone is counting, that was our 3rd time being fingerprinted for this adoption (and not our last!). Once USCIS approves our application, we will have official approval to bring our little girl to the U.S. on an Orphan Visa. I was going to take a picture of the outside of the office to put on the blog, but let me tell you that this was the most boring government office ever! It was in an office park and all the building said was "Application Support Center" in the most boring government letters you can imagine. I guess it's good that our tax dollars aren't going to any frills, like a fancy sign.

We are also still plugging away at the required 80 hours of education. Overall, I think I've learned a lot from it, but I'm almost at the point of being "over it". I apologize that this post is basically a to-do list that we have completed! I have some ideas for more interesting posts, so I hope to become inspired enough to write them!

And thanks to everyone who is following along!

Why the waiting is so hard

I don't talk about my grief on this blog. Most of this blog has been very focused on our adoption and it probably will continue to be that way. My grief has become such a part of me that I don't feel it's something separate from any other part of my life. It's hard to explain but basically I'm always grieving for my daughter. It's something I've been doing for over a year now and will continue to do as long as I live. But, I think the grief does make the waiting in this adoption process a lot harder. Justin and I have talked about this at great length and we both feel this way.

It's so hard to be so far away from your children. We have one child in Heaven and one child who living halfway around the world. It's heart wrenching at times. Today is one of those days. The weather is changing here in CA. It's our first real rainy day of the season. I don't mind the rain but it's funny how the weather can affect your mood so much. It's easier for me to happy on sunny days and harder to feel like everything is okay when it's dark and gray.

I've never really doubted our decision to go forward with this adoption process. Both Justin and I feel very convicted that this is what we are meant to do. But, it doesn't make the waiting any easier. The adoption process requires a large amount of faith that everything will turn out the way it's meant to be. Much like the grieving process. You must have faith that will you will survive it all.

I'd like to end this post with picture of my precious Abby. She sure did love her baths! It's one of my absolute favorite pictures of her because she just radiates joy. I wish I could include a picture of my other sweet girl. It will happen, someday soon.

Our paperwork has arrived

Our paperwork arrived in Eastern Europe on Monday! It was actually a day early and arrived with another adoptive family's paperwork that was a few days late. I was shocked that it arrived early since that never seems to happen in this process! It is currently being translated which we were told would take about a week. Then our facilitator in the country will make an appointment to submit it to the Ministry of Education. We are predicting that the earliest that it will be submitted will be sometime next week. We are hoping to travel for our 1st trip sometime in November. A lot of that will depend on the schedule of our facilitator. She has quite a few other families that she is working with and she can't be in two places at once!

So we're waiting, again. But, we are keeping busy with working on the additional education that is now required. The requirement went from 10 hours to 80 hours. Yes, that is a crazy jump! Once our adoption is over I will give you my true opinion about all this but for now I will do what I'm told. We're taking an online course that is based on an international adoption book and it's actually very interesting and helpful. It's much better than the online classes we took for our home study requirements. Part of the new education requirements is that 30 hours have to be "face-to-face". Nobody is quite sure yet what that means but that will probably be the most expensive and difficult part for us to complete. It might cost us around $2,000, yikes! And another expensive requirement that we did not originally plan for is that we have to get medical exams during our court trip. This exam will be in the capital city and probably cost a total of $2,000 for both of us. The Region we are adopting from did not require this exam until recently. Possibly $4,000 added on to our costs!

We are also planning for our travel. I've started reading a guidebook about the country we are going to be traveling to. Something I would do before I traveled anywhere. The strange part is that we are traveling to this country but we don't really get to decide where we're going to go. It's like traveling for business. You are going to a particular place and so you figure you might get a do a little sightseeing while you are there. The guidebook is making me wish we were going to get to see a lot more of the country. Though I think I would choose a different time of year to visit than the middle of winter! But, it's giving me an appreciation for our little girl's country and cultural heritage which I feel is really important. By adopting a child from another country in a lot of ways her heritage becomes a part of ours.

I changed out our giveaway page to a timeline page. It was one of the features I really liked about adoption blogs when I was reading quite a few before we started this process. I feel like we've been at this process for a long time, but it's only been 3 months!

Our paperwork is on it's way

The big adoption news is that our paperwork is on it's way to Eastern Europe! I've been stressing and pushing and bugging people for the last few weeks so we could get all this paperwork done and out of our hands. I think that is the key if you are adopting. You have to be assertive about getting people to do their parts, and do it quickly. They will never understand your urgency. This child is your child that is just waiting in an orphanage and though others might care, they will not care like you do!

I was extremely frustrated on Friday when after driving 40 minutes each way to have 30 papers notarized, I discovered that they were all done incorrectly. Technically, the notary should have known this, but most notaries never notarize documents that need to be apostilled by the Secretary of State. The SOS will only accept documents that are notarized in one of two ways and the wording has to be exact. I realized that I could have saved us this frustration if I had taken the time to research this more thoroughly myself, but in the end it didn't delay our progress at all, so it wasn't a big deal. The notary had offered her services for free so we didn't have her redo them. I changed all the documents and we found another notary who also notarized all of them for free. Let me just say I am an expert at notary stuff now. Never thought I would say that! And I'm very thankful that my Dad is a real estate broker and knows all the notaries at the title companies!

So, on Monday morning we drove 40 minutes each way again to have our papers notarized. Then I came home to wait for a FedEx package from our home study agency and then drove 20 minutes to downtown Sacramento to have it all apostilled. Registration dossier=15 documents=$312. Other states don't charge as much for apostilling, but everything is more expensive in CA! We're also very lucky that we live so close to the SOS office. Otherwise, we wouldn't have been able to do this so quickly. The end result was a package sent priority overnight to our child placing agency. She received at 9:48 on Tuesday morning and told me that she would send it overseas later that day! This paperwork sets everything in motion for us in our little girl's country. The paperwork will be translated and then submitted to the Ministry of Education in her Region. Once they register us, we should receive an invitation to travel to meet her! Sometimes I would ask myself, "why am I stressing so much about a bunch of papers?" Well, that's why! These papers are directly leading us to our daughter.

Giveaway Winner!

I was going to post this last night but it got very late, so I'm posting it now. We have a winner for our Amazon Gift Card!

The winner is Jake S.!

We had 1133 entries and the winning entry was 112. Here is the picture of the computer screen and the Random.org random number generator.

Thanks to everyone who donated money to our FSP! We truly appreciate all your support!

This will probably be a 2 blog post day as we have other adoption news but I would like to put it in a separate post.

Impatient

I usually consider myself a very patient person. I don't think I could work as a nurse without an above average level of patience. I also consider myself pretty good with kids who test your patience like nothing else! But, during this adoption process I have become very impatient! My impatience seems to grow over time. We are soooo close to getting our finalized home study and our paperwork ready to submit overseas. But, it feels like this past week has just dragged on. Why is this taking so long? So, that's where we are. Just waiting for other people to do what they need to do. The amusing part is after we get our paperwork submitted, we will be waiting again. For our referral and travel date. The hardest part about waiting is that we know that this child is getting older by the day. Each week that goes by is another week that she is living without a family. This is why the waiting is so hard. I've already backtracked in my mind how we could have sped up this process to where we are now. It's almost been 3 months since we started, but looking back I think, well if we did this again how can we make this move along faster? But, we didn't know at the time. I tend to optimistically estimate everything anyway. I think I assume everyone is on my time schedule. Well, don't we all? It's time to send some emails and make some phone calls.

Home study draft done, thanks, and 3 years!

I've been waiting to write a new post because I was hoping there would be some news on the adoption front! There is, but first I would like to thank everyone for the donations we have received! We truly appreciate it! I'm crunching some numbers and trying to figure out how much everything is really going to cost. It's very difficult because the travel costs are so variable depending on the time of year. And we might be able to use some frequent flier miles I've accumulated for at least part of our flying. But, that will depend on how far in advance we get our travel dates. It looks like we will be doing most of our travel in the winter months. This will be very interesting because I'm not a cold weather person. Snow and I don't get along except for when I'm inside looking outside noticing how pretty it looks. I don't even have a really warm jacket. Hmmm....this will be interesting. The upside of snow and freezing cold is that nobody travels to Eastern Europe during this time! This means cheaper airfare, yay!

So, we finally got our home study draft back from our social worker. The social worker had to send it to the main office and then they go over it to make sure everything complies with the State of CA and then we read it over to verify that everything is correct. Then it is sent to our child placing agency and they read it over and then it travels by email across the ocean and the facilitator in Eastern Europe reads it to make sure it says what it should say according to their standards, and then it goes back to our CA agency for finalization. Yes, there are a lot of people reading this! Hopefully it will be as perfect as possible when it is done.

The reason the home study is so important is because it is the document that approves us adopt a child. Once it's finalized we can get it apostilled along with all our other notarized dossier documents and send it all overseas. This will allow us to receive our child referral and our date to travel!

The last thing I would like to say is Happy 3rd Anniversary to us! Justin and I talk about everything we've been through in our 3 short years of marriage and we can't believe it's only been 3 years! But, like I said on my Facebook post. Having a wonderful partner in life is truly a blessing. And we are very blessed.

What a great day! September 12, 2009, Edgewood Golf Course, South Lake Tahoe, Nevada

Head vs. Heart

Anyone who know me knows that I'm a thinker. I think about everything! I over think everything! I research everything until no other new information can be uncovered. Our two cars were chosen with the endorsement of Consumer Reports. And I proudly have a subscription that I enjoy reading.

Most of the decisions I've made in my life were made by making a pros and cons list. I weighed all my options and determined which was the most logical and so I figured that must be the best decision.

But, then I starting thinking (again) about how the most important decisions I've made in my life, you know the ones that really matter, were not decisions I made by using my pros and cons list. It wasn't that I didn't think about the pros and cons, it's when it came time to make the decision, my heart was the deciding factor. What did I really want? What is truly important?

Adoption is one of those decisions. If anyone sat down and made a pros and cons list for adoption, I can tell you that the cons would probably always win. For international adoption it costs lots of money, that could be spent on a fancy new car, a down payment for a house, a very luxurious cruise around the world, or tucked away for the future. And the time it takes to fill out the reams of paperwork, have it all notarized and apostilled, and the waiting (for who knows how long) for other people to do their part in the process. And the invasion of privacy when the social worker has to learn every little thing about you during the home study. And the risk that the child we want to adopt will no longer be available for adoption when we finally get all this paperwork, money, and waiting done with. Oh, and if you don't like to travel to countries that speak another language, this would be a con for you too (this is not a con for me!).

But, then you think about the child. The child is on on the pro side. She might be the only pro. So, how do you make this decision? This decision can only be made with the heart.  The heart wins because adoption is one of those decisions; the kind you make with your heart, a leap of faith, life changing and truly important.

More education!

The major news on the adoption front is that we will now be required to complete more adoption education hours before we go to court (many months from now). Recently, an agreement that was signed in the country we are adopting from, increased the hours of required education from 10 hours to 80 hours! This is for all families adopting, whether you are a local or foreigner. But, in reality each region (which are like our states) has the ability to decide how to enforce this. From our understanding, many judges will only want to see you complete about 30 hours. We hope this is the case since it will obviously be very time consuming and expensive to have to complete another 70 hours! This is the nature of international adoption. It is constantly changing and you must be okay with that or you will drive yourself crazy! It is not for you if you are looking for the straight and narrow path. In the end, I know that the intention is in the interest of the children and that is the most important thing.

Another change in the works which is a great one for us, is that the visa rules are changing in this country. They are making it easier to get a visa and most likely cheaper (if you have to travel there 3 times). This is great news! Right now it is relatively expensive and challenging to get a visa to visit this country, so I was super excited about this!

I updated some information on our blog under the Costs page. Some people have expressed concern over the overall cost of this adoption. I decided that maybe a detailed listing of the costs would address those concerns and answer some questions. At the very least it will help other potential adoptive parents know what to expect if they decide to make this journey.

We're giving away a $500 gift card!

While we are waiting for our home study to be written, we decided to do something fun! We are going to be giving away a $500 Amazon gift card. For information about the giveaway, please see the new page I've created at the top right. It has all the details and rules. If you have questions, please email me.

I would also like to welcome any new readers to our blog. Especially, if you were one of the lucky recipients of the letters we mailed today. We appreciate the love and support from our family and friends so we can bring Hadley home as soon as possible!

Follow up to my previous post

I found this great article on our home study agency's Facebook page. It's a good follow up to my previous post.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-jane-aronson/when-an-orphan-dies_b_1743722.html

Every life is precious

I decided to create a new post for this because it didn't feel right to post something so heartfelt with all that business stuff I just wrote about.

Today, a family who was in the process of adopting a child they found on RR learned that their child had died. This is the second RR child to die in a month. The other child also had a family working to adopt him. Both families are devastated. This makes me so sad. No child should die without knowing the love of a family. I know, I lost a child. Abby has hundreds of people who love her and grieved when she died. Every child deserves that. This is why we're adopting. This is why we already love this little girl. A little girl we've never met. This is serious and important. Every child on earth is a precious and a valuable gift. Not everyone can adopt but everyone can help someone who is adopting. Thank you to everyone who cares about these children!

Almost 3 weeks since...

my last post! That's what happens when you take back to back vacations and then try to catch up with "normal" life. Though life isn't really all that "normal" when you're adopting!

I updated a few of the pages on our blog: Adoption and The Cost. I wanted readers to know our feelings about adoption and why we chose international adoption, and I felt that there would probably be questions about the costs and well, why is it so expensive? I hope these pages answered some questions.

On the adoption front, the exciting news is that we had our last home study visit with the social worker yesterday! It felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders though we still have a long way to go. It feels like progress and I think our social worker understands the urgency of our timing. I'm hoping it will be written and finalized in record speed. She told us she thought at the very latest, the whole entire writing, revising, and finalizing process will take about a month. I'm okay with that, but I hope it's sooner!

We've started working on the documents needed for our registration dossier. This is the paperwork that will be translated and submitted to the authorities in Hadley's home country. Once this is officially submitted, we will receive our official referral and dates to travel for our first trip. Most of the documents are simple to fill out but then (like everything) will need to be notarized and apostilled. The biggest part of the registration dossier is the home study, but we want to have all the other documents ready to go so when the home study is done we can send every thing off. Once I have the the registration documents finished, I'm going to start working on the court documents. My plan is to get as much paperwork done as possible now, so hopefully we won't be rushing around to get it finished at some later date.

One of the reasons that I'm trying to get everything done is because I might be starting a temporary part-time job giving seasonal flu shots. I'm an RN, though I'm not currently employed as one. I was thinking that it might be a good idea to bring in some extra money since this adoption will be very expensive. My education and this adoption will be fighting it out on which one will be more expensive! I'm hoping the student loans win! I've also been thinking about becoming a notary and starting my own notary business...still researching that. My dad is an entrepreneur and I think I inherited the gene "always keeping my eye out for a way to make money".

Justin and I have gone back and forth about the idea of "fundraising" for our adoption. I see all these fellow RR adoptive parents fundraising and I think it's amazing. Everyone is so creative and good at planning events. I'm not really either one of those. But, we will probably try something...Many people have expressed a desire to help us and so I think we will look at it as a way to thank everyone. Because I really can't think of a better gift than to try to help a family save a child's life.

On vacation

*I would first like to thank everyone who has commented and sent us emails. We really appreciate it! I'm still getting used to checking another email account so I am very slow with approving comments and reading emails. At some point, I will reply! I think I've spent more time at my computer in the last month than I ever have with all the adoption stuff, research, news, support groups. Sometimes it's very overwhelming. But, I wanted you all to know that we appreciate your support!*

So, I am officially on vacation! I'm in Lake Tahoe with my family for about a week. This also means that I can't really do much adoption stuff. But, I will probably take the time to do some "work" on this blog. I've been recording all the nuts and bolts of international adoption but I haven't yet really wrote about the emotional aspect of it. Like, why are we adopting? Since I'm in such a beautiful place and without too many distractions (other than my family), I will have some time to address these other aspects of this adoption process.

Before that, I will catch you up with the to-do list and what we are working on. We had our first visit with our social worker a week ago. Just as everyone else says, it was fine and not difficult at all. Our social worker wants us to adopt and have a successful homestudy, so it feels more like she is working with us to make all of this happen. She did bring up a few things for us to think about which is very helpful. Sometimes this process can be very emotional and she tried to give us a realistic picture. She told us that we seemed very well informed about international adoption. All those months of researching and reading other family's blogs has paid off! And of course, she decided to wait to do the house walk-through on the second visit. I knew that would happen just because I cleaned the whole house! Well at least I had a very clean house for about 24 hours...

Justin and I also had our doctor's appointments for our physicals earlier this week. We both have new PCP's because we had to changed our health insurance in January. We both really like our new doc's and they were both very supportive of our adoption. We haven't told many people yet so I'm not sure what the reaction will be, so I guess I was surprised at how supportive they are. It is very encouraging! We can't check the medical exams off the list quite yet. We're still waiting for test results to come back and then the forms can be completed.

So, what's left? Besides the medical forms, we have to finish our education (8 hours left) and we're waiting for two more of our reference letters. Our second and hopefully last visit with the social worker is at the end of August, but we're hoping that maybe we can move it up if we get everything finished sooner. I've already started working on the documents for our dossier. I would like to have everything ready so when we get our final homestudy we can go ahead and send everything off to our agency and then Eastern Europe!

I hope at some point to post some pictures of where we are vacationing. It is my favorite vacation spot and Justin and I got married here too! If you ever visit Northern California, you must make a trip to Lake Tahoe. It is truly a treasure and I never tire of the beauty here.