Slow and Steady

You may have noticed the URL name for the blog changed. The other one was annoying me, so I changed it. Of course, I forgot to write down what I changed it to, so the result was "misplacing" my blog for a while!

It was pointed out to me that my previous statement of "her special need" was a bit confusing for those not entirely in the know.

China has two programs in which adoption occurs. The Traditional Program places (historically), healthy baby girls into families seeking to adopt internationally. In the past few years, as China's economy has improved, more and more Chinese families are choosing to adopt domestically. This means the Traditional Program has slowed way down. I think the current wait time for an international family is eight years. Needless to say, most agencies are no longer accepting applications to that program, and even more needless to say, that's not a route we are interested in taking.

The second program is called the Waiting Child Program. This program finds families for children who have some varying degree of a special need. The range of special needs are as varied as the children waiting, and can be correctable or minor needs to severe, life-threatening needs.

The idea of adopting a child with special needs didn't even slow us down. It merely changed the conversation, and made us open up to each other in new ways. We had to really confront our limitations, and be honest in a way that sometimes felt really invasive and raw. We had to create a list made up of the medical needs to which we were open. The list started out short.

And then I would research.

And the list grew.

There's so much more to how I found our girl, and I'm sure one night, after we have our official approval from China, I'll share it. Remind me. It's a pretty cool story.

We are now waiting for our homestudy agency to review all of our forms and assign us a social worker, who will come to the house and make sure the home is safe.

I have completed all my Dossier forms (all of the official forms that will go to China in a couple months) and sent them off to the California Secretary of State's office to be certified. Once I get those forms back, I send them to the Chinese Consulate to be authenticated. Concurrently, we will be waiting for the homestudy to be finished, and once it is, we send it to immigration for approval. After all that is done, we send everything (our Dossier) to China. Chinese law says we have until December 4th to get our Dossier to China. We're hoping for much sooner than that!

Slow and steady wins the race. Right?

Right?!

It's a Girl!!!

Today I received Pre-Approval!

For my non-adoption-centric readers: Pre-Approval (PA) is a formal letter you receive from China after you've submitted a formal letter to China (Letter of Intent, or LOI) requesting permission to adopt a particular child. The letter has to include information about you, your plans for the child, and a promise to never abuse, harm or abandon the child.

A little over six weeks ago, I requested the file of a little girl who had just turned two years old. The adoption agency put her file on hold for us, on the condition we have it reviewed by a physician. We had 72 hours to consult with the doctor and decide.

Chris and I had two different consultations with International Adoption Pediatricians, one in San Diego and one from Johns Hopkins. Then we had a specialist from Johns Hopkins review her file.

Our 72 hours were up. I wrote the letter and submitted it to the agency. They sent it to China.

And we waited. For six weeks, we waited. (I have seen people receive their PA in a matter of days. Six weeks is nearly unheard of.)

But today, the good news came!

I am not yet able to share pictures or any real information, but she just turned two years old and she's cute as a button! As far as her medical condition, we are, for right now, electing to keep that information private. We may decide to share it in the future, but we want her to have every opportunity without anyone's preconceived notions. Besides, she may not want people to know her medical history. And if that is the case, we want to respect that. Her story belongs to her, and only her.

Our next step is to finish up our home study and then submit a request to immigration, asking for permission from the US government to adopt a child born in a different country. Once that is done, I will send all of my paperwork (my dossier) to China. From there, we will wait for the official Letter of Approval (LOA) to adopt this little girl. After that, we wait for our invitation to travel to China. We will be in China for about two weeks.

If you know me, you know I'm not an overly sappy person. (And if you don't know me, you now know I'm not an overly sappy person because I just told you.) But today, I think maybe I have allergies because my eyes keep welling up...

On the other side of the world, a little girl is waiting. She doesn't know she's waiting. She doesn't know she is loved.

We cannot wait to tell her.

Arguing Logic

I know what you're thinking. I said I neglected the blog before and the logical conclusion would be that I wouldn't ignore it again. But I haven't posted since April, and really... that was only one post...

But whatever. It's my blog. (And I've been writing a lot, just not posting. If a tree falls in the woods and so on.)

Anyway! Enjoy!

We are, on the one hand, brand new to, and on the other hand, more than one year into our adoption journey. It started like this:

I have always believed that, if I had a family, I would create that family through adoption. I blame my grandparents for it. They created their family through adoption and as a result, I am not biologically related to at least half of my relatives. Because of that, I have just never really cared about biology. (Can I blame my poor high school science grades on that? No?)

In May of 2013 I turned to Chris and said, "let's adopt." Because, sure, we're young, but we're certainly not getting any younger. Chris replied, "let's look into it." He might as well have said, "I bet you can't spend five to seven hours a night researching agencies, requirements, countries, special needs, physicians, medical insurance, physical, occupational and speech therapies, early intervention programs, parenting children from complex backgrounds, financing and travel arrangements, every night for the next year."

Check and mate.

After months of discussions and research, we decided to move forward with an adoption from China. We looked into domestic adoption, foster-care-to-adoption, international adoption, different countries, different programs... the list goes on and on. Ultimately, we have to come to the path that is the best fit for us.

In a U.S. adoption, we would have one of two options: wait for a birth mother to choose us, or foster-care adoption.

We immediately ruled out the birth mother choice. Because really... we're not baby people. I KNOW. That's horrible. Babies have big heads and huge eyes and they're evolutionarily designed to be adorable so their parents don't eat them but... we're not baby people. Except your baby. Your baby is super cute and we'd love to babysit except...

Fos-Adopt (foster care adoption in California) is something I really explored in depth and thought long and hard about. But ultimately, the children tend to be older and in sibling groups. And as first time parents, we recognize our limitations in being able to provide the environment an older sibling group would need.

So we've decided to create our family in a way that will piss off a lot of racist, xenophobic jerks by bringing a foreign-born, non-white child into the U.S. and having her become a U.S. citizen. (HA! Just kidding. That's not why. But that might be what I tell the next person who says, "why do you want to bring in one of their kids?")

"I get all the arguments against it. I even get the one that says I don't know if I want to bring another kid into this world. But how do you argue with the logic of loving one that's already here?" -John Cusack in 'Martian Child'

Getting Started

I set this blog up several months ago, and then, true to form, promptly began ignoring it. Hopefully my skills as a parent exceed my skills as a blogger.

I am creating this blog in the hopes that it helps adoptive parents, the way the countless adoption blogs I’ve read have helped me. Navigating the world of international adoption is a bit of a pain, to be honest, and I cannot imagine having gotten this far without Those Who Have Gone Before Me posting blogs about it.

I have noticed, however, a huge gaping hole in representation amongst adoption blogs. Most of these blogs are written about faith-based families. And, in my completely unscientific study of adoption blogs, most families seeking to adopt tend to be faith-based. (Spoiler Alert: I'm not what you would call a "faith-based person".) While the insights, advice and advocacy through these blogs has been incredibly helpful in my own journey, there is a large aspect of these peoples' lives to which I cannot relate. And, I’ll be honest, sometimes I just want to read a blog I can relate to a little bit more. And I couldn’t find one.

So I’m starting one.

You’re welcome, internet.

(Look, if Napster and Myspace are still around, hogging up precious cloud-space, then so can I.)

(Fine, I don’t know if Napster is actually still around. That’s why I said “if”. But Myspace totally is.)

Another reason I want to start this blog is because, really, adoption is hard. And my portion – the portion I will write about on this blog – is the easy part. The paperwork, the finances, the waiting, the research… that’s the easy stuff. That’s the stuff I can make sense of, create spreadsheets for and rationalize my way around. The hard stuff will be what my daughter endures: the rude, relentless questions, the stares, the assumptions, the loss, the grieving, the sexism, the racism, the bigotry. The hard part will be helping her to find her place in this world, when her first experiences of this world were heartbreaking. The hard part will be answering her when she asks the really hard questions. What happened to me? Why was I abandoned? Did my biological parents love me? Answering her, even if the only honest response I can give is I don’t know.

I want to write this blog for her, so she will know the path her parents took to get to her, and that, in the midst of it all, she has been – and will always be – wanted, loved and absolutely worth it.

(Also, please remind me, as we venture down this path, that I referred to the paperwork, the finances, the waiting and the research as “easy”. I may need the perspective in the coming months…)