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'