IT CAME!!!!! IT CAME!!!


I'm am running around this office doing the happy dance!! Our 171 came today. This means WE ARE DONE!!!!!!! Wow - finally - we are done!! I have to get this notarized, certified, then authenticated, take some pictures, and fed ex everything to CCAI. OMG!! I'm soooo excited. The wait for our daughter will be long - but it will be so worth it! We are one major step closer to getting her.

No news...no news...no 171...this is sooooo frustrating!!! When is that little piece of paper going to come? We want to be DTC as soon as possible. With the wait times now pushing to 12 - 14 months, the sooner our paperwork gets to China, the better.

China closing it's doors to international adoption? Wait times of up to 14 months? Ok, wait just a minute here. I don't mind reading rumors, because, hey, they are just rumors - but when they start saying that China is going to close the doors to adoption and the wait times are going up and could reach 14 months, I start to get nervous!! Most of the time I don't pay any attention to them but these 2....jeez...I dunno!! So, I did some research, emailed some people, and was reassured that China is NOT going to close their doors anytime soon. Whew!! Now the wait time, who knows. It has taken them (CCAA) 3 months, yes 3 months, to get through the month of May. If this keeps up we might see our daughter some time in 2008!! I don't think that will happen. What I'm praying will happen is that people will start jumping the ship, switch countries, and then the wait time will go back down to where it was last year - 6 months. If you want to see some rumors check out the Rumor Queen blog under Fortunes Can Be Funny.

We still haven't received the I-171 yet. But today is another day!!

APC is stilling raging over the Washington Post article and some of them are reminding us "newbies" that our daughters will be just miserable here in the US because we ripped them out of their home country. They will be sad and hard to bond with. Good God people!! Of course she'll be sad - jeez we are taking her from the only thing she has ever known. Then we are going to fly her half way around the world to a place that looks and smells completely different. We expect her to experience some grief over this. And yes, our daughter will have to put up with some bullies at school, she'll have to put up with stupid remarks by strangers, she'll have to put up with sideway glances....but guess what? Don't we all put up with this in one form or another? At some point in our lives have we not all been made fun of, bullied, looked at strangely, ignored, etc? How did we handle this? Are we "Unhappy Adults" because of this? Don't think so. Our parents helped us through those times and taught us how to handle these situations. We are now teaching our kids - this is called parenting folks...seems to be a big word for a bunch of peeps.

-sigh-

Ok - off the soap box now - sorry folks. Adoption news - the homestudy agency has received THE letter and will mail the new homestudy to BCIS this week. That means we should have our 171 within a few weeks. Once we get that then we can send the homestudy and a copy of the 171 to be certified and authenticated. The last step will be to send the paperwork to our agency, CCAI. They will review it and send it to China (DTC - Dossier To China). After that...the long, long, long wait. 10 - 12 months from the LID (Long In Date). All this paperwork and the longer wait times are worth it though. Our reward at the end will be Tiana.

Pretty neat - this is a word cloud. You can create one too...just go here


Thanks for the neat site Karen!!

My neighbor has a 10 month old cutie pie little boy named Jason Jr. and a 3 year old little girl named Hope - which is one of my "red threads". Last night I was visiting and she gave me a bag of clothes that Hope can't wear anymore. It contained some 3T's, 2T's, 18 month and 12 month clothes and a pink pair of sneakers. Yeah!! All of them are in great condition so I'm going to keep them. I've got to get to Target and buy some containers so I can store them until T can wear them.

Here's an update on our paperchase. We finally got the letter from NY - jeez, what took a month to get should have only taken a week. I've sent that to our home study agency and need to send one more item which will get done today. Once they receive that then they will send our new homestudy to BCIS and we should get our 171H within the next week or two. Ok...so goodbye March DTC...hello April DTC!! We will get there eventually!!

By the way, there was an article in the Washington Post titled "Stealing Babies for Adoption". If you would like to read more about this article and some of the issues behind this report go here. Scott has an adorable little boy he and Tina adopted in September of last year. Or you can go to Brian Stuy's blog (which is also linked from Scotts blog) here.

Why adopt from China?

Watch this video and you will understand. This is just a taste of the lives of these young children. The young man in the video has started China Care and is making great strides in the poorer orphanages. Get some tissue ready and enjoy! This is just one of the many many reasons we have decided to adopt our daughter from China

http://www.chinacare.org/ChinaCareVideo-HiRes.html

Totally weird and proud of it!!

You Are Austin

A little bit country, a little bit rock and roll. You're totally weird and very proud of it. Artistic and freaky, you still seem to fit in... in your own strange way. Famous Austin residents: Lance Armstrong, Sandra Bullock, Andy Roddick

What American City Are You?

Shopping

Big T and I were talking this weekend about taxes and what we were going to do with the refunds. Guess what he wants to do? PAY BILLS!!! Imagine that!! I asked about a new vacuum cleaner and he said I could spend up to 500 on one. That should get me a nice one - at last!! I think that we have spent over that now by buying the cheap ones that just don't last over the years. Anyway, while we were talking I mentioned that I haven't bought anything yet for our daughter. He asked what she needed and I said I didn't know, maybe some clothes, shoes, toys, etc. He mentioned the thrift shop and my neighbor for hand me downs, then chuckled and said I could buy our daughter what she needs just to not go overboard! Yeah!!! I've been given the okay to shop! So, while I was at Wally world (listening to commercials/music in spanish - but that is a different post!) I found this cute hooded towel - and it was a ladybug!! Now, don't get me wrong here folks, I don't really buy into this "ladybug" thing that a lot of people believe in, but it was so darn cute I just had to have it!! That towel was the only thing I bought for her, but I was excited just the same. I also got a plastic tub to start storing her items in. I've put the gifts from the cyber shower, the ladybug towel, the 3 hats I've made, and the blanket I've crocheted in it. This way I can keep everything together. My neighbor is going through her daughter's clothes and the ones that don't fit her she is going to give to me. I'll probably buy more tubs as I gather different size clothing. I'm not sure how old she'll be or what size but I feel I can buy 16 month on up clothes and be pretty safe. Time to keep my eyes open for sales!

I was surfing around the net today at lunch reading up on some of the other blogs I follow. One of them had this in it....cute. At least I haven't lost all of my "northern talk"!!

Your Linguistic Profile:

70% General American English

15% Yankee

10% Upper Midwestern

5% Dixie

0% Midwestern

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

I called on Monday the 27th to see if the commissioner had mailed out the needed letter. His secretary had no clue what I was talking about. I called them 3 weeks ago and nothing had been done. I once again gave the secretary the needed information and she said she would look into it. I called back yesterday....nothing had been done!! Huh??!! Don't these people know this is holding up our adoption?? So I explained once again the importance of this and she said she called the clerks office and was waiting to hear back. She then did a search and couldn't find anything!! OMG.....it's like I'm banging my head against a brick wall!! She gave me the clerk's number and I called her. Guess what? The chick at the commissioners office had just called her about a half an hour before I did. Hmmm.....someone isn't telling me the truth! Anyway, she said that she will have to go down to the basement. She isn't even sure she will find anything. She (Debbie) will call me back if she does. If I don't hear from her by Monday I'm to call her. I then called our home study agency and spoke to Helene. She is so helpful! I explained what was going on and she said just write everything down. If we don't get the needed letter then she will put in the home study what we did and that will be just fine. whew!!! I've been sooooo stressed over this!! I just wish they would fax that letter to me so this part of the paper chase will be done.