Norman Adoption Blog

Look at what I found today at a toy exchange with Pear Orchard Pres. Church…

I found a baby bjorn for a great price! It is comfortable and the latches are very easy to use! Now we are prepared to carry our new baby girl around when we are in Vietnam. All we need now is our baby to fill the void that my little pink dog had agreed to fill for the time being.

Look at the Little People set I was able to pick up for $5!! The little boat moves on it’s own and there are lots of other fun things to play with. The best of all, we have brother and sister together. What a cute pair!! It was just too perfect to pass up.

Patrick just told me that he was able to speak with officer Keys at the office of CIS again. He was told yesterday that they have two locations in Metairie LA. He had a feeling that someone didn’t recognize our form as a I 600 A and put it in the wrong basket. He said if he couldn’t find it, that we could overnight it directly to an officer who can work on it. He was kind enough to go to the other office and look for our mail. Sure enough it was in the wrong location. So he took it back and hand delivered it to an officer who will immediately start to process the information. He said to expect to hear back about an appointment to get our fingerprints made at the local FBI building downtown within the next 2-3 days.

What a blessing! I feel God is really looking out for us. Just when it felt like this task was going to take much longer than I was expecting and hoping, God takes control….Or should I say SHOWS me and reminds me that He is already in control!

It won’t be long now before Patrick and I have all of our required documents collected and sent in. Patrick and I took some time “off” from the adoption process while I was away in New Orleans visiting family all last week. It worked out perfectly because Betti with Catholic Charities was also out of town.

As soon as we got back though we had to pick up the pace again. This time instead of keeping a steady jog, I feel we are sprinting towards the finish line. Just yesterday we completed our criminal record background check, all in a matter of 5 minutes at the Madison Police Department. We even received our videos in the mail from Orphans Overseas. We are required to watch 5 videos of Jorie Kincaid, the Director of Orphans Overseas, which we are hoping will answer even more of our questions.

Betti is working on finalizing the Home Study report and getting in all necessary documents to Orphans, including our reference letters that our friends completed. The only hurdle I feel we need to get over is waiting for US CIS (US Citizenship and Immigration Services) to process and then approve our request. We applied over a month ago and we still have not heard a thing. Patrick called them yesterday and actually spoke with someone. We will need to get FBI fingerprint cards from them to complete and turn in, but they have yet to even cash our check. Betti said it is difficult sometimes to get someone in person. So we are lucky Patrick was able to get a hold of someone and I think the officer there will really be able to help us.

After we turn in these last items we will begin working on our foreign Dossier. The Dossier will only require us to complete another medical exam and fill out a couple other forms. For the most part, this next stage we are about to enter consists of having our information authenticated, translated, and then sent overseas. So for us, that just means waiting and continue praying for our little girl…

I am very excited to say that we are finished with our home study meetings. It is not because it was so terrible or anything. In fact, we really enjoyed Betti’s company and wisdom. She was very easy to talk to and be open with. She was honest from the very beginning and had great insights. Overall I feel our experience working with Catholic Charities has been a great one! However, it is VERY nice to say, “all done!” (like a shake of the hand as David would in sign language). There is something satisfying about being able to check a huge item like that off of our list. I think that is why we appreciate Orphans Overseas’ online adoption status checklist. When we see “Done” or “NA” on the list I start to feel almost giddy.

Anyway, the last meeting with our social worker was very casual. She walked around the house to see the layout and to make sure we would have enough room for another baby. She checked all the important safety items like the smoke detectors, fire extinguisher, childproofing, and etc. Then we talked once again. She asked us our opinion about education and childrearing. She asked if we plan to incorporate her culture in the home and how. (We hope to bring home a lot of Vietnamese art, clothes, and other tokens of her homeland. We also hope to teach her about her culture as well as celebrate with her some of their countries holidays, like the New Year.) She also wanted to know the types of books and things we have been reading about the adoption. The meeting was over in a flash. Any meeting would not be complete without a little bit of “homework” for us to do and things to collect.

One thing we still needed to do was to get our physicals done. Patrick and I went this morning to the Baptist Clinic and had everything checked out. I would not have cared about a routine checkup except for the NEEDLES!! We both got a TB test and a HIV test. *Note! If you plan on adopting and you need a physical completed, check with your agency FIRST for specifics on what is required!!! You may not need any tests!* I found out, too late, that we didn’t even need the tests for our country. They don’t need to see the results like China would. If the Doctor trusts you or knows your past history then he would not need to take those tests. However, it is up to that particular Doctor. I had only been to him one time in the past and so he probably would have preferred it anyway to be sure. No permanent harm done. I lived and I didn’t even get woozy! I guess after having a baby it is hard to be THAT afraid of needles.

Now I feel it is back to the waiting game. We need to wait on my birth certificate to come in the mail, refrence letters to be sent in, the home study report to be complete and sent in, and a couple more things. This is a great time to rest some more and finish my blanket that I am knitting for her.

Elise keeps asking me when I am going to contribute more than pictures and ideas to this stained glass window like web log. My quick answer is that I am neither as eloquent or as colorful a writer as she and do not have the ability to spill my thoughts on paper as some. I am, however, skillful at spilling coffee on the shirts that I wear and feel that God has spilled onto us the the desire to adopt. So really, I have one thought to add straight off my shirt, and directly from the mouth of God.

“If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless. Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” James 1:26-27

While I can probably count 10-15 reasons that I would like to adopt a little girl from Vietnam, it is this verse that reassures me every time I think of all of the uncertainties. What calling can we have but this - to look after orphans and widows. Period.

I know we need to be guarding our hearts and not getting carried away with our imaginations and hopes of having a little girl in the family… but I must admit, it sure is fun to get excited about it!! Patrick woke early this morning saying that he was getting so excited about our little girl. When he woke he was looking online for baby cribs. Of course, I woke up when he did and started having my own thoughts of our journey to Vietnam to get her.

There are still at least 5 more months before we get a referral (to be sure we are even referred a girl!). Yet I feel if we didn’t allow ourselves to get excited about our new baby girl, then I feel I am only going through the motions of the adoption for adoption’s sake, not for her sake specifically. It helps to remember that she has been created specifically for us and that she is very much alive, either being carried by her mother or waiting in the orphanage. So I want to trust God, and wait expectantly and with excitement to see my new child!

With all of that said…. Today Patrick and I decided to go garage sale shopping (which isn’t too unusual for us on Sat. mornings) to look for girl items. We were both in this type of “baby mood” and wanted to start getting prepared for her (a type of nesting instinct without all the pregnancy hormones. Haha!). We were so blessed to find a large selection of girl clothes, in such great condition, of all different sizes for different seasons. They were so inexpensive (like 10c to $1) that we bought whatever we thought looked cute.

Not only that, but last weekend we found a great bumper set for a very good
price at a local consignment store. It was from Pottery Barn too! I wondered how much different we are this time around with a baby than we were with David, our first. We seemed to want the best and newest. However, I know we went to garage sales and consignment stores for him and didn’t find anything like we are now. I almost feel like God is pouring out His blessings on us as a way of showing His approval and grace! How exciting it is to be waiting for her to come home!

Patrick and I just sent in our first big grouping of papers to Orphans. We are in Part II of the paperwork still but we were anxious to get as much to them as we could. That included birth certs., marriage certs., the book reviews we had to write on Adopting For Good (by Jorie Kincaid the Director of Orphans), tax returns, employment letters, and statements concerning the type of child we want and that we understand possible health risks. Though it felt like we were sending in a mini booklet there is still more to collect.

Patrick just had his one-on-one with Betti yesterday. He felt just as confident about the outcome as I did. He felt very comfortable talking with her. We are relieved to know that the spanking worry can now be put to rest. Cindy, our caseworker with Orphans, emailed Betti and explained that they did not think there was any reason it needed to be in the home study report. Betti agreed and felt she would not have enough room to include it in the report anyway (the foreign Dossier is required to be only 4 pages long and she usually writes about 7). Betti had a lot of praise for Orphans Overseas. She said that compared to many other agencies that she has worked with, that they really have it all together! She said when she spoke with them that they had a lot of warm and encouraging words about us and are excited to be working with us in the adoption.

My phone conversation with Cindy was mostly covering business and answering our questions concerning paperwork. She will have my answers for me next week when she can speak with the social worker, who has been out of town for two weeks. She gave me this website (adopt-vietnam.org) that her Director put together on Vietnam. He was there about 3 weeks ago and took some photos of the children. You have to click on every link to see all the different pictures. Very adorable children!!!

We only have one more meeting with Betti and a few more things to collect for Orphans and we will be on our way to putting together our dossier!