Happy Valentine’s Day!
I had a great time taking some Valentine’s pictures of all my favorite kids. Mine plus my favorite niece and my favorite nephew. Oh yeah, Clover too. 🙂 Love these munchkins!!!
Next Valentine’s Day we will also be sharing a birthday cake with a very special little guy. Can’t wait. 🙂
Last night as I was putting K to bed, she said, “I wish I was your only honey.” Oh, pain through my heart! I know this is a normal emotion for a child to feel, but it is the first time I have ever heard one of my children express something like this.
We talked for a few minutes and I asked her, “Are you a little worried about having a new little brother?” She said yes she was because after he comes no one will play with her any more. Again, normal emotions. Just not a normal experience for me with MY children.
I told her that I thought it might be a good idea to have a family meeting today so that she could talk to everyone about her feelings. I thought maybe her big brothers could give her some encouragement since they have been through this a time or two. She agreed that that sounded like a good idea, and feel asleep clinging to me tightly.
When I went downstairs I told the boys that K was feeling worried that after their little brother comes that no one will play with her. Z immediately said, “Well that’s not true. Hannah will.” Umm, not exactly the encouragement I was looking for. Then he said, “Don’t worry, I can talk to her. I’ve got experience.” Okay, glad we had this talk.
D, in his way just took in this conversation. Then you could see those light bulbs go off and he said, “Oh, I get it. She is afraid she is going to be forgotten.”
My dear girl, you could never be forgotten.
The good news is that everything from the last to-do list for our home study is complete! We have had all of our required visits, and now we are just waiting for our social worker to put it all together.
There are so many times in this adoption process where the wait just seems agonizingly long. I’m already feeling that. We have to wait for our home study to be finished. Then we apply for our initial immigration approval. Then we wait. We will be assigned a time to be fingerprinted. More waiting. All of this will have to happen before our dossier can be complete.
While we are waiting for that part of the process, this is my current to-do list for our dossier. Each vertical line is an original document that we need. Even our birth certificates have to be newly issued. Then each thing is notarized, then sealed by the county, the state, the U.S. government, and the Chinese Consulate.
I wish we could speed this up a bit. All these are things that have to happen before the BIG wait after our paperwork arrives in China. Sigh. We just want to hold our guy.
We will try to be patient.
I was hoping that the next time I blogged that I would be sharing pictures and the whole story about our new little guy. Unfortunately we have not yet gotten our first approval from China, but as soon as we do I will be showing off his adorableness!
Right now I am in over my head with paperwork. Unfortunately when you adopt from China, you only have one year to re-use your documents. Since it has been 2 1/2 years for us it was back to square 1.
The good news is that I have done this before and I know what I have to do. The bad news is that we have done this before and I know what I have to do!
Here is a list of things that my Social Worker has requested for our home study. Our home study is just one of about 15 things that will eventually be sent to China.
-Copy of your current water bill or if you have a well then an inspection report/letter dated within the last 10 months
-Copy of your current sewer bill if you are on a public sewer system; if you have a septic tank please provide documentation from the last 10 months that your system is in good working order
-Copy of your pet’s vaccinations
-Directions to your home from closest interstate
-Floor plan of your home (hand drawn is fine)
-Copy of birth certificates for each household member
-Reference form-Please give the attached form to three or four references and ask them to snail me the completed forms back to me. One of these references should be a relative that does not live in your home.
-Health form- to be completed by a pediatrician for each child in the home.
-Behavior Management Form- Explaining methods of discipline used in your home
-DHS form- This is for a GA child abuse clearance to be completed- please complete one for Jeff and one for Emily
-Copy of your health insurance cards
-Autobiography for both Jeff and Emily
-Prior Work with Children form – if you have worked with children in the last five years as a teacher, coach, mentor, tutor, etc please also list a reference for me to contact.
-Safe Home Checklist- we will go over this together at our visit
-Residential History form- Includes listing every state lived in since the age of 18 in order to obtain child abuse clearance reports from each of these states
-Guardianship form- Detailing the guardianship plan for your adopted child
-adoption petition- Letter detailing your plans to adopt this particular child
-Copy of your Letter of Intent (LOI)- A China requirement in order to convey to the Chinese government the plan of care for the potential adopted child
-Letter of Employment/job verification letter for Jeff
-Non-employment statement- Emily
-Physical exam form for both Jeff and Emily
-Police clearances for Jeff and Emily
-Financial statement
Phew. If you are waiting for me to do something for you, or return a phone call, etc., I’m sorry if I am behind. This is why!
But here is a good reminder of why we are doing it!
So very worth it!
We had a truly wonderful Christmas at our house.
The Christmas pageant always brings tears to my eyes, I love it. This year we had a little rogue angel who was admiring the baby Jesus in the manger rather than saying her line with the choir of angels. We also had D as an excellent reader, and Z as a little star, doing his part as an excited shepherd.
Christmas morning was full of childhood joy, and we had lots of these priceless faces:
Of course we all loved our first Christmas with this gorgeous little lady:
My kids said a few of my favorite things, including K saying, “Hugging you feels like Christmas”, and D saying, “Sometimes I’m so happy at Christmas, my heart beats”. 🙂
All of these moments that come together to make memories are incredible and wonderful. This Christmas was extra special though. We had a Christmas miracle in our house.
Next year, there will be another stocking hanging on our mantle.
All year we have been trying to find the file of a certain little guy in China. He touched our hearts, and although we had not exactly planned on having 5 children, this guy just seemed special. We knew it was going to be close to impossible to find his file. The adoption process is just not set up that way.
We included him in our family conversations, and prayed that he would find his family.
The week before Christmas, we found him! After multiple conversations with the adoption agency, we found out that he can be ours. We told the kids on Christmas Eve, and the rest of our family on Christmas Day.
I can’t wait to tell more, but we have to wait until we have our first approval from China. Stay tuned!
