Bad things come in only threes right?

OK so it certainly could have been a better week for us. The down slide started when we got our USPS overnight package refused from the Chinese Consulate in New York for no apparent reason. From what research I was able to do they apparently prefer FedEX (who knew since we sent US mail before with no problem) and they also want you to put "Adoption Documents" in large letters somewhere on the envelope. So we have to start again and send it tomorrow via FedEX. Ack!!!

Next I was informed by my company that starting this week in addition to Texas (16 inpatient rehab sites) I have now been handed the state of Louisiana with an additional 5 facilities to cover. I covered them for a brief time back in 2003 while we were rearranging territories and I swear that there were no managed care folks less than the age of 60 and it was definitely an old boys network.... which makes it difficult to penetrate when you have the wrong parts!

To top it off for the week we found out that the grant that we were supposed to get for Brogan isn't exactly what we thought. It involves, among other things, signing an employment contract to volunteer with the organization that is providing the grant. Not that there is anything wrong with paying it forward but I am not sure with four kids, a full time job, and two non-profit volunteer board obligations already to fulfill that I will have the time and energy to do what is required to fulfill those obligations. Needless to say we are looking into some other alternatives in case it does not work out.

I DID make progress on something this week with Pierce's and Quinn's post adoption paperwork. I finally made it to the Vital records office to order their Texas birth certificates. Silly me thought that they would be ready right then and there but after waiting in line to get on a list to wait in another line I discovered that apparently I have to make another trip back there next week.

No other progress to report on the dossier as we are in a holding pattern until the completed homestudy is sent to us. I am still waiting on the documents from Hawaii and thinking that it might be time to place a call to the Aloha state since its been about a month with no word yet on that certified marriage certificate. They must be moving at the good 'ol Island pace.

Hoping for a better start for next week!

Holly

LOI to China!

We have made some progress this past week. Our Letter of Intent (LOI) left for China on April 14th and arived in China on the 18th! Now we can settle in for the wait for the Prior Approval (PA) which is China's indication that we have been approved to adopt Brogan and can submit our dossier.

This past week we got both birth certs off to the Chicago and NY consulates. No word yet on the marriage cert coming from Hawaii but the process is so different there and as I recall last time it took awhile. We also completed our medical exams but they forgot to take our heights and give us a vision exams so we had to both go back in. Somehow I seem to have shrunk an inch since my last visit, or maybe since the nurse could not even reach my head on her tiptoes she just measured wrong?

We also had our last visit with the Social Worker this week and she now has all the documents so that she can write up the homestudy for China and for our USCIS. Speaking of which we finally got our official reciept from the USCIS. It only took them 17 days. It must have taken a few extra days to staple that receipt to the extra documents that they now provide on what needs to be included in the homestudy (?). I hope its not an indication of what to expect with the turnaround on the I-171.

Richard is very proud to have found not only a Brogan Vineyards but Brogan's Irish creme. We are now the proud owners of a 1998 bottle of Cabernet bearing our new son's name and a Fedex package arrived Saturday with the Irish Creme. If I could only harness the energy and enthusiasm for the papershase which my husband expends in searching for spirits named after our son!

And if there was any doubt about Pierce needing a brother just take a look at the photo of him with the girls that says it all! We did get the bunkbeds up finally in his room and the kids are loving them. So far the uper bunk is blocked until we get a proper ladder as he simply is not trustworthy yet but he loves his pseudo fort in the bottom.

Plodding along with another week of paperwork.....

Introducing The 4th Chinese Clover

Introducing: Pan, Jun Jie (Handsome Hero)
DOB: 7/10/06
Orphanage: Kunming, Yunnan
To be known as: Brogan David Junjie

We have been very blessed with our other three lucky Chinese Clovers that we decided that we would take a leap of faith and bring one more clover home!

A few weeks ago I was perusing the Children's House International (CHI) list when I happened upon a little face that I could not believe was still waiting for a family. Richard and I had spoken about one day bringing a brother home for Pierce and in my mind I was drawn to Kunming, Yunnan where Pierce is from and was hoping for a similar SN. Here was a boy that was 18mths younger than Pierce, born with a urogenital deformity like Pierce and was also from Kunming, Yunnan. He had been on their list about 45 days and nobody had shown any serious interest in him until we came along. Although the medical information is at best sketchy, with what we had we checked with our local pedi-urologist and felt comfortable that we would be able to provide what he needed. We have requested some additional testing from China and are hopeful that they will provide at least some of the results so we can more accurately determine a treatment plan but China has become much more difficult these days to get information from and Kunming as we know from experience has not been giving updates on SN children.

The photos are from when be was about 4-5mths old and he is now 9 mths old. Based on how long the paperchase took last time and China's turn around of processing the paperwork our best guess is that we will travel by the end of the year. This is a new agency for us and we looking forward to working with their very compassionate waiting child staff. We turned in our Letter of Intent (LOI) last week but it has not left for China yet. It will hopefully go out to China this week and then we wait on Prior Approval (PA).

Heavy into the paperchase its just never seems to get easier even the 4th time! We have completed half of the homestudy process, criminal background checks, employment letters, adoption petition, and financial statement. We are waiting on a NY birth cert, and our marriage cert before sending them through the certifiaction/autentication process. We have filed for the I600A (before the prices go up) but they won't act on it until we submit a homestudy which won't be probably until May sometime.

In the meantime we plug along with the paperwork with the goal of getting the Dossier to China in June.

Stay tuned!

Holly