Cramber's Taiwan Baby

Fox can climb stairs!

2010-04-14T20:11:00.000-05:00

A couple of days ago I came home from work and Chris said "Wanna see Fox's new trick?" and set him up next to our stairs. I was shocked to see he can climb them--with relative ease!

Some good news--Adoption Tax Credit Extended and Increased

2010-03-24T18:44:00.000-05:00

Some good news--the Adoption Tax Credit has been extended (through 2011) and the amount has increased! That means if we are able to finish our adoption in 2011 (which probably isn't that likely--but I'm hopeful it will continually be extended after that), we would qualify for a $13,000-something tax credit. Whoo hoo! And it is now the GOOD kind of tax credit, that isn't limited by your tax liability. :)

Adoption Tax Credit Extended and Increased

Fox is 9 months old

2010-03-18T20:49:00.001-05:00

Today Fox is 9 months old! He still won't crawl, but he will scoot around and loves to stand whenever he can. Enjoy this video of him chirping with excitement while he stands in his standing tub :)

Fox enjoying a plum

2010-03-16T07:53:00.000-05:00

Fox LOVES to share plums with us these days. If we are eating a plum, Fox just INSISTS on getting some, too.

Fox using a spoon

2010-03-06T20:48:00.000-06:00

Fox is being very insistent about holding his own spoon these days. He is also very insistent about trying to sit up when we're trying to change his diaper, but that's another story. I was feeding him some peas and squash yesterday, and thought I'd see what happened if I let him try to use the spoon himself....

Peek-a-boo Fox

2010-02-28T09:30:00.000-06:00

Fox has learned to play peek-a-boo, which is super cute. He also learned to clap very recently. Here is a video of him playing peek-a-boo with Chris :)

Happy Year of the Tiger!

2010-02-14T13:17:00.000-06:00

We had a small Chinese New Year party last night, which was a lot of fun. So much good food! And we watched Shaolin Soccer (very funny, if you haven't seen it). Here is a picture of Fox's first Chinese New Year, with his cousins :) Happy New Year, everyone!! (oh, and Happy Valentine's Day, too)

Fox can stand!

2010-02-12T19:24:00.000-06:00

So Fox has figured out how to pull himself up to a standing position! We are so proud :)

First "trimester"

2010-01-28T06:52:00.002-06:00

If our wait on the Cathwel list were akin to a pregnancy, we would have just finished the first trimester (i.e. first 3 months, approximately) and would have two more to go. Since this is instead an international adoption, I find myself wondering--how many more "trimesters" will we have? 10? 12? 15? It is a humbling thought.

My baby is 7 months old

2010-01-18T21:16:00.000-06:00

My baby Fox is 7 months old now! Kind of hard to believe. He is such a good boy--he's been sleeping pretty well at night, and he is eating great--he loves all kinds of fruits and vegetables, plus grains and some baby yogurt. He doesn't seem real keen on crawling (he can scoot backwards, but doesn't try to go forwards--he usually just starts fussing), but he loves to be standing and will take a few small steps (with a great deal of support). Here are a few recent pics - one of him doing tummytime on his neat foam tile flooring and the other one where he is learning to 'cruise' along the coffee table (with some assistance).

Bao Bei

2010-01-07T15:42:00.000-06:00

Here is a beautiful song by Taiwanese singer Zhang Xuan called "Bao Bei" (which is a term Chinese mothers use for their babies--I believe it loosely translates to 'precious treasure' so it is kind of like the German term of endearment "Schatz" with some baby connotations). Cute pictures of little Chinese babies are included! :)

Fun in the snow!

2010-01-01T16:10:00.001-06:00

We played outside today for awhile--Fox seemed to enjoy it pretty well :)

Xmas, scooting Fox

2009-12-30T21:59:00.001-06:00

We had a nice Christmas, although the weather was so bad (worst snow storm we've had in YEARS blew in on Xmas Eve) we didn't get to see all of the family members we hoped to see. Fox had a nice first Christmas overall, though. On Christmas morning he demonstrated how he could scoot backwards--his first method of locomotion! He still isn't much of a roller--he pretty much refuses to roll. Here is a video of him scooting backwards, captured the day after Christmas :)

Happy New Year everyone! It would be AWESOME if we received a referral in 2010, but very unlikely. You never know, though!

Baby Fox is 6 months old!... and Taiwan adoption statistics

2009-12-18T21:30:00.001-06:00

oday my baby Fox is 6 months old. I can hardly believe it! He grows up so fast. He is now in the 90% for height, 60% for his head, and only 3% for weight. He's a tall skinny boy, apparently! The doctor wasn't worried, though--she said he is consistent and he is healthy, so we're not worried either. We will keep making sure he eats a lot, though--I don't know how this little guy is so skinny since he is such a good eater! I steamed and blended some spinach that Grandpa Dan grew, and so Fox celebrated his 6 month old birthday by eating some tasty tasty spinach. He wasn't sure about it at first, but by the end he seemed to like it pretty well. I've attached a video--this is definitely the messiest he's ever gotten!!

In other news, the US State Dept has released the total number of international adoptions in the US for fiscal year 2009, which is interesting. Last year there were 219 Taiwanese adoptions, and this year there were 253! So they are still on the rise. It really is a pretty interesting table overall (http://www.adoption.state.gov/news/total_chart.html) As a whole, international adoptions are way down.

Adoption Movie Review #1 - Pinocchio

2009-12-09T21:30:00.000-06:00

I've decided to start my series of "Adoption Movie Reviews." These won't necessarily be movies specifically about adoption, but rather movies which happen to have adoption elements in them. Rather than just give an overview of the plot, I'll discuss what the adoption-related messages are, and if I feel they are positive or negative adoption stories. For my first review, I'm going to look at Disney's Pinocchio.

We were babysitting my niece Ellie and nephew Theo last night, and decided to watch our DVD of Pinocchio. I hadn't realized it, but it has been many many years since I've watched it! I was struck by Geppetto's relationship with Pinocchio--it really is quite touching. Geppetto wishes on the wishing star for his wooden puppet to become a real boy, and the blue fairy brings Pinocchio to life. Although Geppetto is startled at first, he adjusts very quickly and before long he has Pinocchio snuggled next to him in bed with a matching night cap. The next morning he is already calling him 'son', and Pinocchio is calling Geppetto 'father.' I found myself thinking "wow, they are bonding really well! What a great example of an older child adoption!" While Geppetto doesn't exactly ADOPT Pinocchio, the movie really does emphasize the fact that Pinocchio isn't Geppetto's biological child--yet he loves him as if he were. It does a great job of demonstrating that families are created in many different ways, and that a non-traditional family can be a wonderful, loving thing. The only negative aspect I'd point out is the fact that the blue fairy tells Pinocchio he has to prove himself before he can become a 'real boy.' Considering older children who have been adopted sometimes have issues feeling like they have to be 'good enough' for their new families and are fearful of not being wanted, such a concept might be distressing to some children. Overall, though, I felt it has quite a positive "adoption" story.

Christmas decorating

2009-12-06T18:13:00.000-06:00

We decided to go with a small tree this year, and ended up getting a potted tree that can fit on our table. We got out our decorations earlier today and decorated it with the help of a certain little elf.

One month

2009-11-25T20:56:00.000-06:00

We have now been waiting for one month on Cathwel's list. I find myself thinking "ok, so that's what a month feels like. Now do I have 10, 20, 30, or 40 of those left until we get a referral?" I'm not really anxious about it or anything--I've resigned myself to a long wait--but it is just interesting to speculate about. Of course its been over a year and a half since we originally started the Taiwan adoption process, so one month is really a drop in the bucket any way you slice it.

Adoption Info #3 - Status of International Adoptions

2009-11-21T16:52:00.000-06:00

In honor of National Adoption Day today, I thought I'd post this interesting article I came across. It outlines the status of international adoptions in the US this year. I have to agree that it seems international adoptions are getting more and more difficult, and that ultimately they will be phased out more and more. While in some cases that will be good (i.e. it will mean that there will not be as many orphans in the countries and/or more children will be adopted within country), but in some it will be bad (i.e. the kids will just stay in orphanages or foster care rather than being adopted). I predict the world of international adoption will be very different 5 years from now.

http://www.rainbowkids.com/ArticleDetails.aspx?id=683

Fox the Turtle

2009-11-03T07:55:00.000-06:00

Taiwan Fun Fact #5 - Vegetarianism in Taiwan

2009-11-01T21:06:00.001-06:00

Ah, two of my favorite topics: vegetarianism and Taiwan. I came across this interesting article, and just had to share:
http://www.taiwantoday.tw/ct.asp?xItem=47665&CtNode=430

Did you know there are approximately 1.7 million vegetarians in Taiwan? That is a fairly notable amount, considering the island only has about 23 million people. This article actually mentions one of the restaurants (Jen Dow Vegetarian Buffet) that I posted about in my last Taiwan Fun Fact post. I cannot WAIT to hit that buffet when we are traveling to get our future daughter!!

In case anyone is wondering, Chris and I do intend on raising both of our children as vegetarians. We are not vegans (i.e. we do eat eggs, dairy products, honey, etc), but we do avoid all meats (and, yes, that includes poultry and fish products). We are hoping that there may be a birthmother out there who is vegetarian and would like to see her baby raised vegetarian, as well, and our family would be chosen because of that. I would really love to know that we would be raising our daughter the way her birthmother hoped she would be raised.

Dossier received in Taiwan! We are officially waiting!

2009-10-26T21:17:00.000-05:00

Yay! We received confirmation that our dossier was received by the orphanage in Taipei yesterday, Oct. 25th. So we are now OFFICIALLY waiting for our referral!

Here is our current situation in a nutshell:
The estimated wait time provided by our agency is 10 - 36 months. So we might receive a referral sometime between August 2010 and October 2012. Or it may be longer - it is hard to say. I would say it is extremely unlikely the wait would be shorter than 10 months, but one can always dream, huh? Our Taiwan baby will be somewhere between 0 - 18 months old at the time of referral. And please keep in mind that once we receive a referral (i.e. we are matched with a baby), it will likely be 4-8 months before we would actually travel to get her. So we might be home with her sometime between December 2010 and June 2013. In other words, we really don't know when anything will be happening at this point--we are starting the long wait, and there is nothing further to be done at this point.

I say that, and yet there is a lot I'd like to do over the months we are waiting. Chris and I would really like to start learning Mandarin Chinese. I would also like to keep up on this blog and give my family and friends useful information on Taiwan and on adoption. So please check back occasionally--I'd like to update here about once a week, but we shall see.

I have added another ticker to the bottom of the blog - this one will be our actual wait for referral. I'm going to keep the "...since starting our adoption paperwork" because it will be very interesting for us to see just how long it takes us to finally bring our Taiwan baby home--from beginning to end, with all of the bumps included. Bring it on!!

Dossier to Taiwan!

2009-10-20T19:32:00.000-05:00

I confirmed with our agency that our dossier was sent to Taiwan yesterday! Yay! I have a tracking number and I'm keeping tabs on it :) Once the dossier is received by Cathwel, they will notify our agency and we will officially be waiting for a referral!! Yay!!

In other news, the pediatrician last week said that Fox is pretty skinny, and since he's 4 months old now she recommended we supplement his breastfeeding with rice cereal. So Fox is eating "food" now, about once a day :) He's not good about keeping it in his mouth, lol. Here's a picture for your enjoyment.

USCIS approval!!

2009-10-15T21:10:00.003-05:00

Big news, YAY! Today we received our I-171H form from the USCIS, approving us to adopt a baby from Taiwan! We are so pleased by the timing--we were told to expect a 30-90 day wait, and it only took 27 days. It isn't often that things move QUICKER than expected in International Adoption!
This is the last item we were waiting on for our dossier, so I made copies and we mailed all of our documents to our agency. Here's a picture of Fox 'helping' us do the paperwork for his little sister :) The timing was truly perfect...we were told that we couldn't submit our dossier to Taiwan until Fox turns 4 months old. Guess what...Fox turns 4 months old THIS SUNDAY. Yep, our agency will likely be receiving our dossier literally a day or two beforehand. I'm not sure how long it'll take for our agency to mail our full dossier to Cathwel, for them to translate the documents, etc. But at this point it is all out of our hands. I'll definitely post each step of the way--I'm hoping it won't be more than a week or two. I can't wait until we can say we are officially WAITING for our referral!!
Just so everyone knows, I do plan on updating this blog during the long wait, so please check back often. I plan on posting more Taiwan Fun Facts and misc adoption information. Plus I'm thinking about doing movie reviews of films that are adoption-friendly (and adoption-UNfriendly). So stay tuned!

USCIS Fingerprinting

2009-09-26T09:56:00.001-05:00

Yesterday Chris and I got fingerprinted at the USCIS office! It was actually really quick and easy--much better than I'd anticipated. Now we just have to wait for our approval, and finish up our Dear Birthmother letter and our Photobook (the fun part!).

Final draft of homestudy, and mailed the I-600A

2009-09-16T18:58:00.003-05:00

Ah, today I feel pretty accomplished. We received the final draft of our homestudy in the mail (huzzah for having an agency so close that mail arrives the next day!), and after work I mailed our I-600A form (complete with check for $830, certified copies of our birth certificates and marriage license, and notarized copy of our homestudy) to the local US Citizenship and Immigration Services office (it should arrive tomorrow). This is a step I have anticipated doing for probably close to 10 years - ever since I started looking into international adoption - so I find it rather exciting :) Now we have to wait. We were told it could be 30 to 90 days total until we get the approval, although during that waiting period we will be given an appointment to go get fingerprinted. In the meantime we get to work on the other parts of our dossier - mostly pretty simple stuff. I've already started working on our photobook (pretty fun!) and the "Dear Birth Mother Letter," which is a little bit more difficult. I feel the need to make it and the photobook JUST RIGHT, since I know it could actually be influential in the referral process.

In Fox news, he will be 3 months old day after tomorrow! He is sitting on my lap as I type this, babbling like crazy. He is getting SO close to rolling over, too! He's sleeping longer at night, too - he went 6 hours the other night, which was wonderful. Five hours is becoming pretty standard. Here's a picture of him on his new activity gym mat I got on eBay. His head is still pretty gigantic :)

Adoption Info #2 - Including cultural elements

2009-08-27T21:38:00.003-05:00

Chris and I definitely intend on including Taiwanese/Chinese cultural items and events in our lives in order to help our future daughter feel more comfortable with her birth culture. We already have a lot of Asian cultural things in our lives, in fact. I thought the following article is quite interesting, as it talks about how having too much "culture" forced down one's throat can be counter-productive.

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/08/23/one_overseas_adoptee_explains_parents_embrace_of_the_home_culture_can_have_its_costs/?page=1

I do think that adoptive parents need to really think about what type of culture they want to share with their child. The article really made me think about what it will be like for our daughter to be Taiwanese American. She will never be truly Taiwanese, as she will be raised as an American. But she can be raised to be Taiwanese American, and to be proud of the many influences she has in her life. I don't expect that she will ever be 100% comfortable in Taiwan, but I would love to see her be comfortable being around 2nd or 3rd generation Taiwanese Americans--individuals who are proud of their heritage, but don't try to pretend they aren't American.

Final homestudy visit

2009-08-10T19:20:00.002-05:00

Today we had our final homestudy visit with BCS - we actually drove to Topeka (about an hour away) to meet at the office, which was interesting. I think it went rather well, and now we just have to worry about the dossier-compilation looming on the horizon...
Fox was such a good boy! Didn't complain on the drive, nor during the visit--he was awake and cheerful the entire interview. We have such a happy, mellow baby :) Today was also my first day back at work after my maternity leave. It was super hard to leave Fox this morning. Even though I knew he'd be very well taken care of by his daddy (Chris now works from home), it was quite sad to walk out the door and drive away from my baby.

Fox's first trip!

2009-08-09T09:04:00.003-05:00

This past week we went to DisneyWorld--Fox is such a great traveller! We went to Epcot (my favorite) and the Magic Kingdom. Here are some pictures from our trip:

First Homestudy Visit!

2009-07-23T17:00:00.002-05:00

We had our first homestudy visit with our social worker from BCS today! I think it went well. We, of course, cleaned our house like crazy just for the brief tour she took, but now we have a clean house at least! I think the meeting part went well - we spent a lot more time talking about ourselves than we did in our original homestudy. The next visit is scheduled for Aug. 10th (the day I go back to work...so I'm taking a 1/2 day that day) and we're going to Topeka for it. Bit by bit we'll get there!

Adoption changes..and more Fox!

2009-07-07T16:24:00.006-05:00

After nearly a year on ASIA's waiting list, we have decided to change directions. We are concerned that the wait for a NSN infant girl from Chung Yi may be unreasonable for our situation, so we have applied and been accepted into a Cathwel program with Bethany Christian Services (no, you don't have to be a Christian to work with them) located in nearby Topeka. We actually were planning on using Cathwel originally, so we're excited to be using them--I've always liked the possibility of birthmother involvement. Fortunately we are able to get a refund of a lot of our fees that were paid to ASIA, but unfortunately we have to redo our homestudy with Bethany so that will be a bit of an expense and time-eater. The good news, though, is that once we have all of our paperwork in order, we will get to be put on Cathwel's waitlist right away - there is no waiting for Fox to turn 6 months or a year. Since Cathwel doesn't QUITE work on a waitlist system (i.e. referrals can be given out of order), we don't really know how long of a wait we are in for. I believe we were told it "could be as high as 24 months" - but I'm guessing it could end up being longer than that (some families are waiting over 30 months).

In other news, Fox is doing great and we love him. It probably sounds weird to some people that we're working on an adoption so soon after having a baby, but I'm so glad we are. We want Fox's little sister to be young and yet close in age to him, so we have to get things moving pretty quickly in order for that to happen. Here is another picture of my little son :)

Baby!

2009-06-22T18:38:00.004-05:00

On Thursday, June 18th at 9:41pm my baby Fox Kirin Logan was born! It was a rough 22 hours of labor with 2 hours of that pushing, but well worth it. He was 8lbs, 13oz (big boy!) and 20 inches long. We've been home from the hospital a little while now, and we are both doing well :)
The picture was taken the day after he was born.
I'll update some more later!

Moving up the list....

2009-06-07T16:08:00.003-05:00

I knew that we were going to be bumped up to the #1 slot on the "waiting to wait" list because of another family withdrawing, but I was shocked when I got an email from our agency saying that a slot IN TAIWAN had opened up, and wondering if we wanted to go ahead and submit our homestudy to be on the REAL waiting list. I replied, saying "wait, I thought we couldn't submit our homestudy until our bio baby was at least 6 months old!" and I got a response that "oh yeah, we forgot you were still pregnant--we'll have to skip you." Needless to say, that was quite frustrating. For a moment I thought perhaps our homestudy would soon be on its way to Taiwan! Alas, now we would have to wait for both a) little Fox to be born and turn 6 months old AND b) another spot to open up in Taiwan. With the way things are going with Chung Yi, it seems unlikely for the second condition to happen anytime soon. So we are continuing to research our other agency options, thinking we will likely have to switch our agency/orphanage if we want our kids to be close in age.

In pregnancy news, my estimated due date is now just 3 days away. We are getting anxious! Just can't wait for this little guy to get here. I'm still feeling great, so I'm not really uncomfortable or anything, but I just feel like it's TIME, you know? We drove around town today looking for the biggest hills we could find, having heard that climbing hills helps stimulate labor :) If nothing else, it was good exercise!!

Nursery! And 38 weeks

2009-05-27T20:46:00.003-05:00

So today I'm 38 weeks along, so I only have 2 more weeks until my due date! My doctor thinks I probably won't go past my due date because I'm making good progress :) I think everything is just about ready for this little guy - the hospital bag is packed, we have everything purchased, the nursery is set up, etc. Here are some pictures of the nursery. The next time I post, it may be with pictures of baby Fox!

1 year

2009-05-16T08:29:00.002-05:00

Today officially marks the 1 year point since we started the adoption process. We are still in the "waiting to wait" stage, though--we are on the waiting list to have our homestudy sent to Taiwan, rather than being on the waiting list to receive a referral. Although we started out as #6 on this waiting list and are now #2, all of that movement as been due to attrition, rather than due to referrals, which is sad. There have been zero successful NSN infant referrals since we signed on with ASIA a year ago. On Monday I will be 8 1/2 months pregnant, so we are not worrying too much about the adoption right now. We can't do anything adoption-wise until this baby is 6 months old, so we have some time to work out our next steps. We are researching other potential options for adopting from Taiwan, though, since it doesn't look like Chung Yi is receiving the NSN infants we are hoping for. So in another 6 months we could potentially be on a different path--but as long as it is leading towards my daughter in Taiwan, that is all that matters to me.

In other news, last week I completed my Master's degree! It is a big relief to have that done before this baby arrives--our timing worked out pretty well there. I don't get much of a break, however, because in less than 2 weeks I will be teaching my first class. Fortunately it is an online course (Issues and Ethics in Technology - a course for students pursuing their Master of Arts in Education), so it will not be noticed too much when I have to bow out for awhile to go give birth! I'm hoping to teach classes occasionally to bring in some extra income, because Chris will become a stay at home dad in the near future. He only has 2 weeks left of work! That is exciting, too. Before too long I should have pictures of baby Fox to post for everyone!

News article - US Couple Adopts Taiwanese as 1st Child

2009-05-08T07:05:00.002-05:00

I came across this article about an American couple who adopted a boy from Chung Yi. I'm not sure why it made the China Post news--I suppose it is just a human interest story?

http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/foreign--community/2009/05/08/207293/U.S.-couple.htm

8 months

2009-05-03T15:48:00.002-05:00

I am now 8 months pregnant - and still doing just great! I feel really lucky that I've been feeling so good. I have a lot of energy (probably more than I've had at any other point in my pregnancy), no physical ailments, etc. I hope I can keep it up awhile longer!
In other news, I am very excited to be wrapping up my Master of Liberal Arts degree this week! On Tuesday I have to defend my Portfolio, then my last day of class is Friday, and then I will walk in Commencement on Saturday - busy week! It's been a lot of fun, but I'll be glad to be done so I can really start focusing on this little baby :)

Still pregnant!

2009-03-24T08:09:00.003-05:00

Well, I'm still pregnant! I'll be 29 weeks along tomorrow (so about 6 1/2 months). So far I'm still feeling pretty darned good - no real complaints! A friend of ours offered the other day to take some maternity pictures of me (and Chris) that we could use for our baby shower invitations. This one is probably my favorite:

No NSN infant referral afterall

2009-03-10T15:37:00.004-05:00

I heard from our agency that the NSN infant referral I thought had been received in December 2008 actually fell through. Not sure if it was because of the family or because there was something wrong with the referral. At any rate, the reason we moved up to #2 (which would be #5 overall) in line was because someone dropped out - NOT because there was positive movement in the line. Very depressing. That means that so far it has been 15 months and counting since the last NSN infant referral. If this trend were to continue, we would be waiting 6 years for a referral. :( Of course there is always the chance that one or more of the families ahead of us in line would drop out, but when you're only talking about 4 families that really isn't something you can count on. For right now (considering we have some guaranteed wait time because of Fox) we will just wait and see what happens in the months to come.

Yay for the 3rd trimester!

2009-03-03T20:51:00.002-06:00

Today I am officially 6 months along in my pregnancy, so I am officially calling this the 3rd trimester (even though I have another 3 months + 1 week to go until full term). Fox kicks me like crazy these days..he's a strong little boy. I can visually see my belly move when he kicks, which is amazing to see. I haven't had many pregnancy symptoms at all during this whole adventure, and those that I've had I've been able to take care of with herbal remedies, so I'm certainly not complaining. I don't LIKE being pregnant (it is a rather uncomfortable experience), but I must admit I'm probably getting off easy. I'm hoping these last 3 months go just as smoothly, and the birth goes the smoothest of all :)
No real news on the adoption front. Seems the wait list is stalled once again. Just waiting for an update from our agency to see what's going on, and trying to keep my mind on other things (like baby Fox!).

New Year's cheer for Taipei orpans

2009-01-25T09:17:00.002-06:00

I frequent a couple of Taiwanese news sites, and came across this article I thought I'd share:
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/local/taipei/2009/01/25/193591/Mayor-Hau.htm

Hope everyone has a wonderful Spring Festival! We plan on having some family over tomorrow for a homemade feast :)

We're having a boy!

2009-01-15T20:59:00.002-06:00

I had my ultrasound yesterday and found out we're having a boy! We are excited :) Most likely his name will be Fox - we're still trying to think of a good middle name, so I'm open to suggestions. He is actually slightly larger than expected (I was exactly 19 weeks, and they said he's measuring 19 weeks, 4 days) and was VERY active during the ultrasound. The tech asked me if I'd had a lot of caffeine or sugar before coming in but nope, nothing of the kind. He was just doing somersaults and wriggling all over the place - really cute :) I made cupcakes with blue frosting for Chris and I to take to work this morning to tell our coworkers the news, which was fun.

Taiwan Fun Fact #4 - Vegetarian Restaurants

2009-01-10T11:11:00.003-06:00

Chris and I are vegetarians, so I have been doing some research on vegetarian restaurants in Taiwan. I have been very pleased with what I've found! Taiwan (Taipei in particular) appears to be very vegetarian-friendly. Sometimes it is difficult to understand their websites (many are only in Chinese), but if you're interested, check out some of the links below:

This is a generally tasty-sounding place in Taipei with limited English:
http://www.easyhouse.tw/html/meal_01.asp

This is definitely a place we want to hit when we're in Taipei. I read a review of this buffet, and it sounds like a vegetarian's dream come true!
http://www.jendow.com.tw/all/allrestaurant01.html

This is a fantastic blog by a lady in Taiwan who does reviews (which is how I found the above buffet restaurant). This is a great site for ANYONE interested in Taiwanese restaurants - both vegetarians and non-vegetarians alike:
http://hungryintaipei.blogspot.com/

I'll probably post more as I come across them :)

Moved up on list!

2009-01-01T11:35:00.002-06:00

I just checked ASIA's website (as I have a habit of doing compulsively), and noticed that we've moved up to slot #2 on the waiting list!! And this time it looks like we moved because someone ACTUALLY received a NSN infant referral! Or at least that's what the tables show - I'm hoping to confirm this. This is very exciting, since ASIA has not received a NSN infant referral in almost exactly a year. Since our little bio baby won't be born for about 5 months, we have about 11 months before we could actually submit our paperwork to Taiwan, even if we were #1 on the list. This makes me optimistic, however, that by the time we're ready to submit we'll BE #1 and will just have to wait for the next slot to open :) I'm certainly crossing my fingers!!

I'm pregnant!

2008-12-26T16:23:00.003-06:00

Happy Holidays everyone! We have big news to share - I am pregnant! My due date is June 10th, 2009 so I am just over 16 weeks along. So far I've been feeling really good - not really any sickness, just occasional tiredness. I'm still not showing a whole lot, but I imagine I will be in the not-too-distant future! In a couple of weeks I will find out if the baby is a boy or girl, which is quite exciting. And no, this does not affect our Taiwanese adoption - we have planned all along to try to have a bio baby during the wait, and fortunately that has worked out for us. We're excited that our plans for our family are finally coming to fruition. I think I'm going to add another ticker to the bottom of my blog, so everyone can track my progress with me. :)

6 months

2008-11-17T07:06:00.003-06:00

So it has been 6 months so far since we started our adoption journey (since signing our contract). I feel like we have made great progress moving up ASIA's wait list, and I'm excited to think about what the next 6 months will bring! Unfortunately we had to have our pet degu, Krillin, put to sleep over the weekend. He was old (7 or 8 years) and had suffered from strokes, so it was the only humane thing to do. We will miss him. We don't plan on replacing him any time soon. When we have kids old enough to appreciate a little guy like that we will think about getting another degu - I don't think I could ever get a hamster or gerbil after having had a great degu like Krillin.

Interesting Taiwan domestic adoption article

2008-10-17T18:44:00.002-05:00

I came across this article and thought that it was quite interesting...it talks about the number of children who are abandoned, and how the number of domestic adoptions is decreasing due to financial woes.

http://www.etaiwannews.com/etn/news_content.php?id=765857&lang=eng_news&cate_img=49.jpg&cate_rss=news_Society

Moved up in line! #3

2008-10-13T21:02:00.002-05:00

Today we officially moved up from spot #4 to spot #3 on ASIA's NSN infant waiting list! I'm not 100% sure what happened, but it does appear that one of the 3 families actually waiting for a referral in Taiwan (the list AFTER our list) dropped out, for whatever reason. I hope it is because they found their child elsewhere.
We are progressing much quicker than we had expected - unfortunately it is not because of referrals so far. In other words, we are progressing because other families are quitting, not because babies are coming home. There still hasn't been a referral since December 2007. So when people stop dropping out of line (which seems like it'd have to happen eventually), we will still likely have quite a wait to actually get a referral.
Also, for any family and friends who may be getting excited about our progress, please remember that even if we reach the top of our wait list, we can't submit our homestudy to Taiwan until our future bio baby is 6 months old. So we have quite a wait, no matter what :) That being said, it is still quite exciting. I would be thrilled if we made it to the top of our waiting list before bio baby is 6 months old - that would really speed up our projected process!

Rumors..and Japan pic

2008-09-29T21:01:00.004-05:00

Here are just a couple of photos from our Japan trip! The first one is me and Chris in front of Mt. Fuji, and the second is us in front of a beautiful Buddhist temple in Tokyo.

It was an awesome trip....

Anyways, we've heard rumor that we may be moving up another spot in line. Which is just amazing. Unfortunately it is not because of a NSN infant referral - but I'm not sure why. And we've heard no official notice about it either. But we may be #3 on ASIA's waiting list soon.....

Unfortunately even if we make it to the top of the list soon, we won't be able to submit our homestudy to Taiwan until our future bio baby is 6 months old...so we've got awhile :)

Back from Japan - and one spot closer!

2008-09-16T19:53:00.003-05:00

We are back from a week in Japan - and we had an AWESOME time. Once I get sorted through my 600+ photos, I may try to post a few.
I was delighted to see today that we are one spot higher on ASIA's NSN infant waiting list! We are now number 4! That means there are only 3 other families between us and the top of the waiting list. Yay! Not sure what happened to put us there - I know there wasn't a NSN infant referral, so I'm guessing someone switched to a different waiting list or something. Any way, I'm happy :)

1 month waiting - and going to Japan soon!

2008-08-28T08:36:00.002-05:00

Today is our official 1 month of waiting on ASIA's waiting list. Sounds silly, but it's nice to now be able to measure our wait in months. Feels like we're getting somewhere.

In other news, Chris and I are going to Japan in a week and a half! We will be there for a week, and I'm super super excited!!! There are a lot of Taiwanese restaurants in Tokyo, which I think is really cool. I'm sure I'll have fun shopping, too. It may be hard to find food without fish (Chris and I AND my sister and her husband who are going, too, are all vegetarians), but I'm going to print out a lot of terms and sentences in Japanese that will be useful, which I can just show to the people at the restaurants. Can't wait!!!

Taiwan Fun Fact #3 - Chinese Taipei Medal Count

2008-08-21T21:14:00.002-05:00

Just an update on the Olympics - Taiwan (aka Chinese Taipei) has won 4 medals so far! 2 bronze medals in Women's weightlifting, and 2 bronze medals in Men's Taekwondo (both of these sports have multiple weight classes of course). Unfortunately I haven't see any of these on TV.

ASIA puts hold on new applications

2008-08-13T21:59:00.001-05:00

I just happened to be looking at ASIA's (our agency) website today, and noticed that they have the following notice up on their Taiwan page:

"NOTICE: It appears that the wait for healthy Taiwanese infants is growing longer and it is difficult to predict how it will change over the next months. The situation is very fluid and could slow down further or speed up, depending upon a number of circumstances. Effective August 3, 2008, ASIA has put a temporary hold to accept further applications for the Taiwan newborn to two year old program. This is due to an increasing list of families in line to submit their home studies to Taiwan. This does not impact families already in process. If you are interested in applying, I recommend you check in with the office on a regular basis to see when we will reopen this particular program. We will also post a notice on our website when we reopen. If you want to be notified by email, please email tonif@asiadopt.org . As of August 11th, the following Taiwan programs are still accepting applicants:Children 2-5 years old with minor special needs, Healthy children 5 years and older, Waiting Children of any age "

Interesting, no? Looks like we got in line just in time.......

Moving up the list!

2008-08-10T21:37:00.002-05:00

We found out that we have advanced one place on our agency's list! Instead of being #6, where we started, we are now #5! This is because someone further up on the list has accepted the referral of an older child and is no longer in line. We are very happy for the family (whoever they are!) who will be getting their child in the near future, and very happy that we are one spot closer to our own child :)

Taiwan Fun Fact #2 - Taiwan in the Olympics

2008-08-07T18:19:00.004-05:00

For those who don't know, Taiwan does indeed participate in the Olympics under a separate name from China. You will find them participating under "Chinese Taipei". I'm sure they would prefer to use "Republic of China" but that definitely wouldn't fly with the mainland. So keep an eye out for the Chinese Taipei teams! In 2004 Taiwan took home its first 2 gold medals - both in Taekwondo. I've heard that baseball and archery are also their strong suits.
Go Chinese Taipei!

Adoption Info #1 - Adoption Language

2008-08-03T20:36:00.003-05:00

Adoption Language

Adoption is an interesting thing. Everyone knows a little bit about it, but relatively few know a great deal. I am definitely still learning. One thing that you learn early on in the game is that often the uninformed don't use the best terminology, and that can be taken as offensive or at least insensitive. To help out those who don't know much about the lingo, I'm posting a list of not-so-good terms and terms that could be used instead. I'll try to explain why when it is unclear.

Not-so-good Terms:

--"Real Parent/Mother/Family". This might come up in a question such as "Why couldn't her real mother keep her?" To suggest that the parents who adopt the child are not truly the child's parents can be really hurtful - not just to the parents, but to the child as well. A real parent isn't necessarily the person who gives birth to you or gives you genetic material - a real parent is the person who loves you and (ahem) parents you. The preferable term to use in this situation would be "Birth Parent/Mother/Family".

--"Natural Parent/Mother/Family". Very similar to the last term, this could come up in questions: "Are you her natural mother?" It does beg the question: what is an unnatural mother? Kind of creepy. In these cases, the term "Biological Parent/Mother/Family" would be preferable.

--"Adopted child" vs. "Own child". This could come up when you are being introduced to someone new: "This is Amber and Chris. They have an adopted daughter, and a daughter of their own." Or in the form of questions: "I know you want an adopted child, but don't you want one of your own, too?" To suggest that only one's biological children are one's "own" is a hurtful thing. One's children are one's children - how they came to join the family should be irrelevant. You may find this distinction in magazine articles about famous adoptive couples - the press is always quick to point out which children are adopted and which ones are "their own". To be polite, one should simply refer to them as "their children". If one really needs to differentiate, one could use the term "biological children" and "adopted children".

--"Is Adopted". This one may seem subtle, but it makes sense. To say "My sister IS adopted" is to label her, to place a stigma on her for the rest of her life. To say she "WAS adopted" just tells the world about her past history.

--"Adoptive Parent". This is similar to the "Own child" discussion above. It is unnecessary (in most cases) to say "Amber and Chris are the adoptive parents of an infant girl". Although there is no shame at all in adopting (I don't want to suggest that there is or that we will in any way try to hide the fact our child was adopted), the world doesn't need to constantly be reminded that that's how our family was created. (The fact that she will look different from us will be enough for most people) Simply saying "parents" in this case would work quite nicely. Besides, does a child want "adoptive parents" or do they just want "parents"? All kids need plain old parents.

There are many more right/wrong terms that come up, but I'll stick to the above ones for now, as I feel they are the most important. As a general rule of thumb, it's best just to think sensitively, and pay attention to what connotations your words may have that you don't even intend. Between adults it may not be a big deal, but when you are talking to (or in the presence of) a little child it can hurt feelings and self-esteem.

As a side note, there are also some initials that are used in adoption which may be unfamiliar, so I'll touch on those as well:

SN = special needs. This would refer to any child with medical/emotional/cognitive issues which might require extra attention.

NSN = non-special needs. This would refer to any child who has no known issues.

AP = adoptive parent.

PAP = prospective adoptive parent.

CY = Chung Yi. This is the name of the orphanage our adoption agency works with for the placement of children.

ASIA = Associated Services for International Adoption. This is the name of our adoption agency.

Taiwan Fun Fact #1 - Where is Taiwan?

2008-07-30T21:46:00.004-05:00

Where is Taiwan?

I knew very little about Taiwan before I started researching adopting there, so I would like to share with my family and friends little bits of fun, useful info about Taiwan while we're waiting. I'm starting with the basics - Where is Taiwan? Take a look at the map above, and you'll see Taiwan in the red box. It is often described as a leaf-shaped island approximately 100 miles off the coast of mainland China. The island (there are actually many smaller islands also apart of Taiwan but which are not usually discussed) itself is slightly larger than the combined land mass of Maryland and Delaware, to put things in perspective.

On ASIA's waiting list!!

2008-07-29T20:25:00.002-05:00

We are pleased to announce that we are now on ASIA's waiting list! Our official date is yesterday (7/28/08), and we are #6 on the list I found out today. We are excited!! That means there are 5 people ahead of us on ASIA's waiting list, waiting for a spot to open up in Taiwan. There are 3 spots in Taiwan (those are people actively waiting for a referral), so in total there are 8 people ahead of us for our agency (I have NO CLUE how many people there are total). 8 is a lucky number. We are requesting a NSN (non-special needs) infant girl age 0-12 months. My best guess at this point is that it will be perhaps 3-4 years for a referral? I am basing that upon knowing that there has not been a referral since December 2007 (so 7 months and counting), and basically there is nothing to suggest a speed-up anytime soon. We will try to be patient :) So we are done with this portion of the process, so we can mostly kick back and wait now (except that we are still having to work on our adoption education classes). I'll still post occasionally, though. I'm thinking about providing useful information about Taiwan and about adoption issues to my family and friends who will hopefully watch our journey via this blog, so check back often!

Word from Chung Yi

2008-07-28T17:48:00.002-05:00

We FINALLY heard from our agency about what Chung Yi is saying in response to the various rumors floating around. Thankfully, there isn't any specifically bad news for us. Unfortunately, however, there really wasn't any good news either. In fact, there was very little news at all. Basically they are saying that the rumors are not true - nothing has changed in their policies or restrictions. So that means that nothing is likely to change anytime soon, either (i.e. referrals will likely continue to be either slow or non-existant). So while I'm glad nothing happened to immediately kick us out of the program, we are still concerned about the overall wait time.
Here is the email we received from our director, for those who are interested:

"As you may know, I returned from Taiwan on July 20th, after traveling with our first Taiwan family to meet their new child. Today I will write you a short note regarding the outcome of my meeting with orphanage Director, Ms. Kao; Assistant Director, Ms. Chuang; Supervisor of Social Work Section, Ms. Kuo; and Social Worker; Ms. Teng. First and foremost, Ms. Kao, the Director, indicated that they wish to continue working with ASIA as our contract stands – that is, working for the placement of both non special needs and special needs children. The wait for non special needs children, particularly infants, is very unpredictable. It is based upon how many infants become available and this greatly fluctuates. While they did not give exact numbers, they made it clear that at this time few non special needs infants are available – the length of wait to referral directly corresponds to the numbers of infants available. They did not share with me how many agencies they work with; however, they did state clearly that some agencies ONLY have contracts to place special needs children, while others, like ASIA, have contracts to place both special and non special needs children. The majority of the children available for adoption is older or are sibling groups. They did not understand why Chung Yi sibling groups were not easily adopted in our country. I explained that we have many sibling groups available in the U.S. for adoption; therefore, some families choose to adopt domestically rather than internationally. I also explained that many families prefer adopting a single, healthy infant. I raised the question again of the appearance that the U.S. is not receiving healthy infants from Chung Yi. Ms. Kao, explained, as she did previously (see ASIA’s May 26th email to Taiwan families) that the Foundation does not try to influence the choice a birth family or guardian makes. Families/guardians make the choice of adoptive family based upon their own desires or subjective assessment of which family will provide the child with the best opportunities and stability. I explained the adoptive families’ frame of reference to help the Foundation leadership understand the emotional and stressful position adoptive families experience during this wait. I told them that I will always communicate confirmed information from Chung Yi to all of ASIA’s Taiwan “families in waiting” via email letter and at the same time. I told them that I will neither rely on nor support rumors – that I will convey to families only what we know directly from the Foundation. ASIA will not support rumors, but we will inquire with Chung Yi to confirm or deny rumors or conflicting information. In my opinion, the Foundation’s leadership appears very devoted to all the children in their care, and they seek the best situation for those children. The Foundation has an obligation to place the children first domestically, then internationally – just as many other countries do. While Taiwan is not a signer on the Hague Convention, Chung Yi does follow most of the same guidelines and a priority to domestic placements is a Hague requirement. ASIA also follows the same Hague Convention requirements when working with Chung Yi. They did not provide me with any changes to current policy. As it stands, when they have changes to policy, they will inform all Foundation contracted agencies with a memorandum outlining those policies. ASIA will forward this information to waiting families as soon as possible. So for the moment, everything stands as it was two weeks ago:• ASIA contracts with Chung Yi Foundation for the placement of both special and non special needs children• The wait to referral for a healthy infant is completely unpredictable. If you choose this path with Chung Yi, I recommend you be prepared to wait several years or more; and if it happens sooner, that’s a beautiful surprise.• The referral wait for a healthy older child (two and older) is likely to be shorter, depending upon how many families are in the queue.• The referral wait for special needs and sibling groups will be the shortest.• The wait after referral to the final court date runs approximately the same for all children being adopted. That is completely dependent upon review of paperwork and availability of court dates.• Chung Yi and ASIA agree to keep the lines of communication open between us. While I wish I could tell you a precise timetable, I cannot. It would be unethical to promise something I know to be otherwise. The good news is that the children from Chung Yi appear very well cared for, loved and are as healthy as any medical condition allows them to be. Their environment is clean and cozy; it’s a lovely country with kind people – the children come from a strong heritage and tradition. And in my opinion, this counts for a lot."

Homestudy Rough Draft!

2008-07-20T16:56:00.003-05:00

We just returned from our yearly Cousin Camp trip (i.e. family reunion), and found an email from our social worker Nancy waiting in my inbox. She sent us the rough draft of our homestudy to appove! Both Chris and I read it thoroughly and made a few minor suggestions. I just emailed the revision back to her, and the next step will be for ASIA to ok it as well. Then we will be able to send off the final draft to ASIA and officially get on their waiting list! Huzzah! I'd been hoping to get on the list before August, and it looks like that will be very doable :)

Final visit over!

2008-07-09T17:45:00.002-05:00

Our final homestudy visit was this morning, and it went great! Nancy showed up right on time, and we did just a brief walk-through of our house (she didn't look in any closets or open any cupboards or anything). She didn't go into the backyard (viewed it out the windows), so she didn't actually interact with Ginkgo - she just SAW her, so that worked well :) Fortunately it was a nice cool morning so we just opened the windows, ran the attic fan for awhile, and then turned on some fans for while Nancy was here (in case you don't know, our central AC is broken). The topic of AC never came up, so we just didn't mention it and it didn't appear to be an issue. We then sat down in the living room and had a nice Q&A session for a couple hours, then she said she'd hopefully have the rough draft to us sometime next week! Once we approve it she'll send it to ASIA to approve, then she'll send us the final copies. I am definitely hoping we can get everything done this month, and it sure sounds like that'll be a possibility. Once ASIA receives the final draft, we'll get put on the waiting list. Now we just have to hope the waiting list will exist....(still waiting to hear news about Chung Yi and whatever changes they have made to their policies). At any rate, we're relieved that our portion of the homestudy is over! We may go out to eat tonight to celebrate. Probably somewhere Asian...

Big day tomorrow

2008-07-08T20:14:00.003-05:00

So tomorrow morning at 8:30am, our social worker will be coming to our house for our final homestudy visit! The place is pretty clean, so I think we'll be good there. Ginkgo did pretty well with our recent house guests, so I'm hoping she won't be too hyper when she meets Nancy. We're hoping that she will be able to write up our homestudy report pretty quickly after our meeting - we're still rushing to get on ASIA's waiting list, even if we don't have any idea what is happening with Chung Yi's new rules/regulations yet. We just figure we have to keep pushing forward like normal and just hope everything works out OK.....Wish us luck! :)

Third meeting with Social Worker!

2008-06-30T21:20:00.002-05:00

So today we had our third meeting with our social worker. It was actually pretty fun - we spent a lot of time looking at and talking about kids books that focus on adoption. This was our last visit at Nancy's house -the next (and final!) visit will be in our house. We are a bit nervous (and are cleaning every chance we get!) but Nancy has made us feel very comfortable, so I'm not too anxious.
I am anxious, however, about the overall status of healthy infant Taiwan adoption from Chung Yi (and other orphanages, too, I suppose). Rumors are flying that Taiwan will no longer send healthy infants to the US - that they are either keeping them for domestic adoption or they are sending them all to Sweden. It would seem that someone from ASIA is actually going to Taiwan this week to find out what is going on (hopefully). So we are crossing our fingers that everything will work out all right. We are researching other options, but we are really hoping everything will work out with ASIA and Chung Yi (for many reasons, one of which being the money we have already paid them and which we would likely lose forever if we had to walk away to apply elsewhere). So cross your fingers for us...and let me know if anyone hears more info on the subject! Thanks!

2nd Meeting/Blog additions

2008-06-24T21:56:00.002-05:00

We had our second meeting with Nancy today, and I feel it went really well. This time there was a lot more Q&A, which was actually quite nice. I really felt like we had some good conversations. Only two more meetings to go! I'm nervous about the in-home meeting, but I don't feel TOO bad about it. We'll get our house nice and clean before then :)
I added a few features to this blog - just to jazz it up a bit. I've added a clock showing Taipei time (just because I think its neat) and a break-down of our timeline. I know I always love looking at other people's timelines, so I thought I'd get ours started - someone may appreciate it someday!
Tomorrow is my 27th birthday, so I get the day off work! I'm just going to bum around and go collect all the free birthday food I've been signing up for all year long. Probably have to do a bit of homework, too, unfortunately (I'm working on my Master of Liberal Arts degree). Mostly a fun day, though.

Meeting results

2008-06-18T20:47:00.002-05:00

So I think our first meeting went really well! We went to Nancy's house (nice place, not far from my work) and she gave me iced tea, and she did most of the talking! She gave us tons of hand-outs (articles, lists of adoption resources, etc), talked to us a lot about various adoption issues, etc. Chris and I actually did very little talking! She made us feel very comfortable, I'd say. It lasted a little over 2 hours, and we are going back next Tuesday for our second visit. Then our third visit will be on Monday the 30th, and our final visit (in OUR house) will be on Wednesday July 9th! We told Nancy we are hoping to finish as soon as possible, and she said she'd go ahead and start writing up her portion so it will be done not long after our final visit. So it looks like we're doing pretty well time-wise. We are just so anxious to finally get on the waiting list and be able to kick back and relax for awhile....

First meeting with Nancy

2008-06-17T21:23:00.002-05:00

So tomorrow we have our first face-to-face meeting with our social worker, Nancy. I've really been looking forward to this day, because I feel like we've really gotten something underway now! We are hoping that we may get two meetings in next week, in which case our final meeting (in our house!) would be done before the 4th of July. It would be nice to have it out of the way before the holiday, we have relatives staying with us, etc. Plus we are anxious to get on the waiting list. We just got the username/password combo to log-in to the "ASIA families only" section of the ASIA website, which is neat. They let you really follow how many families are logged in to the waiting list, when people get referrals, etc. It is nice to see, but frustrating because we feel the wait will be very very long for us. We are anxious to get on the waiting list, because I know there are other families pushing to finish homestudies, too, and the sooner we get on the better. So wish us luck...I'm not really worried about the meeting going poorly or anything, but it's just an important meeting so I want it to go well!

5th Anniversary

2008-05-31T11:38:00.002-05:00

Yesterday was our 5th wedding anniversary! I spent the morning doing a heart-walk with my mom, sister Kachina, and her kids Theo and Ellie. It was pretty fun! Then we went to our favorite windery (Pirtle winery: www. pirtlewinery.com) where we drank mead and fruit wine and ate a tasty cheese/bread/apple basket under the grape arbor. We also visited Daddy's house for a bit since we were in the area, ate some ice cream cake, and went to see the second Narnia movie - Prince Caspian. It was a fun day!!

We have been working hard on our homestudy documents - the autobiography is tough. Mine is probably going to end up being 10 pages long or something. We have to fill out a lot of forms for different clearances and request a lot of letters from people (reference letters from friends, verification of employment from our workplaces, etc). It is a lot of work (and takes a long time!) but we are anxious to get it all done so we can get on the first waiting list (the one with our agency to wait for the privilege of sending our homestudy to Taiwan - we are guessing it will be at least 1 1/2 to 2 years and possibly even more). It will all be worth it eventually :)

Ready...set...go!

2008-05-16T22:40:00.003-05:00

Well, we've done it! For several reasons (primarily because of reports that Taiwan adoption wait times are growing rapidly), we decided to just go ahead and start our Taiwan adoption! I emailed Marci with ASIA, and she sent us the application form. The first big step.....!!

First we went out to dinner at Dragon Inn, a local Chinese restaurant, to celebrate. Then Chris painted in the first eye of our Daruma doll. Then we filled out the application! We are officially on our way!! I just got done emailing Nancy Bean, who is a local social worker I've communicated with before regarding doing a home study. I am a bit worried about the home study portion, just because it is going to be rather indepth (and means we will have to do a LOT of house cleaning soon!). So we will start working on that portion, as well.

Wish us luck!!

Getting closer....

2008-05-11T16:35:00.002-05:00

We are now only 20 days from starting the adoption process! During a recent trip to Epcot we purchased a Daruma doll for our bio baby and one for our Taiwan baby. Daruma are Japanese wishing dolls--they have blank eyes, and one is supposed to fill in one of the eyes when one makes a wish (in our case, when we start paperwork for our Taiwan baby) and then fill in the second eye when the wish comes true (when we bring her home!). It is something I have wanted to do for a long time :) I'm glad they still had the Daruma dolls at the Japanese pavillion!
On a side note, I have been hearing rumors that some Taiwan agencies are switching to SN only. I am going to email ASIA to make sure we are still cool to move forward in just a couple of weeks!

New start date

2008-04-01T20:56:00.002-05:00

So we were thinking about our timeline, and realized there really isn't any reason for us to wait any longer to start the adoption process than our 5th anniversary (May 31). Once we reach that milestone, nothing else is really going to change for awhile. We figure we'll have saved enough money for the initial costs, we're already starting way before we need to, we kinda want to get the initial homestudy out of the way anyways, etc, so why not? So we're going to get things rolling earlier than we had previously anticipated. We will still have to wait until our future bio baby is at least 6 months old before the homestudy can go to Taiwan, so our overall timeline isn't changing any - we just get to start earlier :) I updated our ticker, which was quite satisfying - what with jumping forward in time considerably!

Taiwan presidential election

2008-03-23T11:29:00.002-05:00

http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/national/presidential%20election/2008/03/23/148413/Jubilation-over.htm

So it looks like the KMT party won the presidential election....I don't know how this will affect things in Taiwan, but I know that KMT is somewhat more "pro China" than the opposition party--so there probably will not be any huge disputes between the mainland and Taiwan anytime soon, so that is good.

ASIA?

2008-03-06T08:24:00.002-06:00

So now we are considering an agency called ASIA (Associated Services for International Adoption). I'll post their website link under the 'agencies we are considering' area. I think they may work out really well...they work with the orphanage Chung Yi, and the process is a little bit different. I'm still learning, but as I find out more I'll post about it! Marci, the woman with ASIA that I've been talking with, is really nice and responds really quickly to my emails - that is always a good sign :)

No more FHSA for us :(

2008-03-03T21:42:00.002-06:00

So I got an email from the Florida Home Studies and Adoptions agency (who I have been in contact with several times so far in 2008), telling me that since January of this year they are only working with residents of Florida. WTF? They tell me this in March?? So I'm disappointed, as they were our front runner. Right now we're down to one option now (Commonwealth), and that makes me uncomfortable. I am off to research other agencies so we can hopefully have two options once again..........

Confucius Institute

2008-03-01T11:57:00.003-06:00

For anyone local to the Kansas City area, the KU Confucius Institute sounds really awesome! They have Chinese New Year and Dragon Boat celebrations, summer school culture and language classes for kids, language classes for adults, etc. In the month of March they are having a Chinese film festival on Saturday mornings which is just a couple blocks from our house! Check out their website, I'm excited to have found it (I heard about it on NPR):
http://www.confucius.ku.edu/index.shtml

I also found a link about the Chinese garden that is being planned for Kansas City! http://www.chinagardensociety-kc.org/ChineseGarden_KC.htm
I don't know where it will be located exactly, but it definitely sounds like it's going to happen! I'm really excited about that.

And I also found a website for the Kansas City Chinese Association which sounds really neat: they are hosting the film festival http://www.kcca-ks.org/main/home.html
I am very happy to have so many Chinese cultural things here in town that my family can go to and experience :)

Chinese New Year!

2008-02-07T08:01:00.000-06:00

Today is the first day of Chinese New Year. The house is decorated, but we won't be doing any serious celebrating today. I'm sure I'll wear red today, but our family party is tomorrow night. My sister Kachina and her two kids plus my dad and step-mom will be coming over for a big dinner. I'm going to make tea eggs (first attempt!), fried rice (new recipe!), egg drop soup (slightly altered!) and blooming tea (first attempt!). Should be fun! I intend on taking a number of photos tomorrow with the intent of eventually using some of them in our adoption photo book. That is exciting for me :)

Waiting, and Passports!

2008-02-02T09:06:00.000-06:00

We are now officially less than 6 months away from starting the adoption process! This is very exciting to me. For many years we thought we would be adopting from mainland China, and thought we would have to wait until I was 30 (i.e. 2011?) to even begin. So to now be so "close" to starting.....it makes everything seem so much more real. We are leaning heavily toward the Florida Home Studies and Adoption agency, because a) they don't have any problem with PAP getting pregnant during their wait, and b) their upfront costs are lower - so the fees are more spread out over the almost 3 year period. That is very helpful for us, since we will have to be saving/raising/borrowing the money along the way.
Another piece of cool news - we got our passports yesterday! It took less than 3 weeks to get them, which surprised me. We didn't have them expedited or anything. Passports are one of the few documents/items we can collect ahead of time - unfortunately most docs are time-sensitive and we'll need to wait until the last minute to collect them.
Anyways, that's all for now!