Adoption changes..and more Fox!

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!

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....

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

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

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

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

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 :)