We appear to be getting close to our referral. I say appear, because until we actually get it, you can never truly be sure. China sent out referrals for families with an application log-in-date December 9-14, 2005. Wim and I are very hopeful that we will get our referral in early January. Time will tell.

After waiting nearly two years—two years by the time we will get our referral, it is hard to believe it is actually going to happen! I feel like I am in a zombie-dreamlike state. I can hardly wait to see her picture, see how old she is, how big she is, etc.

I am glad that this is the “holiday” part of the year because preparing for the holidays helps the time go by much more quickly—of course, not quickly enough!

We had a lovely Thanksgiving. Wim’s mom and his sister and her family came to our home. We had a nice visit with everyone and all the food turned out really yummy! I can say this because Wim’s family contributed quite a bit of grub to the big feast and everything was simply scrumptious.

A Different Perspective

Immense Loss: Walk a Mile in Baby’s Booties

Imagine for a moment…

You have met the person you've dreamed about all your life. He has every quality that you desire in a spouse. You plan for the wedding, enjoying every free moment with your fiancée. You love his touch, his smell, the way he looks into your eyes. For the first time in your life, you understand what is meant by "soul mate," for this person understands you in a way that no one else does. Your heart beats in rhythm with his. Your emotions are intimately tied to his every joy, his every sorrow.

The wedding comes.

It is a happy celebration, but the best part is that you are finally the wife of this wonderful man. You fall asleep that night, exhausted from the day's events, but relaxed and joyful in the knowledge that you are next to the person who loves you more than anyone in the world…the person who will be with you for the rest of your life.

The next morning you wake up, nestled in your partner's arms. You open your eyes and immediately look for his face.

But IT'S NOT HIM!

You are in the arms of another man. You recoil in horror. Who is this man? Where is your beloved? You ask questions of the new man, but it quickly becomes apparent that he doesn't understand you.

You search every room in the house, calling and calling for your husband. The new guy follows you around, trying to hug you, pat you on the back,...even trying to stroke your arm, acting like everything is okay. But you know that nothing is okay.

Your beloved is gone. Where is he? Will he return? When? What has happened to him? Weeks pass. You cry and cry over the loss of your beloved. Sometimes you ache silently, in shock over what has happened.

The new guy tries to comfort you. You appreciate his attempts, but he doesn't speak your language-either verbally or emotionally. He doesn't seem to realize the terrible thing that has happened...that your sweetheart is gone.

You find it difficult to sleep. The new guy tries to comfort you at bedtime with soft words and gentle touches, but you avoid him, preferring to sleep alone, away from him and any intimate words or contact.

Months later, you still ache for your beloved, but gradually you are learning to trust this new guy. He's finally learned that you like your coffee black, not doctored up with cream and sugar. Although you still don't understand his bedtime songs, you like the lilt of his voice and take some comfort in it.

More time passes.

One morning, you wake up to find a full suitcase sitting next to the front door. You try to ask him about it, but he just takes you by the hand and leads you to the car. You drive and drive and drive.

Nothing is familiar.
Where are you?
Where is he taking you?

You pull up to a large building. He leads you to an elevator and up to a room filled with people. Many are crying. Some are ecstatic with joy.

You are confused. And worried.

The man leads you over to the corner.

Another man opens his arms and sweeps you up in an embrace.

He rubs your back and kisses your cheeks, obviously thrilled to see you. You are anything but thrilled to see him.

Who in the world is he?
Where is your beloved?
You reach for the man who brought you, but he just smiles (although he seems to be tearing up, which concerns you), pats you on the back, and puts your hand in the hands of the new guy. The new guy picks up your suitcase and leads you to the door.

The familiar face starts openly crying, waving and waving as the elevator doors close on you and the new guy. The new guy drives you to an airport and you follow him, not knowing what else to do.

Sometimes you cry, but then the new guy tries to make you smile, so you grin back, wanting to "get along."

You board a plane. The flight is long. You sleep a lot, wanting to mentally escape from the situation. Hours later, the plane touches down.

The new guy is very excited and leads you into the airport where dozens of people are there to greet you. Light bulbs flash as your photo is taken again and again.

The new guy takes you to another guy who hugs you.

Who is this one? You smile at him.
Then you are taken to another man who pats your back and kisses your cheek.
Then yet another fellow gives you a big hug and messes your hair.

Finally, someone (which guy is this?) pulls you into his arms with the biggest hug you've ever had. He kisses you all over your cheeks and croons to you in some language you've never heard before.

He leads you to a car and drives you to another location.

Everything here looks different. The climate is not what you're used to. The smells are strange. Nothing tastes familiar, except for the black coffee. You wonder if someone told him that you like your coffee black.

You find it nearly impossible to sleep. Sometimes you lie in bed for hours, staring into the blackness, furious with your husband for leaving you, yet aching from the loss.

The new guy checks on you. He seems concerned and tries to comfort you with soft words and a mug of warm milk. You turn away, pretending to go to asleep. People come to the house.

You can feel the anxiety start to bubble over as you look into the faces of all the new people. You tightly grasp the new guy's hand. He pulls you closer.

People smile and nudge one other, marveling at how quickly you've fallen in love.

Strangers reach for you, wanting to be a part of the happiness. Each time a man hugs you, you wonder if he will be the one to take you away.

Just in case, you keep your suitcase packed and ready.

Although the man at this house is nice and you're hanging on for dear life, you've learned from experience that men come and go, so you just wait in expectation for the next one to come along.

Each morning, the new guy hands you a cup of coffee and looks at you expectantly. A couple of times the pain and anger for your husband is so great that you lash out, sending hot coffee across the room, causing the new guy to yelp in pain. He just looks at you, bewildered. But most of the time you calmly take the cup. You give him a smile. And wait. And wait. And wait.

--Written by Cynthia Hockman-Chupp, analogy courtesy of Dr. Kali Miller

For more information on attachment, please click on the link titled "Attachment 101." It is on the right side of our blog.

Why We Don't Want a Welcoming Party

I am guessing that several people will likely question some of the decisions that Wim and I are making and will continue to make as parents. We want everyone to know that we have read multitudes of books and participated in more than a couple workshops on becoming parents through adoption. The decision we are making are based on what we have read and learned from other adoptive parents.

As with any parent, we want to do what is best for our child and we are making decisions that we believe are in Josie's best interest and that will help her to feel safe, secure and loved in her new home. This is most important to us and we ask that everyone please keep this in mind if you find some of our decisions to be contrary to what you feel may be the best way.

Wim and I have communicated to family and friends that we prefer NOT to have a group of people meet us at the airport when we return and that we will likely lay low for at least a month upon returning home. When we do venture out with our daughter we likely will not allow other people to hold her.

We appreciate everyone's support and that you want to share in our joy when we bring our daughter home and so we want to explain to folks why we are making these decisions.

1. Regarding meeting us at the airport-- we are asking that people do not plan to meet us at the airport. We will likely have one or two people pick us up, but that is all.

It is a long trip and we do not know how any of us will be feeling. Our daughter may be sick when we arrive and at best will likely be somewhat freaked-out from the trip. We feel that it will be best to simply be able to head home and try to get her settled.

Gabrielle and Xavier will not be able to meet us at the airport and if anyone is to meet Josie at the airport, it should be her siblings. We do not feel that it is fair for other people in the extended family to meet her before she meets her sister and brother.

2. We will be laying low for at least a month upon returning home. During this time, we likely will not be taking Josie around to meet the family nor will be having big gatherings at our house.

Our daughter will have experienced a lot of changes in a short period of time. Everything about her new home will be drastically different from what she is use to: we look different, we smell different, our country smells different than China, the sounds are different, the food is different, the time change is hugs-- there is a lot for her to adapt to. Several china adoptive families whom I have talked to have expressed that it is best to be quiet for the first month or so. A few that did try to have a big party etc., regretted it as their child showed signs of great distress and confusion after the event was over.

We do want to share our joy with everyone, but we are going to play this one by ear. Of course, Judy, Becky, and Steve and others will be welcome to come visit for short periods of time, but we do not want to have big gatherings.

At some point, a few months after we have been home, we do plan to have a large gathering and invite everyone.

3. Only Wim and I will hold Josie-- feed her etc. Others will not be allowed to do care-taking type of activities for her (this may sound harsh-- but it also applies to diaper changing).

Our reason for this is that Josie will likely have had several care-takers and will not be use to having parents or her own caretakers. She will have to learn that we are her parents and that we will provide everything that she needs-- love, food, diaper changes etc.

We hope that maybe by the time we do have the big party she will be doing well enough that others can hold her for a short time if they wish to. Again, we will be playing this by ear.

4. Some details of Josie's early life will be kept private. The main topic I can think of right now is her finding place. Wim and I will be keeping some details, such as this private. We feel that Josie has a right to keep these details for her own-- her own details to share. We do hope that when Josie is older she will choose to share some of this information with you-- but it is HER information to share-- not ours.

This is all that I can think of right now.

For more information on attachment, please click on the link titled "Attachment 101." It is on the right side of our blog.

Why Adopt?

I find this to be an interesting question—there are so many children in the world who do not have parents and who need love and a home. I can’t imagine a person asking a pregnant woman, “Why are you having a child when there are so many children already born who need a home.”

Yet so many people feel it is perfectly acceptable to ask adoptive parents why they are adopting.

I have always wanted to adopt a child. I’m not exactly sure why, but I have long believed that adoption would be my path to parenthood.

Wim and I discussed adopting children before we decided to get married. It was one of many topics that we discussed and something that was not negotiable for me. Lucky for both of us that Wim was agreeable.

The next question we seem to get from folks is why aren't we adopting domestically.

Why China and not Domestic . . .

First, let me say, that every child deserves a loving home with parents who love them. Not just children born in the U.S., but all children in all countries.

I am not going to go into great detail about the adoption process in the U.S. If folks really want information about it, google it. I will say that their really isn't a need for adoptive parents of healthy, caucasion newborns in our country. I will say that from what I have read and folks that I have talked, adoption in our country is filled with heartache of stories in which the birthmother does change her mind at the last minute. Yes, there are stories of folks who adopt domestically almost instantaneously and everything works out great. That is not the norm.

The Foster care system in this country focuses on reuniting kids with thier birth parents regardless of the amount of abuse that has been documented. By the time kids in foster care are available for adoption, they have likely experienced much trauma and have a lot of difficult emotional and behaviorial issues they need to work out.

Since Wim does have Gabrielle and Xavier to think about, we felt that pursuing foster to adopt was not viable for our family. We simply do not want to risk exposing either Gabrielle or Xavier to abuse by an adopted child who has not learned appropriate behaviors.

Why China . . .

China has good history of being reputable with international adoption and for having a stable program. Most babies adopted from China are in good health and the process is predictable.

There are many organizations that provide support to families who adopt from China and to the children adopted. This will make it easier for us to keep our daughter in touch with her culture.

When we first began our adoption, the wait to being referred a baby was also 6-8 months which was also huge draw. Even though the wait to referral has grown enormously to 2 years-- the process is still very predictable-- it is just slower.

The China Adoption Process . . .

Let me begin by stating, that adoptive parents are NOT buying children.

By far, the majority of the money involved with adopting from China is paid to the American Adoption Agency and toward travel costs.

Another huge chunk of change goes for various processing fees to our own government. The amount of money we do pay to the orphange does not even begin to cover the amount of money it would cost to care for a child for a year-- which is about how long most babies spend in chinese orphanges before being adopted.

After choosing an agency (we are using Great Wall China Adoption—based in Texas ) and finding a social worker you begin the paper chase.

The Paper Chase:

The paper chase involves a series of home studies by a social worker. The social worker visits your home 4-5 times. She gathers information about your family, hoe you celebrate holidays/culture, general hobbies, how you deal with stress, general child rearing philosohphy and also answers questions for you about the adoption process.

During this time you also gather the following paperwork:
Medical exams;
Proof of financial stability;
Proof of income (statement from employer);
Divorce Certificates;
Marriage Certificates;
Birth Certificates; and
Background Checks with fingerprinting.

All of the form must be notorized and the notory must be authenticated to ensure that everything is on the up and up.

All of the documents are bundled into what is called a dossier—this also includes the home study report. The dossier is sent to the adoption agency who then sends it to their office in China where they hand deliver it to the Chinese Government office in charge of adoptions.

The dossier is then translated into Mandarin so that the Chinese officials can review our documents and request to adopt a child.

The Review Room:

The dossier then moves into the “Review Room.”
Each agency has their own review person. They know how to put a dossier together based on how their review person wants to see it, and based on the things their review person will approve or deny.

Each review person has their own assigned agencies, or maybe their own assigned country.
Sometimes one review person has twice as many files to review as someone else does that month, but the next month they may have half as many.

This means that one reviewer could be several months ahead of another reviewer, and may stay that way until their agencies have a big month and they get slowed down again. It is normal for one reviewer to still be working on February while another reviewer has made it to April.
The review room notice on the CCAA site won’t show that a month is complete until all reviewers are through with that month. It took about a year before our dossier made it through the review room phase of the adoption.

The Matching Room:

First, they review the baby dossiers and make sure there are no issues with them. We are told that they then count up all of the baby dossiers that are eligible for matching that month and then look to see how far this stack will go in the parent dossiers without sending out a partial day, and they pull all of those parent files. That is the likely cut-off date. Sometimes something happens and they don’t get this far. Sometimes something happens and they get farther.
Next they match orphanages up with agencies. This orphanage has six babies, this agency has six families. These two orphanages are in the same province and have a total of 12 babies, this agency has 12 families.

Then they start matching individual babies to individual families. The next question that comes up is generally how the matchers match families and babies. I’ve heard from several people who have had the opportunity to speak with someone who works in the matching room. The various conversations seem to all agree that they first look for something that stands out: a matching birthday, a baby who looks a lot like a parent, or a baby who likes music and a parent who teaches music. Several matching people have stated they match by bone structure of the baby’s face and the parent’s faces (this is why they need our passport photos, so they can compare our mug shot with the baby’s mug shot). Some have stated that they used Chinese astrology, also.

Once they’ve matched the obvious matches they then start to look at things like age of child requested. The age requested is not a priority for them, they feel they are matching families and not filling orders.

Referrals:

China sends referrals out every 28 to 34 days—kind of like a menstrual cycle and when you have been waiting nearly two years—let’s just say PMS doesn’t even begin to cover it.

When referrals are sent out, they are sent for a range of time and they are sent to all families whose dossiers were registered as received in china during that time. All families regardless of which agency they are using or which country they live in will receive a referrals for the time frame that the referrals cover. For instance, the latest batch of referrals covered folks whose log-in-date was December 1-8, 2005. So all families whose log-in-date was December 1-8, 2005, regardless of their agency or the country they live in, received a referral.

The referral includes as much medical information as possible, but it usually is not much, developmental report about the baby and at least one picture—usually 2-3 pictures.
Families have about 5-days to accept or reject the referral. Typically, you only reject if there is something to indicate serious medical problems with the baby.

Travel:

About 4 to 8 weeks after receiving referral, families travel to China where they will meet their child and bring them home. It takes a few months because we have to get a Visa to travel to China and the adoption agency has to secure appointments for their families with the US Consulate and various other government offices.

When we travel we will fly into Beijing where we will be met by representatives from our adoption agency and we will meet other adoptive families with our agency who are also adopting. We will go sight seeing for a couple days.

Typically you meet and take custody of your baby on the third day. On this day the families will break into smaller groups and travel to their Child’s province. The adoption agency takes care of all the in-country arrangements—in country flights/hotels/ sigh seeing etc. I believe we will be there for about 2 days. Everyone in your travel group meets again in GuangZhou . This is where the US Consulate and most of the government offices are located. We will be here until all of the paperwork is cleared and we get a passport for our new baby.

Then we will fly home.

Travel in China is anywhere from 10-days to 15-days.

This is the process, in a nut shell.

Hi Folks,

It is starting to get busy for the Holidays and we are starting to get excited about the holidays and our referral!

We are finally starting to feel like we are getting close.

The last batch of referrals covered December 1-8, 2005. At last, referrals are being made for waiting families in December 2005.

We still have a few more months, but we are very hopeful that we will receive our referral in early January.

Chinese New Year is in Early February this year, so I'm not sure how that might effect our travel dates. Most of China closes for 1 week during this holiday. It sure would be fun to be there for part of the holiday!

We have continued training with Phoebe. She is now in an intermediate training class. We had lots of fun taking her to a doggie Halloween party at Pet Smart. She made some interesting friends there.





The weather has been unusually warm for Fall, but has finally cooled off to more seasonal temps. We have had some fun times playing in the leaves and walking in the woods.

Even the Kitty got in on some of the activity with a much needed bath. As you can imagine, she wasn't too happy about it, but boy, does she make a perfect Halloween cat or what?

That is really all of the update we have for the past few weeks. We wish everyone a well and Happy Thanksgiving!

Hi Everyone,

Referrals arrived this month and covered a whole 4-days. Families with a LID between November 22-25 inclusive received a referral. We are hopeful that next month's referrals will include at least a few days of December. We are even more hopeful that we will receive our referral in December-- before Christmas. But, only time will tell.

As promised, here are the details of the rest of our vacation with Uncle Earl as well as what we have been up to for the rest of the summer.

We spent a dat at Attitash splashing on the water slides. I can't remember the last time I was on a water slide. It was a lot of fun and made grown men act like little boys.











The Novotnys (the caretakers) were very gracious and took us for a ride in their rhino-- it is a four wheel vehicle-- not the animal. Uncle Earl rode in the back with Gabrielle and Xavier. Wim drove and I rode shotgun. We had a fun and bumpy ride through the woods to a beautiful view.

The Novotnys also treated us to some homemade wine and fresh grown vegetables. We bought a bunch of hot dogs and fixins for smores for all of the kids and everyone really had a fantastic time. We always have fun when we visit New Hampshire, but this trip really took the cake! Phoebe even made friends with their new little dog Rufous. Rufous was more than happy to share some of his clothes with Phoebe.


We also made time to take Phoebe for her first swim. She did pretty good, but was more eager to leave the water than to swim in it.










Wim and the kids finished their New England vacation in Maine and Uncle Earl and I headed back to Rhode Island so he could catch his flight hom. It is always sad when he leaves, but we look forward to having fun time when he visits us again next year.

Back at home Gabrielle spent her last week of summer vacation at horse camp. On the last day of camp they did a little show for the families of the campers so we could watch the girls do different skills with the horses that they had learned during the week. It was really neat to see how much Gabrielle had learned about horses and she really enjoyed the camp. She was one of only 3 out of 10 girls that they allowed to Trot on the horses during the show.

On the left is a picture of Gabrielle and the horse she rode while trotting. The other girl in the picture was also on her "racing" team, but did not get to trot on the horse. The picture on the right is Gabrielle riding "her" camp horse, Cypress during the skills show. She rode Cypress through an obstacle course.












We all got to see the horses in their stalls after the show and it looks as though Cypress thought Xavier was growing a good head of hay-- not hair!

Now it is back to school. Gabrielle starts middle school this year and she was very excited on her first day. Xavier wasn't quite as excited. Wim took these pictures of the kids before they headed off to school. I think he was a bit nervous and sad about seeing his little girl move onto another milestone in her life as her picture turned out a little blury.

Both of the kids are very happy with school so far. Gabrielle says that she really likes middle school and switching rooms. Xavier has a newish teacher, Mr. Stevens, and he has the room decorated with lots of dog-stuff.

School not only started for the kids, but also for Phoebe. Her introduction to puppy school didn't go as smoothly as it went for the kids. To start off, the trainer's dog, a very wierd looking MALE pug, took a STRONG liking to Phoebe. I'll leave it at that. Then later in the class, Phoebe got bit on the nose by one of the other dogs. There was some blood and lots of puppy tears, but she hung in there and we finished the class. Sorry, I don't have any pictures of this event that are fit for publishing that are in rated G format. I can hardly wait to see what this week's class brings us!