First Post

Welcome to our blog! I've never had one of these before--I'd like to say that's because I staunchly value my family's privacy. But that'd be a lie. It's laziness, or lack of time-- or something more along those lines. In any case, welcome! I'm setting up this blog to document our journey to adopt a child from China. This will be our second adoption; our first adoption happened in January 2003 here in the U.S. We weren't yet old enough to adopt from China when our son Casey was born, so we went the domestic route. We were so lucky. Casey's birthmother let us be in the room when he was born! We cut the umbilical cord, gave him his first bottle and his first bath and picked out his name. We have an open adoption with Casey's birthfamily. He has two half-siblings living in Ohio, and we try to visit with them about once a year. He's only three now, but we've visited with them four times since his birth. This adoption was much more paperwork, and it's been much more waiting. Our application was accepted by our agency CCAI (Chinese Children Adoption International) November 9, 2004. Our paperwork took quite a while to complete (which I blame at least partly on the "public notary" who lied to us about having an expired license-- a story for another post), and our paperwork landed in China finally on June 20, 2005. At the time, the wait for a referral, which is basically the information about the child you've been matched with, was 6 months. But, my, how it has stretched! Here we are, 11 months later-- and still no referral! For now, we are hopeful we will receive our referral at the end of June, and we're planning to travel to China in August. That could be off by a month, of course, so I wouldn't want anyone to get their hopes up! In any event, once I figure this thing out some more, I'll post the official "timeline" and maybe add some links.