Keeping Things In Perspective

In many ways, the various factions of my life are separate. Like being an adoptive parent. While parenting is integral in every aspect of my life, the fact that we've built our family through adoption is not. The kids are with us now; that I didn't carry them in my uterus doesn't really matter much from one day to the next. But being an adoptive parent is very much a part of who I am. In a way, it's like being part of a club-- you don't really understand what it's like until you've lived it. And I feel connected to other adoptive parents in a way I don't think I otherwise would. But that connection isn't something I think about every moment of every day. So it's odd, in a sense, that being an adoptive parent is helping put the pending bar results in perspective for me.

Yes, today is the magic day the California State Bar results are released electronically to test-takers. The public can't access the information until Sunday or Monday (I'm not sure which). And I suppose it's possible that mis-information could be available online, which is why the Bar cautions all applicants not to rely on their online results and to wait for the mailed results instead. Whatever. No one believes they need to wait. And so, at around 6:00pm tonight I, along with the other nine thousand or so examinees will try to log in at exactly the same time to retrieve our results. I haven't been thinking much about it until the last 48 hours. And I think I'm more nervous now than I felt when I was actually taking the test. It's obviously out of my hands. The results have been compiled. But the not knowing is eating up my stomach. Literally. I slept only a couple hours last night, and I am operating on pure adrenaline.

So what if I don't pass the California bar? I mean, it's not like some giant hook will swoop in to the office and pull me out of my desk. The firm I'm at gives us a second chance-- we can re-take the exam in February. And I have my teaching career as an alternative, as well. I will be embarrassed by my failure. And I will beat myself up. And I will wonder, probably even after my scores arrive in the mail (because you only get your scores if you didn't pass the test), why me? The scariest thing about the potential of failing the bar exam is that I just don't know what more I could have done. I really did give it my best shot. And I know that the failure will eat away at whatever self-confidence I have.

That said, it's a test for crying out loud. Sure, only 78% of the first-time test-takers from my law school passed last July. And the statewide first-time taker pass rate was only 67%. But it's a test nonetheless. We're not talking life and death here. And in the big picture of life, this will-- long from now-- (hopefully) just be one small blip.

Helping me put all this in perspective is the touching story of Hannah, a child who will be returning home from China shortly. Hannah's parents met her for the first time some time in the past few weeks, after traveling to China from Lansing, Michigan. Part way through their trip, after China had finalized the adoption, Hannah's dad, who is diabetic, suffered complications from diabetes and passed away. I can only imagine the shock and grief of meeting my child for the first time, then losing my spouse almost in that same breath. But that's exactly what happened to Hannah's mom, Sandi. And then it go worse. Because the U.S. Consulate initially refused to issue Sandi a visa to return to the United States with Hannah, explaining that her family circumstances had changed and she would need to re-do the paperwork. Yup. Bureaucracy at its finest. Our government was essentially telling Sandi to leave China alone-- no husband, no child.

It didn't end that way, thankfully. Sandi's congressperson was contacted (by over a thousand people who heard about their story through adoption boards and word of mouth), and he sprang into action. It took some string-pulling and wrangling and the involvement of some very important higher-ups, but it looks like Sandi will be able to return home to Michigan with her daughter. Still a family of two instead of three. But a family all the same.

And this got me to thinking about the bar results. It may feel like everything in the world to me in this moment of time. But it's not. I can imagine my world without me being a lawyer. I've been doing it all my adult life. There are so many other, more important parts of my life that define me-- like my family and my friends. In the end, it won't matter how many hours I billed. Or if I passed the bar exam on the first try. Or even if I end up practicing law at all. At the end of my life, what will matter is the relationships I have, the friendships I share, the love of my family.

Now, if I can just keep that in perspective for the next eight hours (and maybe even beyond), I'll be in good shape . . .

Marcie's Birthday

Today is Marcie's birthday. And mine. Because we share the same birth date. A couple people this year have asked me if we got to pick Marcie's birthday. It seemed like such a strange question the first time someone asked it-- as if we could just rewrite a child's age on our own whim. But it's not a dumb question by any stretch. For those of you wondering, the answer is no. We didn't pick November 15th to be Marcie's birthday. China did. When they find a child, they estimate the child's birth date based on her physical appearance and condition. Marcie was estimated to be about a week old when she was found. I doubt she was incredibly large for her age when she was so young, and they do have physical evidence of age based on things like the umbilical cord. Anyway, she has a Chinese birth certificate, translated into English. And that identifies her birthday as November 15th. It's just luck that it coincides with my birthday.

I started a post earlier highlighting the day's events, but I didn't finish it. I will post it, complete with pictures, later. But a "show and tell" somehow seemed like an empty tribute to Marcie. This is the adoptive parent in me thinking. It seems relatively common that adoptive parents contemplate their children's birth parents each year on their children's birthdays. And that makes sense. Though I doubt that many parents who parent their biological children stop each and every year to consider and remember the labor and delivery experience. Maybe I'm wrong. And maybe that's not a fair comparison. But it doesn't seem fair that I was feeling guilty for not spending more time thinking (and writing) about Marcie's birth family-- and how our gain has been their loss.

I definitely appreciate the gift. I understand (at least on an academic level) that placing your child with strangers halfway around the world-- strangers you've never met and will probably never meet-- and just trusting that they will take good care of your child is hard. And that's an understatement. I think it must either be an act of sheer desperation or extraordinary hope. I've heard that expression -- if you love someone, set them free. And adoption is a totally different take on that statement.

I feel so grateful for Marcie. For her energy. Her kisses and her questions. I love the way she looks up to Casey and the way she sucks on her blanket when she's falling asleep at night. I love that she shows compassion for others. I love how she repeats everything we say. I love how excited she gets with a new pair of shoes or a new toy. I love that she wants to do things herself. She makes my world a better place. And that makes her one of the greatest gifts I've ever, ever received (Casey being the other great gift).

But sometimes I feel such pressure to acknowledge and honor her past, her history, her roots-- and I feel overwhelmed by it and complete inadequate at following through. I don't think I can fully understand and appreciate Chinese culture. I'm not saying I shouldn't try. Or that I don't. I'm lucky because we have family and friends who are immigrants from China and first generation Americans, so we have a lot of exposure. It's just not something I obsess about. It's true that when we contemplated B.S. #3, I wanted to return to the Asian continent for ease of future travel to the region (though I may be retracting my stance in the future). I was worried that having too many kids from different cultures would make things, well, difficult. That I wouldn't be able to honor their respective roots.

And then I read Johnny's posts Burning Ships, part I and Burning Ships, part II. What I found interesting about them is his perspective in light of the fact that Johnny, like my husband, is first generation American. And Johnny and my husband share a common perspective. I don't know how I feel about it yet. We do plan to return one day to China with Marcie. To take her to Chongqing. To let her experience where she came from. We do that already with Casey, though it's a lot closer than China, so that makes it easier. I won't be able to ingrain in Marcie the Chinese way, in a manner of speaking. After all, she is American as much as she is Chinese.

But I want to honor her history. Her heritage. Where she came from is part of who she is. And I don't just mean that it's part of her name. It's her past. Her story. I think Johnny is right-- she's an immigrant, not just an adoptee. Which "label" will define her more? I don't know. Maybe neither. But she'll have to decide that for herself. My job is to support her as she navigates her place in the world. She's only two now. But she's growing so fast. Before I know it, she'll be talking on the phone, dressing up in heels, asking for make- up. Wait. She's doing those things now! Some day I won't be able to control the length of the phone conversation, the height of the heels, or the brand and amount of the make-up. I'll have to trust her to do those things for herself and hope that I've adequately prepared her.

In the mean time, I'm just so grateful to know her. To love her. To call her my own. My little Marcie. I'm so, so lucky to be her mom. Happy Birthday!

It's Official: We're Paper Pregnant!

We have our official Log-In-Date (LID)! This is wonderful news. It's the date China will use to match us with B.S. #3.

Our LID is October 9, 2007!

If the current estimates of 24 months pan out, we should be traveling in early December of 2009.

If the (more likely) speculation pans out (a 36 month wait), we should be traveling near the end of 2010. Yeah, it's a little later than we'd like, putting five years of distance (well, maybe 4 1/2) between Marcie and B.S. #3, but anything can happen.

And if the wait looks like it'll stretch longer than three years . . . well, I'd prefer not to contemplate that possibility. But being a worst-case-scenario planner, I realize that we may get antsy waiting and take alternative action in the mean time (translation: adopt another child while we wait for B.S. #3, who I suppose would become B.S. #4 at that point-- though, technically, if we label our kids in order of when we started the process, B.S. #3 will always be B.S. #3 even if he or she arrives fourth. But I digress).

So Other Grandma (the name my kids have given my mom) is in town this weekend, and Jason and I are off to Autumn in Vegas for a couple nights. Looks like we have something to celebrate (other than the new job, I mean).

The kids will keep O.G. (Other Grandma) busy-- yesterday they sliced up the pumpkin and cooked it like squash and mashed it. I think they plan to make a real pumpkin pie from scratch tonight (aren't grandmas great?!?). And tomorrow they're going to the annual fire station open house (after music and sports classes, of course).

B.S. # 3- Dossier Delivered

We just received word from our agency that our dossier was hand-delivered today to the CCAA (China Center of Adoption Affairs). Though it's in their hands, they have not officially logged it in yet. It's that LID date that's magic! We'll keep you posted. . .

BS # 3-- DTC (Date to China)

Woo Hoo! We received an e-mail this morning. Our completed dossier was mailed to China yesterday. That means our DTC, or date-to-China is October 4, 2007.

China used to match families based on the date their paperwork was mailed, not the date it was received, which is why the DTC matters. Now China matches families to babies (or vice versa) based on the date the dossier was received, or logged in (this is the LID). There is some theory that on occasion, when China doesn't get all the way through a particular date, or if that were to happen, they would honor the DTC. That means that if my paperwork was sent October 4th, but China didn't log it in until October 20th for some reason, theoretically we should get matched before someone who mailed their paperwork October 10th with the same LID of October 20th. Not sure that's accurate. Anymore at least.

We should know our DTC within the next 8 weeks. That doesn't mean our LID will be some time in December; it just means that we'll know what our LID is by early December.

To further complicate things, China has an enormous Trade Fair in October, and the CCAA shuts down for a while (maybe a week?) during it. They were closed this week (October 1-5, 2007). Our paperwork won't arrive for a few days (it usually takes about 4 days), so it may not impact us.

In any event, once we have our LID, we'll officially be paper pregnant for B.S. #3.

Still, a DTC is something to celebrate!

B.S. #3-- On to Translation

We made it through our adoption agency's critical review. I was a little nervous because we're supposed to send 8 family life photos of both Jason and me with other people doing stuff. Truth be told, we're actually pretty active, but one of us is usually taking the photos! So we had several photos of both of us with Marcie, and several of us just the two of us. Even one or two of our whole family. But not many "outsiders" this time. Guess it was fine.

So now our dossier moves into translation, which is when our agency provides translated summaries of all the major information before binding everything together to send it to China, where it's hand-delivered to CCAA (the China Center for Adoption Affairs). CCAI (our agency) estimates it will send out our dossier within a week. That will be our DTC (date to China).

We'll definitely update you all again when there's more news to share!

B.S. # 3 Now Entering Critical Review

I just got an e-mail from CCAI (our adoption agency):

Congratulations! Your dossier has arrived at our office!

So that means we have moved on to the (hopefully) final stages of our dossier review process before mailing everything to China! Critical Review, where our paperwork is reviewed multiple times, translated, and bound, usually takes 9-11 days.

We'll keep you posted!

One Step Closer to BS #3

Our dossier, along with our final agency payment, our photos, and a photocopy of all the documentation, is going in the mail tomorrow. It's set to arrive at our agency Monday morning.

I remember feeling no anxiety about this stage of it all last time. For some reason, though, this time I feel some pangs of anxiety. Last time, the wait was only 6 months long. So if something needed to be fixed or redone, the one- or two-week delay was no big deal. This time, four days could mean the difference between a 24 month wait and a 25 month wait. So mistakes are a very big deal.

Theoretically, our dossier should be reviewed and off to China by the beginning of the second week in October. That is, of course, barring any mistakes or problems with our paperwork. The date it's mailed is called our DTC (Date To China). Then we'll hear from China, who will verify they received our documentation, with a LID (Log In Date). That date is our official place in line. We aren't out of the woods, though. A year or so from now (maybe much longer, maybe much shorter), the Review Room in China will comb through our documentation to make sure everything looks good and they don't have any questions.

Still, once we have our LID, we'll officially be paper pregnant, and our insanely long wait will finally begin. I know our child will be well worth wait. But I also know I'm incredibly impatient about these things, and the wait will be hard.

One step at a time, though. So let's just get our paperwork off to China first, shall we?

Turning Away a Boy

Today's Rumor Queen post discussed (again) an apparently new phenomenon with the China adoption process: people who have requested healthy children with no known medical conditions have recently been referred children with repaired medical conditions. So, if a child is born with an extra digit, and that extra digit has been removed, the child is no longer considered a child with special needs, and she may be referred to a family requesting a healthy child. Some families have opted to decline these referrals, and it appears that they received a new referral-- for a healthier child-- in the next batch.

Of course, I have an opinion about this, but that's not what I'm going to write about today. What caught my eye was this one line in Rumor Queen's post:

Also, the families who turned down boy referrals have been given a referral
for a girl.

What this sentence tells me is that there were families who requested girls and were referred boys who declined the referral. Now, it's true that I don't know the individual circumstances-- like perhaps it was that they requested a healthy girl and were matched with a boy with a repaired special need. But, taking the sentence at its face, I am . . . well . . . appalled.

Here we have a situation in which a government has created a predominantly one-child-only rule (though if both parents are only children, they are permitted to have two children without paying a penalty for the second child). And that rule has led to the abandonment of thousands of girls for social and cultural reasons. The desire to have a boy is so strong in China, that people were, at one point, opting for sonograms to determine gender and then terminating the pregnancy if it was a girl. I remember reading back in 2005 that China was no longer permitting ultrasound technicians to reveal the gender of a child for that very reason.

So along come Americans, and people from other countries, too, who are interested in building their families through adoptions from China. And we all go into the process recognizing that there is an abundance of girls and thinking that we will probably be adding a girl to our families through this process. The thing is, though, that the one-child rule doesn't just apply to parents who have no children. It applies to everyone. So if a family has a boy or a girl who they decide to raise, and then discover they are pregnant again, it's quite plausible that child will end up in an orphanage regardless of the gender. That means there are boys in China's orphanages, not just girls.

And so it leaves me to wonder how we can on the one hand cluck our tongues in disapproval at the abandonment of girls, and more specifically at the cultural preference for one gender over another, only to later demonstrate the same preference. I just don't get it. It seems incredibly hypocritical; and more than that, it seems wrong.

I mean, say you were pregnant and really, really wanted a girl. And you discovered you were going to be having a boy, would you seriously decide to terminate the pregnancy? Place the child for adoption? I've never even heard of such a thing happening in the U.S. But, by analogy, isn't that what families who turn down a referral for a gender other than the one they requested are doing?

Yeah. I'm being judgmental. But boy or girl, all children need loving homes. And if you only have a heart for one gender or another, I can't help but question the motives. And yes, I realize some families opt to adopt from China because they have three boys at home and would like a little girl. But, you know what? Too bad. That's just the crap shoot you take, I say. I think it's wrong to decline a referral because of gender. And I don't think anything would convince me otherwise. Shame on those families. Shame on us for thinking it's okay to have that attitude with adoption when we would never condone it for biological children.

That said, of course I would much prefer those families decline the perfectly healthy boy to wait for a girl than adopt a child who they will never really love. But it's so sad that they don't have unconditional love to offer in the first place. . .

Dossier Compilation Continues

So it's 10:34pm, and I just walked in the door. I left home around 9:15pm to make photocopies, after spending around 45 minutes to an hour preparing paperwork for our final step-- authentication by the Chinese Consular General in Los Angeles.

Our agency, CCAI, now offers a dossier certification/authentication service. Basically, you send them all the paperwork once you've gathered it and they notarize it, get it certified by the County Clerk and the Secretary of State, then get it authenticated by the Chinese Consulate. I don't know if it includes "rush" or "walk-in" service (though I imagine it does just because of the volume of clients they have). It's $1200, and though they claimed they don't recoup any cost, I was skeptical. Well, I am a skeptic no more. When all is said and done, all the notarizing, certifying, and authenticating-- not to mention shipment costs-- will have cost us somewhere in the neighborhood of $1,000 anyway. And that means we saved around $200 doing it ourselves. You have to ask yourself if the time you spend collecting signatures is worth $200. I know, for me, it probably wasn't. Just the number of hours I spent-- around 4 or 5-- collecting the signatures and making copies probably wasn't worth $200 in the end. But, of course, how could I have known that? Plus, this allowed me to retain control over the process, something I would have had to let go of had I let CCAI take care of the documentation for me. Long story short, it's probably worth the $1200 in the end.

Oddly, although I now have sent all our documents off to a courier that specializes in getting documents authenticated, I feel more anxious instead of less worried. Last time, I mailed it all to the Consulate myself, and it took about a month to get it all back. This time, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it can be taken care of in a week by using Red Tape Solution (the courier). But the thought of turning over all that personal information to someone to walk it through the consulate makes me awfully nervous. Of course, that's what the big agencies do with it-- they send it to a courier, too. But still. It's birth certificates and passport photos and financial information and criminal clearances-- all the makings for stealing a person's identity. And now that I've thought that through a bit more, I have to stop writing about this because it makes me even more anxious. . .

Anyway, the FedEx package is scheduled for pick up at 4:30pm and guaranteed arrival in its destination (a mere hour and a half away by car, mind you) by 10:00am the next morning.

So please keep your fingers crossed and send your good vibes our way that the courier will get the package, deliver it to the Los Angeles P.R. China Consulate, get the stuff back authenticated, and return it to us without a hitch. And without borrowing our personal information . . .

Setback

I hope it's a tiny, tiny setback. But a setback it is nonetheless. I found what I thought was an error in our homestudy, so it didn't make it to USCIS last week. Which means nothing was notarized or certified or authenticated. It means nothing was sent in the mail to the Chinese Consulate. It means we're still waiting.

It turned out there was an error in the homestudy describing the "child we desire," but it wasn't critical because China looks at our Adoption Petition for that information and not the homestudy at all.

We still asked that it be updated. And, hopefully, we'll be following the previously described process next week instead. Hopefully.

What's the big deal of one week? Well, consider that China just made referrals for four days' worth of paperwork this month. The week-delay could, quite literally, cost us several months in the end. That is to say, we may end up waiting even longer because of it.

It's all part of the process, we realize. But it's still a bummer.

B.S. # 3 Update

So I haven't written about Baby S. # 3 in a while-- maybe since before I sat for the bar exam. I have actually been updating a timeline post regularly, but I haven't added it to the site yet; I'll do that later this weekend.

Anyway, long story short, we didn't forget about the paperwork. In fact, I just picked up our finalized homestudy. Tuesday I'll walk it into our local USCIS office and hopefully I'll walk out of the office with our I-171H in-hand.

What's next after that?

• Well, then I will take all the documents I've collected since May, and those that are not already certified (like birth certificates or marriage certificates) will get notarized.
• I'll take all the notarized copies to our County Clerk's office. The Registrar there will certify that the notary signatures on our forms are legitimate.
• Then I'll take all the certified documents to our Secretary of State. Luckily we have a branch right here. The Secretary of State will certify that the County Registrar's certification is legitimate.
• Next, I'll mail all the doubly-certified documents (plus a copy of each) to the Chinese Consulate in Los Angeles, where the Chinese Consul will authenticate the California Secretary of State signature.
• Then, I'll make copies of all the doubly-certified and authenticated documents, along with the photographs we need to supply, and mail them to our agency, which will run a critical review of everything to make sure we have it all.
• The agency will translate the documents into Chinese and send them off to China (our DTC, or date to China).
• China will verify they've received our file by assigning us our LID, or log-in date. This is the date that will be used to determine where we fall "in line" for our next child.

And then the long wait begins.

I don't know how long it will take to get our documents back from the Chinese Consulate. I think it took us about 20 days last time. If that's the case, and everything goes smoothly with the certifying and authenticating (it did not with Marcie), and if there are no problems when our documents go through critical review, our paperwork should land in China some time in late October or early November.

It's still a little surreal, thinking about B.S. #3. I don't quite feel like the ground has settled from B.S. #2 yet. I mean, Marcie's still not even sleeping through the night (a topic of another post)! But I have no doubt that by the time our referral finally makes it to America that we will be more than ready. Dare I say downright antsy.

Familyversary

Yesterday, August 21st, was our Familyversary. Some people in the adoption community call it Family Day. Others call it Gotcha Day.* Honestly, we don't really call it anything because we don't really celebrate it. But I've dubbed it our Familyversary, at least in my mind.
The whole point of celebrating a familyversary is that it's the day your family was made. Or updated. For most families, this day is the day their child is born. For many adoptive families, though, we don't meet our children for days or months or even years. So our family isn't born, per se, until the day we meet our children.

Casey joined our family the day he was born. Though, I suppose technically, legally, he didn't join it for three days. We just celebrate his birthday. (* I should note here that some people consider Family Day or Gotcha Day as the day they finalized their adoptions. In our case, our adoptions weren't finalized/ re-finalized in California until months after we actually "got" our kids.)

Marcie, on the other hand, joined our family on August 21, 2006, a full nine months after she entered the world. So yesterday was the anniversary of our family. I imagine when we add our B.S. #3, our Familyversary date will change to the date he or she becomes part of our family. But we probably still won't celebrate it. Don't get me wrong-- Marcie is an amazing addition to our family. We just weren't complete without her. But we celebrate family all the time. And we celebrate Marcie (and Casey) all the time, too. At least I'd like to think we do.

I don't have a problem with other people celebrating their Familyversaries. It's a nice thing to acknowledge. But I don't want to emphasize it, either. The way I see it, Marcie was always meant for us, even before she was born. And we were always meant for her. It just took us a while to find each other. I guess that's not a great reason not to celebrate the day; after all, we still celebrate our wedding day, even though in theory we celebrate our marriage all the time. So I don't have a good explanation for why we don't make a big deal of our Familyversary. We just don't. I think if it becomes important to Marcie as she gets older, we'll take her lead. In the meantime, our Familyversary is just like every other day. Just with a special name. And we did create a cool name for the day, don't you think?

In any case, we did happen to go out last night. It was coincidental that it was our Familyversary. We went to Red Robin (I think Casey was going through withdrawal). I took lots of photos that show how much Marcie has grown in the year she's been with us. But here's my favorite:

I also took a photo of Marcie in the outfit she was wearing when we first met her. Check her out:

THEN:

AND NOW . . . (sorry about the blurriness of the first photo)

And to all you families out there who have familyversaries to celebrate, HAPPY FAMILYVERSARY!

Hoofing it to China

I'm thinking it'll be a while before we make it back to China for B.S. #3, as I call her. I know BS isn't the nicest name in the world, but it works for me for now. I know "she" may really be a "he," but in Chinese they don't even have pronouns, so I'm not going to worry about that, either.

I'm sitting here in the library, taking a very short break in between writing out practice essay exams (each essay takes an hour to complete, more or less). And I have been contemplating lately how lazy I feel this summer. Not because I haven't been mentally busy-- oh my, I have. My brain is so full, I'm seriously surprised I remember my own name. But I've been feeling antsy for exercise lately.

When Marcie first came home, I had a lot of time with her, and she and I walked at least 3 days a week, around 45 minutes up and around the hills of our area each time. I'm sure it wasn't as cardiovascularly challenging as all the running I'd been doing prior to meeting Marcie in person, but it was exercise-- and that, for me, is the key to keeping the stress low and the weight off. So when I went back to work and stopped exercising with Marcie, I just completely stopped exercising. Not good. Not good at all. I'm not back in my "fat clothes" or anything, but I'm not in my fun clothes for the time being either.

So I'm getting back on the exercise horse. It's hard with kids. Marcie weighs around 30 pounds and pushing her in a stroller is work on a flat surface, forget the hills in my neighborhood! Add Casey's 37 pounds to the double stroller and the 13 pounds of the stroller itself and I'm pushing almost 80% of my own total weight. This is just too difficult. So I'm going to have to be creative. But darnit if I can't fit into my "fun" clothes when I return to work in August after the bar.

Anyway, to help me on my goal of exercise-- which I believe is good for the body and for the mind-- I'm going to hoof it to China. Seriously.

I looked it up. From San Diego to Guangzhou is 7,348 miles (direct). I don't know where we'll find BS in China, but I know we'll eventually land in Guangzhou for the visa, so I figure that's a safe place to aim for as a goal. And even though 7,348 miles is pretty far, I've probably got at least 3 years in which to do it. That distance over three years works out roughly to 204 miles each month. Hmm. That's 51 miles a week. Maybe I need to re-think this. . . that's probably not a particularly realistic goal. (Good thing we'll actually be flying there and not walking!) But maybe you can help. Maybe if I can get some people to walk with me (figuratively, mind you), we can collectively make it to China-- heck, maybe we can make it to China and BACK. And let's say we won't just count distance we walk or run-- but let's throw in biking and stairmastering and crosstraining, too. Think we can do it?

Anyone up for the challenge?

B.S. #3 The Paperchase & FAQs

So we have decided to pursue an adoption from China again. For B.S. #3 (That's Baby S. #3, although really Casey and Marcie aren't so much babies anymore). I was obsessing about it a while back, in May. And then I got sidetracked studying. Well, not really. Adoption's been on my mind-- I just haven't had much time to write about it. But now is the time I answer your burning questions:

1. Why China?
We kicked it around quite a bit back in May, as you know if you read regularly. I really struggled with it. I felt kind of strongly that I wanted to return to Asia because I want to be able to maintain some sort of connection to my children's roots. We already have two continents covered, and adding a third seemed a bit daunting to me (though truth be told, if things don't work out with China for us, we'll be making a bee-line to Ethiopia!).

Here's what it came down to for us. I did a boatload of research on Taiwan adoptions. They are private adoptions. We'd hire a US agency to coordinate with a nursery in Taiwan. We did select an agency-- the one agency we received so much positive feedback about, I felt very comfortable with them. I received a lot of unsolicited recommendations, and that's always a good sign. Their Taiwan program coordinator was amazingly patient, personable, and responsive. If you're contemplating Taiwan, you might look into FCA. They work with Cathwel in Taiwan. The thing is that the wait was going to be 18 months (average) until match-- and stretching. Plus another 6 months or so while the paperwork moved through the courts. And that's in addition to the homestudy. So basically we're looking at about 2 years from time of turning in paperwork. I was okay with the wait (there are several other agencies that have shorter waits, but many are new or I got very mixed reviews or they were terrible at follow-up). But then I started thinking-- if we're going to wait 2 years anyway, why not go back to China? With an agency I love, love, love? Plus, Taiwan was looking like it was going to cost substantially more (I estimated in the $10,000 range more), and with that extra money, we could bring the kids with us to China-- which might be nice (depending on their ages and temperaments at the time we travel). Given the risks involved in the Taiwan adoptions, the length of the wait, the additional costs, and the unknowns, we opted for China again.

2. What about the new restrictions? Do you qualify?
Yeah. We qualify. If something weird happens when we're in the review room, we'll have a valid international homestudy, we'll eat the agency cost, and we'll head for Ethiopia. Seriously.

3. Who are you using for the adoption?
We've returned to CCAI as our agency and Adoption Options as our homestudy agency. One of the reasons I was leaning against a California-based Taiwan agency is because they didn't work with Adoption Options, and I have had such a positive experience with them that I just didn't want to start a whole new homestudy process. Returning to agencies that have worked with us means they have a lot of our information and paperwork on file already, which makes our lives a lot easier.

4. Why now? Don't you think you should wait until after the Bar Exam?
Actually, making a decision is a huge relief. And perhaps we should wait until after July to start the paperwork, but with estimates placing the wait for a child from China estimated to stretch to 3 years, we know that getting paperwork done sooner rather than later makes sense. So we're taking it slowly, step by step, piece by piece. And when all the paperwork is together, we'll mail it in.

5. When do you think you'll be finished with "the paperchase"? What is the "paperchase" anyway?
Paperchasing is adoption lingo for gathering all the paperwork you need in your dossier. The dossier is the document that gets translated and sent to the China Center for Adoption Affairs, where they comb through your information and approve you as a prospective adoptive family. It includes birth certificates, marriage certificate, criminal clearance letters, proof of employment, proof of medical insurance, medial reports, a homestudy (which has a whole additional host of documents), a financial statement, and an adoption petition-- that's the brunt of it. To complete the dossier, though, not only do we have to collect all the right forms, but the forms have to go through a series of notarizations, certifications, and authentications to prove we haven't forged them or obtained them fraudulently. In addition to these documents, the homestudy is sent to USCIS (US Center for Immigration Services? I have no idea what it stands for; I'm totally making it up)-- anyway, they review the homestudy to approve us to bring home an orphan from a foreign country and they essentially pre-approve a visa for the child. This form/permission is the coveted 1-171H. And once that's in your hands, you can send everything off for certifications and authentications.

We are hoping to have our homestudy finished in August. We are hoping to have our paperwork all completed in September for shipment to our agency in October. Some of that will depend on whether we do all the notarizing, certifying, and authenticating ourselves, or if we have our agency do it for us. This process involves getting each document notarized. Then having our County Clerk certify the notary signature. Then having the Secretary of State in the local office certify the County Clerk signature (which is certifying the notary signature). Then we send all of that to the appropriate Chinese Consulate, which authenticates the Secretary of State signature (which is certifying the county clerk signature, which is certifying the notary signature). As you might imagine, that's rather time consuming.

6. Do you want a boy or a girl?
Yes. We want a boy or a girl. Or maybe we'll be brave and even request twins (which we'd never get, seeing as how we already have two kiddos). We go back and forth on this. We may request a boy. But even if we do, we'll make it clear we would be happy with a girl, too. We did not request a gender last time; we just requested a child "as young as possible." In the end, gender just isn't that important to us. On the one hand, I'd love to have another boy. On the other hand, I'd love to have another girl. Especially because Marcie is the only girl out of 7 grandkids. (Anyone else in the H. or S. families want to work on that for us? You know, ensure Marcie have a female playmate. . . we'd be cool with that!)

7. How old will the baby be?
We don't know. We qualify for a child ages 0-12 months old. And so that's what we will request.

8. Will the baby be from the same orphanage as Marcie?
Again, we don't know. We will be requesting a child from Yunyang Chengxiang Social Welfare Institute, which is where Marcie is from. We will be requesting a child from Chongqing Municipality, also where Marcie is from. We don't mind getting a child from anywhere in China, though. Going somewhere new would be a nice adventure. Returning to Chongqing would be nice, too-- we'd know what to expect, and it makes "returning to roots" much easier. But we're not that picky. We'll request these things, but I'm confident we'll end up with the child who is meant to be ours, no matter what part of China the child is from.

9. When will you meet the baby?
As I explained before, we're expecting the wait to stretch to two or three years. That puts us in China some time in 2010 or 2011. That's still awfully far away, which is why we're starting the process now. Marcie will be at least 5 by then. Casey will be 8. That's a bigger age spread than I'd ever planned. On the other hand, Jason will be home full time by then, and it's just more time to pay off debts and put away money. With five of us in our home, we'll be considering a home addition by the time 2011 rolls around, I think. If we can afford it. (Ah, to dream!)

10. Will this be "it"?
I don't know. We always planned to have at least three children. I can't say we'll close our hearts to additional family members after that. I can't say we'll seek another adoption actively, either. Let's see how things go with BS #3 and we can move forward from there.

11. What's your timeline so far?
I am keeping track of a timeline, which I'll be adding to the right margin eventually. Like I said, we're on schedule for now!

Have a question I didn't answer? E-mail me and I'll give you a response!

B.S. #3-- Timeline

4/07 Lots of research on Taiwan adoption

5/08/07 Selected potential Taiwan agency

5/10/07 Contacted CCAI about new China requirements (we qualify)

5/14/07 Received CCAI application

5/15/07 Submitted CCAI appliction (mailed it) (fee waived for second-time adoption!)

5/15/07 Contacted Adoption Options, our homestudy agency

5/15/07 Received Financial Statement/Verification of 90-day average bank account balances from our bank


5/17/07 Received homestudy application paperwork and filled it out. (Fee waived for second-time adoption!)

5/18/07 Delivered homestudy application and 2 photos of each of us to our homestudy agency (Adoption Options). Paid first homestudy fee.

5/21/07 Received homestudy packet/information.

5/22/07 Application officially accepted by CCAI. Received medical risk document and fee payment schedule to get notarized and to return.

5/24/07 Jason's first physical appointment

5/25/07 Request for criminal clearance letters at the County Sheriff

5/25/07 Notarized CCAI agreement and risk statement

5/25/07 Mailed CCAI agreement, risk statement, and first fee

5/25/07 Mailed I600A with fee for processing and fingerprinting

5/27/07 Asked two friends to write letters of reference

5/27/07 Asked future (potential) guardians to write letter of guardianship

5/30/07 Received Fingerprint referral notices for week of June 4th

6/1/07 Received criminal clearances in the mail

6/3/07 Requested letter of recommendation from preschool teachers

6/3/07 Requested letters of reference from two more friends

6/5/07 Karen's DOJ fingerprints

6/6/07 Karen's USCIS fingerprints

6/20/07 Jason's USCIS fingerprints

6/20/07 Jason's lab work for medical exam

6/21/07 Mailed agency documentation to home study agency

6/26/07 phone call from Jason's doctor letting us know his lab results are in (yeah!)

6/26/07 Karen orders birth certificates from New Jersey via vital chek

6/28/07 Karen's physical exam

6/28/07 Paperwork to pediatrician for the kids

6/29/07 Karen's blood work and TB test

6/29/07 Jason's DOJ fingerprinting

7/1/07 in-home visit w/ social worker

7/2/07 Karen's additional blood work (b/c first set didn't include Hep B results)

7/25/07 Mailed request for certification of Karen's birth certificate to State of New Jersey

7/27/07 Casey's TB test

7/30/07 Casey medical form completed

7/30/07 Received Karen's birth certificate from NJ

7/31/07 Kare's medical form completed

8/1/07 Jason attempts to get missing labwork completed, but lab closes early

8/1/07 Received medical insurance verification

8/1/07 Marcie's medical form completed

8/1/07 Karen & Jason request employment verification

8/1/07 Mailed all documentation and photos to homestudy agency

8/22/07 Mailed Jason's employment verification and final payment, post placement fees, and post placement deposits to homestudy agency

8/29/07 Homestudy draft sent to CCAI for review

8/30/07 Homestudy draft given the green light for finalization

9/11/07 Walked in the homestudy to USCIS and received our I-171H in return!

9/12/07 Notarized all adoption documents

9/12/07 Certified all adoption documents with County Clerk

9/12/07 Certified all adoption documents with Secretary of State

9/13/07 Overnighted dossier documents to Red Tape Solution, courier service to deliver paperwork to Chinese Consulate in Los Angeles

9/14/07 Chinese Consulate authenticated all our documents

9/18/07 Received authenticated documents

9/19/07 Karen's passport photos for dossier; selected Family Life and Couple photos for dossier

9/20/07 Jason's passport photos for dossier; printed photos; completed photocopies to Fed Ex dossier to CCAI

9/21/07 Dossier packet mailed to CCAI via Fed Ex

9/24/07 Confirmation of dossier received by CCAI-- dossier enters critical review

10/1/07 Out of critical review! On to translation. Should be mailed within a week.

Here we go again . . .

So. We've decided to adopt. Again. We always planned on having three children, and even though Marcie hasn't been home for very long, by the time the adoption processes, she will have been. Home for years, in fact. So it's time to start.

When we selected Marcie's agency, CCAI, we researched a bunch of places, narrowed it down to a couple. Checked their BBB records. Did a search to see if there were any pending or settled law suits. And then called every single reference in Southern California on their multi-page list. And talked to them all. They ended up being a fantastic choice. Did they make mistakes? Yup. They did. They are an organization of humans, so mistakes are kind of par for the course. But they apologized. They fixed it. Fast. They cared. And we would use them again in a heartbeat. Except. . .

Except the wait for China has grown so long, that we estimate if we started the process tomorrow (which we wouldn't, given final exams and pending law school commencement), we would probably meet our child some time in the year 2011. And by then Marcie will be somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 years old. So there'd be about 4 years age difference between them. Which isn't insane or anything, it's just a little more than we were planning. Hoping. We may still end up going with China, but we're exploring our options.

We had been contemplating Africa-- Ethiopia in particular. And if we were going to, I'd be leaning toward AAI- Adoption Advocates, International. Though I've also heard good things about CHI- Children's Hope, International. So I'd have to do my background homework, check references, and make a decision. But if you happen to be in the same boat as me, that's where I'd start. The Ethiopia program is relatively centralized and stable. Things seem above-board. There is a great need for families for the children (of course, that's true everywhere in the world).

And some people-- a lot of people, actually-- have suggested we look into Latin America: Colombia or Guatemala seem to be the two recommendations we receive most. Unsolicited, of course, because we are not interested in adopting from Latin America. The children are beautiful, but I'm a really risk-averse person, and it just seems like so much depends on the in-country facilitator and there are risks about the "baby market" and so on. I know it works for a lot of people. And I'm happy for them. It's just not a good choice for me. It'd give me an ulcer. And even if I'm totally wrong about my impressions about the stability and potential ethical issues, it doesn't matter. Because that would always be at the back of my mind.

Ultimately, though, I'd like to stick close to China. It just makes sense. We've already made a commitment to our children-- that they will know their roots, whatever we can share with them. And since that takes us to Ohio and China already, it seems like it'd be most convenient for us to stay in the general region of China, at least. Plus, it just fits our family-- my husband being half-Chinese and all. I know that's not important to him, that our kids share his ethnicity. But between Jason's family and our many Chinese and Taiwanese friends, this is a culture we know something about. So it works for me.

So that brings me to Taiwan. The thing about Taiwan is that it is really decentralized, which means that the agency you work with more or less dictates your experience. With China, even though I love, love, loved our agency, I think most people have a pretty similar experience. Everyone submits the same paperwork. Everyone goes on the same waiting list. Everyone travels about the same length of time after their referral. And so on. Not so with Taiwan.

I am learning that Taiwan is like doing a domestic adoption, but in a foreign country. And that's okay. But that means there are some risks, too. For instance, in Taiwan, a referral can come when the child is very young-- a couple weeks or a couple months. And after you accept the referral, the child moves through the court system. This is just like in the United States. Except in the U.S., you can foster your own child while the paperwork process (and I think you can if you move to Taiwan, for that matter-- but that's another issue entirely). Anyway, during the 4-6 months it takes for the paperwork to proceed, the birth family can change its mind and opt to parent the child. Which means you may think you have a child coming, but it turns out he or she is not your child. Which I imagine is heart-breaking.

Another thing about Taiwan is that the type of program you enter more or less dictates the wait you have and frequently the relationship you have. Some programs are birthmother programs. That means the birthmother selects your family. You get to meet her (often). You get a full medical history. You may have ongoing contact with her. Other programs operate more like China did-- you wait until your paperwork gets to the top of the list and the in-Taiwan agency (which they call a nursery and we call an orphanage) matches you. You get all the medical information provided by the birth mother, but it's a closed adoption-- usually no ongoing contact and no exchange of information over time. So the agency you choose needs to reflect the type of adoption you'd like to have. (As a side note, I have been told that there is an adoption registry for international adoptees so they can find their biological families later in life if they want, but I haven't researched this yet.)

So this is where we are. Searching for an agency. Finding one with the right fit that offers the type of adoption we want and works with a nursery we like in Taiwan. Later, I'll post how I've approached my search. I've read articles about how to select an agency, but I think they are rather cursory-- especially for such an expensive and emotional endeavor. But for now, this is where we are. Getting ready to start our paperchase.

And yeah. I'm in the middle of finals. And preparing for graduation. And getting ready to start my Bar prep class to take the big exam in July. Doesn't this make it the perfect time to select an adoption agency and begin our homestudy? Heh, heh. Anyone who knows me and is reading this must be chuckling. This is such a Karen-thing to do. To launch an adoption journey in the midst of everything else. . . but I know it'll be well worth it in the long run. I've got evidence of it at home already. Double proof, in fact. I just can't imagine my life without Casey and Marcie.

Once we figure out what we're doing-- who we're using, and the whole shabang, I'll start a new blog just to document that journey. But no worries, this one's not going anywhere!

Tragic, really

I mostly opt not to write about whether or not I agree with China's decisions regarding . . . well, just about anything. As the lucky recipient of their generosity in sharing one of their nation's richest resources (their children), I mainly choose to feel grateful and keep my mouth shut. Okay, it's true that I kind of defended China when that one guy wrote about how they are selling their babies to Americans and setting unreasonable requirements to qualify. But this is a little different.

You see, from what we know, China places between 400 and 700 children each month in homes outside their country. We don't know how many children are in orphanages in China. But we do know that there are many, many, many waiting families around the world-- just longing to be matched with their children.

It seems like if China wanted to, they could place more children with families abroad. If they wanted to. They like to keep the number to a certain range, though. And I suppose that's their sovereign right. As is the one-child rule in the first place. But the fact that the wait for a Chinese adoption has grown so dramatically in the past couple years makes this story(Cases of Forced Abortion Surface in China) from NPR all the more tragic.

Here's a brief summary of the article, which you can listen to at the above-link:
Chinese law prohibits births to unmarried couples. It also sometimes allows families to have a second child if they pay the hefty fine to do so. But recently, in one area that is over quota on its birth statistics, officials have been cracking down and literally forcing women to have abortions-- late, late, late in pregnancy. At the seven-month-mark and beyond.

Now, I've never carried a baby to term or anything. I don't know what it feels like to have something wiggling around inside me. To feel that life grow. But I imagine if I had, I would be horrified to have someone literally rip the child out of me against my wishes. Whether or not you are pro-choice or pro-life, I think we could all agree that when a woman chooses to carry a baby to term, she should be able to. I know that these are examples of women who wanted to keep and parent their children. But if I were a betting woman, I'd venture to bet that those women, given the choice of a forced late-term abortion or placing those children in stable, loving homes-- well, they'd choose the latter. And I guess that what seems particularly sad to me about all this is that it's a lose-lose-lose. The baby loses. The baby's mother loses. And families anxious to have additional members lose.

Call me judgmental, but I think it's just tragic, really.