Care Package Away!

We mailed out a care package to Little Dragon and his friends. You really can't have too many "personal" toys in an orphanage, so we just sent a couple of special objects for him and the rest is for sharing.

For sharing, we sent a bunch of warm hats, some pants and mittens that I made, a couple of soft toys, and a couple bags of dark chocolate.

For Little Dragon, we sent a ribbon-tagged blanket with dragons on one side (Jim slept with this for a few days), a stuffed panda bear with my perfume on it, and a baby picture book of his new family and room.

We've now been waiting 39 days for our LOA. The average for people in our situation is 77 days, but it doesn't stop me hoping that we'll be fast!

Update: care package was delivered at 11 a.m. on Saturday. We've now been waiting 45 days for our LOA.

Lotsa Shots

Yesterday we had an appointment at our (very) friendly neighborhood travel clinic. We got three shots each (typhoid, HepA, and Tdap), and a blood draw to check titers for HepB and MMR. You know you have a three-year-old when five minutes are happily spent counting the bandaids on your arm when you come home.

Next up, making an appointment at the children's travel clinic for Little Bear. I think he'll only need typhoid and H1N1.

Unfortunately, Little Dragon will also likely need shots before leaving China. It's a bad idea to require 8 or so shots into a small person only a few days before they get on a 12-hour flight (and I'm a pro-vaccine immunologist, so I'm not just being crazy here). It used to be that parents could promise to get their kids up-to-date on a reasonable immunization schedule, but then another rule changed and the kids (including those with medical needs) were swept up in the change too. A bill has been put forward to restore this exemption so that kids can be vaccinated on a more healthy schedule. http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s111-1376 If your Senator is on the Judiciary Committee, where this bill is bottled up, please email to ask for it to be moved forward. Thanks!

Update: Good thing we had that blood work done. Our HepB titers are fine (I've actually been wondering about that for a decade), but Jim's mumps (like the unfortunate 1500 people in NYC right now) needs boosting, so he gets to go back for yet another shot.

Update 2: Jim has been re-mumpsed. And Gus's appointment is scheduled for the beginning of April.

LID

Our application is now sitting in a pile on someone's desk in China. Our LID was 1/21/10. Now we wait for LOA, our final approval from China, which is taking an average of 90 days. In the meantime we have some forms to fill out and a care package to prepare. After we get our LOA there's a slow-motion flurry of forms from several US agencies and the consulate. Assuming no snags, we will probably be able to travel around 3 months after LOA, which puts us an estimated 6 months out from travel as of now.

We are DTC!

That's Dossier to China, as of Tuesday afternoon. All the US approvals etc. are finally on their way.

The next acronym we wait for is LID, for Logged In Date, which means we'll have been officially entered into China's system.

I-800A approval

Arrived in Monday's mail in the form of a very boring-looking letter called an I-797, with information about where to send the subsequent I-800 that is already out of date. However, our goverment was at work and has provisionally approved us to adopt a child from a country which is party to the Hague Convention on the Rights of the Child. Excellent! Once we get the final approval from China we file that I-800 which will approve us for our specific child.

What's important about the I-800A approval is that it's the final piece of paper needed for our dossier. So I took it to our agency yesterday afternoon, and they will doublecheck the whole paper stack and then send it to China.

Pre-approved

It looks like China thinks we'll do all right at this parenting thing. Today we got our pre-approval notice which is not unlike getting pre-approval on a mortgage. Assuming that our official dossier, once they receive it, matches the information we sent China in our Letter of Intent, China will let us adopt this young man.

Since we didn't lie in our dossier, that's good news for us!

Biometricated

Yesterday morning we went downtown to our friendly local USCIS franchise to get our fingerprints taken. We did this 3 years ago, and presumably the fingerprints haven't changed a whole lot since then, but what the hey. All told, it was probably the quickest interaction I've ever had with our federal bureaucracy. We were in and out of there in 15 minutes. I totally made it to my 9:00 meeting at work. Applying for my library card took longer than that.

So that's another hurdle out of the way. Now we wait for the governments to agree that we're fit parents.

Paper Progress

And now back to the waiting part...

We got a letter that our I-800A had indeed been received, and then were summoned for our fingerprinting appointment next Friday (and I do mean summoned: if we decide not to show up or reschedule by *mail* (what century is this?), our entire application will be canceled). So we'll be there.

Jim finished our LOI and our agency has now sent it to China. LOI stands for Letter of Intent. Although our homestudy approved us for a number of medical needs, the LOI requires us to address how we plan to handle the needs of the specific child whose referral we have accepted. So we wrote about the excellent pediatric cardiology in Boston and lots of snuggles.

Our agency hopes to have pre-approval back from China soon (that letter means that as long as our homestudy backs up what we wrote in the LOI, we should be cleared to adopt that child). They want to send our pre-approval with our completed US governmental paperwork, so that everything will move quickly. I had no idea we could do these steps concurrently!

We've winnowed the field down to two American names for the little dragon, but we're still working on it.

Our second son

Our homestudy hadn't been in our hands a week yet. We just got the money order to send to USCIS (to pay people's salaries to open a file, then fingerprint and cross-check us). I was going to post the I-800A when I discovered a typo on the first page (our address, kinda important), so we got that fixed and posted it the next day.

The other thing that happened that day was we got a referral!!!!!!!!!!!!! We weren't planning to look at files until around February when our completed and authenticated dossier would be sent to China. But our agency received a list of kiddos just for them, and since I think we're the only family they have who is open to a boy referral, they emailed us to see if we would be interested in looking.

Well, how could we not look? The little boy is 18 months old and has a congenital heart defect, which has already been successfully operated on. And Reb works in the best place--within minutes his blood work was being checked by our ER doctor, our visiting fellow from China (who is from his hometown!) was helping me pronounce his name, and another Chinese fellow was helping to translate some of the medical documents. He brought the rest home to his wife, who is also Chinese and also a cardiologist, so that she can explain them to us. And she got recommendations of two pediatric cardiologists with whom to discuss the diagnosis. The help was pretty amazing, and it would have been more fun if she hadn't been almost hyperventilating. She kept saying, "But we didn't expect this until February!" Wait shmait. Hah.

After the myriad consultations, we decided to accept the referral, and we're now full steam ahead again putting together acceptance documents and paying in-country fees. We're also still working on figuring out what his name's going to be (down to 9 candidates). We have 2 kids! Now we just have to get us all together.

I-800A on the way

It was posted last Thursday. Sorry in the blogging delay, we've been combined busy and sick for almost a week now. Bad combo.

I checked the tracking today to see where it was, and was informed that it had been dropped off at 9:12 on Thursday. I know that, I was there.

This application opens a file for us with the USCIS and included our homestudy. Hopefully we'll get a fingerprinting appointment in around a month.

Homestudy Complete!

Our social worker sent us the first draft by email this week. We found a few typos (for example we met in 1996, not 1966). Thanks to all of our recommenders! She included some quotes, and we're rather embarrassed by the gushing. Maybe that's a second reason that recommendations are (mostly, apparently) anonymous.

In the meantime we filled out the I-800, the big government form that gets our process officially moving in the USCIS realm. We couldn't figure out a couple of questions, so we emailed that to our agency and asked for help. Can you believe it, a government form to which the answers aren't clear to reasonably average but overeducated people? We got that cleared up this week too.

So next week we should get our official copies of the homestudy in the mail, and send one out with the I-800. Then we wait for our fingerprinting appointment (probably in about a month).

First big step done

We met with our social worker again yesterday, and gave her all the rest of the paperwork required for our dossier (and some special stuff the agency requires too). The only thing potentially missing are the background checks from Texas, but since those were mailed directly to the agency we think they're probably sitting on a pile there. But we submitted all the letters and pictures and clearances we had. Thank you, writers of references!

Next we wait a few weeks for our social worker to write up our homestudy. Meanwhile we can begin filling out the I-800A (16 pages!) to petition for the privilege to adopt "a" child internationally. (Once we identify "the" child, we file another form called the I-800.)

After we submit the I-800A with the homestudy, we will wait for the government to process it, get our fingerprints done and processed, and wait again for final approval. All this should take about 3 months.

Almost Dossier'd

We picked up our medical clearances today (I flunked my hearing test in one ear, possibly due to that slow-draining cold, but the doctor wrote that it would not alter either my longevity or parenting ability, so we should be fine). Now we only need to collect some pictures (of the apartment and the family), write a cover letter to China, and schedule another meeting with our social worker. Well, and then fill out the big USCIS form.

Jim picked up another crib mattress today, since Gus is using his mattress in the toddler bed and I developed a hangup about taking a picture of the kids' room with only the crib springs showing.

Moving along

It's been slow but productive few weeks. We sent out all our requests for reference letters. We started to get back child abuse clearances from our many states.

We've finished our 10 hours of parenting training now required by the Hague treaty. Our agency recommended Heart of the Matter seminars, which is run by two adoptive moms, one a teacher and one a social worker. The DVDs are basically recordings of one of their all-day seminars, but it was so much information we were glad to spread it out over a couple of week. They did a great job, really excellent information about how lacking a family causes changes in brain development and how we can help to fill in those mental and emotional building blocks with hard work once our kids get home. We did many of these things with Gus without knowing how important they were, and now they're just a part of our parenting style (bonus!). We'd be happy to lend our our videos if you're interested.

We finished researching medical needs. Well, for now--I'm sure there will be more researching once we have a referral. We have a list with which we feel pretty comfortable and will be giving it to our social worker to write into the homestudy at our next meeting.

We also had a reminder about how life will probably be for the first several weeks with a child who doesn't know us and doesn't want to be here. A good friend of ours went into premature labor and called us to take her 3-year-old for the night while her husband rushed back into town. Gus is good friends with this little girl, and she knows us reasonably well, but she still didn't want to be here with us for the night and we were the wrong people to comfort her. It'll be like that, probably, when the next munchkin comes home, only harder. Better to be prepared than not.

Next week is hopefully our first doctor's appointment. We wanted to do it this week but then I got sidelined by a nasty virus. Mostly better now, and hoping to move more quickly next week.

First Social Worker Meeting

Our social worker came to our apartment on Monday morning to chat. She approved our apartment as being child-worthy, picked up the small stack of documents we had ready for her, and talked to us a while to make sure we had a reasonable idea of what we were getting into. Now that we have her contact information, those of you writing us reference letters will soon be getting your forms. This process is moving much faster than last time--our first agency meeting was only a few weeks ago!

Notary Date

Due to a happy excess of caution, we don't have to order more birth and marriage certificates. We ordered extra for Gus's paperwork in case something was lost, and we had enough left over for this dossier! Of course, if something gets lost we'll have to order more.

Had a notary date today. We had so many of these last time we eventually named them. We meet in halfway between our usual places, get things notarized, have lunch, and scatter again. This paperwork really is easier, because we can get everything notarized at once, near the beginning, rather than in spurts throughout the process. We got 9 forms notarized and mailed out all our requests for background checks (3 states each, one twice).

Also tonight we started our Hague parenting training. Taking a parenting training class is a new but a good thing. We're watching a series of DVDs; the first one was really interesting, about how children who haven't had optimal circumstances in the first few months/years of life need extra help in good brain development to process sensory experiences. We can help build good brains by mixing lots of sensory experiences with our presence and physical touch. We did these things very intentionally with Gus, just from the perspective of attachment instead of brain development. Bonus!

The Paperchase Begins

But it's not as exciting as it sounds. We had a meeting at the agency last Wednesday to go through the pile of paperwork to make sure we understood every piece. Happily, it's not as scary this time around, but it's still tedious. Now to fill out lots of forms, order copies of birth/marriage certificates, and get reacquainted with our local notary.

We also scheduled our first meeting with our new social worker for Monday. It sounds like a getting-to-know-you/are-you-sure-what-you're-doing/do-you-understand-all-these-forms kind of meeting. So not terribly exciting either, but all progress.

It's that time again...

The blog is back, and that means the search is on for another future O'Donnell. Here's what we know so far.

Guatemala has closed its international adoption program while it reformats it to conform to the Hague regulations. With no idea how long that will take (it will probably take a lot of work to remake the program to fit into the new framework), we aren't holding our breath, and had to choose another country.

We have chosen China, and specifically the Waiting Child program which includes children with medical needs. That's the short answer. Here's the long one.

As recently as five years ago, abandonments of girls was high due to the combination of the one-child policy and the long-standing cultural preference for boys. Parents around the world responded in a big way, and tens of thousands of adoptive parents made homes for those little girls. However, in five years a lot has changed. Rights for women are advancing in China, abandonments are way down, and domestic adoption is up. These are all great things, but the result is that there are many fewer children available to be adopted by those tens of thousands of potential adoptive parents. Practically this situation has meant a very long wait for young children without medical needs, and because orphanages receive money from the international adoption process to help run their facility, it has also unfortunately resulted in some degree of child trafficking. We do not feel comfortable being part of the demand which creates this situation (it is still quite unclear how widespread it is).

However, the increasing pollution in China has resulted in an increased percentage of children born with congenital defects, and a combination of medical expenses and social discrimination against people with disabilities has left many children with medical needs in need of second homes. We are currently doing our homework researching some of these needs.

Boy or girl? Don't know yet. Won't know until we get the specific file for our child. However, because the children in need of adoption have been girls for so long, many families come into the adoption process with a "girl-only" mindset, meaning that there are many little boys waiting. We'll see!

We took our first official step today, attending an organizational meeting for a potential agency. We have chosen a new agency, not because the old one wasn't great to us and acting ethically in Guatemala, but because we learned post-adoption that they financially support an organization with which we vehemently disagree (maybe I'll rant more on this another time) called the National Council for Adoption (it sounds nice, but it's not). We just couldn't give money to an agency which would in some degree end up funding this organization which makes me so angry it gives me the shivers. We have already started the process somewhat, of course, researching this agency and starting homework on medical needs. Next step is to do more homework into those needs, talk with local families who have worked with this agency and handled some of the needs we are considering, and then file our formal application. We'll keep you posted!

Oh, and please do not talk with Gus about the adoption. We are not planning to discuss it with him until the process is much closer to completion--it's just too long for a small person to wait for something to happen.

He's a Yankee Doodle Dandy

Well, we're now really finished. Gus went to family court yesterday (required to wait 6 months after coming home) to re-adopt in Massachusetts. We signed a little piece of paper formalizing his name change, the judge let him bang the gavel, and Gus is now an American citizen.

And with that, there's no more to say here until there's another future O'Donnell to talk about. Thank you for your kind attention over the past 2 years. See you next time.

Antigua and back home

(The comma is back, and so are we!)

Antigua is a much friendlier place for American tourists than Guatemala City. When we got there, Jacobo drove us around the town (didn't take too long; it's only about 100 square blocks) and to our hotel, the Posada Lazos Fuertes. If you recall our previous post about organizations to which we contribute, you'll recall Safe Passage, the organization that helps kids who otherwise would be foraging through the Guatemala City dump. They own the hotel we stayed at. Most of the other occupants were Safe Passage volunteers, including a church youth group from Maine we met. Makes for a noisy hotel, but quite pretty. The town is quite attractive, too. We spent the next two and a half days roaming around the streets, looking at jade in shops, and playing with Gus in the Parque Central. Good food and a lot of fun. The worst part of the weekend was trying to get Gus to bed for naps.

Monday at noon Jacobo came back to pick us up for the drive back to Guatemala City. At this point we were still planning to fly home the next day. Oscar was going to pick up Gus's visa at the embassy for us and deliver it to our hotel at 4. He did so, but soon after he left Rebekah's sharp eyes noticed that the visa had Gus's name spelled wrong (Guastavo instead of Gustavo). We called Oscar immediately, and he met me at the embassy again a few minutes later. By now the place was closed for the night but Oscar managed to talk our way back in. Inside they informed us that there was no way we could get a revised visa on Gus's passport before our 6:30 flight the next morning. Still don't understand why not; clearly all they had to do was change a field on a record in some database and reprint the form, but that's bureaucracy for you. Chagrined, I walked back to the hotel and informed Reb that we had to change our flights and stay an extra day. We did so, and prepared for another 24 hours of confinement (remember, we couldn't leave the hotel with Gus in Guatemala City).

Tuesday turned out to be not so bad. We ate at the hotel restaurant; we played around with Gus; we packed, and we had internet access again, so we called people via Skype. The embassy had our corrected visa ready by 9:00 am. Nothing else to report there. One thing I will say about our hotels: you don't drink tap water in Guatemala or risk gastrointestinal unpleasantness, so you have to rely on the agua pura, or bottled water. The Lazos Fuertes in Antigua recognized this and had unlimited free water available in those water coolers you see in offices. At the San Carlos, you had to pay for it: Q10 per pint. Not expensive, I know, but it's definitely a point against them in my book.

Wednesday we flew home. We had a long layover in Houston, so after we spent an hour in the Homeland Security back office dealing with immigration, we got to introduce Gus to my family. That was a high point, but just about the only high point. The second leg of our flight was delayed two hours, the first hour due to weather in Boston, and the second due to electrical issues with our plane. It was really rough sitting there, Gus crying and hungry in his car seat and us unable to do anything about it because we needed to save his bottle for takeoff so that he wouldn't have ear troubles. Once we did take off, though, he slept through the entire 4 hours.

And so we're home. Hotel life definitely isn't the best way to start a parent-child relationship, but I think we made the best of it. We can get him on a proper schedule now, and we can start to wean him off the sugar-laden Guatemalan formula and cereal he's been eating (seriously, the stuff smells like hot chocolate mix). It's good to be back.