Our Adoption Story

10 & 11 months

2009-06-15T12:37:00.004-04:00

Whew...it's been a while since I've posted anything. I don't imagine I'll post after 1 yr., but if anyone is still interested in following along, "friend" me on Facebook. :) SO...since I last posted we took our first family vacation to Florida. First of many, I'm sure. We spent time with Grandma & Grandpa Cox and Aunt Shanny & Uncle Ron (& dogs!). Emmy did very well on the flights. Although, it was probably due to the fact she had ear tubes put in the week prior. Those have been wonderful. Emmy has been growing so fast & trying new things constantly. Her favorite toys are salad tongs & a big silver bowl. You know...for banging on and making lots of NOISE. :) She likes anything that plays music, some days we chill out in the living room and put the music channel on ("Party Favorites" is her favorite!) and dance. I sure hope she has rhythm when she gets older. She is eating more & more finger foods and almost prefers that to being fed by mom or dad. Em's 1st b'day will be here before we know it and I think we are counting down the days until we don't have to buy formula anymore!!! We are hearing what sound like her first words, but maybe it's still babbling. She is understanding simple phrases like, "where's the dogs?", "where's daddy?", "uh-oh", "Emmy do it". It's so much fun watching her learn. She finally (at 10.5 months) got her first tooth coming in. And in the last 3 weeks, 3 more poked through. A full month of a teething baby is not so much fun. I guess that's why they make Tylenol & Motrin. This first year with Em has just flown by. I hope the next 17 yrs (or 25!) go by just a little slower.

S,T & E

Not quite one yet, but close enough!

Finalization

2009-04-18T21:45:00.003-04:00

We have finally, after 9 months of waiting, finalized the adoption of Miss Emmy K!! The judge was not sick and it took all of 10 minutes in the courtroom answering general questions and that was it. There were several families there to finalize and it was great to see them all so happy too. A local group called the "Linas Club" makes blankets for children and the court had some in the courtroom for all the children who were adopted on that day. We got to pick out a Strawberry Shortcake blanket for our little girl. We did get a few pictures, but the computer has died again...if it ever awakens again, I'll post some pics from our court-day.

Love,
S,T&E

9 months (& Happy Easter!)

2009-04-12T18:11:00.003-04:00

Emmy K is 9 months old today! Emmy celebrated Easter today with mommy, daddy, Uncle Q, Aunt Jamie, and cousins Jayden & Jarek. We hunted Easter eggs, ate candy, went to the park and had a nice nap in the afternoon. What fun!! Em is still getting icky ear infections, so we are seeing the ENT doc tomorrow to talk about tubes. Poor baby....but I'm sure it'll be much better for her to get them. Emmy is not crawling quite yet, but after seeing how mobile her cousin is, maybe she'll start thinking about it. After WE saw how mobile her cousin is....I'm thinking "hold off a little bit longer!" HA! Emmy continues to babble up a storm, who knows what she is talking about...one of these days I'm sure we'll find out. She is such a joy and such a blessing, we can't remember life without her. See more cute pictures below.

Love,
S,T&E

8 months

2009-03-13T11:37:00.003-04:00

Emmy turned 8 months old yesterday, and it was supposed to be marked with the finalization of her adoption. As it is...the one & only judge in our small KY town called in sick. What are the odds, really??! Since she only hears adoption cases once a month, we now have to wait until April.
Em has been doing well the last month. She really jabbers up a storm at us and loves to watch the dogs. We have introduced her to Mickey, Minnie, Donald & Goofy on Mickey's Playhouse Disney and she loves watching them on Saturday morning. It's fun to watch her shake her little body when the music comes on. We have been having some sleeping issues, but we keep trying different things to see what will work in helping her sleep better at night. She's had lots of visitors this month - Granny P from Illinois & G'ma & G'pa C from FL, and Aunt Sheryl have all come to see her (and us!). More friends & family are coming in the next few weeks. Emmy does well with the "new" people and doesn't seem to mind other people besides mom & dad taking care of her. Emmy & Daddy will have a fun weekend together soon so I can go to IL and have a fun girls weekend.
Our computer at home took a nose dive, so more pictures will have to wait.

Love,
S,T & E

7 Months!

2009-02-12T13:05:00.003-05:00

Emmy is 7 months old today! Time is sure flying by these days. Since 6 mo. we have explored lots of new foods and gotten over yet another ear infection. So far she will eat anything we give her, but her favorites seem to be sweet potatoes, green beans & bananas. We have learned that her body just does not react well to carrots & pears. We'll have the allergist check on those next time we go, I guess! Developmentally she is doing good - right on track. She has rolled only a few times, but the doctor says that bigger babies have a harder time rolling (especially ones with broad shoulders like our little Em). He was not at all concerned about it, and said a greater indicator of development was sitting on her own. She gets better at that every day. We now feel comfortable setting her on the floor and letting her play by herself. Of course, we are always within view to keep an eye on our two 4-legged creatures!! She has started mimicking what we are doing with our mouths - whether it be spitting, sticking her tongue out or making a "pop" sound with her lips and her favorite game right now is "peek-a-boo". Emmy is easily distracted from whatever she is doing when the dogs walk by. She loves to look at them and I'm sure she's thinking, "man, I want to crawl all over them and pull their ears and that tail!".
Emmy continues to be a good natured baby, despite her ability to squeal at the top of her lungs. :) We think she is going to be quite the talker when she is older. She is constantly babbling, "hiiii da da da da...."...we're working on "not da da ... MA MA MA". She'll get there.... :)
Truman and I are doing well. Very, very thankful we are both still working despite the poor ecomony. We have been very blessed!
I have posted more pics below!

Love,
S,T&E

Who put this goofy hat on me??

Can I tell you a secret??

Talking to the Venus-dog!

Playing with her favorite ABC toy!

Pretty in Pink!

6 MONTHS!

2009-01-13T06:40:00.003-05:00

OK, so I'm a day late in the 6 month update, but who really noticed, right? Emmy has found her feet & toes and loves to take hold of them any time she is on her back. We are still working on the rolling over, but she has started to sit up for a few minutes on her own. Once she reaches for something though, over she goes :) We have found some ticklish armpits on our little one. It's so funny when we occassionally get a giggle out of her. Emmy continues to be a good eater - she has now mastered cereal and we have moved on to Sweet Potatoes with no allergic reaction. Next is carrots. mmm..mmm...good stuff.

Normally when the 3 of us are out somewhere and people comment on Emmy, they will say she looks more like Truman. Little do they know, right? :) Anyway, it doesn't bother us at all. But the other day we got an original, honest comment. Someone said, "Is this your little girl?". We said, "Yes" and he says, "Well, she doesn't look anything like either of you". It cracked us up! Nope, she doesn't :)
I have posted a few pictures below of our last month with Emmy. She's growing like a weed and we love it!
Love,
S,T & E

I'm 6 months old today!!
Chewing on daddy's hat (yes, imagine the germs!!) But all that slobber is from Emmy!!
Emmy & Venus - check out the wild hair!! When we first put her in this exersaucer, we had to put a towel in front of her to keep her up. Not anymore!!

Christmas fun!

2008-12-29T13:42:00.003-05:00

We had a wonderful Christmas this year! It was great fun to get up with our little one on Christmas morning and see what Santa had brought for her :) We went to Christmas Eve services and Emmy enjoyed listening to all the music. She woke us up bright & early Christmas morning around 6am (not for presents, but to EAT!). After all the presents were unwrapped and the dogs were fed, we hopped in the car for our 6 hr. drive to Indiana to spend the rest of the weekend with Truman's family. Em was held by everyone, and was a real tropper about it all. We even kept her out past her bedtime Saturday night for Grandpa Butch's retirement party. She was out like a light as soon as we left the party! This Christmas is the first of many memorable ones I'm sure. Hope you all had a great Christmas & have a Happy New Year! Enjoy the few pictures below.
Love,
S,T & E

5 Months

2008-12-12T12:52:00.007-05:00

Has it really been a whole month since I last posted?? AND...has it really been 5 months since we've been parents???!!! Where does the time go? This last month has been full of growing, learning and healing. Growing because our little girl was 17lbs at her last check up and in the 90th percentile of other babies her age. She quickly grew out of her 3/6 month clothes and is now comfortably wearing straight 6 months and soon will be in 6/9 mo. clothes I'm sure. Good thing she has a closet full of clothes all the way to 18 months!!! When I say this month was one of healing, I mean that I think we have finally gotten the breathing & eczema under control. Poor thing has to have breathing treatments daily, but they really seem to be helping. We saw the allergist and she has a few allergies -- and a slight reaction to the dogs. As much as we want them to be best buddies and play together, that's just not in the cards right now for Emmy. We have been keeping them out of her room and away from her as much as possible. Right now, they are really getting the shaft, but we try to give them lots of love at night after Emmy is asleep. They are good dogs and aren't really showing any jealousy signs. For that we are thankful! Emmy is learning that her "squeals, cries & general noisiness" will get mom & dad's attention. :) Hmmmm...I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing?? She is quite the stinker sometimes when she cries, but then we walk in the room and she's all smiles. Yeah, we're wrapped....what can we say?? She is starting to hold objects and put them directly into her mouth. Her favorite "chew toys" are her fingers or whatever blanket she happens to be holding. She has been drooling so much, I'm surprised we haven't seen teeth yet. Maybe by our 6 month update??? Since she has been feeling better, and showing all other signs that she's ready, we have been feeding her some cereal. Yay!! She enjoys it in the evenings and kicks her feet in excitement when it's time for the next bite!
We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with my family in Illinois! Emmy got plenty of attention and showed off her "talking" skills to anyone who would listen :) We are busy getting ready for Christmas and look forward to sharing our Christmas day with our daughter this year, as well as traveling to Indiana to spend the holidays with Truman's family.

Not quite 5 months old here. This was in the car on our way home from IL

Go 'Cats!!

4 Months!!

2008-11-12T08:09:00.003-05:00

Baby Emmy is 4 months old today!! This month has been full of learning & development for her. Remember that I wrote in her 3 month blog that she was sick? Well, it never quite went away. We had been following the doctor's advice, but she never really got better. It all escalated last Friday when the daycare called to say she was so congested that she was having trouble breathing. I quickly left work and made a dr.'s appt. for that afternoon. Three hours, 2 chest X-rays, 2 breathing treatments and numerous pokes & prods from the doctor later....we leave the office with FIVE prescriptions! Poor thing had ear infections in both ears (in our defense...she NEVER had a fever, she didn't give us any signs that her ears were bothering her), had some liquid steriods for her congestion, an inhaler for the wheezing, topical steriod for the dry skin, suggestions to switch her formula to a hypoallergenic brand, suggestions to use Eucerin & Aquaphor more often than we currently do, referral to a Pediatric Allergist and instructions to bathe her only twice a week. OH! And the kicker - no solid foods until 6 months. Dang - I was looking forward to starting cereal tonight, but we will do what's best for her!! Let me just say....ALL of this combined has done wonders for our little girl!!! She was always a pretty good baby....but now - she is even more so.
Her dry skin (especially on her face) has cleared up, Her congestion cleared up so fast that she was back to sleeping on her back by Saturday night, and she is even more chatty than usual. The one side effect is that she is not eating as much as she once was. But, that could be a result of some of her meds.
Other than being sick, she has really started to grab at toys dangling in front of her. She enjoys having a blanket or bib to pull at and hold while she's eating. She has been kicking & pulling her feet up more, but not grabbing at her feet yet. She still does NOT like to be on her tummy much, but her head control is great. She can sit up pretty well with the assistance of the boppy. She is growing, growing, growing every day. We are all looking forward to spending some time with Truman's sister & her family this weekend. Then it will be time to travel to IL for Thanksgiving!!
Five months will be here before we know it!!

Until then...

Love,
S,T & E

Dossier Documents

2008-11-07T11:00:00.003-05:00

Hey, what do you know - we got our original Ukraine dossier documents returned to us. It only took 4 months! Now if we can just recoup some of the money we lost....

I continue to read about other families Ukraine adoption experiences, and I thank God everyday for sending us our Emmy. We got cabin fever in Missouri for 2 weeks, I cannot even imagine spending 8 weeks (or more) in Ukraine. In the end it's about finding your children and that is what most of these families are doing. I'm just very thankful that we found our daughter (or did she find us?) :) when we did. She is such a joy and she makes all the stress of the day go away when she smiles at us. She is learning and growing each day; it's an incredible feeling to be a part of that.

Happy Friday!!
Love,
S,T & E

Trick or Treat!!

2008-11-02T18:45:00.002-05:00

Emmy's first Halloween was so much fun! We borrowed the costume from a friend and I'm so glad we did. I wasn't going to dress her up this year, but we got some super cute pictures of her. The past few weeks have been wonderful. My mom came to visit and we went to the pumpkin patch and got Em's 3 month pictures taken. This weekend Truman's parents came and Emmy got to spend Halloween with them and helping mom & dad pass out Halloween candy to all the neighborhood kids. Emmy also got to meet some of daddy's friends from "across the pond" who came in town for a wedding we all went to on Saturday night. Grandma & Grandpa got to watch Emmy while we were gone and they say she was a perfect angel. Hmmm....why isn't she like that with us???!! LOL! Em has really started to grab at toys or her blanket and put them directly in her mouth. Today Truman got her to give a little giggle. I think it was the cutest thing I've ever heard!! She is still eating well and sleeping very good at night - although with the time change today that may throw her off just a bit. Ten more days until we can officially try to feed her cereal. I'm hoping that goes ok. Some babies just aren't ready for cereal until 6 months. But, she is downing her bottles so I think she needs a little more to fill her belly.
I'll leave you with a few pictures from the weekend....
Love to all,
S,T & E

Adoption Music Video

2008-10-24T08:43:00.003-04:00

Two very special people sent us a music video. It's definitely worth watching if adoption has ever touched your lives. I have added the link on the right sidebar of the blog under "Adoption Articles". Have the kleenex's ready....:) And let me know what you think.

3 months!!

2008-10-12T10:30:00.002-04:00

Our 3 month old Kentucky girl!!

Update

2008-10-09T14:59:00.002-04:00

Well, I see it's been awhile since we updated you on our baby girl. She will be 3 months old on Sunday and I think it's been the quickest 3 months of our lives!! Since I last updated we have spent our first weekend apart from Emmy so we could go to Bourbon Fest in Bardstown, KY. Thank you so much to my good friends, Rachel & Melissa, for coming to spend the weekend with Em. I only wish I could have spent more time with them. But, I'm quickly learning that when you have a baby, it's not about YOU anymore. It's about THEM! We have also completed our "post-placement" requirement for the state of KY. Whoohoo! All that's left to do on that front is to get a court date in our county and finalize. All that should happen before 2008 is over. We also visited the doctor twice. Once for a cold that she got from her mama(poor girl was so congested and coughing!) and 3 days later for her first round of shots. Em weighed in at 13 lbs, 10 oz and 23-3/4" long - that puts her in the 70th percentile according to the doctors charts. She hollered during the shots, but calmed down pretty easy and fell asleep on the car ride home. She is still trying to get over the cold, so in the meantime she continues to sleep in the carseat at night to help with the congestion. Speaking of sleeping.....this baby is a gem at night. Since 8 weeks old (give or take a night or 2 for whatever reason), she has been sleeping through the night. I give all the credit to following the "Babywise" philosophy. It's a feed/wake/sleep pattern that you start from Day 1 and it has worked wonders for us (and for several friends!). There have been no other huge issues for her other than the yucky dry skin. That is why her face is so red in the picture. It gets so dry, she starts rubbing her face against her hands or against our shoulders or in the crook of our elbow if we are holding her. Finally we wised up and started putting on vaseline-type stuff and it has cleared up pretty good. But, going into colder weather will probably not help the dry skin. We'll just keep her slathered up each night!
Truman and I seem to be adjusting quite well. I can now say, "what did we do with our time before she came along??". Sometimes it's so cool just to sit and watch her and try to get her to smile at us. (which comes REALLY easy in the morning!!) She is quite the talker and happy to chat back & forth to us most of the time. The teachers at her daycare love her. One even said the other day that she came in early to hold her because she didn't get to the previous day. Awwww.....it's good to hear those kinds of things.
The dogs are still doing good with Emmy. I catch her watching them every once in a while, so I know they will all be good friends. They greet her just like they greet us when we come home -- with kisses! She doesn't seem to mind one or 2 kisses. :) Tonight we are off to an event at the distillery. She has so many admirers there, so I know we'll enjoy ourselves. Then next weekend Grandma Peggy is coming to visit & we'll get some 3 mo. pictures done. I'll try to do a better job at updating this blog a little more often. Thanks for reading...

Love,
S,T & E

2 MONTHS!

2008-09-12T18:24:00.003-04:00

In her new Bumbo seat!

Our baby girl is two months old today! She is still a little unstable in the seat, but her head control gets better each day. We'll put her in the seat a few minutes each day until she can sit on her own. Em is doing well in daycare -- all the teachers love her of course!! Mommy is doing good going back to work (except for coming down with a cold - which we are trying to keep from the baby, but we are pretty sure she's going to catch the crud too!) Daddy is also doing good at work and we are all getting used to our new normal. Bourbon Festival is coming up this weekend and Aunt Raq & Aunt MO are coming to stay with Miss Emmy. We look forward to a weekend away (and maybe some sleeping in!!), but I know we'll miss our little girl. She'll be in awesome hands though and we know she'll be spoiled rotten when we come back on Sunday.

As far as working with the agency that closed it's doors on us....we are working on getting some money back from their insurance company. Who knows if it will work, but we have to try. It blows our mind that they can keep our money and the money of all the other families they were "working" with. We did have our first Post Placement Visit with the new agency last week. Everything was great with that, and we will have one more visit in a couple more weeks at our home. All they are looking for is to make sure Emmy has a room/bed. Yep - got that one covered!!

Every day is still an adjustment, but we still look at our daughter in awe sometimes and know that she was meant to be ours!

Love,
S,T&E

Our new normal

2008-09-09T19:52:00.005-04:00

Today was my second day back to work and Em's 2nd day at daycare. All the teachers love her (of course!) and say that she's such a good baby. I am enjoying being back at work and getting back into what will be my new routine. We are all still making adjustments, but it seems to get better each day. Each day we are learning more about parenting and more about our beautiful daughter. Thanks to all our friends & family who have given us such great advice!!

Since the last blog, we have traveled to IL, IN & MO. Em is quite the pro at riding in the car, sleeping in the car, feeding in the car.....actually she is a pretty good traveling companion. We stop for her to eat, we get to stretch our legs, then she promptly returns to uninterrupted slumber. (at least that's how it goes most of the time, she does cry & fuss on occassion) :) Our families threw us incredible Dr. Seuss showers and they helped us fill Em's closet with so many cute clotes from 3 mo - 18 mo!!! As well as give us many much needed baby items. Our latest roadtrip was to Missouri to attend court. That was a huge milestone as we are now legal guardians of our little girl!!! There were several other families there at the same time for the same reason and it was nice to chat with them for a while about their experiences.

She will be 2 mo. on Friday so she still isn't doing a whole lot of "fun" stuff, but we have gotten some really cute smiles. (whether it's gas or hiccups coming on, I don't care - she still has a cute smile!) She continues to be a good eater and boy she knows how to let us know when she's hungry!!! Em is also starting to sleep longer at night and we have been blessed with the timing of it all!! Just as I'm ready to go back to work, she started sleeping until about 5:30-6am (with no waking up from about 9:30-10pm!). Perfect timing! She also really enjoys bath time and getting outside in her stroller for walks and she has truly found her thumb!! (sorry for the next part Aunt Patti...) She loves to suck (LOUDLY!) on her hand and her thumb. We have tried repeatedly trading the thumb for the paci, but to no avail. So, we let her go and let her do her thing. If it's thumbsucking or fussing...I'm all for the thumbsucking. Gotta maintain your sanity somehow, right??

Below are a few pictures of our little darlin'!

Love,
S,T&E

She's smiling because she's excited for "school"!!

The dogs adore Miss Em!

One Month!

2008-08-12T11:16:00.003-04:00

Our little girl is one month old today! How time flies!! I'll start you off with a cute 1-month old picture...
She has been a wonderful addition to our family! For the most part, she is a very content baby - except for when she is hungry. She doesn't really do much yet, but we are expecting things to "pick up" soon! Probably right as I'm going back to work she will start to get "fun". :) Daddy likes to read her Dr. Seuss books and Mommy likes to take her for walks on these not-so-hot days.

On our Ukraine adoption front....all I can say is God had a hand in our adoption of Emmy. Just last week we get an email from the agency saying they are closing their doors. Gee...wonder where our money went that we paid to have our dossier registered???!! Not to the facilitator, that's for sure! No wonder we have been getting the runaround from them. We are "exploring our options" as far as what to do with this. Suggestions??? :)

Love,
S,T & E

Adjusting

2008-08-04T08:00:00.005-04:00

We have been home for a few days and seem to be adjusting well. Truman went back to work today, so this is my first full day alone with Em. We'll have a good day, I'm sure! :) Our day is about to start with her first trip to the pediatrician here. I'm anxious to see how she's grown in these last 3 weeks. The dogs are taking to our new family addition famously. We thought our older dog would be more of the protector of Emmy, but it turns out our younger lab is the mothering one. Go figure! I did get some CUTE pics of them together that I posted below. Gotta get the little one up and dressed! TTFN!!

Home Sweeeeeeet Home!

2008-07-31T15:02:00.002-04:00

We arrived home as a family last night around 9:30pm. It feels so good to be home & back with the doggies! The dogs were so excited to see us; they looked so much bigger to us!! They were also very curious about this new little person who is taking over their room. They are showing their love by showering her with kisses on her feet, hands & nose. She doesn't seem to mind so that is a good sign!! She'll be crawling & pulling tails & ears in no time at all. Our lab, Venus, loves to sit on the bed next to the rocking chair and watch us feed Emmy. One of these days we'll get a picture of that and post it.

So, a little backstory on how this came about....Towards the end of May, one of Susan's aunts sent an email asking if we were interested in a possible domestic adoption. YES, YES, YES!! We tried not to get our hopes up too much because we didn't have all the details at first. After ongoing communication with the birth mother, we quickly realized that this was in fact the path she wanted to go. We quickly set forth getting lawyers in KY & MO, a social worker in MO and getting our homestudy updated. Yes, we had to use our current international agency for that, but it turned out OK. They also required us to take another online parenting education "class". What a crock - because we had already taken the same "class" for the international program. Oh well - water under the bridge now.....We traveled to St. Louis over 4th of July to meet the birth mother and everything went so well. It's like God hand-picked us for each other. Everything with this process went so smoothly, we couldn't have planned it better. We got the call early on 7/12 that she was in labor and we quickly finished some things up at home and headed out. (Keep in mind that she was originally due on 7/21, but was planning on inducing on 7/16). Somewhere in IL we get the call that E.K.C. was born and we were overjoyed!!!! We were able to visit birth mom & baby in the hospital and then b.m. brought E.K.C. to us at my aunt's house on 7/14 -- four days before my b'day. What a gift!!!! We have wanted this for so very long and it's still unreal that we have our little girl!!!

I hope we are able to keep up with this blog and keep you all posted on how our little girl is doing. Next up for us, adoption wise, is to terminate our contract for Ukraine and then do two post placements for E.K.C and finalize this adoption in 3 months. OH - and we will have to travel back to MO for a court hearing in a month or so. Stay tuned in, I know we'll have a lot in store for us over the next few years!!

Love to all,
S, T & E

Can we go home yet??

2008-07-28T16:49:00.005-04:00

Nope, we are not home yet. Seems we are getting conflicting information from our lawyers, their assitant, and our social worker. Much like with international adoption, a judge has to make the adoption "legal" and assign us parental rights. We thought that was done last week and now we are finding out that maybe it hasn't been done by the judge?? Hopefully we can get some answers today. We have our home state attny working on it as we speak.
Em continues to be a good baby! But she is ready to get home to her two doggies - as are her mommy & daddy!!! We'll leave you with a couple cute pics!

Love,
S, T & E

Things are going GOOD!!

2008-07-21T12:37:00.003-04:00

This is my favorite picture - when I comb her hair after a bath, it naturally goes into this mohawk!

Emmy continues to be a good baby! She had lots of visitors this weekend and they all LOVED her!!! Of course, why would't they? She's a doll. She sleeps really well and eats pretty good. She had her first mall outing yesterday and enjoyed being pushed around in the stroller. We think we will be able to go home on Friday. We are missing our dogs & our house. All three of us in one hotel room is getting a little old!

Love,
S&T

The reason we haven't blogged in a while...

2008-07-17T11:15:00.002-04:00

Isn't she precious?? So...about the time we began having issues with our Ukraine adoption and our agency we got a phone call from one of my aunt's who knew of a possible domestic adoption. We will blog about some details later, but the end result is that our daughter was born on 7/12/08 and we are in the home stretch of our adoption journey. We only had to travel out of state, not out of country. We will likely be away from home for another week or so. Words cannot accurately express how God touched this situation. I didn't realize an adoption could honestly go this smoothly, we truly have been blessed 10X over. Thank you to our family & friends who were so very supportive throughout all this!!

Love from two very happy, excited & tired parents!!
Su & Tru

Truman's POV part 2

2008-06-24T16:09:00.003-04:00

For family and friends that have more details of our situation, please do not comment about any knowledge you have at this time, due to contractual obligations we are under, information of any sort must not be entered or discussed in this forum, thank you. All will be explained soon.

Well adoption fan’s I must apologize for the long interruption of no activity. We feel your pain. We have been getting all of your messages and well wishes and we REALLY appreciate them.

The following is a completely hypothetical and grammatically confusing rendering of what we might have gone through up until now. Any similarities to real events or people are coincidental and not, contractually speaking, derogatory representations of a certain agency, as this scenario is only in my head…I guess.

We might have been given 3 different dates for submittal of our dossier, all of which probably came and went with nothing. We might have asked questions and would have been told that we aren’t allowed to interfere with the process and we just don’t understand the system. We could have been told that the facilitator for a certain agency was trying to get our dossier in through the back door and that is the way things are done. I would then have said something about our dossier being received in January and asked why there was no appointment made since the SDA didn’t open up appointments until February. The answer would probably have been,” you just don’t understand how it works. The facilitator always gets children at the age requested.” I, of course, would have responded in a very negative manor that the process hadn’t even begun, why in the hell would I care about the success rate of the final step.
I would probably try and find out how to get our dossier moved to an effective facilitator that so many of our e-friends seem to have. We would have been reminded at this point that the contract we would have signed probably had stipulations that the contract would be terminated with no refunds or returned documents if we, hypothetically:
1. contacted any one in Ukraine about our adoption
2. spoke ill to or about a certain agency
3. contacted sources outside the certain agency with regards to our process
4. interfered with the process in any way, in the judgment of a certain agency

During this whole exchange, and I am just guessing here, we might have been transferred to 2 different case workers, the certain agency might have shut the program down to new clients, with absolutely no notification to the current program client's. Can you imagine the surprise we would have had, finding out that the program was shut down from the internet while we were dumping check after check into the certain agency. WOW, am I glad that didn’t happen We, being the nervous nellies we are, would have asked for regular updates or some contact in any way shape or form. At this point I am sure we would be labeled as difficult, imagine wanting information? The nerve we would have had. I am sure that after 3 weeks of NO contact we would get a terse email telling us that the director of the certain agency was now involved, no contact or note of course, but we would be told that was happening. I would assume I was being lied to, because I don’t think, hypothetically, the case manager would have been able to answer direct questions about the location of our dossier, the name of the facilitator or any real proof that the dossier left the US in the first place, which I would ask in a case that would typically happen like this. We would never have then contacted the SDA for registered Facilitators or checked on our dossier status, because, in this hypothetical situation, the SDA would not have heard of anyone named by the certain agency and our dossier would not be registered for an appointment. Also we would probably have been required to take an expensive 9-11 hour course on foreign adoption parenting, which, again big guess here, would turn out to be a 12 chapter (30-35 total pages)”e-book” of simplistic reading and questions that can be answered with no comprehension of the English language. An example might have been, “did you learn anything from this chapter?” YES, would be a tough answer to come up with. Good thing nothing like this really happens. If it did, I might be a little mad. Susan and I might also consider dumping the agency altogether and determine if we can still do this independently and come out ahead from the fees that a certain agency says we would still owe. Maybe.

But what is really happening, is that we are told everything is going along fine, even though we haven’t heard a damn detail. We are still with an agency that assures us, when we call, that they are working hard. We still have hope that we will adopt a child, but we have very little hope that we will go to Ukraine in 2008.

Please tell everyone you meet or hear from that if they choose Ukraine, and they should, do it independently. Don’t be the fraidy cats we were, thinking that an agency would be in our best interest. You can do it alone and you should. I realize that most of this rant is money related but it is criminal what they expect us to pay. I am still in favor of paying the “expediting fee’s” but I demand service that I pay for and will show the world someone getting money for nothing. There is no reason to drain all available funds from the people who are doing the right thing to fund a process that seems determined to harm everyone in it. As you may have read from my last POV, I don’t understand why we allow ourselves to be held hostage by the end result and accept being bludgeoned financially and emotionally along the way without speaking up and challenging the system? I do know why, I just don’t like that we have to…
Love and best wishes to all in this journey,
Truman

We now return you to our regularly scheduled blogger.

No Good News

2008-05-23T09:31:00.002-04:00

I'm sorry to keep posting bad news, I do wish I could post something a little more positive. We are hearing things like, "..you just don't know what's going on in this country.." and, "we're working with the facilitator regarding your case" and, "we'll let you know when we know something"....These statements are just not good enough for us. Maybe we expect too much?? We certainly don't think so; we think we are entitled to some answers at this point. Had they been honest up front about our submission date, I'm sure we wouldn't have a problem. All we want are some concrete answers and we're not getting them. It's so very frustrating right now. We are hoping to follow some advice of fellow bloggers, but that takes time to actually follow through on. In the meantime, we sit full of uncertainty and wait (I HATE that word!!!).
On the up side -- we are getting out of dodge again this weekend to spend some time with Truman's parents in IN. We enjoy visiting them and especially enjoy the time spent with our nephews!
Thanks to all who have sent words of encouragement our way!

Runaround

2008-05-20T14:26:00.002-04:00

That's what it feels like we are getting. Oh how I wish we would have done things differently from the beginning of this adoption process. But to change things now would feel like one giant step backwards. All we want is a child, just one...I just don't understand why it has to be so hard. As I suspected we did not get submitted **again** on 5/17; nor on 5/19. Supposedly our facilitator is taking our dossier tomorrow....yeah, right...I don't hold out much hope for that either. My understanding is that we either have an appointment to submit or we don't. Obviously if we are not given firm dates, we don't have an appointment. What kind of crooked dealings are we getting into?! The latest blow, in what seems like a series of blows recently, is really starting to test my faith and ability to continue along this path. I hope & pray that tomorrow brings better news.

Updates done!

2008-05-07T13:15:00.003-04:00

We can now breathe a sigh of relief because the remaining document updates are on their way to Fed-Ex today. Truman had some hiccups along the way today in getting them notarized, certified & apostilled, (including wading through hoards of kiddos at the Sec. of State's office) but they are done and now we can relax and wait to hear news of their submission - which, by the way, is 10 days from today. Can you imagine how hard the waiting will be after everything is submitted??? Those are going to be the longest 20+ days!!!
Love, S&T

SDA Appt.

2008-05-03T07:49:00.009-04:00

Is October 11th. At least according to the dream I had last night. HA! Had ya going there for a minute, didn't I? I wonder what the significance is of that date or why it appeared in my dream. That date should be more like a homecoming date. It wasn't much of a dream, it just appeared on the outside of a package I received at home. It said "SDA 10/11/08 - 11/11/08". Now, all you other families know the SDA doesn't give you a RETURN date. LOL! That's just craziness :) Anyway, if you've been reading along this whole time you know that I like to jot down my adoption-related dreams so I can come back after this is all done and see if there was any scary truths to them.
On another note...I am rooting for "Recapturetheglory" & "Cool Coal Man" in the Derby today. Too bad all the Derby-goers will be watching in the rain today. I will be watching from the comfort of my living room.
UPDATE: I guess the weather cleared up for Derby Day in Louisville. Neither of my horses won me anything, but it was exciting to watch them try. Congrats to Big Brown for winning the roses. (yes, I have gotten into horse racing since moving to KY!)

It's May...

2008-05-01T13:57:00.002-04:00

...the month of our dossier submission. Whew -- what a time trying to get these few documents updated. I am **extremely** happy to report that the marriage license made it to the agency today. The employment letters & medical forms will be completed on Monday and should be in the agency's hand by Wednesday. I think we'll be safe from having any "expired" documents at submission time. A big thank you to all who helped!
Love, S&T

So much for April...

2008-04-25T21:23:00.005-04:00

We found out today that there is "chaos" at the SDA and new submissions are moving slowly. However, the facilitator that our agency works with says we have a submission date of May 17th. I can live with that (as long as this date sticks!). At least it's a date, not too far out, to look forward to. BUT...when we were told we would be submitted at the end of April, we didn't have any documents to update. That is NOT the case now. We have less than 3 weeks to get 3 or 4 documents prepared, certified, apostilled & sent. That would be easy to do if they were documents that WE could prepare. Luckily, I have a very good friend who is willing to help us out tremendously!! She is saving us 12 hours in the car to travel to IL just to get a certified copy of our marriage license and then more travel time to the capital to get it apostilled. (and with gas prices today...she's saving us about $300 in gas!!) Andi, we love you!! Thank you so much for helping us!! We also have to redo our medical forms. (and I can hear all the other Ukraine families groan right now -- the dreaded, evil medical forms) I don't know about you, but I'm not sure what insurance company will agree to pay for another HIV, TB, Syphillis, etc...test in less than a 12 mo. period. It's the price we pay, I guess. :) It will all be worth it! Next week will be filled with running all over to dr.'s appointments and to the capital getting all the apostilling done. Thank goodness Tru works in the capital city!! I'd say we are in the "hurry up" part of adoption. Give it two weeks and we'll be back to "waiting" again.
We'll be sure to update with the latest happenings in this crazy ride!!

Love, S&T

Easter in Ukraine

2008-04-23T09:40:00.008-04:00

This coming Sunday is Easter in Ukraine. I wonder how (or if) our child will be celebrating this year? I know next year will be a very different kind of celebration for them. Below is a little more about the history of the Easter tradition in Ukraine. Enjoy!! Love, S&T

Easter bunnies hop across tables in America. Solemn Christian remembrances of Biblical stories of the resurrection capture the attention of many believers in spring as well. While the exquisitely painted and decorated psanky eggs may be a signature of Ukrainian Easter tradition across the world, a host of other customs rooted in pagan belief defines this rite of spring.
Predicated on the role of Nature’s power and cyclical rhythms, the agrarian way of life of ancient Ukrainians reflected the foundations of early religious belief. Paying homage to the sun, moon, stars, rain, animals and plants, the coming of spring heralded the reemergence of dormant life and birth. Rituals of celebration and worship came in many forms including song and dance, the baking of special breads, the burning of fires and the coloring and decorating of the first psanky eggs.
Absorbed into the movement of Christianity, the spring rituals of paganism survived and became the fundamentals of Easter. Where once ancient Ukrainians baked bread in the shape of birds to welcome the avian creatures return with the early days of spring, today, an honored Easter bread, the paska, decorated with symbolic Christian signs of the cross and remnants of pagan belief like rosettes, leaves, pine cones and birds grace tables. Centuries ago, the woman making the bread had to maintain pure thoughts while kneading the dough and the man of the house stood guard to prevent any evil spell from entering the house while the bread baked.
Willow trees, believed to have medicinal properties, bloom in the spring, and long ago people tapped each other with a new branch to draw healing energy and strength from nature. Contemporary Christian belief in Ukraine honors the Sunday before Easter as Willow Sunday in accordance with Gospel narrative retelling the story of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. Today, branches of willow trees are blessed by priests and offered to the faithful. The belief may have changed but the ritual remains close to the days of Ukrainian pagans.
The celebration of Resurrection Mass on Easter Sunday takes another page from the pagan songbook. Centuries ago, young pagan girls performed hahilky dances by in sacred groves by the water meant to entice the coming of spring and chasing the desolation of winter away. As Christian thought swept through the Ukrainian landscape, early Ukrainian churches were traditionally built to face east towards the rising sun. Near the end of Mass as the priest said, “Chrystos Voskres” (Christ had risen) the church doors were opened washing the congregation in rays of sunlight.
Part pagan ritual, part Christian belief, Ukrainian Easter is imbued with tradition and symbolism whatever one celebrates uplifting souls from the Black Sea to the Carpathian Mountains and all landscapes between.

This is an Easter bread called Paska, commonly made in Ukraine for the Easter holiday. Follow this link (may have to just copy & paste) to find the recipe!
http://cookingwithkimberly.com/?p=282

Closer to Submission

2008-04-06T13:09:00.002-04:00

We have both been away all weekend and I'm dog tired, but I have some positive news to share on the adoption front. When our dossier finally gets submitted, all documents MUST have at least 6 months of "life" left on them. Documents are "good" for one year after the date on them, but the SDA requires that they have 6 months remaining at the time they review (or they will reject your dossier), just to ensure that the documents are still good when we travel. So, last week I reviewed our documents and we had a few that we did early on in the process that have a November date on them, meaning we would have to update them before the middle of May. I asked our case manager about them and I just read an email from her saying that "...although she doesn't know a submission date for our dossier, that she was told it would be submitted before the end of April". UUHhhhh...that's like THIS month!! Can I freak out yet??! Once it's submitted, the SDA has 20 business days to review and hopefully approve our dossier, then they will assign us an appointment date generally 2-3 months later. That would still put us traveling in September, which is really our best case scenario right now. Each step forward is so exciting; I just cannot imagine what it will be like to post a blog saying "Today we leave for Ukraine". I guess we'll find out soon enough.....:)
Love to all,
Susan & Truman

p.s. We are officially Aunt Su & Uncle Tru again!!! Whoohooo! Welcome to the family J Ry! Can't wait to meet you in May!

It Makes Sense

2008-03-27T12:10:00.002-04:00

We received information yesterday that we are assured a spot in the SDA's 2008 quota's for our adoption. It's very good news and helps us to rest easy for now. We are hoping our dossier can be submitted this summer (or earlier!), which would mean we should travel in the fall sometime. That's our best case scenario, but things can always change at the drop of a hat. It would make sense then that I had another adoption-related dream last night. I like to blog about these dreams so later on I can look back and see if there was any meaning in them. So this particular dream involved our SDA appointment, except Truman was not there. It was just me and my good friend Melissa. The director pulled out 2 files, but not really "files" just very very small pictures of each child, smaller than wallet size photos. The first one we looked at was a picture of a boy, maybe 4-5 yrs old, with dark shaggy hair in some sort of running pose. But he had turned his head so we could not see his face. Without even looking at the 2nd "file" I accepted this referral (and Melissa was just as excited about it as me!). I even remember the region he was in - Kharkiv. We were not able to call that particular orphanage director to ask any further questions, we just had to take a leap of faith and hope this child was the one. I remember the feeling of such excitement, hope, nervousness, fear, etc..that I'm sure I'll feel when it's done for real. Of course, as dreams do, it ended before finding anything else out about the little boy.
Remind me to revisit these dreams after all is completed and see if we really did travel to the Kharkiv region to adopt a little boy with dark hair. (although, I doubt it will be shaggy as most boys I've seen pictures of have the shaven head look)
Like always, we'll post when there is another "exciting" step crossed!

First Round of Updates

2008-03-18T09:16:00.002-04:00

Yes, already we are having to provide updates to our dossier. Nothing major really, just updated copies of our doctors' licenses (can you believe they make us submit those??!!) since they are only good for one year and renewed in March. SO...Truman was able to get them certified & apostilled yesterday and they will be shipped off today.
We continue with our class in Cinci - only one more Saturday to go. On one hand that's good because it's taken up our last 4 Saturday's (which also means getting up extra early on a weekend). On the other hand, it's too bad they are going to be over because we are really learning a lot and we enjoy spending the time talking with other adoptive families. Hopefully we can all continue to keep in touch after the classes are done.

Will post again when something more "exciting" happens! :)

Love,
Su & Tru

Patience

2008-03-07T08:38:00.002-05:00

First of all, I have to say that NO ONE reading this blog has offended me or has said anything along the lines of my previous post. :) Thank you all for your concern though. It was all the doing of one stupid person and maybe we should have taken the time to educate her on adoption stuff...but frankly, we didn't want to waste our time on her. I just need to learn to have a thicker skin and brush those kind of comments off. I'm learning....just as I'm learning, the hard way, to have patience. I have always been impatient (thanks Mom!) and this waiting on others to process our paperwork is torture sometimes. It feels like we are contantly waiting on something....a response via email, a phone call, the doctor to send us updated paperwork for our dossier, another email response.....it's never ending. You start to wonder if the day you are home with your child will ever come.

On a more positive note, we have been attending the International Adoption (IA) Seminar in Cincinnati for the past 2 Saturday's. We are really enjoying it and learning alot. Personally, I think it applies to issues in domestic & IA. We are meeting some great families adopting from all over the world. It's great to have that bond with them as they know exactly how we feel and vice versa.

I hope my previous post did not scare anyone away from asking questions. We are happy to answer questions about our adoption, and if you offend us we will just tell you instead of ranting on this blog! :) LOL

It's Worth Repeating

2008-02-25T17:01:00.002-05:00

I posted this early on, but am thinking I should post it again. We've had some of these "insensitive" comments thrown our way lately and I felt the need to express that these are things NOT to be said. Not things you should be saying! :)
I'd love to see a list of snappy comebacks for these comments too. Any suggestions out there?! The ones I can come up with are too inappropriate. :)

Things that are NOT to be Said to People Who Adopt:
1. How much did she/he cost?
2. Why did you go and adopt--couldn't you have your "own" child?
3. Did you buy that baby?
4. Maybe now that you adopted, you'll have "your own" child. (will the one we adopt belong to someone else??)
5. She/He looks nothing like either of you.
6. What are you going to do when she/he looks for their birthparent?
7. Do you know her/his "real" parents? (What will we be? The fake parents?)
8. I sure hope he/she fits into your family!
9. Why didn't his/her real mom want him/her?
10. Don't even tell him/her they are adopted, they'll never know.
11. Too bad you had to adopt!
12. Whose fault is it you can't get pregnant?
13. You're doing these kids such a favor.
14. S/he is so lucky to have your family instead of his/her own.
15. An older child is damaged goods .
16. She's your daughter?
17. What about your own kids? What do they think about this?
18. She might come from a cursed background.
19. What are you going to do when you have kids of your own?
20. Do you think you love them as much as you could love your real kids?
21. You got kids the easy way you never even had to be pregnant.
22. What if the real parents come back and kidnap them?

Ukrainian Holiday

2008-02-22T08:54:00.002-05:00

Tomorrow is Motherland Defender's Day in Ukraine. Yeah, I don't know what it means either but I downloaded all Ukrainian holidays onto my Outlook and that's what popped up. Just by the title I could guess it has something to do with the Ukrainian Army, but I could be way off.
There was also a mention of Ukraine on my guilty pleasure website, tmz.com. Something about Jessican Simpson and how her new movie is more popular there than in the US ??? Anytime I see "Ukraine" in print I have to read it.
So...I think we will be happy with the restructuring of our agency. We did find out that our dossier has made it to Ukraine and is in the process of being translated. YAY!!
A friend asked me the other day, "Isn't it weird to know your child is alive and living in an orphanage and just waiting for you?". YES! And the sooner we can go pick him/her up the better their life will be (and ours too)! OUR child, and YOUR grandchild, neice/nephew, cousin, 2nd cousin, even great-grandchild is living in Ukraine and waiting to have a home with a Mom & Dad, two dogs and fantastic extended family! We can't wait to meet him/her!!!!

Just Waiting

2008-02-19T09:25:00.002-05:00

This is the long drawn out part of adoption -- the waiting. We had one final paper to get to our agency regarding Truman's name. Since he is "the III", he had to write something up saying all these names (without the suffix - which really was only on like 2 or 3 papers) are all the same person. He got that done right away, got it certified & apostilled and off it went overnight to the agency. That was the only thing keeping them from sending the dossier to Ukraine. That should happen this week. However, we just got word that they are doing some "restructuring of departments" and our Case Manager is now in AZ, not FL. We're hoping our dossier doesn't get lost in the shuffle of things and pushed aside for a while. I don't really think that will happen, but you never know.
During this waiting time I'm sure there will be fewer blogs to be written, but don't lose interest in us!! Check back from time to time to see what's new! If you can, follow along with the Johnson Family who is currently in Ukraine and Jason & April who are just beginning their trip to Ukraine. I'm sure they will both have interesting stories to tell.
We'll post when we have more news!
Love,
Su & Tru

Not much new

2008-02-07T08:27:00.000-05:00

I haven't posted in a while, but there's not a whole lot to say. We did get some additional timeline information from our agency and according to them we are staying pretty close to our own timeline of a September travel date. Of course, NONE of that is set in stone anywhere and can change at the drop of a hat. We did register for an International Adoption seminar in Cincinnati that some other blogging friends posted about. It's from 2/23 - 3/15...just 4 Saturday's. At least we will get to do a little bit of travel to Cinci. We haven't really spent much time there since we moved to KY, except for a baseball game and me traveling there for some work events (as our Main Office is in Cinci).
I had a dream last night about our SDA appointment. I dreamt that we showed up and there were lots of other families waiting in this cafe looking place with wrought iron tables & chairs. They called Truman in first to look at the profiles (which were all digital and projected onto a screen). He came out and said there was one boy he was drawn to. Next was my turn. They wanted us to pick out the same child. If we did, then we got to adopt, if not then we were going home. As with most dreams you wake up before it's over. But I like to think we chose the same child and were able to proceed with the adoption. :)
I think the next step for us at home is getting the room more ready for a child. We need to find bedding and Truman wants to get started on the Seuss murals. We are doing really good at picking up things little at a time that we'll need for traveling.
Talk to you all later!

Dossier Processing

2008-01-30T08:30:00.000-05:00

It's the regularly scheduled blogger here! Just wanted to give a quick update to say that our dossier arrived unharmed via Fed-Ex to Florida and our Case Manager had no comments on it. This is really good news, as it means we do not have to re-do any paperwork. She will be sending it to Ukraine where it will take 3-4 weeks to be translated, then wait to be submitted to the SDA (adoption office in Ukraine). We're told 3-12 months, but other families seem to have been waiting longer than that 12 month time frame. Of course, they dealt with program shut-downs & reached quotas for 2007. We hope that doesn't happen to us!! Hopefully our wide age-range we have requested will speed us up - but who really knows?! It's a strange feeling to know that someone in Ukraine is finally going to be seeing our dossier, it just makes this that much more real!! I wish there was something we could do to put us on the top of that waiting list, but I know that's not possible! We keep thinking it will happen this Fall - I hope we are right!

Truman's POV

2008-01-24T19:27:00.000-05:00

The following Blog is from Truman and contain his opinions and thoughts only; Susan is not responsible for my thoughts and, most likely, will deny that I actually have thoughts. :) For those that know me, read on and enjoy, for those who don’t, read on with the understanding that I tend to be sarcastic, dry, verbose, well meaning, stupid-intolerant, and, above all else, it is my strongest desire to be a parent with Susan by my side….
A very dear friend of mine read our blog and pointed out to me that it didn’t quite have the “Truman Touch” and wondered why I was not contributing. The quick answer is that I lean towards a more direct and less-nice perspective and the friends that are currently reading, whom we have not met personally, may be a bit put-off. Believe and hold true that I am reading and keeping up with every blog listed on our blog, including several others. Susan also lets me read over her shoulder on the Yahoo chat site, but we both agree that my stupidity tolerance meter would spike with some self-aggrandizing nut-jobs who think that all countries should be as pure and moral as the United States. I consider all of the bloggers and the posters friends, even if I may not agree with your views, as we are going through an experience that no-one else can truly appreciate without experience. It is not combat of the intensity that our men and women in foreign countries are facing (Gods protection for all of you), However, do not fool yourself, it is combat! We fight governments, banks, customs/immigration, agencies, time, feelings, depression, attitudes, monotony, and fear. Why? For lives; ours and the child-to-be.

A few ground rules:
1. I am an adult and I swear. I will censor myself from the unnecessary and big ones but there are times when nothing puts the point across like “SHIT!”
2. I have a sense of humor and I use it; with, on, and at people.
3. Euphemisms are for the weak. Sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never hurt me. People, ALL PEOPLE, must start growing backbones to realize that words only have the power given them by the listener. If I call you an idiot and you take offense, whose fault is that? Snails don’t cry when they are called slow.
Codicil: Children must be protected until they can learn and fully understand this lesson, but they must be taught this lesson or they will not be functional adults.
4. I believe in God. I have my relationship with God. I have researched other religions and faiths. I do not intend to insult anyone’s faith or religion. I believe God helps those who help themselves and put it into practice.
5. I am a scientist and prefer to view things as they are rather than what they should be.
6. Stupid people piss me off. Clarification – If you don’t’ know something, that is not stupid. If you have a learning disability, that is not stupid. If you refuse to see facts or blindly follow rules rather than reason or expect the world to always be nice and fair or are unable to agree to disagree on opinions, THAT is stupid. That kind of stupid that has to be practiced. It annoys me.
7. I appreciate and love disagreement with debate. If we all agreed, what a boring place the world would be.
8. I have been wrong and can freely admit when that happens, it just happens so infrequently that people think I don’t admit it. :)

Ground rules set.
If you are upset at this point, I would quit reading and wait for Susan to post again. If not, or you are and elect to continue, welcome and thank you! You have shown intelligence and a good sense of adventure.
My favorite English teacher said when writing a good paper, “tell ‘em what you’re going to tell ‘em, tell ‘em, then tell ‘em what you told ‘em. (Thank you Miss. Ferraro).
I am using my time on the blog to expose what is bugging me. I see many others are very nice and upbeat. Everything is coming up roses and everyone is so full of happiness. I, too, am very optimistic about the final outcome and our adoption team has been working very hard, but the process is ridiculous and customer service is missing. If you are delving into this adventure, do not let the ranting of an egotistical maniac (me) scare you. It is, in the end, worth every drop of blood, sweat , and tears. It is not that the process is stupid, or crazy, or intense, or laborious, or time consuming. It is all of these things and more. We slog through the paperwork and crazy rules because we have to. It is a process designed by committee with each group putting in what they think will be in the best interest of the child. What the process design committee seems to have forgotten is the best interest of the child is to have a family. We, the adoptors, have been in and out of the wringer so much that only the ridiculously determined will make it, but does it have to be so hard? If the people who went through this process had some say, it could be streamlined and brought to some semblance of sanity. I could number each round we have fought, but other parents have done the same or similar. If you aren’t in the process, ask someone who is and as you watch the neck muscles flex and the body tighten with the post stress while they recount parts of the idiocy required, realize that this is what we are doing to make ourselves happier in the end. Why is such unmitigated happiness of having a family so hard to obtain? As Every Single Adoptive Parent has asked, Why don’t they make these idiot baby factory people fill out half of the work we do? Population would slow and I could watch the news again. If you can and do watch the news, pretend with all of your heart that you don’t have children and that is ALL that you want, then watch one night of the evening news. What people are doing to children that you would trade all of your worldly possessions for will make you sick. Yet we are not pretending, it is true for us. Criminal background check, prior address check, home study, financial records, and time, the mother-flipping time. There is always a trade off, time is money and no where is that truer than with adoption. Pay an agency for quicker processing and help, or go it alone (reading and research could take months). Can’t afford Ukraine? China is half of the price but almost 3 years wait. And the big hush-hush secret: expediting fees while in country. Bribes, extortion, fees, call what you will, but it is time you are buying. And I have no problem with paying the fees and encourage people to if they can. It is the standard in foreign countries that have no minimum wage or welfare. To the sanctimonious dumbasses that throw their noses up as if this is an affront to the process, The bribe is a US institution. We legitimized it by calling it a tip. Tipping for good or better service was invented in the US. A rose by any other name…
Which in a very round about way leads me to customer service and getting what we pay for. First, rest assured we are happy with our agency as they have been worth the $ in saved confusion and time, but from what I have seen they and other groups could be improved with some simple business classes in customer service. All of the facilitators and agencies we met when we were interviewing, were people who wanted to get the children into forever families. They were social workers running a business, but I don’t think they want to see themselves as a business. Every single one said they were non-profit organization. But every single one is an organization that provides a service for a fee, a substantial fee, that is a business. Whether for profit or not they have customers, service offered, and product. We, as the customers, feel that we must take any and all mishandling so that we get our final product. But the agencies don’t understand that the happier the customer is with the service, the more inclined they will be for repeat and referral business! When a customer walks into a fast food restaurant, they aren’t sent to a corner office to wait until someone can serve them. You would never go back. Why do we put up with snotty bureaucrats, being left in limbo going crazy for information, and people who don’t care about us, the parents footing the bill? Because we are hostage to our desperate wants and needs for children. The parents I have talked to and the blogs I have read seem to have a recurring theme. “ I didn’t know what was going on until they said I was ready to go and then we were happy to have the child” Why isn’t information shared before that? Facilitators say “we are working very hard behind the scenes, don’t worry about it, we will call with news”. We hand over thousands of dollars, life savings in some cases, and then are told to shut up and wait? Seriously?!? What are they doing behind the scenes? Why can’t we have information. I won’t worry about rumors I hear on the net or chat rooms, if I get information in a timely manner. I just think a bit of business thinking could improve the service all around. We have not traveled yet and the blogs I have seen say the Facilitators in country are breaking their necks to help the parents. Why, in a service-oriented country like the US, don’t we get similar treatment.
I don’t think I am asking too much from the process or the people. We want children. You have children. We are yearning to take these children and with everything that we have, give them a warm loving nurturing home filled with food, frolicking and potential. You are spending what is necessary to give them basic living conditions. There must be a better way for the process. Someone get UNICEF”s head out of the quota system and back to a global village taking care of the children instead of supporting regionalized care. Agencies, realize you are a business regardless of your profit status and provide the service you are paid for. The child, as a product, is not yours to give. You are paid for emotional solace and comfort as well as the facilitation on the American side of the process.
Thank you for reading my opinions. If you have taken offense, why? Let me know, I love to discuss and debate. If you agree, good, shows intelligence. :P We now return you to our regularly scheduled blogger…

OMG! IT'S DONE!!!

2008-01-23T19:16:00.000-05:00

Yes, it's true -- the dossier is FINISHED! And there was much rejoicing, yea! Truman got the remaining documents certified & apostilled today in Frankfort and called me from the steps of the capital building to say it was DONE!! You might find yourself asking us, "Now What?". We send it to the Florida branch of our agency, get it translated and then we wait....and wait...for how long, we're not exactly sure. Three months? 12 months? We are hoping for somewhere in between that time frame. We have gotten some great advice from fellow adoptive parent friends to focus our time on each other before we have a little one demanding all of our attention. That is what we plan to do. What a huge weight lifted off our shoulders!
If you have time, please try to follow along with two other families linked on this blog -- Kelly & Steve are adopting 2 little boys and the Johnson Family is hoping to adopt a little girl. They have both just arrived in Ukraine and I look forward to following along with them as well. If you are interested in what might happen to us while we are in country, their stories might help answer some of your questions (and ours too!).
Love, Su & Tru

Good News

2008-01-15T17:18:00.000-05:00

Bad news first....there has been 1 confirmed case of the flu in the Cox household, but Truman has taken great care of me and I love him for it!! Now for the good news - the pre-determined "quotas" have officially been recinded (to some degree). Ukraine is now allowing 1453 (?) international adoptions of kids in any category (now that is all countries combined). It's still way better than the previous established quotas. The even better news is that our immigration form came today. Talk about lightning speed! The next step is to have the remaining documents notarized, certified and then apostilled. I'm guessing that can happen in the next 2 weeks or so. I also have to put together some pictures of us, our house & our familes to include in the dossier. SO....this dossier should be done in January!!! Whoohoo!
Love,
Susan & Truman

6 Down...22 more to go

2008-01-14T13:32:00.000-05:00

Yep, as the title states I had 6 of our documents county certified today, but still have 22 left to go. The "final" 22 are split between 2 counties, but they are close, so no more traveling for me to get that done. Today went smooth, AND neither county charged me for the certifications. AWESOME! I don't think we'll be that lucky for the other 2 counties. On the down side, I think I am coming down with the flu. So, I opted to come back home after my travels today instead of going back to work. Venus is patiently waiting (sprawled out on her back!) for me to rub her belly. I think I'll give her some love, then head to bed. Thanks for reading!

Countdown to Dossier Completion

2008-01-10T08:39:00.000-05:00

We are still busy working on paperwork, but we see a light at the end of the tunnel. Monday I will be getting some papers "county certified" in 2 separate counties. Unfortunately, both are about an hour away from home, but in separate directions. But it's a small price to pay to get these documents one step closer to being submitted. We did get our Ukraine Travel Guide from our agency the other day. It was an interesting read and it pretty much broke down our trip week by week. All I can say is that I'm not really looking forward to an overnight train ride. :) We also should be seeing our final piece of dossier paper in about 30 days. Let's hope the immigration office moves quickly!!!
That's about all news we have, we'll post more soon I'm sure!

Love,
S&T

Grant

2008-01-04T13:52:00.000-05:00

We have some great news to share! We have been approved for an adoption grant in the amount of $2,500! Is that awesome or what?! We were given the grant information from a neighbor, called to follow up on the requirements, wrote a grant letter and just found out today that it was approved. A HUGE thank you to the committee here in Versailles that sponsors the grant. Good thing is that the money is paid directly to the agency and since we have a nice sized bill due...this couldn't have come at a better time!
In other adoption-related news, I was able to get some other questions answered about travel issues and our paperwork is almost complete. Our home study should be on it's way to the immigration office and we have been told to expect 30-40 day turnaround time on the major form we need in order to adopt. Let's hope that timeframe holds true. That would put us having all documents by Feb. 13th. Then all documents have to be county certified (which is the county clerk verifying that the notary is in fact a notary) then on to be apostilled. After that we wait....and wait...and wait...maybe update a document or 2...and wait some more. We're still hoping to travel in Sept. or October, but you just never know. Thanks for reading!!

Love,
Susan & Truman

Happy New Year!

2008-01-02T08:18:00.000-05:00

We are hoping for an exciting 2008!! Our approved home study should be making it's way to our Case Manager in Florida this week. Yay! We should also get a hard copy of it this week. One more dossier document down! Actually we are doing really good on our part getting all our documents together. Looks like after this week we will be only waiting on our I-171H (approval of our petition to adopt an orphan) from US Immigration offices. This is usually the last document families are waiting on. We hope it can get to us by March 1st. That has been our planned date to submit our dossier. I have to admit, I did something this weekend I said I wasn't going to do until we got our travel date....I bought kids stuff. However, I did only buy clearanced items and nothing was over $5 each. Since we have no idea what size or boy or girl, I tried to stick with some gender neutral clothes in 3T & 4T. We also got some kids card games that will be easy to travel with. I have to thank my hubby for indulging in my need to buy some kids stuff. It's so much fun!! :) We checked out some hiking/camping type backpacks for our trip too. It didn't take long for Truman to sell me on using these instead of 2 suitcases a piece for the trip. Being the planner/organizer I am, I also created a pre-travel list (eg...things to buy before, what to pack, things to do at home before we leave, etc...).
We have also heard rumblings of Ukraine eliminating the quotas, or at least having just one major quota (w/ all countries combined). Either way, that's better for us than the limited quotas before. Nothing has been said officially, but we are staying positive and still hoping to travel this year! (yay! I finally can say we should be traveling THIS YEAR!)
I will post again when we have more news to share!
Happy 2008!

Silver Lining...

2007-12-20T15:52:00.000-05:00

For those of you who read my earlier post in full, you noticed that they were accepting unlimited referrals for "handicapped children". We have just heard from our agency that their definition of a handicapped child is very broad. They have said it can apply to severe cases (HIV) to asthma. If America defined an asthmatic child as "handicapped" many more people would be classified as such. We also have learned that Eastern European countries are quick to diagnose a "handicap" that we would not necessarily consider a problem at all. Many children are actually misdiagnosed. Sad for them, but good (I guess) for the people who want to adopt. Our agency remains optimistic about our upcoming travels and that is great news to have this time of year. I guess you could say we are going up, up, up on this roller coaster ride. Thanks for following along!!
Love,
Su & Tru

Agency Response

2007-12-18T07:36:00.001-05:00

Our agency finally got back to us regarding these new quotas. Here is an excerpt from their response:
"Another point is that the SDAPRC has been known to change its procedures and policies since its incorporation in 2006. It is important to remember that the quota system is not a law but just the arbitrary numbers adopted by the organization. There are possible exceptions to the rule, not yet publicly announced."

The agency is remaining optimistic, as are we, that this program will continue to operate and that we can still envision our trip there next fall. We did receive our very first apostilled document back from the State of IL. Whooohoo! That was the only document that needed to be mailed out of state, all the others are done in Frankfort (one bonus of living near the capital city!). We also started our Parent Education last night. It's an online course with some questions attached, but I think it will be a good avenue for discussion for us.
In the meantime, we continue to keep up with other families who are either in country now or are preparing just like us. Some are very inspiring stories of children & parents finding each other and others not so much. All we can do is stay patient and flexible and know at the end of this journey we WILL have a child to call our own. Merry Christmas!!
Love, Susan & Truman

Setback

2007-12-13T08:48:00.000-05:00

Well, this just sucks!

December 12, 2007
Dear Members of the American Adoption Community Interested in Ukraine:
On November 22, 2007 the Ministry for Family, Youth and Sports issued Decree #4137. This Decree approves the numbers of the new adoption dossiers from foreign countries that can be accepted by the Ukrainian State Department for Adoption and Protection of the Rights of the Child (SDAPRC) during calendar year 2008.
The result of the decree is that 460 dossier submissions have been allocated to parents from the U.S. for calendar year 2008. This number was arrived at using a special mathematical formula devised by the SDAPRC, based on the number of delinquent post adoption reports and the number of Ukrainian children who will be eligible for intercountry adoption in 2008. The total number of the dossier submissions is divided among five categories of children, so a specific number of dossiers can be submitted for each category:
• children under six years old (with no siblings) - 32 dossiers
• children from six to nine years old (with no siblings) - 83 dossiers
• children ten years or older (with no siblings) - 115 dossiers
• sibling groups (in which one of the children is younger than 6 years) - 92 dossiers
• sibling groups (in which all siblings are 6 or more years old) - 138 dossiers
The U.S. again has the highest number of allocations for foreign countries adopting from Ukraine, followed by Italy (381 dossiers) and Spain (285 dossiers).
The dossiers for the following categories of children will be accepted without any limitations and out of the regular line:
• Children who have been abandoned or are currently residing under the legal custody of their relatives
• step-children
• handicapped children, who suffer from a disease listed with the Ministry of Public Health Protection (the list of these diseases is posted at: http://kyiv.usembassy.gov/amcit_adoptions_eng.html.
The SDAPRC will accept the new dossiers from foreign citizens beginning February 4, 2008.

Hopefully we will hear back from our Case Manager to see what our options are.

Changes

2007-12-10T10:13:00.000-05:00

That is the nature of international adoption - "...parents must be flexible and willing to accept change..." We have been told this is pretty much inevitable right from the beginning, but it's still a shock to the system when it happens. So, what has changed? Well, nothing yet, but it could in a big way. Ukraine issues quotas on how many American dossiers they will accept in a years time. Currently they are not accepting any new American dossiers, but have to reopen that process come January 15th. We knew that and it's no big deal since we are shooting for somewhere around March. However, we have heard via our Ukrainian rumor-mill that quotas for 2008 are very low - 32 to be exact, for a child under 5 yrs. Under 500 in total for children of all ages/needs. These numbers have not officially been determined, so we are still holding out hope that this is not the case and they will allow many more American dossiers to be registered. If these numbers are the case, we may need to re-evaluate where we stand - do we wait longer? do we open up our age range? do we think about another country? (the last one is a last resort I think). Regardless, we are still pursuing all of our paperwork as planned. I am Fed-Ex'ing out our fingerprints today to the FBI and am hoping they are quick at processing everything. Other than that, we are on the ball with everything else and will be hovering over the mailbox for the next couple months waiting on those very important documents that should be arriving. Have a great week!!
Love, Susan & Truman

Home Study Ending

2007-12-06T09:35:00.001-05:00

This morning I submitted the final paper needed for our home study. It's a relief to have that under our belt, but now begins the waiting on other paperwork to be returned to us. I have to send a huge "Thank You" to my friend & co-worker, Dana, for accompanying me to my dr.'s office to notarize some papers. Also to my awesome friends, Rachel & Melissa, for offering to use their teacher book club bonus points to help start a book collection for our child. Thanks for making this process just a little easier! Now we just continue to work on some dossier paperwork and hopefully in a month's time we will be complete with stuff on our end and just be waiting on others. We're thankful we can take this holiday season to spend with our friends & family, but we're hoping next year our new addition will be able to spend it with us too. Thanks again for following along and keeping up with this crazy process of ours!
Love, Susan & Truman

Fingerprints

2007-12-05T10:02:00.000-05:00

Another step is out of the way! We got our fingerprints done - the old fashion way with ink - at our county police station. Next step with that is to send them off to WV to the FBI and *hope* they come back clean. :) Shouldn't be a problem though. Please pray they move fast there, it could take from 1-10 weeks to get the clearances back. Today is the day we both go back to pick up our medical forms, please also pray that these are filled out correctly as that is all we are waiting on to have a completed home study. I dreamt last night about our trip to the orphanage; it started with selecting a girl, but ended back at home with a boy. Wonder what that means?!? Other dossier documents are coming along, several are ready to be notarized. I hope this post finds you well, thanks for checking in. And if you have time, please follow along with some other families who are currently in country - either awaiting their first SDA appointment or who are finalizing their adoptions and making travel plans home. Please pray for their smooth process & their trips home.

Quick Update

2007-12-03T10:40:00.001-05:00

Yay! I heard back from the IL Secretary of State's office. We have officially sent in our first document to be apostilled. What a milestone!! Should have it back in about 2 weeks.

Progress

2007-12-03T09:03:00.000-05:00

We had a fun weekend, complete with a Christmas party at the distillery and a visit to the Ukrainian church. This coming weekend we are hoping to get a Christmas tree up and decorated. Only TWO more documents are needed for our home study - the medical forms. I should have mine on Wednesday and hopefully Truman will have his by Friday. So - the goal is to be complete with that this week! That will be a huge step completed! We are now digging more into the dossier - if anyone knows how to get someone at the State of IL to call you back - please let me know!!! Our marriage certificate is the only thing we need to send out of state to be apostilled, yet no one will call me back and tell me where to send it and what the fee is. I guess I will have to be persistant. We have also started talking about what to pack for our 2-month long "camping trip" (as Truman put it). So, my question is to the families who have gone through this - what are the things on the "must pack" list and what kinds of stuff should we just buy when we get there? Yes, I know it's a long way off, but it's something to keep our minds occupied in the meantime! Thanks for keeping up - check back soon!!

We keep on going...

2007-11-28T08:50:00.000-05:00

I haven't posted in a while because there's not much to say really. We continue to have some paperwork trickle in and get us baby steps closer to completing our home study. Provided our doctors can complete our medical forms in a reasonable time (namely, MY doc's office) we should be completed with our home study by Dec. 10th. Once that's completed we'll dig further into our dossier paperwork. Kentucky is one of the few states that requires documents to be certified in the county they were notarized in before the documents can be apostilled (Apostille: the legalization of a document for international use under the terms of the 1961 Hague Convention Abolishing the Requirement of Legalization for Foreign Public Documents) We are hoping to be completed with our dossier at the end of February. I have added links to other families blogs who are adopting from Ukraine. Some are currently traveling in country and it's quite interesting to read what they are going through. I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving - Christmas is right around the corner!

Immigration

2007-11-19T12:57:00.000-05:00

We got a big step accomplished this morning at the immigration office in Louisville. Being the earlybirds that we are we rushed to L'ville at 6am for our 8:40AM appointment. We had no idea what traffic would be like and we did NOT want to be late for this appt. Needless to say we were very, very EARLY. Good thing there was the fine dining establishment called "White Castle" across the street so we grabbed some breakfast & coffee while we waited. Around 8am we walked over to the courthouse and walked right into the office where our appt. was. The lady went ahead and took our paperwork & payment (of course, they ask for that up front before we can proceed!) then directed us to the basment where our fingerprints would be done. Little did we know, our appt. was only to turn in our paperwork, NOT to get our prints done. We headed downstairs anyway and were told that appts got first priority and "walk-ins" were fit in if they could be. At that point I was preparing myself for a full-day's wait at the immigration office. No need to worry though, in about 15 minutes our names were called, we submitted our fingers to be printed and we were outta there -- at exactly 8:47am. Seven minutes after our appt. I am still in shock that it went so quick.
Just a few more documents are needed for our home study and that will be completed!! We wish you all a happy Thanksgiving - I know we have a lot to be thankful for this year! Love to all!
Susan & Truman

Digging out

2007-11-16T13:23:00.000-05:00

Hip Hip Hooray - our home study visits are done! Now we are just waiting on some paperwork to come back to either us or our social worker and that will be behind us. The one surprise is that she recommended we allow her to approve us for two children, just on the off chance something unexpected - say, like a sibling - appears after we've selected our child. It's not likely, but on rare instances it does happen. We would just hate to get over there, fall in love with a particular child and not be able to take them home because we were not approved for 2. However, she IS going to state in her letter that we STRONGLY prefer one child. Let's just hope and pray we don't have to face that decision once we are there. So, I got myself organized with all the dossier paperwork - 3-ring binder w/ sheet protectors. Now I feel like we have a handle on things. Monday is our appt. with US Immigration for fingerprinting - that's a big step - the approval form we get from this fingerprinting is something we cannot let out of our sight!! We have to keep the original of it in order to travel and actually finalize the adoption. The next few months will be spent reading book after book on adoption issues, such as bonding & attachment, trust & potential in country setbacks. Last night Truman bought a couple Russian-English phrase books/cd's. The only one we memorized last night was "ya teebya lyablya" (I love you) -- yeah, I don't really know how to pronounce it either! Even though are traveling to Ukraine, the people there also speak Russian and since we cannot find Ukraine-English books, we settled for Russian. I'm sure it will get us through just fine. Have a great weekend & Happy Thanksgiving!!

Buried in Paperwork!!

2007-11-14T11:35:00.000-05:00

Well, our first home study visit is under our belt and our last visit will be tomorrow. That was quick!! But actually the home study wont be complete until we get certain forms back from the government. I'm anticipating the home study will be complete in 2007. Thank you to my dad for running around this morning getting us a certified copy of our marriage license!! It's hard to get all that IL & IA & IN paperwork since we are in KY. We did receive a list of all the documents that are required for our dossier yesterday. It's all very overwhelming and you wonder how in the world it will get accomplished. My plan is to take a few hours each day and see what I can get done and make appts, etc...It's tense because everything has to be submitted just right - every I dotted and every T crossed. So, the next few months will be spent gathering paperwork, having it ALL notarized and then having it ALL apostilled. Which requires most of it going to Frankfort, KY to the Office of the Secretary of State, some other documents need to go to Indianapolis, IN & Springfield, IL. At least here in KY we are able to hand deliver this stuff and get it done right then and there. It makes me nervous to send these important documents and hope I get them back quickly. But...people do this all the time so hopefully these offices understand and are quick about this sort of thing. Our main focus right now is to dig out from under all this paperwork and pray we get it done right!

Paper, Paper & MORE Paper

2007-11-09T13:19:00.000-05:00

So many pieces of paper to fill out with the same information it seems! Still - every day we are getting more accomplished and one more thing checked off the long list of to-do's. We have our fingerprinting appt. with U.S. Immigration for next Monday. Darn - that will require a morning off work to get that taken care of. :) Yesterday, I sent in our KY State Police clearance and Child Abuse & Neglect clearance. Yesterday I also wrote the first draft of my autobiography. It turned out to be about 4 pages. Soon we will need to get physicals, and then it's pretty much waiting on other papers to be returned to us with an official stamp that should say "YES! They are good people who should become parents today!". Wonder what would happen if the government made every pregnant woman fill out all these papers each time she had a child?! Maybe I will lobby for that once this process is over and done?! LOL - I doubt it, but it's a thought!
The past few nights I have just not been sleeping well. I can tell I am dreaming about our traveling time in Ukraine, but cannot see any clear pictures of what we are doing. All I know is that I'm constantly waking up during the night and getting no good sleep. I hope this does not continue for the next year! If I'm going to be waking up multiple times in the night I want it to be for a child and not because I'm feeling anxious!!! Last night Truman and I were at Sportsmans Warehouse and saw cute camo/outdoorsy kids clothes. Soon...very soon we'll be able to buy those. Not yet though...
Well, I didn't really have anything specific to report, just felt like writing today. Thanks for checking in today!
Love,
Susan

More Paperwork

2007-11-07T16:44:00.000-05:00

Today we turned in our actual agency application, along with our contract, our express shipment authorization and some other consent forms. We also have our first home study visit scheduled for next Tuesday (Nov. 13th). Can you guess what I'll be doing this weekend??? Truman did alot of cleaning last weekend and this weekend will be my turn, so he can enjoy his time out in the woods. So, once I turned those papers in, I was given MORE paperwork to be done for the home study. It's nothing that has to be done by Tuesday, but just for the whole thing to be approved. So, in the near future we will be each be writing our life story for our bio, getting fingerprinted in Louisville so they can be sure we are not ex-cons or anything of the sort, send in our immigration paperwork, getting criminal clearances for other states we've lived in in the last 10 years, having physicals and collecting our reference letters. I assume we will be hearing from our Case Manager in the next week or 2 to get started on our dossier. I know it may seem like we are moving fast, but believe me, once the dossier is done our patience will definitely be tested. :) We're very happy that everything is progressing and getting accomplished. Ukraine did add one new "fee" that we were unaware of, but it's one that will better the life for the orphans so I'm A-OK with it. Tonight will be spent reviewing the new paperwork and hopefully getting some ready to send out tomorrow and others ready to be witnessed and notarized tomorrow. At least all that is making the week go by fast!

You may notice the new elements we've added to the page. I admit, we saw it on someone else's site and stole it - but it's a good idea!!!
Thanks for checking in! We love you all!!

Susan & Truman

Step 2...

2007-11-06T11:17:00.000-05:00

It's funny how one phone call can put me in such a good mood! (I'm sure when we get THE important invitation phone call, it will be nothing compared to this though!). Anyway, I just received an email & phone call from our agency. Seems we submitted our home study application instead of our agency application - Whoops! No big deal though, she is sending me an agency application to fill out, along with our contract and more specifics on payment & the Ukraine program. She also said Julie, another social worker, will be contacting us soon (hopefully today) to set up our first home study visit! Yay!! I've never been so excited to have a stranger come into our home and tell us if we're safe enough for a child! Hopefully later today I can post the date of our first home study visit. Anyone out there know what we might expect from this first visit?

House Prep

2007-11-04T07:22:00.000-05:00

A big thanks goes to my good friend Tony, his dad and brother. They came by the house yesterday and built a closet with a deadbolt lock in our bedroom. The purpose of this closet is to house the accoutrement's of my hobbies and keep them safe from small fingers. I would like to say I helped, but I was mostly just engaged in carrying heavy stuff and ordering lunch. The closet looks great and after a bit of mudding and paint it will look like it has always been there. I fabricated some racks and installed shelves which now hold all of my hobbies in a clean and organized manner. Susan is thrilled to get most of our bedroom floorspace back. Our next step is to THOROUGHLY clean the house top to bottom. Everyone tells us that we don't need to do this for the home inspection, but as anal retentive as Susan and I both are we wouldn't feel right without making sure.I finally feel like we are moving ahead and getting things done. It is busy work to keep from going crazy thinking about what is to come. However, it is productive busy work.

Truman

Seuss Pics

2007-11-01T19:36:00.000-04:00

my beautiful wife, 1 puppy, The Lorax, and my sweet Truffula trees!
The brown barbaloots eating truffula fruits in their brown barbaloot suits
Singing swammi-swans

one fish, two fish... Can you guess the theme of our child's bedroom?

As per Truman's request (or should I say demand?!) :) I have taken some pictures of the furniture I painted for our future child's room. One I did a while ago, the other I just finished yesterday. Enjoy!

Truman's Note: For those of you who think these look familiar, you are correct. The "one fish" dresser is the Salvation Army purchase I inherited from Fondue in C101 and the Lorax Dresser is/was an FIT Dorm Dresser I brought with me from Roberts Hall to C-building. How did they ever survive this long?!?!

What Not To Say...

2007-11-01T13:14:00.000-04:00

So, I came across this today and I wanted to share it with all of you. Some of you may know EXACTLY what this means, others may need some education. This is meant to be funny, please take it as such. :)
Things that are NOT to be Said to People Who Adopt:
1. How much did she/he cost?
2. Why did you go and adopt--couldn't you have your "own" child?
3. Did you buy that baby?
4. Maybe now that you adopted, you'll have "your own" child.
5. She/He looks nothing like either of you.
6. What are you going to do when she/he looks for their birthparent?
7. Do you know her/his "real" parents?
8. I sure hope he/she fits into your family!
9. Why didn't his/her real mom want him/her?
10. Don't even tell him/her they are adopted, they'll never know.
11. Too bad you had to adopt!
12. Whose fault is it you can't get pregnant?
13. You're doing these kids such a favor.
14. S/he is so lucky to have your family instead of his/her own.
15. An older child is damaged goods .
16. She's your daughter?
17. What about your own kids? What do they think about this?
18. She might come from a cursed background.
19. What are you going to do when you have kids of your own?
20. Do you think you love them as much as you could love your real kids?
21. You got kids the easy way you never even had to be pregnant.
22. What if the real parents come back and kidnap them?

One step down...

2007-10-30T13:46:00.000-04:00

a million more to go! I just had to report that our adoption application is in the mail today, along with our very first payment! WhooHoooo! I do feel a sense of relief, however now everything seems more real. I think over the next year I will ask myself, "Am I crazy?!" several times. Of course, the answer will always be YES, but in a good way. :)
As soon as the agency receives everything and says we're approved we will be able to move on to the home study. I'm hoping we hear from them in a weeks time.
Thanks for reading!

Webinar Report

2007-10-30T08:29:00.000-04:00

Wow - so last night we watched the online webinar for the Ukraine program. The time in-country has increased to 6-8 weeks. That's a long freakin' time in a foreign country!! After seeing that, all sorts of thoughts come flooding into my head, mostly to do with work and the house and the dogs. How will we pay our bills while we're gone? How can we leave our dogs for 2 MONTHS?? How will we save the money to support ourselves while we are both off work for 2 months (and longer for me)? Somehow we have faith that it WILL work out and that this is meant to be. So...our application is complete and I am calling the agency today to see how they prefer it to be submitted.
So far, lots of friends & family have asked what they can do to help. Each one of you can help in your own way. Whether it's praying for a smooth process & trip, donating money to the cause, being there to lend an ear during those frustrating times (which we KNOW there are sure to be some of those!) or whatever else you can think of. We know you are all here to support us however you are able to. As Truman says, "I have no pride" - so we will take all the help that is offered!
Also, please don't be offended if we don't travel & visit much over the next year. We are attempting to save as much money as possible - but you are all welcome to travel to Kentucky and visit us!

Thank you all for following along with our story! We love you!

Ukraine Webinar

2007-10-29T09:20:00.000-04:00

Hello again! Each day we get closer & closer to getting this process going. We have filled out our application and are just waiting to hear back from some friends on their information to list them as references for us. I anticipate us turning this application in this week sometime. We have already begun doing some minor things at home to get ready for the home-study. We needed to have more smoke detectors and a CO detector and a couple fire extinguishers handy. Truman got all that installed on Saturday. Yesterday we cleaned out some closets and got a good start on a garage sale box(es)!
Tonight we are scheduled to watch a "Web"inar on Ukraine and the entire process. I'm sure it will just make us more excited and ready to get this started!
That's all for now, we'll post more after we have officially submitted our application.

Before Getting Started

2007-10-23T14:25:00.000-04:00

We have wrestled for months with the idea of adopting. Should we adopt internationally or domestically? If international, which country? Do we want to adopt siblings? How long are we willing to wait? How much can we spend? If domestic, do we want to adopt via foster care or through an agency and wait for a phone call (that may never come)? Little by little, things started falling into place. After months of research on countries and agencies, we have decided on the Ukraine program via Commonwealth Adoptions (www.commonwealthadoption.org) .

This program's wait time is much shorter than other countries we considered, but also costlier. In the end, time was the deciding factor for us. We hope to travel to Kiev, Ukraine in about 12 months. Our stay there will be 4-6 weeks, and we will begin the process of "selecting" our child. No worries...we will have a Ukrainian guide & translator with us at all times to help us get from one place to another. Our worry right now is...Who will we get to house-sit & keep an eye on the dogs??!! Any takers??!

We are hoping to get some final questions answered this week before we formally submit our application into the program. Once that is submitted, our home study process will begin. Before, during & after the home study process, we will begin assembling paperwork for a dossier (pronounced "dos-e-a"). This is a packet of information all about us & our background (eg...criminal, medical, bio's, etc..). If we are organized and on the ball, we can get all this completed in about 3 months. Once it is submitted & approved in Ukraine, we get the "invitation" to travel 3-6 months later. I think we'll have about 3-4 months to prepare for travel, then be in Ukraine for 4-6 wks.

We will update this more once we have actually submitted the application. Wish us luck on what will probably be the most exciting & frustrating & nervewracking & wonderful time of our lives. Please leave comments &/or ask questions! We'd love to hear from you.