The Zen of Adoption

We’ve been waiting officially for 10 months today. A blink of the eye in the greater scheme of things. When we applied with our agency in March 2007 it was estimated to be a 12 - 18 month wait until referral. When we submitted our dossier in October it looked more like an estimated 18 months - 2 year wait until referral. This of course was based on current wait times, which is only a small piece of the picture.

As of this month families who have received referrals have been waiting for 30.5 months. There is talk that our wait will possibly reach 3 - 4yrs. There is talk that this is extremely optimistic. (Some people are preparing for 5+ years.) Our agency said that China doesn’t want the wait to reach 3 years. It likely will reach and surpass 3 years, but they never said it wouldn’t reach 3 years, they just said that they didn’t want it to reach 3 years.

At this point, we have no idea how long our wait will be, there is always hope that things could speed up, and the of course the possibility that things could slow down further.  Right now, we are just trying to live life, prepare as much as we can and take things in stride.

I just received word that our Dossier has officially been accepted and logged into the CCAA’s system. Our LID (Log-in Date) is October 23, 2007.

This means that I will be traveling to China with all of the other families who were logged in on October 23, 2007 from our agency. We will have time to get to know each other in the next couple years as we wait for our referrals. Hopefully, by the time we travel, it will be like going with friends!

Right now they have referred families who have been logged in as of 11/30/05… so we have a lot of time before our date gets matched. The rumors out there are all over the map, some saying 3 years or more, some saying two years or less… we are just happy at this point to be done with our dossier and having and official LID is something to celebrate!

We’re off to our local Chinese restaurant!

Creating a beautiful quilt for a baby is a tradition in many cultures, but the thought of making one which includes 100 Good Wishes stiched into every inch is really lovely….

Six Banyans offers a comprehensive, creative, idea filled book to help you create your own Bai Jia Bei, or 100 Good Wishes Quilt!

clipped from www.6banyans.com …honoring an ancient Chinese Tradition Our 100 Good Wishes quilt book provides six creative patterns to showcase the 100 fabrics you collect from family and friends in a 100 Good Wishes quilt swap. We offer designs that are easy enough for the beginning quilter and some challenging ones for the seasoned quilting enthusiast, including: Welcome Home Hunka Hunka Chunks of Love Heartfelt Wishes Especially Four You High Hopes Turtle X-ing An honored tradition from Asia, Bai Jia Bei–the hundred family quilt-has become a favorite way for families waiting to adopt from China to pass the time and welcome their new babies to the family. “100 Good Wishes” offers the opportunity for a circle of friends to use the art of quilt-making.

I had early tutelege in the art of eating with chopsticks. In San Francisco, my wonderful Kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Yee, snuck chopstick lessons in between the alphabet and fingerpainting and somehow I retained this skill. I’ve always been proud of my agility, but I’m a little jealous of the chopstick challenged, now that I’ve seen these!

We were browsing around the Paperchase section of Borders last night and found these and couldn’t resist - they are so fun! I might just convieniently forget how to use the regular boring chopsticks…

We just received word today that our Dossier has been translated and is on its way to China. So we are officially DTC (Dossier to China) and it should arrive at the CCAA in China in 3 - 5 days. After all of these months of paperwork, home visits, and notaries it feel wonderful to know that we’ve done everything we can do and that our life stories are on their way to China to intersect with our daughter’s!We reached this little milestone on a day that is already special for another reason, it is my mom’s birthday - Happy Birthday Mom (and Grandma!)

We heard from Kat at CCAI today and our completed Dossier just passed critical review!It is now winging its way to translation. We will be DTC (Dossier to China) within about a week and we expect to be logged in with the CCAA within the next few weeks. China will send us our official log in date (affectionately known as our LID) a couple weeks after that. So our Paperchase has come to an end. It took us about 6 months to reach this point and while I’m very relieved to have finally made it through this process, we did at least feel like we were doing something… Now we just wait.

“The Wait” two of the most dreaded words in the world of China adoption. I couldn’t resist and after months of reading dire predictions and hope-filled delusions about the wait on the various China Adoption message boards out there, I asked Kat what CCAI is currently telling people about the wait. She said very diplomatically, that they aren’t making any predictions, but that they are currently telling prospective adoptive parents that the estimate is 3 years. I don’t know if it will be longer, and can only dream that it might be shorter… but ultimately it is beyond our control. What is within our control is how we spend the next few years: living, preparing, and anticipating…

So our little girl, who will be from China, will also share our last name… Doll.

I know… she will endure a lifetime of being referred to as a “China Doll” which is actually viewed by many adoptive parents of children from China as a derogatory label. It is objected to for a lot of reasons, but mainly because it objectifies our daughters and plays into some of the most common stereotypes people have of Asian women as being little and delicate, and beautiful. None of those things are necessarily bad, but it places unrealistic expectations on young girls to be a perfect little porcelain toy. It is probably too much to hope that we’ll avoid the “China Doll” references. We definitely understand that most people will not intend to foist that sterotype onto our daughter’s shoulders when they good-naturedly point out the obvious play on our last name.

Despite all of this, I am looking forward to having actual dolls in our house. We are a liberated couple and our son Alex had a baby doll which was given to him by his Grandma, because according to her, “even little boys need baby dolls to nurture.”

I tend to agree, but Alex didn’t. If you know him, you know that he has a one track mind and it leads straight to the zoo. This baby doll, though obviously a mammal… did not have enough hair, nor did it frequent wild enough habitats. As far as Alex was concerned this baby doll could take it’s promise of a bi-pedal gait and find a kid who appreciates opposable thumbs in his playthings.

So perhaps our daughter will inherit the nameless baby doll her older brother didn’t appreciate, or maybe she’ll want a doll of her own, that looks like her. I started looking around to scout out some of our options. There are a lot of dolls out there, some have features that would be considered asian, some are well made, but very few were both.

One brand of dolls, I was keen to check out was the American Girl empire. They feature smart, brave, well-accessorized girls from various historical settings and nationalities who live through exciting times, have many adventures and get new hair-dos several times a day from their little human caretakers.

American Girl hit the scene when I was around 12… making me just a little too old for my mom to justify even pretending that I would play with one. They are beautiful dolls, created by an innovative entrepreneur, who happened to be a mom, and what made them different, was that they came with books which gave each doll a place in history, a personality, and values that today’s little girls could relate to.

Then they sold out… in a big way, moving away from the educational, wholesome, historically sound stories to more modern sassy girls with trendier clothing and wardrobes that would put a pop diva’s to shame. Don’t get me wrong, they’re not as bad as Bratz, but Mattel has a way of following the money and American Girls quickly evolved into younger, less developed Barbies.

American Girl just announced that they are finally going to offer an Asian doll and thinking that I might look past their obvious corporate mis-steps, I went to check out her details. Well, she is just a side-kick, not really a full-fledged American Girl, which would be fine, except it looks like they took one of their Caucasian dolls, tinted her skin, and gave her black hair. Nothing about her features, in any way, lets on that she is Chinese. Very disappointing.
Then I discovered a doll that gave me hope. I was browsing around and stumbled upon Karito Kids. Owned by KidsGive, A great company started by two moms in 2005. KidsGive’s Karito Kids dolls are definitely modern, but they come from various countries around the world and Ling, their Chinese doll is lovely. I read through everything I could about this company and I like what I’ve seen so far - They have partnered with a wonderful charitable organization Plan USA and 3% of every purchase goes to them to help Kids around the world.

If our daughter happens to like dolls and wants one that reflects the beauty of her own Chinese heritage, this is one that I would consider, and as a bonus it has been created by a company I’d like to support.

(Did you take notes Grandma?)

We know we have a long wait ahead of us and while we wish this weren’t the case, it is an opportunity to prepare. One of the things that I want to create for our daughter is a life book. It is kind of like a scrapbook, or a baby book, but it is more than that. A life book tries to piece together as much of your child’s story as possible. It helps frame the events of their early life in a way that allows them to ask questions, to learn what they can, and to help them make sense of the way in which they join their families. A great article from Adoptive Families Magazine explores the whys and hows of creating a life book.

“During the process of creating lifebooks, parents decide how to share certain information with their children. Parents who once felt nervous about sensitive conversations become more confident as a result of these discussions.”

There are lots of ways to do this, some people use traditional scrapbooking materials, some have special blank books bound, some create their books digitally and have them printed and bound using popular online photo services. I’m not sure which I’ll choose, but I’ve found some wonderful resources which will allow me to learn more. I’m leaning towards a digital book, but I think that offer the least flexibility to add things later. chinadigitalscrapbooks is a great community that shares tips, resources and anything else you’d want to know about digital scrapbooking. They provide not only ideas for design and materials, they also have a wonderful collection of journal topics and ways to best present the sometimes tenuous, or upsetting pieces our our children’s past in a sensitive yet truthful way. Hopefully I’ll be able to post some of my early attempts at creating pages. Of course, it may be that with the exitement and upheaval of having a new little one in our lives, we just don’t have time to spend hours and hours crafting each page. There are beautiful pre-made life books that require only images and some thoughtful journal entries to complete. I don’t know… It kind of seems like cheating, but hey, I may need all the help I can get! adoptshoppe.com is a great place to find some ready-made life books, as well as some how-to guides.

We are so close, it almost doesn’t seem real… After a few hectic weeks of home visits, medical exams, multiple labwork re-do’s, and fingerprinting appointments, we’ve completed nearly all of the necessary steps to compile our Dossier.

Our Homestudy went well - after a weekend of frantic cleaning, our visits were very laid-back and not what I expected at all, but heavier on education than on grilling us about our lives/habits/short-comings/etc.  I don’t know why this is the image I had in my head of what a Homestudy would be like, but it was a pleasant experience and our Social Worker, Vicki, was fantastic. She brought Alex a giant packet of activities and information about Chinese culture and provided us with a thick folder of articles related to international adoption, attachment, and parenting.

The Department of Homeland Security needs our completed Homestudy to process our paperwork and issue us a visa to bring our daughter back into the country. Once they have that, it will take about a month and a half for our I-171h to arrive. That is the final piece of our dossier puzzle.

Despite the dire predictions that it may take up to a year for us to get our Department of Homeland Security fingerprinting appointments, we received our date just over a month after applying. This would have been fantastic news, except that David was scheduled to be in Charleston, SC that weekend for work. After a lot of discussion and a desperate search of alternatives, David decided to fly home a day early. The actual appointment took less than ten minutes. Kind of a let down, but one we can live with!

Now nearly everything is out of our hands. Our final steps are pulling together some candid photos of our family. David and I must be in each shot and they want shots of us in our home and with family and friends. It sounds easy, but I feel a bit overwhelmed - after all a picture is worth a thousand words. We also need to have 3 passport photos taken.

Once we get our I-171h and our Dossier makes it through critical review at CCAI, it will go through translation, and finally it will wing its way to China to be logged in and hold our place in what is now a very long line.

The wait is somewhere between two and three years. Hopefully we’ll see the wait level off, and begin to recede. While we obviously want to meet our Daughter as soon as possible, we’re also thankful we have some time to prepare and educate ourselves.  There are rumors circulating that the CCAA has made comments to the effect that they’re working hard to get the wait back to around a year. Let’s hope this come to pass!