The Zen of Adoption

perseverance

We’ve stalled a bit in our paperchase. It has just been a busy few weeks, both David and I have been in and out of town and there is so much left to do for our Dossier… I seem to have lost my place. I’m having a hard time picking the threads back up.  I know we will eventually finish it and then the long wait will start, but right now it seems like this part of our journey is endless.

We have managed to finish our autobiographies which were quite an undertaking and I’m pretty happy with how they turned out.  We just need to send them in to our agency along with about a dozen other documents and then we need to work with our social worker to set up the homestudy and other interviews. On a positive note, the woman we hired to compile our Dossier for us reports that many of our initial documents are back from their respective US Secretaries of State and the appropriate Chinese Consulates with all of the necessary signatures, stamps, and authentifications.  We have many more to go, but at least someone is making progress.

We are beginning to get the house ready for the homestudy process and our frantic cleaning and general sprucing up has taken on a dual purpose. We’ve decided to put our house on the market and look for larger digs.  We plan to stay local here as we love the area, and we really like Alex’s Kindergarten which is right around the corner.  We kind of figure that now’s a good time to make a move, before we bring a new little one into the mix. I just can’t see tearing our daughter away from her SWI (Social Welfare Institution) in China to bring her here to this house, only to uproot her and ask her to readjust to new surroundings yet again.

Hopefully we’ll be DTC (Dossier to China) before we get wrapped up in the great house hunt!

Both David and I are nearly finished with our autobiographies, which are required for the home-study process. What an undertaking. I found the process really difficult. It was an exercise in revealing enough, but not too much. More than anything it is a framework for our social worker to use in constructing a picture of our family and to identify any issues she may want to explore further in her discussion with us.

It struck me as I was laboring to bring forth the words, that in writing our story we are writing the forward to our childrens’ stories. Alex, and ultimately our daughter, will find their beginnings in these pages. It is a rare thing to have a formal history, indeed sometimes it is difficult to get a hold of your family’s past at all.

I know have always been fascinated with my roots, from my French ancestor, Jean Baptiste Bedard that came over to the new world in the late 1700’s to my many times greatgrandmother, Jeannie Summerville, generations removed in Scotland, there is a continuity there that I find facinating and the thought of the people who came before me is all at once mysterious and comforting.

It makes me a little sad that our daughter’s own birth history will be obliterated by the system that caused her to be torn from her birth family. She will never know about The Jean Baptiste’s and Jeannie Summerville’s in her own past. However, in a way their history is hers. Their choices led, so many centuries later, to her being a part of our family, just as her story will become a part of ours.

I’m surrounded with boys. No sisters, no daughters, just brothers, a husband, a son and male Chocolate Lab. Alas, there is not much pink in my life. So it is no wonder that I’m a just a tad obsessed with little girl clothing and accessories.

I discovered these booties on Little Buddah Baby and cannot believe that such cuteness exists! They remind me of my most favorite childhood pair of pajamas ever. They were from China town in San Fransico and were a dark teal silk set with long bottoms and a short sleeved top. I can remember sliding off of pretty much any surface I would sit or lay on., but I loved them.

I love these slippers too!

According to Little Buddah Baby’s site: In Asian cultures, it was once a rite of passage for little girls to receive their first pair of silk slippers. Inspired by that tradition, these baby mary jane slippers are handmade from Asian brocade in a dragonfly or butterfly pattern and are sure to be beautiful on your baby’s feet. They are available in 0 - 6 months so I’m not sure if our daughter would get much wear out of them (most children adopted from China are between 7 - 18 months old (though occassionally there are some a little younger and a lot older.) Now if only I could find these in my size!

Love is revealed bit by bit, unfolding like an ancient crumbling map. The faded images pointing us in the right direction, guiding us on our international adoption journey. The way is not always clear, and the journey is not always smooth, but as we complete the necessary steps, it brings us closer to our daughter. Though we’ve never seen her, indeed, it is likely she is not even conceived yet, we love her. It is amazing to me how easily she is making a place in our hearts and our lives.

I think I understand this phenomenon, in a way I never could have before our son, Alex, was born. Now at five-years-old, his once chubby baby legs unfold suddenly long and nimble and he walks confidently towards his future. Just whisper of that baby still exists. Before we were even pregnant I loved the idea of our child, and when he was nestled snugly in my expanding belly, my heart beat for him and I wanted to meet him so badly I ached.

I feel that same ache when I think of the little girl who’s future is unfolding before her, what a twist her life will have to take in order for our paths to cross, a tragic, heartbreaking twist. Abandoned before she even has a chance to chart her own course. My heart breaks for her mother as well, what a decision to be faced with.

So we wait, and plan, and dream about this child, for whom we will travel half-way across the world to meet, and for whom love is daily unfolding, and who is already in every way, our daughter.

A Message from: Love Without Boundaries“Born in my Heart” Committee

In every orphanage in China, children in need of heart surgery wait.Four years ago, Love Without Boundaries began their “Born in MyHeart” fundraiser as a tribute to the miracle of adoption and toraise funds for these essential operations. You can truly save thelife of a child by taking part from May 18-23. Every penny raisedwill help to heal a precious child, giving them the opportunity togrow and thrive, and perhaps even find a family of their very own. So please bid often and bid generously! Items will be addedthroughout the day on Friday, May 18th and the fundraiser will endWednesday, May 23rd when the final item closes. This year we have approximately 250 amazing items, all donated byour fabulous supporters! Just a few of the items you won’t want tomiss are: an autographed guitar from Steven Curtis Chapman, THREE giclee prints of “Bengbu Girl”…an incredible oil painting createdespecially for LWB by Zhao Kailin, a life-size Terra Cotta Warriorstatue from Xian, several personalized custom lifebooks, beautifulwatercolors, acrylics and oil paintings, collection-edition dolls,custom adoption videos, a stunning array of quilts includingseveral “100 Good Wishes” quilts, photography, gift baskets,jewelry, paintings by Chinese orphans, clothing, heritage items, andso much more!

You will be able to access the fundraiser from the Love Without Boundaries website homepage at: www.lovewithoutboundaries.com

Please help us to make this year’sfundraiser our best ever!

We frequent the St. Petersburg Saturday Morning Market, which is full of wonderful produce, plants, and unique gift items. One such vendor with a unique product is Shirts of Bamboo. They are a local company that specializes in apparel made of, you guessed it, Bamboo. They have adorable baby onesies, great clothing for men and women as well as some fun accessories, such as socks and scarves.In Asia, bamboo has been used in the traditional hand-made production of paper for centuries. Shirts of Bamboo uses Moso bamboo which covers about 7.41 million acres in China.

If you’d like to learn more about the benefits of Bamboo clothing visit the Why Bamboo? section of their company’s site. this company’s mission is one I really like, and their products really are unique and highlight a wonderful plant from China.

I’ve been having strange dreams. This probably means nothing more than I’m not sleeping well, and I have a lot on my mind. However, two dreams in the past week have really stuck with me. The first was that I was pregnant, probably around 12 - 15 weeks and we were all shocked… no one had noticed (least of all me,) and suddenly I was quite obviously showing. I don’t think I’m pregnant, but in the four years that we’ve been trying for #2, not a single pregnancy dream. The last one I had was when I was pregnant with Alex.

Dream number two occurred two nights ago, and was like an eerie sequel to the above mentioned pregnancy dream. In this one, I had actually delivered the baby (I’m assuming it was the same one from the first dream.) We bring the new baby home and who greets us, but Alex and another child, who I can only assume is our daughter from China. This toddler was quite obviously of asian decent and running around my house like she’d been there all along.

It really made me stop and think about what would happen if the stars do align, and we happen to get pregnant in the midst of the adoption process. There are issues surrounding this from an agency/CCAA (Chinese Center of Adoption Affairs) perspective, but we’ve made the decision that whatever the reproductive lottery may bring, we’ve committed to adding to our family through international adoption from China.

I’m sure these dreams are just my subconscious desires played out when I’m not really “there” to defend myself… I must admit, it would be cool if this is a hint of some latent powers of prophecy that I never knew I possessed. All in all, it makes me realize that our lives have such potential to unfold in unexpected ways. I think I’m open to whatever serendiptous events conspire to craft our family’s future…

With time and patience the mulberry leaf becomes a silk gown
-Chinese Proverb

The hardest part of this process is the time element. It is one of the few unknowns. After the furious rush of the paperchase, once the Dossier is complete and sent to China, the waiting begins. Hurry up and wait; that is the ironic shift that this journey will take.

In October of 2006 new requirements were put in place by the CCAA (Chinese Center for Adoption Affairs) which greatly affected who would be eligiable to adopt from China.

Qualifications To Adopt From China

According to the Adoption Law of the People’s Republic of China (published 11/4/1998 ), current Chinese government policies and practices, and U.S. immigration laws, you must meet the following guidelines to qualify for a China adoption:

1. Applicants must be a legally married heterosexual couple. At least one applicant must be a U.S. citizen.
2. Couples with no previous marriages must be married for at least two years at the time the dossier is logged in at the China Center of Adoption Affairs (CCAA). If either spouse has been previously married, the current marriage must be at least five years old at the time the dossier is logged in at the CCAA. No applicant may have had more than two divorces.
3. Applicants must be at least 30 years old* and no older than 49 years old at the time their dossier is logged in at the CCAA. Applicants are qualified to adopt children based on their ages as specified below. When spouses have ages that fall into two categories, they must be open to the upper age limit of the child to be adopted.
   • Applicants ages 30 - 44 qualify for a child with no known medical conditions up to 12 months of age.
   • Applicants ages 45 - 49 qualify for a child with no known medical conditions up to 24 months of age.
     
4. All above applicants are qualified, if desired, for a child with medical conditions.
5. Families must have no more than four minor children living in the home, and the youngest child must be at least 12 months old at the time the dossier is logged in.
6. Families must document $10,000 of annual income per member in the household, including the to-be-adopted child. A minimum of $80,000 net worth is required.
7. Applicants must be in good physical and mental condition necessary to provide responsible care for an adopted child. Each applicant’s Body Mass Index (BMI) must be under 40. (BMI equals a person’s weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared. BMI=kg/m 2).
8. Applicants must have a minimum of high school education or equivalent.
9. Applicants must have no criminal record or alcohol abuse within the past 10 years. Niether applicant may have committed any acts of domestic violence, sexual abuse or child abuse. Applicants can have no history of illegal drug use.
10. Families who have adopted from China previously may submit their next dossier to China once their previous adoption has been finalized for at least one year.

On May 1st, 2007 these guidelines officially take effect. This has led to a massive surge in applications to China over the past few months in an effort to get logged in under the old guidelines which were much more lenient. I’m hoping that the log jam created by the large number of Dossiers heading to China will begin to subside now. It will still take a long time to get through the backlog. The talk is that from the time you are logged into China’s system until you are matched is likely to be longer than originally thought. We came into this thinking two years, but unless there is a dramatic speed up on China’s end, it could be three or more. I hope that’s not true, but if that’s the way it is, that’s the way it is.  We’ll wait and hopefully things will speed up a bit.