Adoption Thread

[Bella_mezzo]

Felicity-So great to see you back! I totally know you but will stay mum and go with the new perspective and what does your AFM mean?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? The suspense is killing me!

Penn-So exciting! Yeah, the money will go so much father in Philly!

 

[Felicity]

Felicity-So great to see you back! I totally know you but will stay mum and go with the new perspective and what does your AFM mean?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? The suspense is killing me!

Haha. I wish I were so lucky! No, no suspense here. Get yourself back on our old TTC thread honey, I can't be cluttering up this thread with chit chat...

 

[pennquaker09]

So, I've come up with Charlie as his name. I haven't sold myself on it, but it's the first name I came up with.

 

[Logan Sapphire]

Can I make an adoption book suggestion? Happy Adoption Day, by John McCutcheon. The main characters are a Mommy and Daddy who go to Asia to adopt but to celebrate their child's adoption day, they have a party with a single, African-American dad and a same-sex Caucasian mom couple. My daughter really likes that book, as do I, since it shows that families come in all sorts of different combinations.

 

[ImperfectGirl]

So, I've come up with Charlie as his name. I haven't sold myself on it, but it's the first name I came up with.

I love the name Charlie! I really hope this match works out for you Penn!

 

[ImperfectGirl]

Can I make an adoption book suggestion? Happy Adoption Day, by John McCutcheon. The main characters are a Mommy and Daddy who go to Asia to adopt but to celebrate their child's adoption day, they have a party with a single, African-American dad and a same-sex Caucasian mom couple. My daughter really likes that book, as do I, since it shows that families come in all sorts of different combinations.

Great suggestion Logan...I'll add it to my list as I just started looking around for books to add to Parker's bookshelf.

 

[Bella_mezzo]

Charlie is a great name!

I have bought B a ton of books! March is insane for me, but maybe later this month or definitely in April I will post some of my faves.

We had a quilt handmade for B by Tanneicasey on etsy. It arrived today and here are the pics she sent!

 

[Bella_mezzo]

eek-I'll have to try to resize the photos...the fabrics are mostly Michael Miller.

You can see her close-up images under "sales" in her etsy shop...

 

[pennquaker09]

Adding to the name list: Evan, Maxwell, Dallas, and Kennedy.

Our house is pretty much sold (it was on the market before the new job stuff), and it looks like we're moving back South. Nate went to North Carolina about an offer and when he called me it sounded like he wanted to take it. He's flying back today, so I'm sure we're going to come to a decision if he hasn't already.

 

[ImperfectGirl]

Our birthmom has a Dr. appt today. She's been contracting all weekend long. I'm hoping everything is ok. She said she has had contractions before with previous pregnancies but never this early. Since I've never been pregnant, I'm unsure about whether this is all normal or not. This whole thing is making me nervous about preterm labor. We really can't afford for this baby to come super early (in more ways than 1) but maybe I'm worrying for nothing. She does say she's in pain though so I feel badly for her. Fingers crossed that all is well and we should be getting another ultrasound pic today.

 

[AGBF]

So, I've come up with Charlie as his name. I haven't sold myself on it, but it's the first name I came up with.

I love the name Charlie! I really hope this match works out for you Penn!

Penn-

If we had a boy, I always wanted to name him, "Charles" and use the nickname, "Charlie". My husband and I never got around to discussing that, though. Because we adopted a girl. I had a lifelong desire to name a daughter, "Katrina", but my husband-born in Italy-had said that there could be no names with an an Italian equivalent. And, of course, "Catherine" has an Italian equivalent! So our daughter was, "Whitney", an Anglo-Saxon name with no Italian equivalent.

I love the name, "Charlie". I hope you go for it!

Deb/AGBF


Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend

 

[ImperfectGirl]

Our birthmom has a Dr. appt today. She's been contracting all weekend long. I'm hoping everything is ok. She said she has had contractions before with previous pregnancies but never this early. Since I've never been pregnant, I'm unsure about whether this is all normal or not. This whole thing is making me nervous about preterm labor. We really can't afford for this baby to come super early (in more ways than 1) but maybe I'm worrying for nothing. She does say she's in pain though so I feel badly for her. Fingers crossed that all is well and we should be getting another ultrasound pic today.

Birthmom mixed up her appts. Today was ultrasound only...Dr. appt is Wed including her glucose test. She did get send a pic and they estimated he is 2.5 lbs which seems big when compared to the fetal growth charts I've found online. She will be 26 weeks this Thurday. I'll try to upload the pic later which made me jump because it isn't a profile shot, it's straight on. Cute although he looks like skeletor!

 

[dcgator]

Imperfect - Glad to hear that all is well and that you got a pic of your little one. Let us know how things go on Wed too!

 

[Bella_mezzo]

We got our fingerprinting appt for USCIS yesterday. it's for the end of the month, so we are going to try to "Crash" tomorrow morning!!!! I am so excited!!! This is the last step before our paperwork can start the process of getting sent to Ethiopia and getting us a court date for B!!!!!

Also, we got the cutest pics of him the other day. he's growing like a week which is great b/c he looks happy and healthy, but is kind of sad b/c I hate that we are missing out on one more second of his childhood!

 

[Bella_mezzo]

YAY! we got fingerprinting for USCIS this morning and it was smooth and easy So glad something in this crazy process was easy!

DH just threw a major grump fest b/c he's going to have to take our medical forms back to the Dr for an addendum (it's great that he got the forms done since he's not working right now and is available during the day, not so great b/c he didn't really read them or understand that it was not ok for my Dr of 4 years to write on the form that she has been my Dr for "just met" amount of time and that "unknown" is not an ok response for my vaccines being current (which she verified last year when I started my MBA program and even had to do a blood test to confirm MMR antibodies b/c she couldn't read the mark on my vaccine records, which ended with her giving me another MMR booster b/c they didin't show up in my blood even though I had them)

But, hopefully this will all be a crazy memory in about 2 weeks!!!

 

[Loves Vintage]

Congrats on completing another step, Bella. Too bad about the paperwork glitch, but it seems like there is so much paperwork that there are bound to be some errors along the way, right? So, what is in 2 weeks -- the paper work gets sent or a court date is set? I've been trying to follow along. Are you still keeping up your blog? I tried to find it way back when you mentioned it, but wasn't able to. That's wonderful that you are seeing pictures of B, but I can only imagine how bittersweet it must feel when you do. I'm so happy for you, Bella. I hope things go smoothly the rest of the way for you. You are going to be the best mom!

 

[Bella_mezzo]

thanks LV!!! Samantha is gorgeous

We are back to keeping up our blog which is great. I'm sure you'll be able to find it, there're not too many Ethiopian adoption blogs with a Woosha (dog) so I think you'll eventually get there

So the next steps are as follows:

-now that our fingerprints are in the USCIS (US immigration) system, they will issue our I-171H which is the "golden ticket" that says we can bring an orphan into the US as our child (our paper is actually approved for two children under the age of 48 months, so if there's another child under 18 months or between 40 and 48 months who is assigned to our agency for adoption and needs a family then we'd consider adopting a second child at this time...odds are good it will just be B which is great )

-Once we receive our I-171H DH will need to go the next day to get our whole dossier authenticated by Manhattan, the Bronx, and New York State (the dossier is the stack of papers we have to submit to Ethiopia)--this pretty much takes a whole day.

-Once it's authenticated by the state, our dossier goes to DC for federal authentication (just takes a few days) and then to Ethiopia to get translated and then submitted to Ethiopian court!

-B's papers get submitted to court too

-Eventually (hopefully within 2-4 months of the dossier arriving in Ethiopia) we'll go to Ethiopia for 5-7 days, meet B, have our court date, and hopefully pass court, then he will legally be our son in the eyes of Ethiopia and we are responsible for his care

-then approx. 1-3 months later we'll have an Embassy appointment with the US Embassy in Ethiopia where B will be issued his US passport and VISA and be allowed to enter the US as a citizen and as our child.

There are some big changes going on the Ethiopian adoption process that may slow this down , but we figure there is no point freaking out so we're just riding the storm and seeing how things end up and what the new schedule will be...we may or may not stay between Embassy and court (and take custody of B) depending on the timeframe. I won't be able to stay there more than 3 months without a major job change or taking extended family leave and as hard as it would be for us to meet B for a week (not telling him that we are his parents) and then leave knowing we will be back in a few weeks or months to bring him home to our family forever, it would be way worse for him to start to bond with us as his parents and then have us leave him for an extended period of time, so we'll see what seems best to us at that time given how cases are proceeding then...

 

[Logan Sapphire]

Wow, Bella, congrats! Sounds like things are moving along well. Can you believe you're going to be a mom so soon??

If you were able to work it out to stay the whole 3 months, that would be amazing!! How old is he again? If you stayed, would you have physical custody of him as well? From my nightmare experience, getting to know your child and bonding BEFORE you take a long plane ride home would be best!

 

[AGBF]

If you were able to work it out to stay the whole 3 months, that would be amazing!! How old is he again? If you stayed, would you have physical custody of him as well?

I, also, would like to know his age and whether he can stay with you if you remain in Ethiopia. Do you plan to do so? Bonding is so tremendously important! It is what I worried about most and why I wanted a young infant. (Of course nature gave me a good slap in the face; I had my daughter with me at seven weeks, but she developed what I believe is bi-polar illness when she was in Middle School. All the great bonding and nurturing in childhood cannot take away that illness! But I digress!)

I am very excited for you and hope you can remind me of the particulars of your situation in Ethiopia! Where will you stay, for instance?

PS-My doctor also wanted to write stupid things on my health forms. I had to beg him to understand the context of where they were going!!! You really brought back memories!

Hugs,
Deb


Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend

 

[Bella_mezzo]

B was born in late October of 2008 if his paperwork is correct (which it may or may not be--birthdays are often estimates in ET...)

So, he's 2-3, probably 2. if I remember right, he's 26 lbs and 33 inches as of last week.

Since February he's been in our agency's care center which is great b/c we know he's getting great care and that makes things a little easier knowing that he has enough food, medical care, and a loving environment....but it's still not the same as a family! We hope very very much that he will be home this summer!

There may be about to be a huge slowdown in the number of court cases processed by the ET govn't so this last part of the process could be quite long, we'll see...hopefully there will be some decisions in the next week or so that will reverse the change (40 cases per day to 5 per day) currently proposed by the Ethiopian government.

My first preference is to stay in ET from court to embassy for sure (to experience his birth country/culture, start bonding, meet his extended family more, etc), but things are so changeable in international adoption that we'll have to assess the situtation when we get to that point.

 

[AGBF]

How can I find your blog, Bella? I tried looking for it by just searching for Ethiopian adoptions and I couldn't find it that way!

Deb


Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend

 

[Bella_mezzo]

Hi AGBF-I'm pretty sure that you'll find it eventually. We don't have any identifying info on it, but there aren't a lot of Ethiopian adoption blogs who have a woosha (dog)...

 

[Bliss]

Bella, YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Read your blog the other day and have to say, I am SO excited for you! You and your DH have put so much positive energy and love into this process of bringing your sweet B home. What an angel. You two are going to be amazing parents and B is a blessing. SOOOO excited for you!!!!!!

 

[Bella_mezzo]

thanks such much Bliss! We are so excited and can't wait to pass court this summer (I hope!) so we can post his pic!!!

DH just called me and said he was skyping with his fam (who just got internet this week!) and his dad asked to see a pic of B so DH split screened and showed him, and FIL said "he's so handsome, just like all my boys"

DH's parents are amazing, but they thought we were kind of crazy to consider adoption, especially of a child who wasn't just born. His dad is almost 80 and is really quiet, so for him to say this just melts my heart!

I can't wait to show them more pics next week when we are down there in Louisiana to see them!

 

[pennquaker09]

Bella, I'm so happy for you! I hope you have a great time in New Orleans, it's such an amazing city.

Everything is still okay on our end as well, Nate is taking the job in North Carolina. I never thought I would be moving back to the South, but things change. I think this will be good for us. We'll be about 7 hours from his parents in Atlanta and maybe 10 hours from my folks in Birmingham. I'm not much of a road tripper, so we'll still be flying. Just much shorter flights and not out of JFK.

 

[Bella_mezzo]

Yay Penn, it sounds like your whole family will love being in NC! Does moving to another state effect your adoption paperwork/timing at all?

DH's fam is from a small town outside of New Orleans so it will be great to see them (and we'll get some yummy soul food

 

[ImperfectGirl]

Bella - I just read your blog and I'm so excited for you, your DH and B!! You both seem like amazing people and like you'll be wonderful parents! Your FIL comment was so sweet Sorry about the paperwork glitch, and hopefully everything else will go smoothly.

Penn - Congrats on your move! Being a little closer to family is great!

As for us...Parker's due date was moved up a few days to 6/14. His birthmom is doing well and will be meeting with the attorney that was retained for her next week to ensure she understands everything regarding the adoption laws in her state. She's pretty uncomfortable already and says she's having lots of braxton hicks contractions. But all in all, things are very smooth and we are just so thankful.

 

[Bella_mezzo]

Aw, thanks IP!

I am so excited for you!!! Parker will be here before you know it June 14 is right around the corner, really!!!!

 

[ImperfectGirl]

Thanks so much Bella!

Here is the latest pic of our little skeletor

 

[Bella_mezzo]

WOW! He really does look like skeletor it must be so exciting to see him!!!