We have been a family of four for four years! There may be a little family announcement at the end of this video :)
Thursday, June 29, 2017
Saturday, June 3, 2017
Family Day
June 3, 2013 was the day we became a family of 4! The kids always ask to watch our family videos from each year around this time so I thought I would share here to celebrate our four years together :)
We are home!
One year home
Two years home
Three years home
Summer 2016 (because it couldn't fit in the three year home video)
Four year home video will be coming soon!
We are home!
One year home
Two years home
Three years home
Summer 2016 (because it couldn't fit in the three year home video)
Four year home video will be coming soon!
Wednesday, April 5, 2017
The Process
I realized that not everyone we know was with us on our first (few) adoptions so the process seems confusing. If you know about how international adoption works then feel free to skip this post!
The adoption process can be confusing from the outside. Every agency and country have different referral guidelines, cost, timelines, rules and travel times. After a long journey through domestic and international adoption we landed in China. Our early blog posts can fill you in a little more on our journey and selecting China.
So how does this all work?
Well. We applied (again) to our adoption agency. We were accepted in September 2016 and the paper chase was on after that. We collected documents for two purposes – our homestudy and our dossier. A homestudy is completed by a social worker through interviews, home visits and reviewing piles of documents. The documents include employment letters, criminal checks, FBI clearance, physicals for all of us, bloodwork, pet vaccine records, financial review, reference letters, birth certificates, marriage license, taxes….you get the picture. After that is completed they determine if they feel we are ready to add a member to our family. They provide our agency a homestudy detailing all of the information they have gathered and their recommendation. The dossier is what we send to China asking to be considered to adopt a child. The dossier includes our home study, financial statements, birth certificates, marriage license, employment verification, medical statements, adoption petition, immigration approval and a few other items. The entire dossier must go through a certification process. Each document must be certified by a notary, county clerk, KY Secretary of State, US State Department and the Chinese Embassy before it can be submitted to China. Mixed in there was our immigration approval that we receive from USCIS which is the US Citizenship and Immigration Services. That includes an application, our home study and more fingerprints. It took us about five months to complete those steps.
How do you get a referral?
China is responsible for generating the files of children available for adoption. The file includes information about the child – developmental history, age, weight, special needs and other information. Following the completion of a file China has a few options of how to match families and children. I will skip to how we will most likely be matched. Our agency has partnerships with many orphanages and those files are assigned to our agency. Our agency will then work through their process to join families and children. We are now waiting for the call!
Is this adoption through the special needs program?
Our first adoption from China was completed through the special needs adoption program and this one will be as well. At this time we don’t know what medical need our child will have but have discussed many needs with our social worker and agency. The range of needs is wide including very mild to much more significant.
Why is adoption so costly?
Many people ask this question because it can be hard to understand the fees associated with adoption. Adoption from China ranges from $27,000 to $45,000+ depending on your agency, time of year you travel, cost in your home state for services, etc. We anticipate being on the lower end of that range. A specific break down of costs can be found on our agencies website if you are interested in adoption. The fees go to many different places including the placing agency, home study agency, USCIS, certification process, police checks, medical fees, China travel expenses, orphanage fee (nearly $6,000), visas, passports (for your adopted child), courier fees, shipping and more. The steps for adoption are complex, involve many people and have expenses associated with each step.
How long until you travel after you accept a referral?
Once we get a referral we will submit a letter of intent to adopt to the Chinese government. There are many steps after that including approval to adopt, additional USCIS approval, travel approval from China, setting up US embassy appointments and about 10 other steps. Long story short I would say following accepting our referral we will travel in 3-4 months. For Ayla and Isaac the travel time was 6 months but I suspect it will be faster this time.
Let me know if you have any other questions about the process!
The adoption process can be confusing from the outside. Every agency and country have different referral guidelines, cost, timelines, rules and travel times. After a long journey through domestic and international adoption we landed in China. Our early blog posts can fill you in a little more on our journey and selecting China.
So how does this all work?
Well. We applied (again) to our adoption agency. We were accepted in September 2016 and the paper chase was on after that. We collected documents for two purposes – our homestudy and our dossier. A homestudy is completed by a social worker through interviews, home visits and reviewing piles of documents. The documents include employment letters, criminal checks, FBI clearance, physicals for all of us, bloodwork, pet vaccine records, financial review, reference letters, birth certificates, marriage license, taxes….you get the picture. After that is completed they determine if they feel we are ready to add a member to our family. They provide our agency a homestudy detailing all of the information they have gathered and their recommendation. The dossier is what we send to China asking to be considered to adopt a child. The dossier includes our home study, financial statements, birth certificates, marriage license, employment verification, medical statements, adoption petition, immigration approval and a few other items. The entire dossier must go through a certification process. Each document must be certified by a notary, county clerk, KY Secretary of State, US State Department and the Chinese Embassy before it can be submitted to China. Mixed in there was our immigration approval that we receive from USCIS which is the US Citizenship and Immigration Services. That includes an application, our home study and more fingerprints. It took us about five months to complete those steps.
How do you get a referral?
China is responsible for generating the files of children available for adoption. The file includes information about the child – developmental history, age, weight, special needs and other information. Following the completion of a file China has a few options of how to match families and children. I will skip to how we will most likely be matched. Our agency has partnerships with many orphanages and those files are assigned to our agency. Our agency will then work through their process to join families and children. We are now waiting for the call!
Is this adoption through the special needs program?
Our first adoption from China was completed through the special needs adoption program and this one will be as well. At this time we don’t know what medical need our child will have but have discussed many needs with our social worker and agency. The range of needs is wide including very mild to much more significant.
Why is adoption so costly?
Many people ask this question because it can be hard to understand the fees associated with adoption. Adoption from China ranges from $27,000 to $45,000+ depending on your agency, time of year you travel, cost in your home state for services, etc. We anticipate being on the lower end of that range. A specific break down of costs can be found on our agencies website if you are interested in adoption. The fees go to many different places including the placing agency, home study agency, USCIS, certification process, police checks, medical fees, China travel expenses, orphanage fee (nearly $6,000), visas, passports (for your adopted child), courier fees, shipping and more. The steps for adoption are complex, involve many people and have expenses associated with each step.
How long until you travel after you accept a referral?
Once we get a referral we will submit a letter of intent to adopt to the Chinese government. There are many steps after that including approval to adopt, additional USCIS approval, travel approval from China, setting up US embassy appointments and about 10 other steps. Long story short I would say following accepting our referral we will travel in 3-4 months. For Ayla and Isaac the travel time was 6 months but I suspect it will be faster this time.
Let me know if you have any other questions about the process!
Saturday, April 1, 2017
We are growing!!
Our family is growing! Hopefully we will be headed back to China this year! Years ago, before we had kids, we thought we would have tons of children. Then we had children and decided that was crazy talk. For a long time we thought that our family was complete. We have loved our time as a family of four and it just seemed right. At the end of last summer we felt that maybe we were wrong and our family had a missing piece so we decided to jump back into adoption. There was no question that we would go back to China for this adoption.
We started this adoption in September 2016 and have been completing many steps along the way including gathering documents, doctor appointments, employment letters, fingerprints and a host of other things. Our documents were compiled into a dossier which completed many steps including a trip to DC for a few fancy stamps and seals. Our dossier was logged into the Chinese system in February which now allows us to be matched! We don’t know when we will be matched with a sweet little face but we are hoping to travel this year.
A few questions we often get...
Are we using the same agency? Yes. We are using CCAI again. They are AMAZING!
Will this child be from the same province as Ayla and Isaac? Most likely. Our agency has many partnerships in Henan province so we anticipate Duncan #3 will be living in Henan.
Do you know the gender of Duncan #3? Nope! It will be a surprise.
How old will he/she be? We don't know the exact age but he/she will be younger than Ayla and Isaac.
When did you tell the kids? We told the kids about a week ago. The first seven to eight months are filled with paperwork so we decided to wait until closer to the good stuff!
When do you think you will receive your referral? We don't exactly know. There are many variables that impact when we will get the call but we anticipate traveling to China this year.
More details to come!!
Thursday, August 8, 2013
Home 7 weeks!
The babies are doing AMAZING! They are playing, happy and growing! Ayla has gained 2 pounds! Isaac is walking all over. Ayla is sleeping through the night more often. Isaac is talking and signing more. They are changing every single day. It really is amazing to watch.
Ayla has gained weight and is growing out of clothes! She loves to give kisses to me, Jake, Isaac....and Chase! (the big black dog that terrified her when she was first home). She will chase Isaac down to hug him, pat him on his back when he cries and help him put his shoes on. She is talking more every day and gives you the cutest little head nod when you ask her if she understands. She totally doesn't but it's still cute. She will eat almost anything you put in front of her which is awesome.
Isaac is walking so much further each day. Today he was walking room to room while carrying a large ball over his head! He smiles SO big when he does something he is proud of. He is signing more, can point to a bunch of body parts and using more words. He loves to put stuff on - hats, glasses, necklaces, put his arms through straps on bags and carry them around. If there is a bag to carry around he is your man! He loves to climb in and out of boxes, storage bins in the playroom, laundry baskets and just about anything else he can fit in to. He is still a dancing machine.
They are just amazing. I can't get over how much they belong together. They have bonded much faster and deeper than I ever could have hoped for for the short time they have been together.
Last but not least...those kids are SOOO cute!
Ayla has gained weight and is growing out of clothes! She loves to give kisses to me, Jake, Isaac....and Chase! (the big black dog that terrified her when she was first home). She will chase Isaac down to hug him, pat him on his back when he cries and help him put his shoes on. She is talking more every day and gives you the cutest little head nod when you ask her if she understands. She totally doesn't but it's still cute. She will eat almost anything you put in front of her which is awesome.
Isaac is walking so much further each day. Today he was walking room to room while carrying a large ball over his head! He smiles SO big when he does something he is proud of. He is signing more, can point to a bunch of body parts and using more words. He loves to put stuff on - hats, glasses, necklaces, put his arms through straps on bags and carry them around. If there is a bag to carry around he is your man! He loves to climb in and out of boxes, storage bins in the playroom, laundry baskets and just about anything else he can fit in to. He is still a dancing machine.
They are just amazing. I can't get over how much they belong together. They have bonded much faster and deeper than I ever could have hoped for for the short time they have been together.
Last but not least...those kids are SOOO cute!
Friday, July 26, 2013
A few answers and an update
I haven't updated in a while primarily because there hasn't been any time! In case you didn't know we now have two children under two. They take up just a little bit of our time. A wee tiny bit.
The children are doing really well. Ayla is falling into her role as the "big sister" oh so well. She likes to make sure Isaac has his snack cup, his sippy cup and she keeps a close eye on him. She also will pat him on the head when he cries. She likes to pick out her own bows, headbands or opts for a ponytail. She is talking more and more everyday and is learning so much so fast! Isaac is always smiling and gives the best hugs. He is taking more steps everyday, loves to dance and do a little wiggle when he is happy. He is learning to hold his ground with Ayla and really LOVES to feed the dogs. He thinks it is SOO funny. When you see them together it's hard to believe they met June 3. They play together so well and love to be together. They are developing their own little language and talk to each other while they are in their cribs. They are awesome.
Everyone knows that we adopted through the special needs program in China. We have not written much about their special needs for a couple of reasons. The main reason was that we didn't know exactly what their needs would be when we got home and what that would look like for our family. We received medical reports with our referral paperwork but you just never know until they are home. They are doing so well and thriving. With that said we have some work to do!
We will start with the assistant mother. Ayla has fibular hemimelia. That means she is missing the fibula in her right leg (one of the long bones between your knee and ankle). Commonly associated with this diagnosis is a missing foot or toes. She is missing most of her right foot. This is not associated with any syndromes or environmental causes. It just happens sometimes. She is doing amazing and the surgeon was very happy with her current function. She is able to walk around the house fairly well with no help. She will undergo a small amputation of a portion of her right leg in the next one to two months. After that she will get a prosthetic foot. She will be up and running in no time. It won't be long and no one will be able to tell she wears a prosthetic. She will run and jump and play sports if she wants to. We think she will up and walking about one month after surgery. We hope to know her surgery date next week.
Now on to the baby of the family :) Isaac has spina bifida that was repaired in China when he was just weeks old. There are many forms of spina bifida that range from no impact on function to full paralysis. The very short explanation of spina bifida - your spinal cord is surrounded by a protective sac and in children with spina bifida a portion of the sac is outside of the body. In some children the spinal cord is also in the sac outside of the body at birth. Children with just the sac outside generally have less functional loss while children who have the spinal cord and sac outside generally have more functional loss. Isaac is toward the milder end of the spectrum. He can crawl like lightening, cruise all over and is starting to walk around the house without holding onto anything. He does have some weakness in his left leg that is associated with his spina bifida but we can definitely work on that.
We have been very busy with specialist appointments, assessments and diagnostic testing since we have been home. We have seen orthopedics, neurologist, cardiologist, audiologist, infectious disease, physical therapy, speech therapy...had xrays, blood draws, ultrasounds....and we still have many more appointments to go. Ayla has surgery, Isaac has an MRI scheduled and the list goes on. Both kids have been amazing through the appointments and traveling to Cincinnati Children's to see many specialist. Granted we may have been stuffing them with goldfish, cookies and whatever else kept them happy at the time. You gotta do what you gotta do.
So how is the rest of the stuff? Ayla and Isaac have had so much change in their lives. They have lost people that loved them deeply and people that they loved deeply. It's a big change. New everything. Everything they knew, gone. That is a lot for a little mind and heart to wrap itself around. We are wading through some of these losses and anticipate that we will be for a long time to come. Right now sleeping is our biggest challenge. Things are improving in this area but I think there may be a long road ahead. And that's okay. Right now we are sleeping in their room at naptime and throughout the night. One of us, mostly me, needs to be in eyesight at all times during the night. Jake tries but Ayla only wants mama in the middle of the night.
I just want to thank our family and friends for all of their support. Ayla and Isaac are so loved and we feel blessed that so many people have welcomed them home with us. I have to say that I promise my thank you notes are coming out! We truly appreciate all of the gifts and I feel AWFUL that I haven't sent them out. We have been surrounding these two with love, trying to show them that we will meet all their needs and teaching them that we are a family (plus toss in a load of doctors appointments) so that kinda eats up every single minute of every single day. A lot of things have just been pushed to the back burner much longer than I anticipated.
We will keep you updated on their medical needs, surgeries, etc as I know that many people are thinking about them. They are doing well and are amazing, wonderful children full of personality. I can't believe how fast they are growing and changing. I am not sure that I like it! I kinda want them to be "little" for a while.
The children are doing really well. Ayla is falling into her role as the "big sister" oh so well. She likes to make sure Isaac has his snack cup, his sippy cup and she keeps a close eye on him. She also will pat him on the head when he cries. She likes to pick out her own bows, headbands or opts for a ponytail. She is talking more and more everyday and is learning so much so fast! Isaac is always smiling and gives the best hugs. He is taking more steps everyday, loves to dance and do a little wiggle when he is happy. He is learning to hold his ground with Ayla and really LOVES to feed the dogs. He thinks it is SOO funny. When you see them together it's hard to believe they met June 3. They play together so well and love to be together. They are developing their own little language and talk to each other while they are in their cribs. They are awesome.
Everyone knows that we adopted through the special needs program in China. We have not written much about their special needs for a couple of reasons. The main reason was that we didn't know exactly what their needs would be when we got home and what that would look like for our family. We received medical reports with our referral paperwork but you just never know until they are home. They are doing so well and thriving. With that said we have some work to do!
We will start with the assistant mother. Ayla has fibular hemimelia. That means she is missing the fibula in her right leg (one of the long bones between your knee and ankle). Commonly associated with this diagnosis is a missing foot or toes. She is missing most of her right foot. This is not associated with any syndromes or environmental causes. It just happens sometimes. She is doing amazing and the surgeon was very happy with her current function. She is able to walk around the house fairly well with no help. She will undergo a small amputation of a portion of her right leg in the next one to two months. After that she will get a prosthetic foot. She will be up and running in no time. It won't be long and no one will be able to tell she wears a prosthetic. She will run and jump and play sports if she wants to. We think she will up and walking about one month after surgery. We hope to know her surgery date next week.
Now on to the baby of the family :) Isaac has spina bifida that was repaired in China when he was just weeks old. There are many forms of spina bifida that range from no impact on function to full paralysis. The very short explanation of spina bifida - your spinal cord is surrounded by a protective sac and in children with spina bifida a portion of the sac is outside of the body. In some children the spinal cord is also in the sac outside of the body at birth. Children with just the sac outside generally have less functional loss while children who have the spinal cord and sac outside generally have more functional loss. Isaac is toward the milder end of the spectrum. He can crawl like lightening, cruise all over and is starting to walk around the house without holding onto anything. He does have some weakness in his left leg that is associated with his spina bifida but we can definitely work on that.
We have been very busy with specialist appointments, assessments and diagnostic testing since we have been home. We have seen orthopedics, neurologist, cardiologist, audiologist, infectious disease, physical therapy, speech therapy...had xrays, blood draws, ultrasounds....and we still have many more appointments to go. Ayla has surgery, Isaac has an MRI scheduled and the list goes on. Both kids have been amazing through the appointments and traveling to Cincinnati Children's to see many specialist. Granted we may have been stuffing them with goldfish, cookies and whatever else kept them happy at the time. You gotta do what you gotta do.
So how is the rest of the stuff? Ayla and Isaac have had so much change in their lives. They have lost people that loved them deeply and people that they loved deeply. It's a big change. New everything. Everything they knew, gone. That is a lot for a little mind and heart to wrap itself around. We are wading through some of these losses and anticipate that we will be for a long time to come. Right now sleeping is our biggest challenge. Things are improving in this area but I think there may be a long road ahead. And that's okay. Right now we are sleeping in their room at naptime and throughout the night. One of us, mostly me, needs to be in eyesight at all times during the night. Jake tries but Ayla only wants mama in the middle of the night.
I just want to thank our family and friends for all of their support. Ayla and Isaac are so loved and we feel blessed that so many people have welcomed them home with us. I have to say that I promise my thank you notes are coming out! We truly appreciate all of the gifts and I feel AWFUL that I haven't sent them out. We have been surrounding these two with love, trying to show them that we will meet all their needs and teaching them that we are a family (plus toss in a load of doctors appointments) so that kinda eats up every single minute of every single day. A lot of things have just been pushed to the back burner much longer than I anticipated.
We will keep you updated on their medical needs, surgeries, etc as I know that many people are thinking about them. They are doing well and are amazing, wonderful children full of personality. I can't believe how fast they are growing and changing. I am not sure that I like it! I kinda want them to be "little" for a while.
Monday, July 8, 2013
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