Oh boy..

So this weekend was crazy. First my sister and her family and my mom were in town to visit. Dad couldn't come, he was on firewatch up at their place. It's been so dry!! ANYWAY..We had a lot of fun having dinner with them and the kids on Friday. Unfortunately we didn't get to see them much, Saturday was our information session with the Agency. Wow there is so much to get together for our Dossier and stuff for the USCIS (United States Citizenship and Imigration Service, old INS) form. That sucker is gonna cost us over $600 bucks for the form fee. Yikes! that includes the hightech fingerprints we have to get.. yup didn't need to go thru all that last month down at the Courthouse. oh well. Anyway at the session a couple that came back in January from China brought their daughter in and she is just ADORABLE!! And they told us about their experience overseas and how great the agency staff was..we got to ask questions. It was great to see a couple who was all done!

Come to find out that it's taking a long time. China is behind.. some sort of filing problem or something. So we just have to be patient. We don't even have our Dossier over there and I have good moments and bad. There is so much to do at the house that it'll be good to have LOTS of time. And it will give us time to pay off the first part of the fees before the second part are due! I think my folks said they'd help with the airfare and anything else we may need. Aww.. thank you sooo much Mom & Dad! Mom already bought her cute shoes!! size 7! so it'll be awhile before she can wear them! oh they are cute!

Well that's this week's update. This Friday we are taking David out for his 40th birthday, which is next Wed. Going to Buca di Beppo... yum yum!!

~Later

Awww...

Her first stuffed animal gift from my sister...

It's a dog? or angel with long ears! so cute! Tomorrow is our Info session at the Agency. We'll learn about all the paperwork and stuff we'll need to do over the coming months.. and probably have to write a check or two!

Celebrate!

OK.. don't have much to update.. but..one fun thing and a milestone for me!

First I thought it was sweet in his own way... that David bought some special beer last week..

It's the offical beer of China!! Yangjing Beer!

Also I FINALLY finished my barn of animals!! I made one for my nephews back in 1997 and had cut out two of everything. Well I finally finished ours! I did work on it some last year when we were doing the infertility stuff.. and stopped well.. you can guess why. ANYWAY...I finally finished it up today! just had the sheep to do and finish up the duck! Tada!!

We were going to go up to my folks to visit them today and see the Peacock festival in their town. We are a bit bummed that we didn't go.. but we just watched CNN and saw that sections of I-75 are shut down because of the Bugaboo fire.. which one official quoted as the Fire of a lifetime and he couldn't believe he was saying that he couldn't wait for hurricane season. wow.. bad fire. Pray for all those folks and animals as nature does it what it does. No matter how much we dislike it, fire is necessary.

ADVENTURES IN BUREAUCRACY

We had to get copies of a clear police report from our county and fingerprints. (we thought) So one morning we worked it out with our jobs to go to Bartow (our county seat) to get this stuff. First, we live in the tippy top of Polk County, as some of you know, and Bartow is 40mi one way! We get to the Sheriff’s office and say ok we are here for our clearance thingy and we need fingerprints for adoption paperwork. The lady asks if we have a card.. a wah? A card.. .. A card for what.. She finally explains, the card to put the prints on.. Oh that.. no, we thought you had them. She says no we don’t, but you can get them over at the Courthouse (which luckily is right next door!) ok. So we walk over. And

>>side note<<>Have you been sniffed? No, not by your dog.. but by a bomb sniffer machine! Very interesting… it looks like a metal detector on steroids! You walk in and it shoots all this air at ya.. then you just stand there and wait for the light to turn green. David says ut oh as we walk in the door.. what do you mean ut oh? Then I remember.. that’s right this man works with Pyro on occasion.. turns out it was ok..(he had clean clothes on and his shoes were pyro-free!) whew!

Then I get up to the metal detector and the guy asks.. “you have any electronic devices in your purse”.. oh um.. sure.. here’s my phone, my blackberry and my portal XM radio..(dang should have left it in the car) he was like.. cool XM! We walk up to the Information Desk and ask where to get the cards and the lady tells us the Sheriff’s office, um no they sent us here. She gets a bit exasperated and directs us to the first double doors on the left, TRY there.. well no it was the second door the first set were Admin offices! So we go to the Clerk of Court area, where folks pay their fines and stuff like that. And ask for the cards, the woman says.. you get those at the Sheriff’s office..um no they sent us here. (We tried to be really nice about it!! People tend to help you more if you aren’t nasty!)

So her supervisor calls the Sheriff’s office.. then after several minutes they want to talk to us! So they hand David the phone and after David talks with them he says that the Sheriff’s Office has the Crimnal cards.. not the adoption ones and they are here in the Courthouse.. somewhere! OK.. well the lady at the teller says.. why don’t you try Civil. Um ok. Where is that? Luckily it’s just down the hall!

Off we go down the hall. Two women at the desk ask if they can help us.. I exclaim.. Yes we are on a scavenger hunt!!! Do you have the fingerprint cards for Adoption here.. Yes, she replies.. Eureka! How much? Oh they are free!! Even better! How many do we want? Two please! So after we left that office, we made a point to tell the folks in the Clerk’s office AND the Information desk where the cards are so the next couple doesn’t have to go thru all that!

Next stop is the Passport office (I need to fix the name on my passport.. long story) Turns out they don’t do that.. I just have to mail it to Miami with my old passport and a Certified copy of our marriage license.. I hesitate.. I only have one extra copy and it’s for the Adoption Agency.. no prob we do that right here! So for only $2.50 she got us another copy. I had one with me so it had all the codes on it .. so it was a quick and easy thing..

Now it’s back to the Sheriff’s office where we fill out our cards and pay for our background checks (only $13) and get fingerprinted.

This whole process took .. oh about an hour! Seemed longer at the time.. then we drove back to work. Fun fun. And It turns out.. we didn’t need the fingerprints for the application!!! We’ll have to do it again for the USCIS(new INS) for our Federal paperwork and it’s not free!! Argh.

Whew.. now you are all up to date!

It all started..

We’ve been thinking adoption for a while now….We did the invitro, insemination and all that stuff…and finally we came to terms that it just wasn’t meant to be for us to have a biological child. But we still really wanted to share our lives with a little one. We did a lot of praying and talking and thinking. We decided to go with China because with domestic adoption there is always that risk that the mother will change her mind.. and with all the pain and heartache thru the infertility stuff … neither of us were willing to risk that kind of heartache.. And now..we can’t wait to get our little “fortune cookie” and share our beliefs, feelings, stuff(he he) but most of all our love with her. Aww

So.. on the night of March 19th David was reading thru his Forward Day by Day prayer book. (That particular week we REALLY started getting serious about starting the whole process)…. he reads to me that March 19 is St. Joseph’s day. Jospeh was the be all end all of adoptive fathers. The author reminds of what Joseph did for Mary and Jesus. And that was the sign for us.. or more like God put it in BIG BLINKING LIGHTS! Cool huh! So on March 31st we went to an information session. Brenda, who did the presentation was wonderful.. she told us all about the program and the folks who started the agency. (http://www.chinesechildren.org/) She had pictures of her daughter and showed us the agency video(we all sniffled). Then towards the end her husband came in and her daughter Hannah came running in and well.. that just made the whole thing real for me! There she was, her little girl..clinging to her leg! Just about everyone who works for the agency has adopted a child from China! Ok where do we sign up?!?!


Ok so we got the application.. they want to know our BMI? Really.. um ok and expenses.. net worth… medical stuff.. We needed to sign all sorts of paperwork and have it Notarized.. Luckily working at Disney, Notaries are easy to find! Now we just need David to READ the dang paperwork. He signed one in the wrong place.. and I’m like.. so you MIGHT have committed a felony? And he’s like.. um no.. and I’m like.. um dude you signed the wrong section.. He says.. no I didn’t. I’m like.. well did ya READ it. He hesitates.. well I scanned thru.. but no ya didn’t READ it did ya.. well no.. ARGH.. so he had to do that one over!

Wow a Blog!

Well here goes nothing! Welcome to our blog!! First let me say.. it's a bit overwhelming.. there is this blank box and geez what do I put.. so let's get to it!

Well it's official.. we were approved yesterday to adopt a little girl from China!! We can't believe it..it's very unreal and so exciting. We've had soo much disappointment in our lives around trying to have a child it's wierd to get good news.. really... really.. you mean we REALLY are gonna have someone to share our lives with! Our prayers have finally been answered! Wow!

I have so much to say.. but I'll fill in all the details later! I want to share how fun it was just to get the application together!! And that seems to have been the easy part! Next it's, US government paperwork, China stuff, autobiographies (ug I hate writing formal stuff!), a floor plan of our house!(actually have that!) and all sorts of other stuff. My brain was just working over and over last night that it was hard to get to sleep.. then my tummy revolted..excitement!

Anyway just wanted to get the page going.. I plan on spending the time between our dossier being completed and our Match day getting the blog all pretty.. It's a start! and we've got a long way to go!

Thank you everyone for all your prayers, positive vibes and love.

~Donna