David's sessions....

Ok well here are some of the things David learned at the conference. First we discovered that his sessions covered many similar things to mine... but here are some interesting things he found out.

From his notes...
-bring home a treasure box...to put important things from China and her life...
-Find a Balance.. meaning make sure to keep her Chinese culture alive as well as American.
-Learn as much as you can about the province they are from.
-Save everything from Gotcha day...they'll ask about that alot!
-Get some Chinese coloring books while there.. I thought that was great idea! I also saw a puzzle of China that is like the US where you put the states.. only it was the provinces..
-Get some basic phrase CDs for Chinese.. trying to do that now!
-Bring powdered Gatorade.. sorry Bulldog fans.. but this is to help when in China if ya don't feel good.. and it makes sense.. keep up the electrolights and all that.
-Check out Yahoo Groups.. will have to do that soon.
-take advantage of street merchants in Guangdong.. that's where the US Consulate is in China. Have hear this from several families.. you can get some awesome deals on all sorts of stuff there.!

And he had a few other things that we had heard in the other sessions about to be aware that it'll be tougher with attachment if your child was in a foster home instead of an orphanage.. which makes total sense. Show her how proud you were of having her. One person said .. explain that we planned and planned this for years.. it wasn't just a quick decision. Most of this is just is common sense.. Thankfully we both have that!

So that was the conference.. it was great! hopefully there are more of these type of events to help us thru the long waiting period. I just keep telling myself we'll have her after 2 Christmases.. This one then another.. and that's it. Kinda makes the time not seem so long. Just keep praying to speed up the Chinese Adoption folks... :)

Zai Jian
~Donna

Tax Credit...$$$

That was one of the other sessions I did at the Conference.. all sorts of info on how the Adoption Tax Credit works.. and it's a CREDIT.. not a deduction.. dollar for dollar. for 2007 it's 11,390.00 for 2008 11,650... so I figure it'll be around 12, 000.00 come 2009 for us. And if you can't use all the tax credit in one year you can spread it out over 6 years!! BUT the credit disappears after 2010!.. apparently there is a bill in Congress to renew it. So let your representatives know.. we need that credit to stay! It covers all Adoption Expenses.. fees from agencies, travel, food while overseas.. pretty nifty. We also are eligible for up to $6,000 in help from Disney. We can't apply for that until we have our little girl. (same for the tax thing.. you can back date stuff)..

The other session I did was how to handle questions from your daughter on why she doesn't look like you and all the adoption questions she will ask. I think the best advice the presenter gave was to be prepared... the more prepared you are.. the more relaxed and natural your answers will be. Your child will not only be listening to what you say, but how you say it and what your body language is. A few things we learned..

Do not refer to her biological mother as her "real" mother.. I AM HER REAL MOTHER.. she is her "birth" mother.. important stuff...
Don't say... "Your birth mother loved you.. BUT.." she said to stay away from BUT.. it puts contingency on why she is with us.. Say.. your birth mother loved you but she wasn't able to be your parent.. then remind her what it is to be a parent.. you feed her, take care of her.. take her to the doctor.. to school.. stuff like that.
Keep it the truth..made up stories, tales only come back to bite you.. if ya don't know.. tell her. I'm sorry I don't know.
Stay away from "She couldn't keep you because she was poor".. the lady said.. what if one day you loose your job and things are a bit tight for a bit.. a young child is going to start thinking.. are we poor?.. am I going to have to leave? That sounds crazy as an adult.. but to a child it is very real.
There's more.. and a few great books we'll need to read. Some children experience survivor's guilt.. oh so much to learn. But it's all good and TOTALLY worth it we feel! She did say to tell her her story over and over.. Things like your adoption was something that was planned for years and years .. we prayed and God brought you into our lives.. which is true.. heavy stuff ya know!
Well next time I'll share what David learned in his sessions..

for now.. Happy Thanksgiving!!! may we all have too much turkey.. and get nice and sleepy!
Zai Jian.

About our Conference...

Here's another article.. but this time I'm just going to post the link.

http://library.adoption.com/Answering-Adoption-Questions/Gracious-Answers-to-Awkward-Questions-About-Our-Adopted-Kids/article/455/1.html

We learned a lot at the East West Conference in Tampa yesterday. Will put my thoughts together and update the blog. Maybe one blog per session we did. We did two together and two apart. We learned some GREAT stuff. Some of which is in that article above. OK will start with one session we did together. How to handle questions and comments from strangers. That article covers many we heard in the session. A few questions that were not mentioned that we heard and got some ideas on how to respond are below. The two women, who have Chinese children of their own, said it's best to be prepared with answers.. because your kids will be right there and HEAR how you answer.. read your body language and all that stuff.

1. Actually got this 3 times today!! "Watch, now you'll get pregnant"... ok well gee thanks.. what about my little girl who is waiting for me in China. Lately I've been saying.. well I don't see it happening given our situation.. but thank you.

2. another we get. "Why are you not adopting domestically?" the two ladies at the conference had a nice answer and a not so nice one! Nice.. is actually from Wendy's founder Dave Thomas. Every Child Deserves a Family. Which is what we'll probably use.. one woman.. said she REALLY wanted to say.. "well how many domestic children have YOU adopted?".. which would put anyone back! David liked it, of course! my luck the person would say.. "two" .. and then you're like.. "ummm". so we'll stick with Dave Thomas' response..

3. One question one lady got, from her mother no less. "are you sure she is from China!" made everyone laugh!.. she was like um yea.. flew there..!

4. "oh bless you for rescuing her".. This one .. from what we learned.. you need to be REALLY careful in how you respond .. once she is old enough to understand. Most say.. 'no we are the ones who are blessed and lucky'... God let US to her. stuff like that.

There was more.. but I can't remember anything else off the top of my head. The other sessions we attended were..
How the Adoption Tax Credit works.
there was a session for Dads, David attended
how to answer questions from your child.. once they start figuring it out that they don't look like you.
David had one too.. can't remember what his other one was about.
and the last was one woman's experience on the day she got her daughter.

The final session was for everyone and involved an actual Chinese foster family, not all the children are in orphanages, and they told us about themselves.. as someone translated for them. Very cool.. and got us all teary eyed!

Well it's late...

Zai Jian.
~Donna

Good Article

This from the Orlando Sentinel... November is National Adoption Month.

For foster-care kids, adoption remains elusive
Many adoptive parents opt for foreign children, a process that can be faster, a new survey finds.
Kate Santich
Sentinel Staff Writer
November 3, 2007
Most Americans think the country should be doing more to encourage the adoption of children in foster care, and a whopping 48 million adults have even considered such adoptions. But numerous roadblocks -- red tape, a lack of infants available for adoption and misconceptions about children in foster care -- scare off all but a very few of those potential adoptive parents from ever taking the first step.
Those findings come from a national Foster Care Adoption Attitudes Survey released this week by the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, a creation of the late titan of the Wendy's hamburger chain.
"What surprised us most was that out of those adults who have considered adopting, a majority of them have considered foster-care adoptions -- more than international adoptions, more than private infant adoptions," said Rita Soronen, the foundation's executive director. "So then we wanted to find out what the barriers are."
The number of children growing up in foster care never to find a permanent home has become an increasing concern among child-welfare workers and civic leaders. In Florida, there are more than 11,000 children in foster care. Nationwide, an estimated 114,000 foster children are currently available for adoption -- a number that has remained stagnant for five years despite a recent push to increase adoption rates.
Yet foreign adoptions have doubled in the past decade, thanks to backing by church groups, international charities and celebrities such as Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt.
"There's a perception that adopting internationally will be easier to do and perhaps the children won't be as stigmatized because they haven't been in foster-care systems there," said Gregory Kurth, chief executive officer of Family Services of Metro Orlando, the agency that handles foster-care adoptions in Orange and Osceola counties.
The truth is, while they often can be faster, they are not always easier. But it is possible to get infants through international adoptions -- and extremely difficult to adopt infants through local foster-care agencies. Under the law, social workers first have to try to reunite children with their biological families, then terminate parental rights before making the children available for adoption. That can take more than a year.
Searching for a baby
"When we were looking at adding another child to our family, we felt it would be great for it to be a baby," said Tracy Matheson, 41, of Winter Park, who ultimately adopted two boys -- a baby and a toddler -- from South Korea.
She and her husband already had two children in elementary school when they made the decision. And though they seriously considered becoming foster parents, their conversations with other foster parents dissuaded them.
"Because the kids here are older and have been through so much, you can end up with a child who is very wounded, and that requires parenting skills that not everyone has," Matheson said. "I had an obligation to the children I already had -- I couldn't knowingly put them in a situation with another sibling that could bring them harm."
Too many Americans, though, confuse the child-welfare system with the juvenile-justice one. The survey, conducted by Harris Interactive, found that 45 percent of adults wrongly believe that children in foster care enter the system because they have been arrested. In fact, nearly all of them enter through no fault of their own: They have been neglected, abused or abandoned.
Part of the solution, Soronen said, is education. But child-welfare workers also need to offer better "customer service" -- some parents interviewed said they couldn't get the agencies to call them back. Parents also need to know they won't be forgotten once the ink dries on the final papers.
"Indeed, a lot of these children have issues -- of course," Soronen said. "But we've got to insist as a nation that parents are provided the support and resources -- whether they're emotional or financial -- to make sure that they can work things out."
U.S. or foreign adoption?
Of course, like most of the issues surrounding adoption, the choice between bringing in an American or foreign child is a highly sensitive and complicated one. Some parents think they can offer more to a child from another country -- one who may literally die without them.
Jenifer Davis, now an Orange Circuit Court judge, adopted two children from Russia about six years ago, in part because the process seemed to afford her a greater sense of control than going through the government here. Once she had the children in her arms, she didn't worry that the biological mother or the Russian government would try to take them away.
"I had already been through five to seven years of medical stuff trying to have a child on my own by the time I reached the point of adoption," she said. "I didn't want to wait any more."