It's a bird...It's a plane...NO it's our livingroom!!

OK... I know that is a weird title but our living room and kitchen are even weirder right now because we have several blowers and de-humidifiers noisely doing their job in our home. The mitigations specialists found that the moisture level in our walls after the flood was 100% in some areas so now we are living in a wind tunnel. Oh well....you gotta do what you gotta do!!

Also on the home front Justin Bennett is home from school in between semesters and boy is it GREAT to have him under our roof if even for a short time!

On the adoption front...the dossier left the good ol' USA today for our daughters homeland of China.

Finally today, I would also like to thank everyone that contributed in solidarity to The Half the Sky Foundation's walk to benefit the Chinese orphans. It was such a wonderful event. We have not heard the final money count yet but I am sure that their goals were exceeded. We were able to meet several families who have either adopted or are in the process of doing so as well as wonderful people with no connection to chinese children other than their need to make a difference in the world and in a childs life. Watching the children greet each other and play on the playground brought tears to both of our eyes. It was a magical way to spend my birthday.

Well goodbye for now and let me say that now that the weekend is here and we are DTC...let the shopping for Katie begin!!

WE ARE DTC and PAPER PREGNANT!!

Well it is official. Lacee from Great Wall Chinese Adoption, our agency, called to say that we are DTC tomorrow. Our dossier will be going out with a group of other adoptive families dossiers to China tomorrow. This means that the paperchase is officially over and we are paper pregnant. Now we can start the wonderful process of BUYING THINGS for the baby. Yeah!!

Bad new and good news.....

First the bad news.... Marc was working from home today and had gone out for an hour. He came back and found that the front part of the house was flooded. All the way from the kitchen to the front door. It seemed at first as though a pipe had burst somewhere around or under the house because as fast as he would wet vac and mop it up, the water would be back just as high. We called the plumber who had just been there 2 days before to change our toilets. He came within an hour (thank goodness) and found that the water line into the refrigerator was leaking in the wall and the water was escaping to anywhere it could find to flow. When he pulled out the cabinets he found that the builder had put a screw through the water line and all of these years (11) the screw had sealed the hole but began to rust and finally this morning it gave way in a big way. Now all of the cabinets need to be replaced as well as the drywall behind it and possibly the floor because so much water got under the tile. Ughhhhhh! The plumber will be back tomorrow to replace the line and then we have to deal with the insurance company.

Now the good news that puts it all into perspective. Today all of our adoption documents are done and Pam is sending them all to our agency. I am hoping that the case manager will ship them to China with this weeks batch but it may have to wait until next Friday.

Also, Justin will be home this weekend for a week between his two terms and we are so looking forward to seeing him!

I will tell you about the walk-a-thon on the next post because this one is already a little long winded. Bye for now...

Milestones

Yesterday was a milestone as we sent the last of all of the documentation to Pam, our dossier specialist. She will complile everything into the Dossier and it should be sent to China either 4/29 or 5/6. It was a big step to get this paperchase behind us.

All of this happiness coincides with my (Lori's) 44 th Birthday. Now of course anyone who really knows me knows how much I LOVE MY BIRTHDAY!! To celebrate we are heading over to Marco Island and will spend the night. My best friend Kira and her husband Dennis will join us along with 2 other friends of ours, Robert and Alicia.

The day will begin though by walking in a walk-a-thon for The Half The Sky Foundation. This foundation benefits the orphans waiting for a home in China. Marc and I have raised almost $700.00 in pledges for this event and I feel that it will be very special to walk in solidarity for these children on my birthday. If you would like more information please click on the following link www.halfthesky.org

One our next post we will let you know how the walk-a-thon went. Until then........

Say Cheese!

The time has come to bite the bullet and handle a part of the dossier that I have been putting off. We have to enclose 6 - 8 life pictures of our family. Now this may sound like a simple task but believe me...it is NOT. It is so hard to find the appropriate pictures. You see...the powers that be at the CCAA (Chinese Center for Adoptive Affairs) carefully look at the pictures that we send to help them during the matching process. We have been told that they look for similarites in facial features but more importantly, the Chinese believe that you can see much within the face and eyes of a person such as their general personality and demeanor. So, now do you understand how much is riding on these pictures? :) All the pics that we find are too casual, too formal, have sunglasses on, too old, too little clothing, or just plain awful. That is a bit of an exaggeration...I have found a few good ones but we are still in the hunt for a couple more good ones. Looks like this weekend we will be striking a pose!

DTC and LID here we come!!!

So yesterday I told you that I would fill you in on what comes next. Well here goes...

There are lots of acronyms in international adoption land and two of them are DTC and LID. DTC is Dossier to China. This is the day that the compilation of all of the documents that we have to supply is sent to China. LID is Log in Date. That is the date that China officially logs our dossier into their records and the wait officially begins. We are hoping that the approximate 6 month wait continues to hold or even improves to less of a wait. Although that may put a big crimp in Marc's December (Prime Time for Disc Jockey-Entertainers) He is only putting other people on the December and January jobs just in case.

Anyway, back to the Dossier. We have the most wonderful woman helping us with our Dossier. Her name is Pam Eidson and she runs Adoption by Choice. She is expert in this field and has given us a real edge in this Paperchase that we are in. If you are looking for a true professional to assist you during your adoption process please contact her. Her web site is www.abcadopt.homestead.com

Well that is my lesson for the day. We are looking forward to a nice weekend. Tomorrow is Lori's dads birthday so we will celebrate with him and Linda. Happy Birthday Pop!

Until next time.....

We received our I-171H!!

We are so full of joy today. We received the document that gives us approval to adopt an orphan and bring her to the US. When she steps on US soil and has her passport stamped she will be a US citizen. The approval happened much faster than we anticipated. We are celebrating tonight. Tomorrow I will explain more about the next step.

This blog is boggling my mind!

I have been trying to customize this blog a little and I am making headway slowly but surely. I was looking at different blogs on the web and found one that was very unique. Of course it was created by a college student! I e-mailed her and she is giving a little guidance to this novice web mistress. :)

You may see some changes along the way. Please feel free to comment on them.

The family
Marc, Lori and # 1 son Justin

Welcome to our Blog

A Blog is the acronym for weblog and this Blog will be our way to communicate with family and friends during our quest to adopt a daughter from China. Marc and I have always wanted to have a baby in our lives to love and raise though to an adult and now we have the opportunity to do that. Being that China has a decades old one child policy mixed with a cultural preference for male children there are thousands of girls waiting in orphanages and foster homes for a forever family to love. We have a wonderful home, family and network of friends that will give our daughter that forever family. Fate will bring our daughter to parents who very much need this daughter to love forever. Justin, who seemed a little shocked at first (who wouldn't be after being an only child for 20 years?) now embraces the idea as we do.

We are presently in the Paper Chase phase of the adoption. The US and Chinese governments have us produce many documents that must be certified by the state and authenticated by the Chinese Government. We also have completed a home study where a social worker came into our home and completed a thorough review of our family to determine that we were suitable to adopt a child into our home. We also must apply to USCIS (formerly called Immigration and Naturalization Services) for permission to bring an orphan into the US. We are now waiting for that permission and we will be formally DTC. That means that our Dossier will be in China and we will begin the 6-8 month wait that now exists to be referred a daughter. At that time we will get her photograph as well as her medical background and some pertinent infomation about her. Approximately 6-8 weeks later we should be able to travel to get her. We will be in China for about 2 weeks to complete the adoption. We will document this process all the way and including posting journal entries and pictures from China.