Adoption Update

I know we haven't posted much lately.  We've been waiting on our Homestudy to be completed.  Our Social Worker told us this morning that it was done and she was sending it to our placing agency to be reviewed.  They will likely ask for a few changes to be made.  Our social worker will complete those quickly (hopefully) and then it will be done.  This is a HUGE milestone in the paperwork process.

Once the Homestudy is officially done, we can apply to US Immigration (USCIS) to adopt a child.  USCIS will then send us a letter with our appointment time to be fingerprinted.  Once we are fingerprinted, we will wait to be approved.  This approval is taking up to 90 days right now.  During that wait, we will complete our documents for our Dossier.  Immigration Approval goes in our Dossier, so once we get it, we want our Dossier ready to send to China.

Once our Dossier gets to China, we can be matched with a child.  Our agency is telling us that can be anywhere from a day to a couple of months.  We have decided to request a girl, so that will likely increase our wait time a little.  But we are open to quite a few special needs, so hopefully it will be quick.  Once we are matched, it will probably be around 6 months until we travel to China to pick her up.  We're still hoping to be home with her by the end of 2011!!!!!

Our Homestudy getting done also means that we can apply for several adoption grants.  The fundraising really kicks into high gear very soon!  We are still planning to do the fundraising quilt, so keep an eye out for more details.  We're also hoping to apply for a matching grant very soon.  We most definitely appreciate any help our friends and family can provide to bring our little girl home!

For Your Viewing & Reading Pleasure .....

This past Sunday, we were featured at our church.  A few months ago, we filmed a video and we finally got to see it edited together.  It's here:  http://www.vimeo.com/18667223

We also got to help put together 2 blog posts for our church's blog.  Part 1 was posted today and Part 2 will be posted tomorrow, Thursday.   http://www.brandedwithlove.com/

We had a lot of fun and we hope that other families will be encouraged to learn more about adoption.

Quilt Fundraiser - We Need Your Help!!!!!

Dear friends and family,

To welcome and celebrate a new life, there is a tradition in the northern part of China to make a Bai Jia Bei, or 100 Good Wishes Quilt. It is a custom to invite 100 people to contribute a single square patch of cloth. These 100 patches are sewn together into a quilt that contains luck, hope, and good thoughts from all the families and friends who contribute a piece of fabric. The quilt is then passed down from generation to generation.

We would like to combine this tradition with raising money for our next adoption.  We want all of you to have a part in creating a quilt that our child will have forever.  He or she will be able to be covered in the love of family and friends.

So this is how we would like to accomplish this:

• Each square will “cost” $10.   For each $10 you donate to our adoption, we want to include 1 square on our child’s quilt.  For example, if you can give $10, choose 1 square.  If you can give $100, choose 10 squares.
• You may choose your own fabric or we will choose for you.  If you choose, we would love it if you chose something meaningful to you. If you’d like us to choose your fabric, just let us know.  We have plenty of fabric!!  We aren't sure yet if we'll be matched with a boy or a girl.
• The fabric can be anything that is machine washable. Any color or pattern is fine.  A piece of an old t-shirt, a piece of something meaningful to you, regular cotton quilting fabric, etc. 
• The piece needs to be a 4-inch square.
• If you would like to enclose a note for our scrapbook, we'd love to include it in the new child's scrapbook. 

We need you to send your fabric and your check directly to us.  We will take progress pictures of our squares periodically so you can see how we’re doing!  If you’d prefer to give anonymously, just send a money order and we’ll make sure to include some fabric squares in the quilt.  If you need our address, email us at wolfeadoption@gmail.com

Our goal is to raise around $10,000 with this quilt.  By our calculations, for a twin-size, the front of the quilt will have approximately 560 squares, so that is $5,600 for the front.  I am more than happy to make a larger quilt if we get enough squares!!!!!

We know this is a difficult time of year to be asking for donations.  We are so grateful for whatever you can contribute.  Every dollar gets us a little closer to being able to bring our child home!!!  We are working on a detailed list of how much everything costs so that everyone can see what goes into an international adoption.  We assure you that every penny that is donated will go directly towards our adoption.  We have a special savings account set up and all adoption money goes directly into that account.

Thank you and we can’t wait to get started on the quilt!  Please let us know if you have any questions!!!!!  Sherry’s email address is:  scbwolfe@gmail.com and Aaron’s is:  aswolfe@gmail.com

Thank you again!

Aaron, Sherry, Luke, Jacinda, and our new little one

Buy Coffee and Help Bring our Child Home!

We are partnering with a great company called Just Love Coffee to help raise money for our next adoption.  For every bag of coffee you buy, they will give us $5 that goes directly towards our adoption expenses.  Go HERE for our store.  Once you get there, you can use the links on the left side of the page to see all the types of coffee they have.

I have tried a couple of different types and they are SO good!!!!!  The coffee would make great Christmas gifts!!!  Feel free to send the link to other friends and family if you'd like.

The company was started specifically to help orphans and their adoptive families.  The coffee is certified Fair Trade, which means that the coffee farmers are paid a sustainable and livable wage.  The coffee is also Organic.

If you have any questions, please let us know!  Any purchases are greatly appreciated.  We're working hard to raise the money for this adoption and would love to have you as a partner in the process.  We have more ideas in the works, so stay tuned!

Dossier and Homestudy

China requires that adoptive parents submit a Dossier, which is a collection of documents.  The documents we have to submit are:

Family Information Form (a snapshot of our family information, such as income, address, number of kids)
Application Letter (a letter we write to the Chinese government requesting to adopt)
Birth Certificates
Marriage Certificate
Employment Verifications
Medical Forms
Police Clearances
Copies of Passports
Photographs showing our home and family
Immigration Approval (we can't apply for this until the Homestudy is done)
Adoption Homestudy

Once we get all of those documents, they each have to be notarized by a notary with at least a year left on their certification.  Then, the documents have to be certified at the state level.  Then, they have to be authenticated at the Chinese Embassy in DC before heading off to China.  Each step requires filling out a form and writing a check (of course!).

The Homestudy involves requesting some documents, like the Birth Certificates and physical forms.  We also have to get documentation that our pets have all their shots.  Then we have to meet with our social worker and she'll ask us a million questions as well as come to our house.  Our house doesn't have to be perfectly clean (if you've been to our house, don't laugh!), but they want to see that we have room for another child.

Right now, we're requesting all the documents and putting together the Dossier, as well as getting started on the Homestudy.  We should be able to reuse some of our Homestudy documents from last time.  We're waiting to hear back from our local social worker as to what we'll need to do to complete the Homestudy.

Once the Homestudy is done, we can apply to US Immigration.  Last time, we had a big holdup with US Immigration.  We got caught in the midst of them changing the process.  We're hoping it won't take nearly as long this time.

Another Adoption Journey Begins ......

Some of you will recall that while we were in China last year, I (Sherry) said that I would never in a million years do another international adoption.  Well, apparently God has a sense of humor!  When we say "never", I think it's an opportunity for God to do a great work in us.

For months, we have been discussing whether or not to do another adoption.  We want more kids, but infertility makes that impossible!  I just turned 38 and I feel like I want to be done having kids soon.  Plus, if we get out of the toddler years, I don't think I want to go back!!!!!  We've been talking, thinking, and praying for a long time.  This past week, we finally both felt like it was the right time.

We submitted our application this past Sunday, which was coincidentally Orphan Sunday.  We definitely didn't plan it that way, but it's cool that it worked out like that!  I'm anxious to get started and get our new family member home!!!!!  We are going back to China.  We are requesting a special needs boy or girl under age 3.  We are hoping that his or her need will be cleft lip/palate again.  That need can have a wide range of severity, but we have a great support system in place here and a great team of doctors.  However, we are open to considering a wide range of minor to moderate special needs.

If you are the praying type, please pray that:
1.  The right child would be matched with us.  There is a lot of work that goes into matching children with families.  We are praying that the right child for our family will find us.
2.  The money we need will be provided.  Adoption is very expensive and we have some money saved up, but not nearly enough.  We have already started changing around our household budget to save as much as we can.  I (Sherry) am trying to pick up more part-time work.  It doesn't make sense for me to go to work full-time because by the time we pay for full-time daycare for both kids, I won't bring home very much money.  I've already applied to another college for an Adjunct teaching position.  I'm also trying to find some tutoring jobs and sewing work for people.  We will also be applying for some adoption grants, but we can't do that until our Homestudy is completed, so about 6 months from now.

More surgeries .......

We've been so busy this summer!  Mostly trying to stay cool.  I think we're all ready for fall around here.  Luke starts preschool right after Labor Day and I think he's going to love it!!!

This coming Monday, Jacinda is having an endoscopy and colonoscopy.  Because of her age, she will need general anesthesia.  The doctor says it should only take about an hour.  She's having it done because she continues to have horrible diarrhea.  All her tests so far have been normal.  Her doc is sure these tests will also be normal.  I sure hope so, but the diarrhea is truly awful.  Everywhere we go, we carry 2 changes of clothes and she often needs it.  So we'll see what happens.

In even bigger news, we're waiting on a phone call with the surgery date for her tongue, nose, and palate.  Back in May, her surgeon, Dr. Inciong, said that he wanted to wait at least 6 months, maybe a year, and then do some more work on her nose.  Her left nostril is tiny and he had opened it up a bit in February, but it had collapsed again.  So he said we should wait a while until she gets bigger and then re-evaluate.

A few months ago, she started having nosebleeds on that side.  They aren't too bad, but just enough to make a mess.  So last week, I called and made an appointment to see Dr. Inciong.

Around the same time last week, I was practicing words with her.  I realized that she wasn't lifting her tongue up to make certain sounds, like "l" and "t".  For a while now, I've been frustrated that she hasn't been making much progress with her speech.  We and her speech therapist have been chalking it up to being 2 and being very stubborn.  But I started wondering if she was "tongue-tied."  None of her doctors or speech therapists had ever mentioned that this was a possibility.

So I asked Dr. Inciong today to take a look, since we were there anyway.  He said she is definitely "tongue-tied".  It's where the little piece of tissue under the tongue is too small and doesn't allow you to lift your tongue up or stick your tongue out.  For some people, it's not severe and they are able to compensate.  For Jacinda, it's definitely interfering with her speech, so Dr. Inciong says we should take care of it immediately.  Unfortunately, because of her age, we're looking at general anesthesia again.

He said that while he's in there, he'll take a look at her nose and very possibly go ahead and try to make that left nostril larger again.  He thinks the insides of her nostril are touching and "sticking" together and that's what's causing the nosebleeds.  He also will take a look at her palate and make sure there are no holes in it.

Hopefully this surgery will be soon!  I'm expecting the nurse to call either tomorrow or early next week.