Here's an update on the financial side of things right now. We still need around $10,000 for travel expenses and if #2 below doesn't come soon, we'll need some to make up for that.
1. Grants - We have applied for 2 different grants. We have no idea if we have a chance to get them or not and we have no idea when we will hear about them. So we're not counting on them, but it will be a nice surprise if we get one or both.
2. Tax Refund - We're expecting a pretty good tax refund because of the adoption tax credit from Jacinda's adoption. However, the IRS is auditing quite a few people that claimed the adoption tax credit. So we have no idea when we will get the refund. It could be May, it could be a few months after that. If there's a government shutdown, our refund will be delayed even more.
How you can help us:
1. Direct Donation - You can send a check directly to us, or use Paypal (Personal Payment) - wolfeadoption@gmail.com
2. Buy a T-shirt - http://adoptionbug.com/wolfeadoption/index.htm
3. Buy Coffee - http://www.JustLoveCoffee.com/TheWolfes You can buy any of the coffee in their store. Just click on the link to get to our store. Then, you can use the links on the left side of the page to see what else they have.
4. Quilt - See post HERE
Thanks to everyone for your help getting our little girl home!!!!
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
US Immigration Approval!!!!
We heard today that our I-800A Application has been approved! This approves us to adopt a child from China. Once we get matched with a child, we'll use the I-800 form to apply to adopt that specific child. Now, we wait for the official Approval notice to arrive in the mail.
Once we get that, it will have to be Notarized. Then, I will take all of our Virginia documents to Richmond to have them Authenticated at the state level. Then, all of those documents go to the Chinese Embassy and State Department in DC to be Authenticated at the Chinese Embassy level. Then, we add a few pictures to our pile of documents and send everything to our Agency for review. They will review our Dossier, and if everything looks OK, they will send it on to China.
At that point, we can be matched with a child! It may take 2 weeks, or it may take a few months. We are definitely getting closer!!!!!
Once we get that, it will have to be Notarized. Then, I will take all of our Virginia documents to Richmond to have them Authenticated at the state level. Then, all of those documents go to the Chinese Embassy and State Department in DC to be Authenticated at the Chinese Embassy level. Then, we add a few pictures to our pile of documents and send everything to our Agency for review. They will review our Dossier, and if everything looks OK, they will send it on to China.
At that point, we can be matched with a child! It may take 2 weeks, or it may take a few months. We are definitely getting closer!!!!!
Friday, March 25, 2011
Buy a T-shirt, Help Us Raise Money!
We have partnered with a great company, AdoptionBug.com in order to help us raise money for our adoption. Go to our store HERE. For every t-shirt you buy, we will get a portion of the price. All money will go directly to our adoption expenses. For most shirts, we get between $6.49 and $8.99.
You can choose addition items from their main store, but only the items on our page will give us a commission. All ordering and shipping is done directly from the website.
Thank you and please let us know if you have any questions!
You can choose addition items from their main store, but only the items on our page will give us a commission. All ordering and shipping is done directly from the website.
Thank you and please let us know if you have any questions!
Monday, February 21, 2011
We Need Your Help
The time has come where we need to ask for your help to raise money for our adoption. We are close to emptying our savings account and we still need quite a bit of money. We feel very strongly that God has led us down this adoption path once again and we know the money issue will work out somehow.
We have done quite a few things around our family to save money. We have drastically lowered our cable TV and cell phone bills. We rarely eat out at restaurants. We have drastically cut our "fun" spending. We are willing to use every penny of our savings to get our daughter home. (Although, we do live in a "money pit" house, so hopefully this won't backfire on us!)
If you can help in this way, any donations will be greatly appreciated. We need to raise around $20,000. This would include everything .... adoption agency fees, US Immigration fees, document processing fees, Homestudy fees, mailing fees (we should own stock in UPS by now!) and our travel expenses. There are a few ways you can help:
1. A direct donation. Checks can be made out to Aaron or Sherry Wolfe and be mailed to us (email us at wolfeadoption@gmail.com if you need our address). If you'd prefer to use Paypal, send a donation to wolfeadoption@gmail.com and make sure to indicate it is a Personal Gift payment so that fees aren't taken out.
2. Shop at Just Love Coffee http://www.justlovecoffee.com/
For any donation made, we'd love to include quilt squares in our daughter's quilt. See THIS post for the details. It's $10 per square. So if you donate $100, that's 10 squares.
We so appreciate any help you all can provide. It's hard for us to ask for money. For Jacinda's adoption, I (Sherry) went back to work full-time and we refinanced our house so that we wouldn't have to ask anyone for money. This time, refinancing the house again is not an option. Regarding going back to work full-time, by the time we paid for day care for 2 kids, it wouldn't be worth it. So here we are.
We love you all! Please know that if you can't donate, we certainly understand and please don't worry. We are confident this will work out somehow. We know that a little girl is waiting for us in China and God knows how this all will work out. We are excited to see how He provides and we are beyond excited to find out who that little girl will be! We're really hoping to be home with her by the end of 2011.
Please let us know if you have any questions! You can email us at wolfeadoption@gmail.com or post on Facebook or here in the Comments. Thank you for taking the time to consider helping us!
We have done quite a few things around our family to save money. We have drastically lowered our cable TV and cell phone bills. We rarely eat out at restaurants. We have drastically cut our "fun" spending. We are willing to use every penny of our savings to get our daughter home. (Although, we do live in a "money pit" house, so hopefully this won't backfire on us!)
If you can help in this way, any donations will be greatly appreciated. We need to raise around $20,000. This would include everything .... adoption agency fees, US Immigration fees, document processing fees, Homestudy fees, mailing fees (we should own stock in UPS by now!) and our travel expenses. There are a few ways you can help:
1. A direct donation. Checks can be made out to Aaron or Sherry Wolfe and be mailed to us (email us at wolfeadoption@gmail.com if you need our address). If you'd prefer to use Paypal, send a donation to wolfeadoption@gmail.com and make sure to indicate it is a Personal Gift payment so that fees aren't taken out.
2. Shop at Just Love Coffee http://www.justlovecoffee.com/
For any donation made, we'd love to include quilt squares in our daughter's quilt. See THIS post for the details. It's $10 per square. So if you donate $100, that's 10 squares.
We so appreciate any help you all can provide. It's hard for us to ask for money. For Jacinda's adoption, I (Sherry) went back to work full-time and we refinanced our house so that we wouldn't have to ask anyone for money. This time, refinancing the house again is not an option. Regarding going back to work full-time, by the time we paid for day care for 2 kids, it wouldn't be worth it. So here we are.
We love you all! Please know that if you can't donate, we certainly understand and please don't worry. We are confident this will work out somehow. We know that a little girl is waiting for us in China and God knows how this all will work out. We are excited to see how He provides and we are beyond excited to find out who that little girl will be! We're really hoping to be home with her by the end of 2011.
Please let us know if you have any questions! You can email us at wolfeadoption@gmail.com or post on Facebook or here in the Comments. Thank you for taking the time to consider helping us!
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Update on Jacinda's Progress
Today, February 15th, we had a meeting with Jacinda's Cleft Team. We scheduled the meeting because we were concerned with her lack of progress with her speech. So here is who we met with and the results of each appointment:
Her palate surgeon: He says her palate looks perfect. There are no complications with her palate repair at all. He says there is no physical reason for her lack of progress in speech.
Her ENT: Her ears look great, except for lots of wax. Her last hearing test was perfect, but we should schedule a follow-up just to keep an eye on her hearing.
The Orthodontist: Her teeth look great. She will get orthodontic work and work on her jaw in a few years. He said it will not be before she is 6 years old. It depends on when her 6-year molars come in and she's getting bigger.
Speech Pathologist: We finally got some answers here. The Speech Pathologist agreed with us that Jacinda should be progressing much quicker than she is. Finally, someone agreed with us. Honestly, that was a HUGE relief! Her speech teacher (and a few others before this one) has just been saying "it's a slow process. Be patient." But all along, we've felt like Jacinda should be saying more than she is.
So today, we learned that we were right. The speech pathologist asked if anyone had ever mentioned Apraxia of Speech to us. Apraxia of Speech is a motor speech disorder and is diagnosed by a Neurologist. This would be unrelated to her cleft lip and palate. Basically, it's a disorder where a person knows what they want to say, but it will not come out the way they want it to. We're not certain that Jacinda has it, but she has several symptoms of it.
The plan is for Jacinda's speech teacher to call the Speech Pathologist we saw today and hopefully they can work together to come up with an aggressive treatment plan. Apraxia of Speech requires a specific speech therapy treatment plan. For 2 months, we're going to pursue that. Then, if things aren't improving, we'll make an appointment with a Neurologist and start looking at some other options. There are some other Auditory Processing Disorders that we will investigate if we get to that point.
We have a plan and we feel very good about it!!!
Her palate surgeon: He says her palate looks perfect. There are no complications with her palate repair at all. He says there is no physical reason for her lack of progress in speech.
Her ENT: Her ears look great, except for lots of wax. Her last hearing test was perfect, but we should schedule a follow-up just to keep an eye on her hearing.
The Orthodontist: Her teeth look great. She will get orthodontic work and work on her jaw in a few years. He said it will not be before she is 6 years old. It depends on when her 6-year molars come in and she's getting bigger.
Speech Pathologist: We finally got some answers here. The Speech Pathologist agreed with us that Jacinda should be progressing much quicker than she is. Finally, someone agreed with us. Honestly, that was a HUGE relief! Her speech teacher (and a few others before this one) has just been saying "it's a slow process. Be patient." But all along, we've felt like Jacinda should be saying more than she is.
So today, we learned that we were right. The speech pathologist asked if anyone had ever mentioned Apraxia of Speech to us. Apraxia of Speech is a motor speech disorder and is diagnosed by a Neurologist. This would be unrelated to her cleft lip and palate. Basically, it's a disorder where a person knows what they want to say, but it will not come out the way they want it to. We're not certain that Jacinda has it, but she has several symptoms of it.
The plan is for Jacinda's speech teacher to call the Speech Pathologist we saw today and hopefully they can work together to come up with an aggressive treatment plan. Apraxia of Speech requires a specific speech therapy treatment plan. For 2 months, we're going to pursue that. Then, if things aren't improving, we'll make an appointment with a Neurologist and start looking at some other options. There are some other Auditory Processing Disorders that we will investigate if we get to that point.
We have a plan and we feel very good about it!!!
Thursday, February 10, 2011
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!
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!
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
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.
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.
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