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.

2010 Family Vacation

We just got back from our vacation to PA.  I had meant to blog along the way, but we were so busy.  So this entry will be long!  Pictures will come soon!

Friday, June 25 - We left early to head up to Aaron's family reunion in NE Pennsylvania.  It's an 8 hour drive and the kids did pretty well for the most part.  They each had a couple of times where they really wanted to get out. We arrived at the campsite around 6 pm.  Our plan was to camp with Aaron's parents, brother, sister-in-law, and nephew.  Aaron's family has property, so we camped there.  His aunt and uncle had rented a large tent with a table and chairs and a port-a-potty for the weekend.

Luke slept in his Grammy and Grampy's camper with them and the rest of us slept in the pop-up camper.  Oh, and we also brought our crazy dog with us!  She did really well with all the new people.  Luke caught a cold while we were camping, but he bounced back pretty quickly.  Jacinda did not sleep well at all ..... once she fell asleep, she was fine, though.

Saturday, June 26 - We went to see Aaron's Aunt Diane.  The kids and I had never met her, so that was good.  We also saw his grandma and grandpa.  That evening, we went to his cousin, Lisa's, farm.  We had fun hanging out with all the cousins and kids.  The kids LOVED seeing the horses and the 3 baby cows.  Lisa even let the kids take horse rides!

One of Aaron's cousins has 3 kids, ages 4, 2, and 9 months, so our kiddos had plenty of playmates!

Sunday, June 27 - This was the day everyone was coming to the campsite for the reunion.  We spent the morning getting all the food ready and everyone started coming around lunchtime.  We all had a great time!

The kids spent some time in the river, mostly throwing rocks in the water!

Monday, June 28 - We headed out of the campsite in the morning.  We went to Allentown to have lunch with some friends of ours who had moved up there to start a church.  Some of them had not yet met Jacinda, so it was fun to see them and spend some time talking.

Next up, Philadelphia!  We were actually staying in New Jersey and we arrived at our hotel late in the afternoon.  That night, we spent some time deciding what to do the next day, we cooked spaghetti for dinner, and we went to IKEA!

Tuesday, June 29 - Tuesday was supposed to be the hottest day of the week, so we decided to go to the Adventure Aquarium.  We loved the hippos!  We got to see them up close and they were fascinating!

We cooked burritos at our hotel that night and then went swimming at the hotel pool.  We did some shopping that night to find the kids floaties for the pool, but we were unsuccessful!

Wednesday, June 30 - The weather was gorgeous today!!!!  We went to the zoo and it was HUGE!!!  It made our zoo in Norfolk look like a neighborhood park!  We were SO exhausted by the time we were done.  Plus, I was starting to come down with Luke's cold.

After the zoo, we ate a late lunch at Baja Fresh and finally found the floaties we wanted.  We went back to the hotel and used the new floaties in the pool.  Jacinda freaked OUT this time in the pool.  We think she was just overtired.

We went to a local park that was really nice and then decided to find some dessert.  We ended up eating a quick dinner at A&W and then dessert at Dairy Queen.

Thursday, July 1 - We needed a low-key day, so we slept in and went to the Children's Museum in Fairmount Park.  The kids LOVED playing there.  We ended up staying there for around 5 hours!

Aaron wanted a real Philly cheesesteak, so we picked Tony Luke's since they had other things for the rest of us to eat.  So we get there and they're "out" of everything but cheesesteaks.  Convenient.  Aaron got his cheesesteak and then we went to Chick-fil-A for the rest of us!!!  Aaron did eat his cheesesteak in Chick-fil-A!!!

After that fiasco, we went back to the park for a while.

Friday, July 2 - Our last day in Philly.  We did SO much today!!!!!  First, we went to the US Mint.  It was a bit disappointing because it seemed like they hadn't started operations for the day.  But at least we got to go there.

Then we got on the double decker bus tour and rode it to the Academy of Natural Sciences.  We sat on the top of the bus and the weather was just perfect!!!  The ANS was fun.  We saw dinosaurs, or as Luke says, "They're actually just dinosaur bones, not real dinosaurs.", real butterflies, and the kids got to touch a few live animals (rat, hissing cockroach).

Then we went across the street to the Franklin Institute, which is a science museum.  Most of the stuff there was too advanced for our kiddos, but they had fun.

Then we rode the trolley back to the start and walked over to see the Liberty Bell.  We didn't stand in the huge, long line to go inside and see it.  We found a window, stood on our tiptoes, and saw it just fine!

By then we were exhausted!!!  We drove back to our hotel for a little downtime.  Then we went to dinner at a great Italian place my friend has told us about.

Saturday, July 3 - We drove to Annapolis, MD and met our friends for lunch at Chevy's.  We always have to get a Chevy's fix when we are anywhere near one! 

Then we drove home.  Even though it is a 4 hour trip, we can never make it in anywhere close to 4 hours.  This time, it was close to 6 hours.  We got off 295 onto 64 Eastbound in Richmond and traffic was just stopped.  It was still over 60 miles home, and I cannot sit in traffic for that long.  So we used our GPS to figure out another way home.  It still took a while, but at least we were driving and not sitting.  During that drive, we came up with our plan for our next few family vacations .... we'll share it when we figure it out a little more.  It was SOOOOO nice to be home!!!!!

Pictures coming soon!

Jacinda's Appointments Today

Today, we went to CHKD to see Jacinda's craniofacial team of doctors.  We got mostly good news.  Here's a rundown of what happened ....

1.  First we saw an orthodontist.  He thought Jacinda's teeth looked great.  He said she won't need any orthodontic or surgical work done until she gets her permanent molars, which is around age 6-7.  He recommended we start taking her to a pediatric dentist.  He said that she will be spending a lot of time in a dentist's chair in her life, so we might as well get her used to it now.  Fortunately, the dentist he recommended IS covered by our insurance!

2.  Next, she saw an ENT.  He cleaned all the wax out of her ears.  We've had several doctors tell us she has tons of wax, but no one has wanted to attempt to get it out!  We held her down and she actually did really well!  After that, the ENT looked in her ears and said there was NO fluid.  Zero.  For a cleft kid, that's amazing news!!!  This means no ear tubes!!!!!!!  Structurally, he thought everything looked great .... ears, nose, mouth.  He was glad to hear that she will have another hearing test next month.  He told us to please call him if we had more questions, or if she needed the wax cleaned out again.

3.  Next up, her surgeon.  He thought her palate looked great.  She does have 2 teeth coming in in the roof of her mouth.  It's kind of strange, but totally normal for a cleft kid.  He thinks one of them might start to cause problems, so he thought the pediatric dentist idea was definitely a good one.  The other issue we talked about with him was Jacinda's nose.  Her left nostril is very small.  During her palate surgery, he did try to make it a little larger.  He had warned us beforehand it would be difficult.  He said it's harder to make something bigger than smaller.  Right after surgery, it looked great.  Now, it's collapsed back down at least to where it was before.  The problem is that whenever she has a runny nose (which is often), that nostril gets crusted shut!  He wants to wait at least 6 months to a year before even thinking about another surgery on it.  Even then, he's not sure if we should do it.  So we'll reevaluate sometime next year.

4.  Finally, the speech pathologist (SP).  This is where we had probably the biggest concerns.  With just a brief observation, the SP put Jacinda at about the level of a 16 month old as far as expressive language (this is what you can say or express) goes.  Her receptive language (this is what you understand) was much closer to her actual age.  So the SP was concerned that there was such a large gap.  She was impressed that Jacinda has improved so much in the 7 months she's been home.  Basically, she thinks that our current speech therapist has done a good job, but now it's time to get aggressive.  The SP thinks Jacinda would benefit from speech therapy done in an office setting rather than here at our home.  So we got a referral to their speech therapy department.

So here's our To-Do list we took home:

1.  Call our insurance to find out how we can switch speech therapists.  Our insurance makes this very complicated, of course.  Right now her therapy is done through the Virginia Beach school system.  Our insurance has no "in-network" speech therapists in our area.  So that will be a loooong phone call!!!
2.  Once we figure that out, make an appointment with the new speech therapy office.
3.  Call Jacinda's pediatrician and get an appointment to get her evaluated for allergies.  We had hoped her constant runny nose would get better after her palate surgery.  It hasn't.
4.  Call the pediatric dentist.

In Case You Don't Believe Me ......

In case you don't believe me that Jacinda is a handful, here's a story to start out your week!  Luke was watching a movie on our desktop computer and Jacinda was sitting next to him in a different chair.  They appeared to be fine, so I left the room.  (Big mistake).

A few minutes later, I hear a huge crash.  I ran into the family room and see Jacinda laying on the floor and the TV laying on the floor next to her.  Luke is calmly watching his movie on the computer.  Somehow, Jacinda managed to pull the TV off the little table it sits on.  I don't know why or how.  She is fine.  At least it was a crappy TV ... not sure if it will survive or not.  I think it bounced off the fireplace and landed on the floor.

I asked Luke why he didn't tell her to stop or why he didn't call me to come get her.  (He tattles on her for everything else!)  He said he didn't know.  *sigh*

Happy Monday, everyone!!!