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/TheWolfes  We get half of the cost of whatever you buy and the coffee is really good!!!

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!

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!!!

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.