Bring Charlotte Home

3 years and counting

2010-04-27T20:28:00.003-05:00

April 27, 2007 - The China Center for Adoption Affairs logged our dossier in to their system and we were officially "in line". At the time, we expected a wait of 12-18 months before we received a referral.

It's now 3 years later. No referral. No baby home. The guest bedroom is still a guest bedroom. We have had various relatives stay in it but no child of our own has inhabited that room. The CCAA has only referred up to mid-April of 2006, still a year away from our log in date. Right now, about 5 days of LID's (log in dates) are referred to families once a month. So there are 365 more days until they get to our LID. Fortunately we can deduct 104 weekend days since the CCAA closes on weekends, and let's say about 3 weeks of various holidays that the office closes for and that means there are 119 days that aren't counted. So 365 minus 119 is 246 actual LID's (more or less) that they need to get through. If they do 5 days each month, that works out to almost 50 more months. I guess we'll get a referral in the summer of 2014.

That is pretty depressing and I keep hoping for a change that will speed things along. If our financial situation improves and we can go back to the special needs list it would greatly expedite things. However, in the meantime, I tell myself and anyone who asks that right now everything is out of our hands, the right child will be referred at the right time, and that we couldn't really provide for a child well right now anyways. It sounds good, right? Some days I actually even believe it.

In the meantime, I am focused on the families I serve and try to fill their dreams while I wait for ours. Hopefully I'll have a reason to update this before the 4 year anniversary. Love to all and your support is appreciated.

Jen & Drew

Holiday Season 2009

2009-12-05T20:41:00.002-06:00

I know it's been a long time since posting anything but that's mostly because there hasn't been anything to post. Last May, I had inquired about a special needs little girl, but we weren't selected to be her parents. I gathered from our agency that many, many families had applied ahead of us.

Our life right now would make it unwise to pursue a special needs adoption so that part is still on hold. Our dossier remains in line and as far as we know it has been approved. The CCAA has actually cleared all dossiers logged in up to Feb. 29, 2008. But, the important part, the matching dates, have just finally gotten to the end of March, 2006. We still have almost 13 months to still get through and since they seem to be referring just a few days of LID's (Log-In Dates) each month, we could be in for a long wait. In fact, at one point I calculated it could still be another SIX YEARS before we see our daughter. By then, I'll be 44 and Drew will be 50 - will we have the energy to parent an infant? We'll see.....

In the meantime, we are focusing on here and now just getting by day by day. The Christmas tree and decorations are up as we approach the third anniversary of when we started this process. I swear, this is the world's longest pregnancy. :)

Happy Mother's Day!

2009-05-10T11:20:00.002-05:00

I was first going to post about how it stinks to have yet another mother's day go by without being a mom, but then I decided to spare everyone my self-pity. I'll get over it.

So then, what do I write?

I'll share the past week - the desire to move forward has been re-ignited as I found a little girl on our agency's waiting child list that resonated with both of us. Before I go further, let me explain something about the waiting child system for China. Usually only agencies have access to lists of children with special needs and match them to the families that have said they would accept certain conditions. But sometimes there are children who are really difficult to match depending on what the situation is, and agencies will post their pictures and a short background on them on the agency web site. I'm pretty sure that has to be cleared with the CCAA because they don't want pics shared all over the internet and agencies require families to have a password to access their info.

So anyhow, I logged into CCAI's website and browsed through the waiting children they had posted. Usually the children listed are boys, or older children, or have really serious conditions. But my eyes fell upon a little 4-year-old girl with a repaired cleft lip/palate, significant hearing loss and possibly Hep B positive. There was something about her that just touched me. Maybe it was the coincidence that just a few nights earlier Drew and I had been talking about a little hearing impaired boy at the school he's working at and were practicing our signs. (Drew knows quite a bit more than I do, but I'm learning!) She just seemed like a perfect fit for us. And the picture of her was just absolutely precious. I wish I could post it to share but that would get me in trouble! She also appeared to be developmentally on target and could communicate her needs through pictures.

So I showed her profile to Drew, but he was hesitant due to our financial situation. I asked him what he thought leaving money out of the equation, and he said he would adopt her "in a heartbeat". This was all on Thursday. Friday I called CCAI to find out more information on her, but they would not tell me much else. Apparently there are LOTS of other families interested in her and they share a child's file with the family at the top of the list. There is more to her story that has resulted in families declining her though. I had them put us on the list, although our chances are really small that no one ahead of us would accept her.

But, it was the beginning of the leap of faith. Maybe a small step of faith? I'm starting to feel like we just need to move forward and trust that everything else will fall into place. We'll see where we go from here.

Back to Mother's Day.....
First, Happy Mother's Day to all mothers - mom's who have birth children, adoptive children and foster children. But we also need to recognize that their are birth mothers out their for whom this is not a happy day, but a day where feelings of grief and loss often reappear, no matter how long ago the child was placed with an adoptive family. If you know a birth mother, show her consideration and respect today. Ask her how she's doing - recognize that she's had a loss in her life and let her talk about it if she wants to. Being supportive without expecting she feel happy on Mother's Day can be a relief to her.

And to my own mother, thanks for almost 38 years of: kissing boo-boos, refereeing fights, cookies and milk after school, making me clean my room even when I didn't want to, patience as I hit wrong notes on various instruments, trusting me to do the right things, all the miles taking me to various meetings/practices, help in selling Girl Scout cookies, proofreading papers and countless other mom-like things. Thanks & I love you.

What do Indiana Jones & I have in common?

2009-05-02T20:04:00.004-05:00

At first thought, it's probably pretty hard to imagine that Harrison Ford aka Indiana Jones has anything in common with either Drew or myself. I'm from Indiana and that's probably about where any connection ends. Or so you would think. But then, consider this clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-c8_OFwZoY

Watch it before you read further......

Ok, you've seen Indy make that "leap of faith" before. Why am I referencing it?

Because lately it seems like there is a little voice in my head, or more likely my heart, that is telling me to take a leap of faith. A leap where I call our agency and tell them to take us off of hold in the special needs program, knowing well that we could get a referral soon after. A leap with means that I would have to trust that somehow, the money we need would be there.

I told Drew about this thought to just leap into it and let what will be, be. Of course, being the voice of reason, he kept me grounded and reminded me that we really don't have the funds yet so it's probably foolhardy to even take the risk. What would happen if we got a referral but couldn't come up with the money to go get her?? How would we feel then? How do I take the leap and trust that we will land on something solid?

How did Indy find the faith to go forward? How do I?

Any suggestions or advice would be appreciated! - Jen

GOOD NEWS!

2009-04-28T12:44:00.003-05:00

The CCAA has finished reviewing the dossier's that were logged in during April, 2007. This means that our paperwork has most likely been approved! If the CCAA has questions they'll send them to our agency who will then contact us so we have to allow about two weeks for that but most likely they won't have any. We really didn't have anything questionable - it was all pretty straightforward and our agency made sure we had everything we could need before they sent it in.

This is a bright spot just when I needed it.

The down side is that the non-special needs referrals are still working on March, 2006 families. This means there is a whole year and about 7 weeks of families with dossier's in line ahead of ours waiting to be matched to a child. This has been moving very slowly so don't look for much more good news anytime soon. I'm just going to savor this one all day.

Jen

Two Years and Counting

2009-04-27T09:50:00.003-05:00

Today is April 27, 2009. It has been exactly 2 years since our dossier was received and logged in at the CCAA. At the time, we were told that in 18-19 months we would have a baby girl. Little did our agency know that the referral times would slow down so drastically. It's taken them nearly 24 months just to get to looking at the dossiers they received in April '07. Referrals right now are for families whose dossiers were received in the first week of March, 2006. At the rate they're making referrals, it could be years before we ever see even a picture of the little girl we'll be matched with.

This is such a sad day for me. I would guess it is for Drew too although I haven't talked to him yet about it. We still have our special needs application on hold and need to decide in June what to do about it. It's not likely we'll be able to stay in that program indefinitely while we try to get finances figures out. We may have to go back to the original plan of the long wait "healthy infant" line of families. We haven't lost our place or anything, but it bothers me that there a children who have special needs that we could help if the timing were better. Sigh.... there just aren't any easy answers right now.

Two years ago this was a day I celebrated. We had spent five months rushing through interviews, getting documents from all over the country, getting physicals, fingerprints, background checks, references and doing so much paperwork. Things got lost, things were delayed, and I spent a incredibly wild day in Chicago at the Chinese consulate for authentications. It was all done and on April 27, 2007 I could breathe again. We had made it in before the May 1 deadline - just barely.

I have to have hope. Things worked out then in miraculous ways and I refuse to believe that all that would have happened if we weren't meant to be on this journey. But I wonder if I exhausted all my miracles - are we only allotted so many in a lifetime? Or am I not doing enough to help create one? Only time will tell.

Cost Breakdown of Adoption

2009-04-16T15:03:00.003-05:00

I have had a lot of people ask what our adoption costs and why it costs so much. So I thought I would spell it out to give others an idea of what we have spent so far and what we still need to raise.

Home Study Agency -
Application, Home Study, and one Home Study update: $2500

Placing Agency -
Application $150
1st Agency Fee - $1,900
2nd Agency Fee - $3,200
CCAA Fee - $1,050

Immigration Approval for 2 adults
Fingerprinting $140
Application - $580

Passports - $130

Certification & Authentication of dossier documents - $600 (approx.)

All that has been paid so far. The placement agency fees cover the work done to review our paperwork, translate it to Chinese, and send it to the CCAA.

Yet to go:
Placement Agency
Post-placement deposit - $500 (refunded after we turn in all of our post-placement reports)
Travel costs (10-14 days) - estimated to be around $4000 for airfare, $2,400 for in country transportation and lodging , $700 for food ($7,300 total)
Adoption Registration & Notarization with local government in China - $400-800
Child's Passport $100-$150
Orphanage fee $5,000
Child's physical and photo $80
Child's Visa to U.S. $400
Post-placement reports $1200
Court costs to readopt here - $1000

Total: Approx. $26,680
It certainly adds up! Not included is any spending money for while we're overseas and we certainly plan to do so to help bring back items for our daughter from her home country.

I absolutely hate hearing comments like "how much did you spend to get your child?" or "They bought their child overseas". The fees are all fairly reasonable and go to people that do the work to help get the child to their permanent home. As an adoption worker, I understand that we need to keep the lights on, the copier running, computers up to date, phones working, pay rent, and even pay a little salary.

Besides, would you ask someone how much they or their insurance paid the hospital, doctors, lab technicians, nurses, assistants, radiologists and everyone else involved in a child's birth? Think about how much people spend for a new car - a physical item that just loses value.

So if anyone has been wondering what exactly we are spending our adoption money on, this is it. No apologies - our daughter is priceless.

Jen & Drew

Update

2009-03-27T20:18:00.002-05:00

Sorry for being absent for so long - the past few months were very difficult. In October, Drew left his job unexpectedly. We hoped he would find something new quickly, but as weeks wore on it soon became clear that he was in for a long haul.

We had applied to the Special Needs program in February, 2008 and were told we'd have a referral in 10-12 months. So by December I was worried that we would get a referral but not be able to go get our baby. We had to use a lot of our savings making ends meet and covering unexpected costs like new tires on my car. On Christmas Eve, I e-mailed CCAI and asked them to put our SN application on hold. The original dossier would remain in line since referrals in the traditional program are taking so long (people getting referrals now have waited 3 years!) It was hard to make that decision but we knew it was the safest thing to do.

Drew found a new job in February as a teacher's aide in a special education class. He loves the work - he has an autistic boy, a developmentally disabled boy, and another boy with multiple disabilities. It's so rewarding for him to be "hands on" again after being in administration so long. But it pays only about 40% of what he was making so we haven't been able to replenish our savings. I don't know how long that will take. We can leave our SN app on hold until June, but then we need to come to a decision on what we do. Do we take a leap of faith that we'll find the money and go forward with the SN adoption knowing we'd probably have a referral by the end of summer? Do we go back to waiting years before getting a Non-SN child? Do we just try to accept that we may never be parents? Sigh..... at nearly 38 and going on 46, how long do we have to be parents - at least so we have the energy and drive to do all the tough parenting work. It makes my head spin sometimes.

On the bright side, April 2007 dossiers are being reviewed currently - that's when we were logged in. It will probably take a long time for the CCAA to get through the entire month, but that will be one hurdle cleared. Keep your fingers crossed that we get through this ok!

Happy spring to everyone - Love, Jen Drew & Charlotte

Recap

2008-11-08T19:10:00.002-06:00

We have a separate website, www.bringcharlottehome.com that has a few entries up until now. But as I find that difficult to work with I've started this blog instead. But to get up to date:

1999 - Started trying to get pregnant
2000-01 Tried infertility treatments, no success
2001-2006 Talked a lot about adoption, decided to adopt from China, gathered information on agencies and attended an information session.
Dec. 2006 - Learned that China was going to restrict prospective applicants to certain criteria effective May 1, 2007. We would be excluded on more than one criteria. We decide that this is the time if we're going to do this. Applied to Lifelink in Rockford for home study services and CCAI (Chinese Children Adoption International) in Colorado for placing agency services.
January, 2007 - April, 2007 We scrambled to get our home study done (delayed by DCFS not getting our background checks done), assemble our dossier, get it certified and authenticated and to CCAI by April 13.
April 27, 2007 Dossier logged in at the China Center for Adoption Affairs (CCAA) office in Beijing. We are officially in line! We now track our position by Log-In Date (LID) of 4/27/07.
Fall, 2007 - We start talking about adopting a special needs child. The conversations start as once in a while, but then are more frequent. The CCAA designates children that here have easily correctable/treatable conditions as special needs. Examples are: cleft lip/palate, club foot, hepatitis B, epilepsy, etc.
February, 2008 - We officially apply to the special needs program. We are told it will be 10-12 months to referral. A referral is when the CCAA has matched us to a specific child and we are given information about her including pictures. We start thinking about Dec 08-Feb 09 as when we will finally at least see a picture of our daughter.
July -Sept, 2008 - We get our USCIS approval renewed. More hoops to jump through but we get approval in early October.
October, 2008 - Checked with CCAI, the special needs referrals they just got were from October, 2008. We're estimating to see Charlotte's picture in February.

So now, we wait. Hopefully that referral will come through in February and we'll probably travel late March or sometime in April, maybe as late as May. Stay tuned. When we have pictures, we'll post them here first!

Jen