Fishy

This is another one of my favorite hats. For some reason this one makes me smile every time. I have made several intended for our baby, but someone else always wants it. I think the next one I make will go in our baby's closet and wait for him to come home. And talk about closets... Oh, my! This boy has quite a wardrobe. I will try to post pictures later. The strongest comfort to combat "Adoption Anxiety" seems to be Baby shopping. I guess that is wonderful for the stockholders of Gymboree.

Now for the adoption update. There isn't a whole lot of news. We did move up a spot on the waiting list last month. Our agency had a referral of a beautiful baby boy.. Congratulations to E and her family. There are several other families who are very close to getting their exciting news. We are waiting on the edge of our chairs right along with them.

As is pretty much the standard in International Adoption, there have been more process changes. The USCIS department has made a change to the I-600 approval process. The I-600 document is a request to classify an orphan as an immediate relative. Early in the adoption, parents request a pre-approval ( I-600A ). It is at that time that the family is "checked out". (fingerprints, home study...) After their child is identified, families file the actual I-600 request. In this process the child is "checked out". The child's paperwork is reviewed to insure that he/she is truly an orphan and eligible for adoption according to US law.

Previously, the I-600 was filed while the family was in Vietnam after the was adopted. This posed numerous issues when there was a question about a child's status as an orphan. In these cases, the family would have already adopted the child under Vietnam Law, but the US would not recognize the adoption or allow the baby into the country. Now, as horrible as this sounds, it is not something that occurs frequently. The US has now chosen to take steps in favor of insuring ethical adoptions. The I-600 will now be filed right after the referral. This way, the family will not even travel until the US has had time to investigate the paperwork and verify the child is eligible for adoption.

This should not affect us greatly except to shorten our trip a few days. But, it should help to weed out agencies who are not acting in the best interests of children. Unfortunately, the combination of families desparate for a child and families living in poverty combine to make conditions ripe for corruption. Luckily, our agency goes to great lengths to work in a transparent and ethical manner.

So, that's pretty much all the news on that. At last estimate our coordinator thought that we might expect a referral 12 - 15 months from when we turned in our Dossier. That would put us in a April - July time frame. There's always the possibility things could move a little faster... but that isn't something we are expecting.
A.

Home Sweet Home... and Ladybug Beret

It's so good to be back home! I like to travel, but not for too long. It's so wonderful to my own house. The plane ride was pretty uneventful. I didn't want to say to much until we were home... so I wouldn't jinx us. All our flights were on time, we didn't loose any luggage, and we were as comfortable as we could have expected. There was a little turbulence, but not too bad. Now, I'm not sure how I'm going to be able to handle the length of our flight to Vietnam. I'm sure it will be much rougher, but it will be a "labor" truly worth it all.

As for Shakespeare, he is doing much better. He's a little groggy from the medication, but the seizures have stopped. The tests all came back normal. We will follow up with the Vet this week It was very hard being away from him while he was sick. But, his Grandma took good care of him, "Thanks Mom!".

And last but not least, Ladybug Beret! I made this one right before I left town, so I didn't have time to post a picture. I love the "Curly Feelers". I will try to post more baby hat pictures soon.

A.

Hello from Texas

As you can imagine, D. is in heaven! He used to live in Houston, so he is thrilled to be back in Texas. The weather is nice. It's pretty warm here. The River Walk is beautiful. I survived the plan ride. It really wasn't bad at all. It's definately better than going by car ; )

Thank you to everyone for the "Well wishes" for Shakespeare. He had 3 seizures Tuesday and 2 yesterday. I'm calling my Mom to get an update. I hope there hasn't been anymore. Thanks for your kind thoughts! A.

Shakespeare

My sweet baby is having a rough day. D called me this afternoon to tell me that Shakespeare had a seizure. He had not had a seizure in over 4 years. D took him to the vet. They ran a bunch of tests and gave us some medicine. Luckily, my mom is taking care of the grand-puppies for us. I have to leave for a business trip in the morning. The timing couldn't be worse.

He had another seizure tonight. It didn't last too long, but it breaks my heart just the same. It's a very helpless feeling.

Shakespeare first had this problem about 5 or 6 years ago. It took a while to get them under control with medication. The vet couldn't ever come up with a cause. The medication helped with the seizures, but it really changed his personality. He was groggy a lot of the time... just not his happy self. I did tons of research on causes. I feel very strongly that you have to be your own advocate... especially in health care. I found some information on poison weeds that I knew we had in our yard. D got rid of all of them. We slowly decreased the medication until he was off it completely. He didn't have another seizure until now. We later found out that the neighbor kids had been playing fetch with him... using the pods of the poisonous weed!!

This time, D noticed mushrooms popping up in our backyard... that are now gone. I'm suspecting that he ate them. I hope that's all it is, but we will keep him on the medication for a little while to make sure.

The timing is really strange. D and I were just talking about this after church on Sunday. The topic was the power of prayer. A family at church talked about their struggle with their son's seizures, up to 100 per day. They told of how a group at church gathered with them and prayed for some relief. Their son hasn't had a seizure in a couple weeks since then. D and I were talking about how awful that would be to deal with... and how we couldn't hardly bear that when our dog went through it. Now, we're going through it again... just two days later. There must be a point here... but I'm too nervous to get it right now.

I need to pack for my first plane ride. I'll tell you all about it ; ) A