Welcome to McClellan Town

Originally posted March 2, 2008 on our old Vox blog.

So, yesterday, Saturday, March 1, we had to attend a CPR and Baby Care Basics class as part of our training hours for our adoption. I don’t think either one of us was excited about taking a whole Saturday for this. We were only one of four couples in the class and everyone was from our adoption agency. It was nice to meet people and see where they are in the adoption process.

Well, the class wasn’t that bad. 🙂 We are now CPR certified for Adult, Child and Infant, and we got lots of information on baby care. We even had a diaper race. We did not win, however, I did help us come from behind and win second, but there was no prize for second. 🙁 We did enjoy the class and learn a lot. We got a whole pile of handouts, coupons, and a free diaper bag. The nurse was pretty excited to give them to us. She said that normally she has to promote breast feeding to pregnant mothers, but since none of us would be breast feeding she could give us more stuff. Some notable items include: a brag book, a bottle and 2 cans of formula, diaper samples, and music CD. The baby bag will of course be something Scott can use. I still have my eye out for something a little more fashionable. 🙂

Originally posted February 21, 2008 on our old Vox blog.

So we realize that it has been awhile since our last post, but we honestly have not heard any definitive information. We are still waiting to hear the final word. We did check out the JCICS website where we read the US had written a Standards of Practice for Vietnam. The US plans on presenting this document to DIA and Vietnamese provinces in early March. We think the US is hoping they and Vietnam will use the Standards of Practice for Vietnam to continue intercountry adoption. The Standards of Practice for Vietnam would be in place of the expiring Memo of Understanding. These government websites get confusing, so we could be completely wrong. 🙂

So as we trade to wade through all of this, we are reminded of how we will be able to get through this time…

Psalm 121

A Pilgrim Song

1 -2 I look up to the mountains; does my strength come from mountains?
No, my strength comes from God,
who made heaven, and earth, and mountains.

3 -4 He won’t let you stumble,
your Guardian God won’t fall asleep.
Not on your life! Israel’s
Guardian will never doze or sleep.

5 -6 God’s your Guardian,
right at your side to protect you—
Shielding you from sunstroke,
sheltering you from moonstroke.

7 -8 God guards you from every evil,
he guards your very life.
He guards you when you leave and when you return,
he guards you now, he guards you always.

Originally posted January 30 on our old Vox blog.

If you’d like some more information about the US/Vietnam developments we talked about in our last post, here are a couple of links for you:

• The Joint Council on International Children’s Services’ Vietnam page
• The US Department of State’s Warning Concerning Adoptions from Vietnam
• The US Department of State’s Q&A on Inter-country Adoption Concerns

Enjoy!

Originally posted January 28, 2008 on our old Vox blog.

When the first paragraph of your agency’s update reads …

“The Department of State will be posting a “Warning” regarding Vietnamese adoptions within the next few days. The Memo of Understanding which allows adoptions from Vietnam into the United States will expire on September 1, 2008. If there is not a new agreement between the two countries, adoptions in process may not be able to reach completion.”

… you know you are in for a rough day. The email went on to explain the situation further. The US Department of State (DOS) has decided not to renew the Memo of Understanding (MOU) in March because they feel that Vietnam has not complied. The DOS is working on a new agreement, but the new agreement will not be ready in seven months, September 1, 2008.

After digesting all of this and placing calls and emails to our agency, we soon found out that we had a choice to make. Our agency would not be sending any more foreign dossiers to Vietnam after February 6. What did we want to do with our dossier?

Here were our options:
1.    Sign a risk waiver and move forward with the process.
2.    Put the process on hold until a new agreement is reached. (The US and Vietnam took three years to reach the current agreement that is expiring.)
3.    Stop the process altogether and pick a new country.

The risk waiver states that the adopting parents are aware of the risk of not completing the adoption and losing our money. To complete an adoption the adopting parents have to receive a referral, receive visas from the USCIS, and then travel. All of these things cannot take place in seven months. It typically takes six months to get a referral.

Well, we do have six months, so there is time to get a referral. The obstacle is whether having a referral before September 1, 2008 is enough for the Vietnam government to grandfather us in under the MOU. No one knows what will happen. Our agency speculates that we will be grandfathered in and allowed to complete our adoption, but they cannot promise us this. Since they cannot promise us, we have to sign a risk waiver to move forward with our adoption process.

Yesterday and today, we spent several hours discussing our three options. Neither my husband nor I had a desire to stop and pick another country or put the process on hold until there was a new agreement. This left us with the need to sign a risk waiver. Along with signing the risk waiver, comes the realization that there may not be a child at the end of this, and we may lose money. Now the money we are not counting as a loss or a risk. We do see the risk of losing our child as a great loss, but it’s a risk we have to take.

(We signed the waiver, faxed it to our agency, and our dossier should be in the mail today, January 29, 2008.)

We could get a referral quickly; after all, we were told it is a three to five month wait to get a referral for a boy child. We could take the whole seven months to get a referral and not worry because we are grandfathered in. We could not be grandfathered in, and then we would be at a dead end. We don’t know which of these things will happen. All we know is that God brought us to this point, and He will be with us the rest of the way. We can’t change our mind because we were faced with uncertainty. We have to continue to have faith and follow where God is leading us.

We would appreciate your prayers as we continue on this journey. Also, we would appreciate understanding that we don’t know what is going to happen. You may ask questions, but we can only say we don’t know. Speculating would only get our hopes up, so please be patient with us and the process. Thank you for your prayers and support.

Originally posted December 29, 2007 on our old Vox blog.

Well, as December nears its end we have accomplished a few things.

We celebrated our third anniversary.

We visited all our families for Christmas where we received the Radio Flyer Little Red Fire Engine, several books: an adoption stories compilation book, a picture book of Vietnam, a children’s book, and some cookbooks. I can’t wait to try out Vietnamese cooking! I’ll keep you posted on that adventure. 🙂

And last but not least…We cut our stay in Houston a day short to travel to Austin. In Austin, we got our foreign dossier state certified, so now our next step is getting the foreign dossier embassy authenticated. We are one step closer!

Originally posted December 20, 2007 on our old Vox blog.

So, this is a song I heard last year from Third Day called Merry Christmas; it’s from their Christmas album. I’ve included the lyrics below.

Last Christmas, we told our families about our decision to adopt. This Christmas we are still in process, and next Christmas we can’t make any predictions about. I really appreciate and connect with this song. I hope you like it:

There’s a little girl trembling on a cold December morn
Crying for momma’s arms
At an orphanage just outside a little China town
There the forgotten are

But half a world away I hang the stockings by the fire
And dream about the day when I can finally call you mine

It’s Christmas time again but you’re not home
Your family is here and yet you’re somewhere else alone
And so tonight I pray that God will come and hold you in his arms
And tell you from my heart I wish you Merry Christmas

As I hang the tinsel on the tree and watch the twinkling lights
I’m warmed by the fire’s glow
Outside the children tumble in a wonderland of white,
Make angels in the snow

But half a world away you try your best to fight the tears
And hope that heaven’s angels come to carry you here

It’s Christmas time again but you’re not home
Your family is here and yet you’re somewhere else alone
And so tonight I pray that God will come and hold you in his arms
And tell you from my heart I wish you Merry Christmas

Christmas is a time to celebrate the holy child
and we celebrate his perfect gift of love
He came to earth to give his life
and prepare a place for us
so we could have a home with him above

It’s Christmas time again and now you’re home
Your family is here so you will never be alone
So tonight before you go to sleep, I’ll hold you in my arms
And I’ll tell you from my heart, and I’ll you from my heart
I wish you Merry Christmas

So, I picked up our criminal records checks’ today. I’m sure you all are glad to breathe a sigh of relief that we are not criminals! 🙂 I was never worried about it. I mean look at these faces.

Well, now that we have all our papers and forms, we get to scan each paper (some are double-sided) and email them to our agency for review. Hopefully, the whole scanning and email thing goes well. We had an issue with it earlier in the process. After, our agency reviews our papers, we have to get everything notarized before we start the authentication of our foreign dossier. (Luckily, I work with a notary.) The first authentication step !is sending everything to Austin, the state capital. I’m kind of nervous about sending documents during the holiday season, but oh well, that’s when we were ready. 🙂 I’ll be sure to keep you posted.

Originally posted November 20, 2007 on our old Vox blog.

Sorry, it has been so long since we posted. We actually received the instructions on how to fill out our foreign dossier two weeks ago. We were finally able to sit down yesterday and sort through everything. We have a list of eleven documents we are compiling:

1. Marriage Certificate
2. Criminal Records Checks
3. Medical Certificates
4. Employment Certificates
5. Homestudy
6. Signature Page of Passports
7. Affidavit for CIS approval (This is what our last blog was about)
8. Family and Home Photos
9. Note Concerning Adoption Application
10. Application for Adoption
11. Commitment on Giving Periodical Information

We have requested our marriage certificate and our criminal records check. We still have to get our employment certificates. We have all the other documents, and we think having 8 out of 11 is not that bad. 🙂 After we compile all the documents, we send everything to our agency, so they can check it. Then the documents go to the State to be certified, and the last step is sending everything to the Embassy to be authenticated. Once all this is done, our foreign dossier will be complete. We’re getting closer! 🙂

On a different note…twice when I have told people we are adopting from Vietnam, they have thought I said I am adopted from Vietnam. I either look Asian or don’t speak very clearly; I’m guessing it’s the latter.