Happy Thanksgiving Everyone - including CJ?

Anyone who knows me, knows I absolutely love Thanksgiving. This year is extra special because we have a new Nephew that's just a few weeks from being born, and we're moving right along with our adoption process.

The big news I can share is that we've settled on a name for our daughter. Now that everyone in my family has heard this news - I feel comfortable sharing it with the blogosphere. Actually, to be honest, at first it seemed weird to settle on a name so early, but then again - most parents do so. Almost every baby born that I know since I've been an adult - I've known their name before they were born.

Carmen Julia!!!

So, what do you think?
Interestingly, Carmen is a name we'd been thinking about for a girl for some time. Julia was my late Mother's name (everyone called her Judy), and we've always wanted to use it as a middle name in her honor. The fact that the name Carmen has some Latin roots is merely a coincidence, but kinda neat as well.

In all likelihood, we'll also call her CJ. Fist of all, this is seriously cute for a girl. Plus, just about every person who's heard about this has asked if it's OK to call her CJ. I'm not the type to dictate nicknames for a child - seems like it should develop naturally. Can't get much more natural than this.

One thought I just had sitting here. It's quite possible that CJ's was conceived by Thanksgiving this year. Based on the timing, she will be born some time next year. So this year, she may already be alive in the womb of a Guatemalan women struggling to decide whether adoption is the best choice for her and the baby. Our Pastor pointed out something similar to this recently when she refered to the fact that God is working through all involved, including the birth mother.

Otherwise, this week has been ridiculously busy because we're working on all this paperwork, plus we had vacation from which to recover. Now ya'll know why I have not posted much this week. But I said I hope to post at least once a week,and here it is. There are plenty of things I'm planning to share as we continue to fill out our paperwork. A bunch of very thought provoking questions for us. I'm expecting some quiet time this weekend, so perhaps I'll share some of this with you soon.

One more thought. Thanksgiving was at our house, and we're relaxing after having cleaned up. Everyone in my family is very excited about the arrival of a new nephew/grandson in December, and then a niece/granddaughter some time in the next year or so. It occurred to us that depending on the timing, CJ will likely be less than a year younger than her cousin. This is very exciting for all of us.

Pretty cool!!!

OK, you’re approved – great – so now what?!?!

Gee wiz, the paperwork starting to get rolling and the task list will be growing.

Our approval letter came with quite a bit of paperwork - several questionnaire/interview type pages. It’s almost like a more intense application. There are questions about how we handle personal matters within our marriage, finances (of course), and our parenting philosophy.

There are also a few pages (yes – plural) about how we’ll handle the fact that this adoption will create an ethnically diverse family. I did not expect a request for this much detail in written form – I figured it would be part of the interview process. We did discuss the ethnicity issue a fair amount before deciding to go international. This is something we must continue to consider going forward.

It seems like the obvious question is, what’s next? In fact, we’ve gotten that question a number of times, along with “how long till you bring her home?”

Well here’s a brief summary schedule as best I can create it. The bottom line is – we’re not looking at bringing home our daughter anytime sooner than a year from now. And much of that timetable is out of our control.

Disclaimer – I’m going off of general information at this point – this all will likely change once we go through the education class and learn the process in depth.

1) Send in pre-approval form – done
2) Get pre-approved – done
3) Send in formal application and app fee – done
4) Receive formal approval – done
5) Bethany receives referral forms from our references – in progress.
6) Fill out personal questionnaires - in progress.
7) Attend education class – December 4
8) Home Study process – interviews, house visit, background checks, etc.
9) Obtain all kinds of government forms – birth certificates (must be newly issued), fingerprints, Homeland Security nonsense (oops – did I say that?), etc. This is commonly referred to as the “Paper-Chase”.
10) Send forms and home study info to Guatemala (translated into Spanish of course).

All of the above should take approximately 4-5 months from now to complete. This could vary depending on how much trouble we have getting certain documents – but if we keep at it; we should get it done by April. Then it becomes less predictable.

11) Receive acceptance from Guatemala government.
12) Receive a referral – which literally means they identify a child for us. This could take anywhere from 2 weeks to 5 months.
13) Wait again for health screening, DNA matching with birth mother (to make sure she’s on the up and up). Once we get that DNA match – we might be able to make a brief visit. This process could take months as well.
14) Guatemala govt and US Embassy process the adoption and immigration paperwork. This can take an un-predictable amount of time, and we may be required to submit more forms or not. This will be the “waiting game”.
15) The immigration and adoption will receive approval and we’ll have an appointment at the embassy.
16) Travel to Guatemala – for about 7 days – returning to the USA with our daughter!!!


That’s the basics – maybe more details than you wanted, but in reality it’s going to be something like 100 or 150 steps, so 16 really is a summary!!!

Please continue to pray and encourage us!!!

Guatemala - here we come

Or should I say - aquí venimos Guatemala!!!
OK, I used Babblefish for that, so I have no idea if that came out right.

But low and behold, we have made our decision about which country from which we will adopt our daughter. We have decided on Guatemala!!! I'm hesitant to list too many reasons, because I really don't want to highlight any negatives about China adoption. In actuality, it was a hard decision, and I'm sure we would have found either process rewarding. I don't want to denigrate the China process or system, or cut on anyone who has gone thought that process. But - here is some of our thinking.

The Guatemala process is more predictable right now than it has been. The government has stabilized, and the need is great. This translates to a somewhat faster process as well. I hate how that sounds because it makes it seem like we want to rush, but the bottom line is that there are some changes taking place in the China program and adoptive parents have seen their wait times sliding from 12 to 14 to 16 months.

While any process has its elements of chance - the Guatemala program is currently placing children right around 9 months out. Also, the system in Guatemala uses foster parents trained by Bethany staff. This is a major comfort for us in our first endeavor at adopting and parenting. The referral often comes within weeks of birth, so the adoptive parents can be in touch with the foster parents right away and often times, all parties involved start using the adoptive name from the get go. On top of all that - we just have that sense that our daughter will be born in Guatemala. Hard to explain - but I think you all get the idea.

So a few facts about Guatemala (taken from Wikipedia and InfoPlease) :

Population: 12,293,545 (about the same as PA)
Area: 41,865 sq mi (about the same as PA)
Largest City & Capital: Guatemala City (1,128,800) (a little smaller than Philly)
Languages: Spanish 60%, Amerindian languages 40%
Ethnicity: Mestizo (Ladino)—mixed Amerindian-Spanish ancestry—and European 60%, Indigenous (Mayan) : 40%
Government: Democratic Republic - 1 President, unicameral legislature
President: Oscar Berger (2004)
GDP: $62.97 billion; per capita $5,200. (compared to US - 12.41 trillion; per capita $42,000)

I found a list of famous Guatemalans, but none of them are extremely well known. I did recognize a few of the actors and actresses from fairly recent small parts (like Benito Martinez) , and some of the boxers because I do follow that sport a little bit.

And for the Geography nerds like me - a couple of maps:

APPROVED!!!!

Well, that's all I really have time for right now. It's late Sunday evening and we literally just returned home from our vacation to the Outer Banks.

When we arrived home, a large envelope from Bethany was waiting for us on the kitchen counter (our good friends from up the street bring in the mail and check on our felines).

Anyway, the first word on the letter was "Congratulations" - so we knew what it was all about. It was a very exciting moment! We weren't quite sure what to expect, but apparently we're approved, then the references go out. In fact, thanks to cell phones and e-mail, we already know that our references have received their very own packets to fill out!!! On top of that, our approval letter included a fresh new packet with plenty of paperwork to complete. Also some information about all kinds of other documentation. Haven't had time to review it completely - just wanted to let ya'll know that we've been approved! I'm sure I'll have more updates in the next few days.

Just a little practice

Most of you know that until recently, my wife directed a day care and has studied children via books and classes as well as live interaction. I often kid around and call her "the professional" (I'm sure she'll be embarrassed by me bringing this up). Let's put it this way, she'll correctly guess toddler or preschooler age within 2 months just by inspecting the details of their fingerpainting or sidewalk chalking). But even she'll tell you that being a care-taker for someone else's kids in an institutional environment is a heck of a lot different than babysitting or even just spending time with kids at a gathering of family and friends.

For as long as I can remember, we've had regular smidges of practice with little ones at least every couple of weeks (either sitting or visiting). I'm not gonna lie - lately these experiences really make me anxious to become a parent myself. For some reason, knowing that I'm in the process (even if that's still more than a year away) gives me a different perspective.

This is particularly true the last few times I've interacted with kids. I feel like I'm really paying attention to the child's movements, sounds, and reactions to my movements and sounds. Don't get me wrong, I'm very attentive when babysitting or spending time with kids, but now it's like the experience is being recorded in my brain for later on when I might encounter some similar situation with my own daughter.

Even dumb little things mean more - like my nephew picking up an odd shaped rock and pretending it's a some kind of truck. Or watching my new-born great-niece (yup my oldest nephew is a daddy) spit out her binky because it's not what she was hoping it would be if you know what I mean.

Does any of this even make sense?

Oh well - I guess I am indeed anxious, but also thankful for all the good examples of parenting we have out there. Keep up the good work, we'll be watching and learning!!!

World Travelers Redux

I'm not sure if other bloggers do this, but I've gone back to re-read older posts a few times. It's only been a couple of weeks, and so far I'm pretty happy with what I've written. No one's really complained yet, but I want to revisit the title of an older post - World Travelers.

It's not that there's anything wrong with what I wrote, but the title leaves a false impression. Actually, it's something for us to be careful about. IMO, we really should not choose our adoption country based on the 1 time travel that's necessary to go get our daughter. For instance - the fact that China requires 2 weeks of travel and Guatemala requires only 1 should not be a factor. Having a once in a lifetime opportunity to see the Great Wall should not be a point for China.

What I'm trying to say is - we didn't choose international because we thought it would be fun to travel to an exotic place, and the travel requirements between the 2 countries will not be large factors in our decision.

With that said - who could possibly choose between these 2 amazing countries based on travel anyway!!!





So, what are legitimate considerations? Well, I'm not really sure yet. I suppose it makes sense to consider the time tables. In other words - which direction will match us with our baby more quickly? Which process seems to be the most streamlined and reliable? Just our luck, initial analysis shows these 2 to be split between the 2 countries!!!!

Tens of thousands of babies are adopted from China each year, so the process is well known. I'm betting just about everyone knows someone, worships with someone, or works with someone who's been involved in an adoption from China.

On the other hand, Guatemala continues to struggle with poverty, so the need for adoptive parents grows. This means the time-table for matching parent and child is on the shorter end of the spectrum.

So where do we go from here? We'll keep praying (and hopefully you will too). We hope to find our way within the next couple of weeks.