*Didn't Come

Well, I am a bit disappointed that our dossier didn’t come back to our agency yet, and therefore didn’t get sent to Vietnam yet. I wanted to get it all sent and start our official wait in September, but October is pretty much here now. October 1st wouldn’t be so bad. We’ll see.

I was reading another adoptive family’s blog who has been in the process much longer than us, and found several good videos and articles from our agency from a while back. International adoptions in Vietnam closed for sometime in 2004, and this article written at the end of 2005 notes how hard that closure was on some orphans. Some had parents waiting for them in America, who decided to go elsewhere to get their children, leaving the Vietnamese orphan waiting. During the closure, our agency was one of the few to remain in Vietnam and do humanitarian work in the orphanages. They were also the first to get licensed again and arranged the first adoption when Vietnam reopened.
To read more, Click Here

This weekend my mom and sister are out of town and we are house-sitting to make sure the animals don’t starve. Keith’s mom, also came up for a visit, so we are all staying at my mom’s while they’re gone. It makes for an interesting weekend. A good friend and Keith cut down the huge dying tree in my mom’s front yard last night. Here’s some pictures of their adventure:

*Hurry Up and Wait

I was planning to wait until Friday to call the agency, but caved in to my curiosity and excitement and called yesterday, only to be disappointed. I was hoping and praying that our dossier (paperwork) would go to Vietnam this month, and with only two mailing days left, it is looking doubtful, but still possible. I thought our agency sent our dossier to San Fransisco on the 12th, but they didn't until the 20th. I'm not sure why, but I'm assuming some of the paperwork still had to be authenticated at the state capitol. I'm not real sure how it works. Anyhow, I'm still praying it happens in the next 2 days.

We're tired of waiting to start our Wait!

On a positive note, two ladies who are adopting from our agency, and whose blogs I've been following got their referrals yesterday - one a 4 mo old beautiful girl, and the other a 2 mo old handsome boy. Because they're in the north, they should be able to travel in the next month and will get their babies at a young age. How fun!

*Liv's First Gift

Yes, we've decided to call our daughter Liv for the time being - that is until we know who she is and decide on her real name. Liv, stands for Love In Vietnam (the blog title). So, she's not Dot anymore, but maybe we'll change our minds again. It's only a nickname, but it's been as hard to choose as a real name!

Last week friends from our Bible study and I went out for ladies night and painted ceramics together at a shop. Most all of us made things for our little ones, and I decided it’s time for our little girl to have something. Here is my first gift for Liv (a plate/plaque thingy- not perfect, but neither am I):

The quotation is from the poem “The Answer” about adoption: “Not flesh of my flesh nor bone of my bone, but still miraculously my own. Never forget for a single minute, that you grew not under my heart, but in it."

As we near the official beginning of our wait for our little girl in the next week or so, some fears are rising in me. I’m not sure I can even put how I feel into words. There is a lot of me that is very excited, but afraid to get too excited – fearful that my heart will get hurt. Maybe it’s normal to be afraid to get too attached to a child, or a dream, in the adoption process, knowing it can be rocky at times. Yet, I don’t want to deaden my heart. I want to feel in full during this process, and learn all God has to teach me (which I’m sure is a lot!).

Summer is just barely over and we were already itching to get out of the house, so the three of us went to the waterfront for a few hours. Koen enjoyed digging in the sand (of which half ended up in his diaper), pointing out the boats, and attempting to go for a swim. One funny thing he’s doing right now is pointing out airplanes and helicopters when he hears them, and saying “bee, bee!” repeatedly. He has learned the word “bee” from books where there are tiny little flying things with wings, much like a plane looks like way off in the distance. He’s funny. He also got to see two trains go by, to which he excitedly shouted "Choo Choo!" while wanting to be held. He was both scared of and enthralled with the loud and large moving vehicle.

Keith said this morning while I was gone, he and Koen got out the world atlas and were trying to guess where in Vietnam Koen’s sister is, and whether she is even born yet. I doubt Koen has a clue, but we’re trying to talk to him about it already.


He is smart, really!

Triathlon

The triathlon went well. Our team placed 2nd of the relays (the team who beat us were men), and I had a good swim (placing 1st of the women, and 7th overall). It was fun for the most part, but I'm not sure I could ever do the whole triathlon. Not sure my knees could handle it.

Koen's been a little under the weather - having a fever every night lately, and sometimes waking up in the middle of the night really sweaty. During the day he's pretty happy though - just a little tired.

No news on our adoption, but I'm afraid that is going to be the case for much of the next several months. I'm starting to wonder what kind of heartbreak we have applied for - knowing the wait can be so painful, and sometimes people lose referrals to family choosing to keep them, or even to death. There is a little part of me that hopes for a surprise referral in the next several months - way quicker than expected, but that part of me will likely be very disappointed.

I really enjoy reading other's adoption blogs. I added a list of favorite blog links to the left. Feel free to enjoy reading some amazing stories if you'd like.

*2 Weeks

We got an email from our case worker yesterday, saying that they received all our paperwork and that our dossier should go to Vietnam in about two weeks. Please pray with us that all would go as planned during authentication/translation. Once we are DTV (blogger lingo= Dossier to Vietnam) then we begin our official wait which is estimated to be 10-13 months until our referral.

Saturday I am doing the swimming portion of a triathlon (relay style) with friends from church. I am a good swimmer, but we'll see how I do in open water - I hate the thought of there being fish down there!!

*God is Good!

He is whether or not we got our immigration approval in the mail today, but we DID! So, it only took 4.5 weeks! Tomorrow we will send a copy to our agency, along with those last pictures and the letter , and our dossier will be complete and ready to go to the Vietnamese embassy in San Francisco where it will get translated. It is a joy to get to write another milestone in our adoption time line on the right.

Keith will be home from his retreat any minute now (I called him first thing, so he already knows), and I have blackberry cobbler in the oven for him. Koen and I had a good day. We went on a picnic and played in the river with my mom, grammi, and sister. Tonight he gave me a big hug (a new skill of his - he squeezes oh so tight, and it feels great!!!) and said "nigh-nigh" when I put him down. Such a sweet-heart. He'll be a great big brother.

*Paperwork and Potluck

Still no exciting mail, but we have gotten a little more of our paperwork done. We got our "letter of intent" notarized on Friday. This is one of the harder papers required to adopt, as it is a one page letter written by us communicating our desire and reason to adopt, the age and gender we are requesting, and our intentions with our future child. More hinges on our writing papers like these, than ever did before - in school and college it was only for grades, on job applications, it is only for a job, but this is for our child! It adds a little to the stress, but we probably don't have to worry about grammar as much, as it will be translated to Vietnamese.

We had a hard time with this letter too, because I don't feel 100% confident that we should be requesting a healthy infant girl. I've mentioned this before. I talked with our caseworker, and if we are willing to accept some special needs we need to update our home study to say which ones specifically. We also found out that our home study approved us for one or two children birth to 18 months. We thought it was birth to 12 months. So we had to consider if we would be willing to accept a referral of a 13 or even 18 month old child. Our case worker recommended we keep it up to 18 months, and they would take note that we want as young as possible. It may be the case that we will receive a referral that is 9 months old, and have to wait 4 months to travel. Thus the child would be 13 months when we went to get her, and our paperwork would need to say we're approved for us to 18 months. Complex, yes, but she helped me feel good about keeping it at 18 months. She also said we could update our home study later to include special needs if that is what our referral is for (I think.)

Our agency adopts out of three orphanages in the north, and 3 in the south. As I've said before, it costs $3000 more to adopt from the north, but they are healthier, and the wait between referral and travel is way shorter (one month in the north, and 4-7 in the south). So, that $3000 could get us to our child 6 months faster, and allow us to enjoy 6 months more of her life (get her younger). That 4-7 month wait after receiving the picture and information on our child would be pure torture, but if that's where our daughter is, that's what we need to be ready for. The southern orphanages also refer out their children before searching for biological or national adoptive families, so sometimes a referral is given to an American couple, and then the family is found in Vietnam, and the referral is revoked. I'm sure that's also torture, but something we'd have know could happen if our child is in the south.

The other thing we've saved for last is our individual pictures. One of Keith, and one of me, each by ourselves. It's hard to pose for a picture and not make it look too posed, and yet also look like you'd be a good parent (whatever that looks like). So, after church today we quickly snapped some photos, and then Keith was off to a student leadership retreat. Campus ministry is getting busy already, even though most schools don't start classes until the end of the month. The fall is always the busiest time for Crusade staff, so I probably won't see him much the next 3 months. Today was only a half day with Koen to myself, and it was exhausting, even though he was really well-behaved. He has a lot of energy!

Yesterday we got to gather with several other families who have adopted from Vietnam, or are in process and live in the Seattle area. The family that hosted the potluck has two boys from Vietnam, the oldest of which is 9. They started the group, which gets together a couple times a year, soon after they adopted him. We met a family who is at about the same stage we are in the process, and a lady adopting through our agency that is getting her referral tomorrow.

Hard to see, I know, we're in the middle back. Koen has a white hat on.

Through conversation there I learned that several of the families were able to meet the birth parents of their child, and that sometimes the birth parents attend the "Giving and Receiving Ceremony." I didn't even know this was a possibility, and I hope it is so for my child. I think it would be a blessing for her later in life, to at least know a little about them, rather than it be a complete mystery. We also learned that the orphanage food the children in Vietnam receive is usually better nutritionally than orphanages in other countries. Babies are fed formula from France in Vietnam with all the nutrients baby formula in the US has.

*No Mail

Today marks 4 weeks since we applied for our immigration approval and got fingerprinted. Our case worker said it could take 4-7 weeks. So, of course I excitedly checked the mailbox at 4 this afternoon to find.....
nothing!!! I know it's unrealistic, but God can work miracles!:) I'll let you know if I get some exciting mail soon. Meanwhile we are working on applying for an adoption grant through Shoahannah's Hope (singer Steven Curtis Chapman's ministry), and painting our master bedroom.

*Questioning Our Request

Welcome to September. I am sad to see that summer is pretty much over, and the weather was somewhat disappointing. I feel like we didn't spend enough time enjoyng the outdoors, especially since Koen loves it, and rain is sure to come to Seattle soon.

On the adoption front, nothing new really. We are hoping to get our Immigration approval in the next week or two (reality is probably later this month, but we can pray for sooner).

The twins we were originally told about when we started with our agency have been adopted by a family - good news really, but does adjust Keith's dreams a little perhaps. It is very rare that twins will go up for adoption. There is a set of boy twins available, but we're pretty sure we want at least one girl.

I have a hard time with that, and an even harder time lately specifying a "healthy" infant, or even an infant at all. The need is so much greater among special needs, and older children, and there are even more boys up for adoption. I don't know if God may be calling us to something different - perhaps a child with minor special needs, or even a toddler, or a boy, but I want to be open to it. We have to decide really soon though, because I'm not sure we can change things once our paperwork goes to Vietnam.

Yesterday we got to celebrate a friend's birthday at a luau BBQ they hosted. The person with the best Hawaiian attire won a Starbucks card, so Koen volunteered to wear an embarrassing outfit for his father's love (addiction really) of coffee.

Koen with our friend, Ben

Koen actually enjoyed the "grass" skirt and danced around in it.

Oh, by the way, Koen won.