TB tests, tears, and Taiwan!

In one week our home study documents will have been mailed to our agency downtown! The deadline is looming and we're soooo close we can taste it!

We both passed our TB tests, but while at my physical appointment the nurse turned to me after typing in some information and told me how excited and proud she was of me and my husband for doing this not just one time but two and she started tearing up....so of course I immediately start tearing up, so there we were happy crying while sharing our love of these children that so desperately want a family. We were about to continue our discussion about the families separated at the border, but she got called out of the room.

Our biggest concern in this whole process is how we are going to leave Brayden for 2.5 weeks to go meet Baby J and bring him/her home. For some medical reasons, it's just not possible to bring him with us, but we know we can only worry about so many things and although huge, that one was farther down the list since it seems so far away. And then two weeks ago I opened an email from our adoption agency in Colorado and it was all about how they have opened up adoptions in Taiwan. The kiddos might be a little bit older (4 and up), but the families get to see their files and if they choose to go ahead with the adoption, the foster home will start teaching them English and we get to Skype with them a few times. The BEST part (and an obvious answer to prayer!!) is that travel is only 5 days!!!! However, we might have to go twice, and leaving Baby J would be THE hardest thing we would ever do, but we love having this option since we can continue pursuing a China adoption while simultaneously looking at the Waiting Children files for Taiwan (one of the more heartbreaking sentences I've had to type...that name is just devastating!).

In the meantime, we're all fully adjusted to being back at school, Benson is in the midst of coaching 8th grade girls basketball, and I'm being booked pretty consistently for 5:30 and 6:00 am classes during the week with VIPKids. I absolutely adore teaching these hard-working, super sweet students half way around the world as it makes me feel a bit closer to Baby J :) Brayden will hopefully be starting gymnastics in late October and is loving every second of first grade!!

Next update will hopefully be when we get our completed home study back!! When this happens, Benson and I will apply for a time to get fingerprinted (I believe this is through the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) as we send all our documents, now called a Dossier, to the Chinese Consulate in Chicago through a courier (hoping the one we used for Brayden is still around because this lady was amazing!) to get Certified and Authenticated!

Here's to an update super soon!

Slow & Steady

What our table looks like right now! We have to compare the forms our Home Study Agency wants with what our Adoption Agency want (example: both need forms from our doctor, so which one do we actually use) and everything needs to be issued and/or notarized within a certain time frame and can't expire before it gets to China. Even with doing this before, it is just SO overwhelming.....and why the adoption community says we're paperwork pregnant!! But luckily our adoption agency is SO organized and on page two of the packet they say by following their directions we're in good company because they have completed over 11,000 dossiers....and one of those was ours for Brayden :) :)

I can honestly say this has been our busiest summer! Between Benson taking four online graduate classes (he has his Masters +30 now!!), adoption paperwork, me getting hired as a VIPKid teacher (I'm teaching English online to kiddos in China!), and just being parents ;) we definitely accomplished a lot!

Brayden doing summer school and a camp in the mornings helped though ;) This kid just loves to be out of the house!!

We went to Santa's Village :)

Loving life on the last day of swim lessons

#culture ;)

Every year, but especially this year!

Hoping the adoption process goes just as fast and we're flying to China to meet Baby J in no time at all!!

Some people have asked how to follow our blog. Hopefully this works?

Ok, back to home study classes!!

Brayden is ready for a sibling

In the past two weeks, we've watched Brayden "discover" his shadow in his bedroom and his reflection in our sliding glass door. He laughs and dances with his 'twin'.

My friend came in from Iowa with her two kids (her daughter is two years older then Brayden and her son is one and a half years younger) and they all spent the night. I was so nervous about how this would all play out, but Brayden had a blast and has been looking around the house for them. This visit also eased my anxiety on the lack of space in our house since we need to put our addition on the back burner because ALL the pennies (and nickels, dimes, quarters, etc) are being saved to bring Baby J home. Benson sees this as the green light to us having three kids/adopting twins <eye roll>

Got some forms notarized today and looking into what Home Study classes to take.

Happy almost 4th everyone! :)

Approved!!

Happy first day of summer! :)

So life/adulting/end of the school year/finances slowed us down from our end of March start to the adoption process, but here we (for real! It's official!!) go! ;)

Last Thursday, June 14, I mailed off our application to our adoption agency, CCAI, in Colorado. Benson's superstitions do wear off on me: we could have emailed the application in, but last time we mailed it (also in June) and I LOVE the Medinah post office!! They have the nicest postal workers and that hasn't changed in the six years since I sent off our first application.

The application was supposed to arrive by Monday and when we hadn't heard from them on Wednesday, I emailed to check the status. They just needed a few more numbers from us and this morning while Brayden was in speech therapy I received this email:

We weren't really worried, but still! ;)

Until we get all the paperwork and classes completed and filled out (our Dossier, which will be translated and sent to China), there's not much for our adoption agency to do (except field my anxiety-ridden calls and emails questioning how to fill out this or that form haha) It's nice to have the summer to focus on this!

This is just the top half of the page!!

A year ago, I was packing for our Disney trip; organizing this and completing a blog post is just as good! ;)

And while all I want to do is change course for a domestic adoption to adopt a child from a detention center here in America, I am SO thankful that we're adopting from a country that is Hague approved. This means, "...is an international treaty that provides important safeguards to protect the best interests of children, birth parents, and adoptive parents who are involved in intercountry adoptions". 

Baby J:

So much hope, love and prayers surround you already!

(Thanks Pinterest Adoption board for the images)

We're Back!!!

So we blinked and we've been home with Brayden for almost 4.5 years!!

He's six, in full day kindergarten, an active little guy who still loves to snuggle, and will be the BEST big brother to Baby J, aka #2!

A year ago we were ready to get the ball rolling, but we had my 20 year high school reunion friends trip to Disney World in late June, so we said after that since we'd be home consistently to answer phone calls and respond to emails (since we waited so long we have to start ALL over at square one again with the home-study process). Late May had us deciding to move first so we would have more room for our two littles to run around. Late December had us deciding to put an addition on to our house since we LOVE where we are. Late February we had blueprints and mailed in our home study application and today was our first appointment!

We were told to expect a meeting of 2-2.5 hours, but since we've been down this road before and didn't have too many questions it wasn't too bad. We were given a folder with LOTS of papers to fill out, and get filled out, so I'm excited to announce that Benson and I are officially Paperwork Pregnant!!! 😍😍