bye bye September!

When we first began this adoption we were told it was about a 9 month process from start to finish.  And of course, thinking we were exceptional people we just knew we could get it done in 6 months.  Then our FBI back ground checks took two and a half months.  So our homestudy took longer than that.  We committed to adopting Danny in April, so September marks the sixth month we have been in this process.  Obviously we are not as exceptional as we thought! (PS: I totally wish I was one of those people who kept a list running of specific dates when things happend.  It's pretty vague since I'm not that organized.)

After we signed our commitment papers and sent our first checks in we learned that 9 months really isn't typical....12 to 14 months is much more the "norm." So here we are, six months later.  This could, God willing, mark the halfway point in our adoption!  I can't tell you how excited this makes me!  So what happens next for us?  Here is a quick outline to keep you up to date:

1. We are waiting on three pieces of mail to reach us.  These include a form from our social worker, a form from our local agency who will be performing our follow up home studies, and our Golden Ticket! (The golden ticket is our immigration approval, called such because it's actually printed on gold paper.)

2. Once we receive all three of these items Wes and I have to get everything notarized.  When I say everything I mean literally about 50 pieces of paper.

3. After notary we get everything apostilled.  This is where it will get a little tricky for us.  Since all the items we have from our social worker and local agency are notarized in Texas they must be apostilled in TX.  I'm totally down with that, because there is an awesome outlet mall on the way to Austin!  The tricky part is that since Wes is in Connecticut we are planning to do all of our signing in front of a notary there...and all those forms will have to be apostilled in CT! Here in TX you can sit and wait and talk to a very nice lady while she takes care of the apostille for you.  In CT you can't.  You must either mail them in or drop them off, but you can't wait for them to be completed.  If you can't come back in person in a few days then they will mail them to you.

4. Once all the fun of step 3 is complete we will then ship our entire dossier (packet of required documents) to Danny's country!

5. Someone will translate all of these pages into a language much like Russian, complete with crazy alphabet.

6. Our dossier will be submitted to the Ministry of Justice of Danny's Country.....THEN....

7. We get a referral to go meet him!  (This is the most exciting step so far!)

8. We travel to meet him...when?  I'm not sure yet, but something in my heart says we won't be here for Thanksgiving, and yet will be so thankful!

9. Mail more documents

10. Court

11. Bring my boy home!


We are hoping and praying to have steps 1-4 completed by October 14th and ship our dossier out for delivery early the following week.  I know this still feels like so much (believe me, it does!) but I also feel like we are on the home stretch at this point. We are both so thrilled to think that we could be meeting our son in just a few weeks!  Think about it, Thanksgiving is only 8 weeks away!

Will you please pray that our final missing documents reach us this weekend, and that I have safe travels in getting everything finalized and ready to go, and also when I see Wes in a week.  Please also keep our sweet social worker in your prayers.  She does good work helping families like us get ready to adopt, and she is constantly under attack by evil.

Finally, will you also do the happy dance that our USCIS approval seems to be coming back in record time!

whew!

Well if you don't already know I think it's important to share a couple of life things going on right now!

1. Wes has been deployed to the East Coast to work some of the damage left behind by Hurricane Irene.  We don't know how long he will be gone, and he has no return ticket!  What we do know is this is an amazing opportunity for him and we are so thankful it came along.

2. We got our USCIS fingerprinting appointment notification!!!  And it's next week on Friday....which is awesome...except that Wes is on the East Coast.  Funny what God does in our lives, huh?!  Not a huge concern, I spoke with a very helpful man at the state department yesterday and he walked me through how to get Wes's appointment moved to where he is.  The request is already in the mail.

3. Since he's gone I decided to go ahead with a little 'home improvement' project we had planned for Danny's room.  Today I demolished the shelves and bars on the inside of his closet and then painted over the scars left behind.  Tomorrow I'm going to install this (sans lady clothes) so he will have lots of room for all his fun new stuff!




Hope the world is treating you well, and you enjoy this holiday weekend.

Jessica

PS: Remember JOSIE?  She has a family!!!!

obstacles

To say adopting is filled with obstacles is an understatement!  We are still so early in the process and yet we have come in contact with obstacles a plenty.  Here are some, and how we are handling them, or what we are doing about them and in some cases suggestions if you want them.

1. Money!  I think this is probably the single biggest reason families who might be compelled to adopt end up not going through with it.  We are very blessed with friends and families who are very supportive of us financially.  Also when we bring Danny home (finally!) our respective companies will provide us a small amount of assistance.  Are you thinking about adopting, but can't pull the trigger because of money? Check with your employer, many times they offer adoption benefits that are never used because no one knows about them!

2. Paperwork! Whew.  This is a doozy.  I have a huge file folder that is already completely full of the paperwork that adoption requires of us.  And yet there are still missing items at this point.  Our homestudy won't be complete until we get our FBI back-ground checks back, our medical statements, as well as our psychological statements.  You read that right, we have to be evaluated psychologically in order to adopt!  With both of us working more than full time jobs right now this is far and away the most daunting obstacle we have faced so far.  It has taken a significant amount of time to go to doctor's appointments, get forms signed, notaries, apostilles.

3. Nay-Sayers! While completely expected this is still quite frustrating.  Wes and I have been very lucky that we have been quite shielded from this, but it still happens.  I am finding that our new "adoption friends" are enduring much more of this than I think is appropriate.  We know that adoption of a child with special needs is controversial but the questions that come are incredibly exhausting and most of the time RUDE.  If you want to know why we are adopting...ask.  If you have a question that you think *might* be offensive it probably is.  If you still want to know the answer...ask, but don't be surprised if you get an answer you don't like.

4. Time! I am not a patient person. Adoption takes a long time.  Things do not move quickly and most of them are out of our control.  There aren't a lot of things we can do to speed this process up other than pray.  So we are spending this waiting time praying, fundraising, making new friends and praying! (Yes, I know I put that last one in twice.  We do it a lot.)  If anyone has any suggestions on this one they would be appreciated!

So those are the current obstacles.  This is not a complete list by any means, just what we are dealing with now.  Again, any questions let me know and I will do my best.  Thanks for your prayers!

our Grant took a jump!

I was just sitting here thinking about how it's been weeks since our grant moved....but I was wrong!  It has moved sometime in the past week or so from $290 to $340!!!!  It's great to know that we are $50 closer to getting Danny home.  Every little bit helps, friends!

PS: Have you seen what our friends the Rhodes are doing? I'm resorting to guilt here people!
Click the link below to find out...
$13 and 1,000 people can make a HUGE difference!

order of events

A good friend of mine asked today what the order of events is in our adoption and also pointed out to me that she is probably not the only one that's curious.  So I thought I would share here.  Honestly I've been asked this a lot lately, so it's nice to only explain it one time and hopefully ALL the world will read it here.  (Dreaming, huh?)

I'm fast forwarding to where we are today:
1. Get FBI background checks back (hopefully sometime in the next 2-3 weeks)
2. Get homestudy completed
3. Send homestudy to our agency for Hague certification
4. Submit huge packet of paper to USCIS for approval (this can be a 2-3 month process)
5. Get approval from USCIS
6. Send second huge packet of paper, called a Dossier, to our country
7. Meet Danny!!!  (I am really excited about this)
8. Formally agree to adopt him...don't worry he is on hold for us
9. Court....luckily we don't have to be present for this
10. Get final approval and go pick him up!

So while this is down to "only" 10 steps remember that everything in our dossier must be notarized and apostilled which is another trip to Austin.  Our agency will review everything and make sure it's all good before it gets sent off.  If I've counted correctly and not missed any steps we are still about 4 months from meeting Danny (October-ish) and 6 months, at the earliest, from being able to bring him home.  Absolute best case scenario is December I think.  The good news is God is bigger and better than me and has the power to move this along.  Remember yesterday's prayer request of things moving faster than they currently are?  Now do you understand why?!?!  I'm impatient!  And I want my boy here before his 4th birthday which is right after Christmas.  For that matter I he is all I want for Christmas!  So please pray for us and him every day.

In other VERY EXCITING news we have a tentative date for our Dinner & Silent Auction.  I am so excited to share more details in the coming weeks as we get everything planned out.  Do you know a business owner or creative person who might be willing to donate to the auction?  Please send them my way!

Thanks friends!

we wait...

Having been asked where we are in the adoption process a number of times lately I wanted to give you all an update.

We are waiting.  If you have even the slightest inkling of who I am you know that this is far and away the hardest thing for me to do...ever! Not a good waiter...actually I was an excellent waitress, but I do not easily succeed at waiting in life.

What we wait for right now are our FBI background checks, medical statements to be completed, and we need to find our 401k statements.  That last one is the easiest, so I guess I need to not be lazy and get them printed!

Once we get all these things handled we can send them to our social worker and she will finish our home study.  The home study will go to our agency for certification and then to the USCIS for approval.  When we receive approval from USCIS (the state department) we will hopefully get to go meet Danny!  This is the day we eagerly await, however it might still be 3-4 months before we receive this approval.  Please pray it moves faster than that!

In the meantime we are going to start working on our next, and hopefully last, fundraiser.  We are planning a dinner and silent auction to take place in October.  If you, or someone you know, would like to make a donation to the auction or the dinner please contact me directly.  As soon as we have made some headway in planning I will post a specific list with what we need.

Thank you so much for loving us!

a MILLION thanks!

Wow!  We are overwhelmed by the amount of love we were surrounded with today.  Remember when I told you that God was using fundraising as a way to humble me?  How HE is!  I am humbled beyond belief.  There are not enough way to thank everyone who has turned up to help and donate it the past 24 hours.

The Muscle:
Crystal, you have been my rock through all of this.  Not only did you set about organizing this garage sale you workED with back breaking determination so that it would be successful.  $1,845 dollars later YOU have made a huge impact in our lives and in Danny's future.  Thank you.  We love you.
Clarissa, Christine, Mom, Phil, Amy, Jeremy, Emily, Kourtney, Jesse, Elizabeth, Donny, Aunt Sarah, (am I forgetting anyone? If so I am so sorry!) thanks to each of you.  You worked hard Friday and Saturday.  Most of you are sunburned, you sweated all day long, your feet probably hurt, I could go on.  Thank you.  We love you.
Taylor, Anna, Eva, Will, Drake, (Anna's other friends who showed up to help)  you guys totally rocked the lemonade, water, cookie stand! Thank you for your enthusiasm to help Danny out.  You kids are awesome sales people!
Mary, Jimmy, Mya, Lea, Danika, your family is our inspiration.  Without you there is no way we would have ever considered bringing Danny into our lives.  You show us what it is to love one another and be loved.  I am so thankful you are on this journey with us.  If you've ever wondered in your travels and moves why you are somewhere I hope you no longer wonder about San Antonio.  You were meant to be here, in our lives.  God blessed us the day He sent you here.  Thank you. We are eternally grateful.


The Donors:
I will honor what I believe your wishes are, but I want to say thank you.  You know exactly who you are, and just so you know there is another jewel awaiting you in your crown in Heaven.  You are loved.


Everyone Else:
We are just getting started!  I realize that the money we made today is a lot, and we are so thankful (if you can't tell!) But please remember this is a drop in the bucket.  We need to come up with approximately $22,000 to bring Danny home.  We are just shy of 10% of the way there!  Considering we are 10% of the way through paperwork I think we are doing pretty well!  Lots of ideas are being kicked around for our next big event.  We are thinking about doing a dinner at some point this fall...when it's not 106* outside anymore!  We may also do t-shirt sales, and we will definitely have duckies for sale soon since they didn't get here in time for today's garage sale.  Please don't forget that if you make your donations to our Reece's Rainbow Family Sponsorship Page they are tax deductible.  Should you want to make a large donation please consider mailing a check to Reece's Rainbow to save them the paypal fees.

One more time....THANK YOU!!!!

June 2

I've debated all day whether or not I was going to tell you all what this date is to us.  Since it's actually been a pretty good day I will go ahead.  June 2 is our little girl's due date.  One of my friends who, like me, has had multiple miscarriages said to me once that it's not right that those of us who have lost babies have two days of remembrance.  The one we found out they were lost, and the day which was to be their due date.  I agree, it's not right! But on the other hand I'm actually doing really well with today.  There were a few minutes this morning that I teared up, but overall it's been a good day. I'm sure there will be other June 2nd's in my future that aren't as easy, but this first one I gave completely to God.  It is His will that today was not as tough as I imagined it might be a few months ago.  So for that, I thank Him.  I also thank Him that our little girl gets to celebrate what might have been her first birthday with a party in heaven!

Here is what's going on adoption-wise.  Yesterday I sent off our fingerprints, $36, and our request for FBI back-ground checks.  We have heard that it can take as long at six weeks to get these back, so prayers are appreciated for speedy delivery!  Today I had my TB test read, and it's negative so we will be able to get the last of our medical statements back by Monday hopefully.  With this we are one step closer to having our home-study complete.

Next agenda items: Garage sale June 18th!!!  Donations for the fundraising sale are greatly appreciated!  If you need them picked up let us know and we will figure it out.

home study, etc.

Today was home study day!  I will admit that when I woke up this morning I was bit a lot nervous!  Then today's sermon was about giving all your Faith to God and letting Him carry you through whatever is going on in life.  (I'm paraphrasing badly, but you get it.) So I gave it up.  All of it.  The home study.  Adoption. Finances. Pregnancy.  Babies.  ALL OF IT.  I gave it all up.  I realize this is something I will have to do, probably every day, but it's worth it.  My shoulders haven't hovered around my ears at all today. 

Ultimately it was the reminder I needed that our God is powerful to provide.  And He will! Our time with Ashley went so well and we are blessed to have a social worker who is also a Christian and understands us and what we are being called to do.  My hope is to have the study back in a couple of weeks so we can move on to our state department application.

****************************************************************************

In other news....I'm afraid I may have ignorantly offended some people recently. Please accept my apologies for my insenstivity.  People come to parenthood in so many ways at so many different times in life.  I am blessed beyond belief to have an amazing husband, job and home, but not all women find themselves in my situation.  Ultimately my heart feels that there is no right or wrong way to become a parent, as long as you do it with all of your heart, soul, and with good intentions.  And if you can't do it that way then please consider adoption.  There are many people who won't ever have the gift of biological children but would be amazing parents.

However, the debate begs the question...if you, as a parent of biological children had a social worker walk into your house right now, would you pass a home study?  Are there smoke detectors in all of your bedrooms and hall ways?  Do you have a fire extinguisher? Is there a lock on your gate?  Do you have a budget, marriage license, birth certificates, life insurance statements, DPS back ground checks at your easy disposal?  Amazing isn't it all the hoops we must go through?!?!?!?  And that's a very abbreviated list!  I would love to hear your thoughts.

nuts. doNUTS!!!

My fabulous friend Crystal is helping (totally doing) coordinate the garage sale.  Which by the way is slated for June 18th at our house.  Volunteers anyone?!?! (hint, hint)

When I say Crystal is doing the garage sale, I mean she has driven it from the very beginning.  This is why I love my friend:  today she sent a very nice message to a bunch of her friends asking for items to sell, which she will be picking up over the next few weeks.  (Have you noticed how expensive gas is?  This is a huge gift!)

About 4 hours after the initial email went out I got another message from her....Krispy Kreme is donating donuts for us to sell at the garage sale!!!  DONATING DONUTS. Total awesomeness!

I wish I had time to tell you all the other amazing things my sweet friend is doing to help us.  Just know I have an angel helping me out right now.  :)

Thank you wonderful amazing Crystal!  You are a most giving and loving human being!

christmas in our mailbox!

Since we started the adoption we have been waiting.  Waiting for information, news, documents....waiting!

Well today I stopped to check the mail.  Yes, I realize it's Sunday and mail only comes Monday through Saturday, but it was a crazy weekend.  So when I got the mail there was a ton of junk, but there were also two brown official looking envelopes.  I got super excited!

It was our first of three back ground checks!!!  One of the final things we need to collect for our home study.  When you are collecting so many things it's fun to see it about to come together!

Our home study is in one week.  One week!  I can't believe it's almost here.  This is the next major hurdle towards bringing Danny home.  Here are some things to pray for this week:

1. Fundraising: this is a work in progress right now.  Once we get past the HS and get our USCIS application mailed in we can really get to work.
2. Home Study: please pray our social worker, Ashley, has safe travels next Sunday.  She is coming all the way from Lubbock to work with us.
3. Paperwork: we still have a few items we need.  We won't have our physicals until after we see Ashley, so please pray we can get them done quickly and easily.
4. Doctor: we are looking for a pediatrician that will write a letter on Danny's behalf to send along with our USCIS application to try to speed things us.  Pray we can find someone who understands where we are and why we want him here so quickly.


Thank you my sweet followers for reading and praying for us!

jake

Sometimes God knows exactly what we need to see or hear at certain times.  Today is one of those days...

A little background:
Last month on the day Wes and I got our initial application notarized and ready to ship to our Adoption Agency I got a speeding ticket.  Within minutes I had gone from the highest high to the lowest low and was incredibly frustrated!  My amazing husband was in the car with me, but it was his truck (heavy, will NOT go 25 mph) that I was driving.  Officer-Not-So-Nice didn't even let me try to explain!  I decided then and there I would go talk to the judge and try to avoid defensive driving because the adoption requires 12 hours of online training, as well as countless hours of errands, paper work collection, etc.

Today:
My court date was today at 3pm.  I went and waited in the courtroom until my number was called.  While I waited I noticed a little boy a few rows in front of me who I thought might have Down Syndrome.  After I spoke with the judge and got my ticket deferred (probation, yay!) I went to wait in line to pay the cashier.  The little boy, and his family were in line right in front of me.  He was looking at me, at this point it was clear he has DS, so I said hello.  He introduced himself as Jake, and then introduced his sister, and mom and dad.  I got through the check-out line before Jake's parents, and said goodbye.  Once I was in my car and driving away they were walking to their car....I couldn't help myself, I rolled down the window and told Jake's mom about Danny.  She grabbed my hand and told me that Jake had been with them since he was born, for 10 years, and that he was the best thing that had ever happened to their family.

Yesterday and part of today I have really been struggling with how time and financially consuming this adoption is becoming.  And yet, as I sat there and talked as briefly as I did with Jake and his parents I see how much it's all going to be worth it in the end.  I know that God has chosen this for us.  That it is not something we can turn our backs on and quite honestly this is what we have been praying for since we got married.  Danny is what we have been preparing for.  Forever thankful for that reminder today.

lost

Today I feel a little lost in all of the things going on in our world.  We spent the weekend at a friend's wedding and while that was great fun I feel so behind now!  (Congrats Kevin & Ludy!) While in West Texas we were able to get one round of finger prints done, and our birth certificates came, so that's progress, but I still feel there are so many other things to get to.

Here's what's coming next for us:

1. May 29th our Social Worker comes to do our home study....we have to finish collecting a number of pieces of paper before then
2. We are going to work in our back yard this weekend...are you handy with a shovel?!?
3. At some point we need to get our new gun safe installed (chill out, we live in TX)  (:
4. Need to get the set of prints for the FBI done pretty much ASAP
5. T-Shirt Fundraiser and Garage Sale (happily accepting donations now)

Can you, will you please pray for us? We need all the help we can get right now!

Finally, please remember how important it is for this process to move quickly.  I heard today of another Reece's Rainbow family who was days (literally) from going to pick up their little one when they found out he wouldn't be coming home with them, that he had gone to Heaven. Please pray for peace and understanding for them.

calling all spring cleaners & junk collectors

We have decided to have a garage sale (ooops, need to tell Wes this) to help raise some funds for the adoption.  The date is up in the air at this point, but I will gladly begin to take donations.  Probably looking at mid-June so you have a month or so to get us your stuff.  Or if you REALLY love us you can hold onto your donations until closer to the date!  Not looking for anything in particular, just what you want out of your house.  I agree, Goodwill and Medina Children's Home are fantastic places to take your things, but wouldn't it be nice to know where the cash is going for once?

Call me or email me with any questions.  Help us fill up our garage...and drive our neighbors crazy!  :)

three sets of fingerprints and back-ground checks?!

Yes, you read that correctly!  We get to do three sets of back-ground checks with fingerprints!! Luckily I learned today that we can do all the printing in one trip.  For our home study we need a State of Texas check, for the dossier (you will learn a lot more about this soon) we need a city of SA and FBI check.  The really fun part is we get a check from the FBI, but then send it off to have it apostilled.  Why they can't handle that themselves I will never know!

So this Friday morning before we leave for the wedding Wes will be in this weekend in Lubbock, we will quickly (I hope!) run downtown and get lots of ink all over our fingers!

Please keep this whole process in your prayers, we can certainly feel the enemy on our back.

not such a 5 star day

It was bound to happen.  Ran into our first adoption related snag today.  Yesterday we finally had time for both of us to go get the next set of forms notarized.  Then today I was able to finish up work early enough to drive to Austin to have them apostilled (apo-steeled.)  So I sat down with the lady at the Secretary of State's office and the first thing she said was: "Well this isn't going to work."  Turns out that the notary had stamped everything but hadn't actually singed and dated it...and it therefore wasn't a legal notary.  Ugh.

So I turned back around and came back to San Antonio and went straight to the notary we used and got it all fixed.  But by the time I was done with that I couldn't get back to Austin in time to complete the apostille.  Guess I will have to find time in the next few days to drive back up there.

Once we get the apostille it's time to ship the first round of documents off to "the country that shall not be named*." Good news on that: it's only going to cost about $120.  Yikes!

*did you like my little harry potter reference there?

thank you!!

So excited to see we have already had a few donations to Danny's grant!  Since we don't get to find out who is donating I just want to send a very heart-felt Thank You to the person, or people, who care about us and Danny enough to help!  It makes my heart jump with joy!

answers to some questions

First off I want to say we are overwhelmed with the positive comments and love we have received since announcing our intent to adopt Danny.  When you tell someone you are CHOOSING to adopt a child with special needs you never know what the reaction will be.  In fact I fully (and I mean fully) expected people to treat us like we are crazy. What I am trying to say is thank you!  Thank you for being positive.  Thank you for asking questions.  Thank you for offering to help!

I am going to try to answer some of those questions here.  Feel free to ask away if you want to know something, I will do my best to keep you all in the loop, however please understand there are some things we may not be able to answer at certain points.

1. How long will the adoption take?  at this point we aren't totally sure.  originally we thought around 6 months but we are now hearing it might be 12 to 14 months.  we are still holding out hope that we will have danny home before his 4th birthday.
2. Have we/when will we get to meet Danny? we have only met danny through his Reece's Rainbow's website and photo so far.  we will get to meet Danny before bringing him home, but don't have dates yet.  this is up to us and getting the mountains of paperwork turned in as quickly as we can and the governments in two countries cooperating.
3. What does this cost? this question is a doozie!  ultimately I don't know, but the estimate is quite overwhelming...this is part of the reason we are fundraising.  (we are also blessed to have employers who will reimburse us part of the costs once the adoption is complete, but we have to front the money.)
4. What can I do to help?  we will be fundraising as soon as I am rescued from the mountain of paperwork I am under so you can absolutely help then.  UNTIL then you can pray, tell your family & friends about Danny and Reece's Rainbow, and send us ideas for fundraising that you would participate in if you heard about it...read: fun stuff!




A final note, Reece's Rainbow has respectfully asked us to not include the country where Danny currently resides as public info on our blog, facebook, etc.  I can tell you (whisper in your ear!) if you want to know, but you will notice that I've removed as many references of the country from the blog as I can find.

Thank you all again for following along and being loving and supportive!  We have the best family and friends we could ask for.

I know what Apostilled means!

Well not exactly because Merriam-Webster doesn't recognize it as a word.  Which also explains why the notary I was talking to last week looked at me like I had a third eye.  ;)  Reece's Rainbow says this:

"Apostilled is a fancy term for your state government to certify everything which has already been certified."

Basically it's a re-notarization of a notarization I guess.  But it also means a road trip to Austin is in order...and I love Austin!  Thank goodness for USAA and the free notary, as the apostille costs $10 per document and this is only the first round of things that will have to be done.

Next steps are as follows:

1. Get all of yesterday's documents notarized
2. Then get them Apostilled
3. FedEx to "country where he is"....does FedEx even deliver there I wonder?
4. Home Study


But look at this face....

Isn't it all going to be worth it?

Step 2: Submit Another Application!

Not as bad as it sounds.  Our agency in the US is ready to go, but we also have to get an agency in the country where he is.  Today I filled out more forms, many fewer pages this time though and we have to get them notarized and sent off to be apostilled.  Whatever that means, I'm not sure!

Other things you should know:

1. We have now told our families and even with a little hesitation everyone is excited!
2. I've also told a few friends to get the prayers going and they have all been thrilled!
3. We have moved our home study back a bit due to the cost of airfare.  A little disappointing, but I know it's for a reason.

Thanks for praying for us and for Danny to come home soon!