We're in Contract!

I spoke to our lawyer yesterday (Friday) and he informed me that the buyer has signed the contract! FINALLY! He expects to have them in his hands by Monday for us to sign. It looks like we're finally on our way!

We're heading down to NC next week to start looking for a house. This is the fun part now. We get to be picky, fussy and everything in between. Our plan is that this house will be the house we retire in ~~ or at least until we're ready to buy that big, shinny, new motorhome to travel the countryside in!

Not much else going on here. Shania has been doing wonderfully lately ~~ ever since we started seeing Dr. Wen. He's a holistic doctor out in Westhampton. He told us that the knee ligament that was put in her knee was loose, which was causing her to limp all the time. She now takes an herbal remedy called Hip Guard. After just a month of taking the Hip Guard, the ligament is more sturdy and I've noticed that she doesn't limp much at all. As a matter of fact, she's been much more active and looks to run around like the lunatic that she is! I'm happy to see that she's feeling better. I'm certainly going to miss Dr. Wen when we move but I'm hoping that we can still get her medicine from him.

As for school, I'm down to my last 6 tests. I don't know why, but I've got a good feeling that I'll be passing them very soon. I've been asking Bob to read over my tests before I hand them in and he said that he's impressed, they seem to make sense (which is a good thing!). I handed in a bunch this past week so hopefully on Monday I'll find out if any of them were passes! Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Oh well, it's been a long day of work ~~ and some great fun, too. I've been helping Bob out with work at Purolator. The best thing for me is that I get to do it from home; however, I missed a few nights this past week for various reasons and ended up in a crunch today. After spending all day Thursday working on Purolator, I had to spend almost all day today working on it again. The fun part about today was that Audra, Dan, Kyla, Keira, and Mom took me out to TGIFriday's for my birthday! After dinner, they came to the house and brought cake. It was a wonderful way to spend the afternoon! Time spent with the girls and family are always special, especially when it's sandwiched between Purolator work!

I'm taking the entire day off from life tomorrow to enjoy my birthday. Bob and I will probably make the usual birthday dinner stop at Red Lobster (especially since I received a $5.00 off coupon for my birthday from them) but otherwise, I'm not planning on doing much tomorrow.

We're leaving on Tuesday to start the search for our new diggs. I'll post again once we've found something!

Hey, remember to turn your clocks back one hour tonight! YAY, one more hour to relax or sleep!

Until next time, my friends, be well, and enjoy life!

Love,
Faith

Our House is on the Market

Yes, we've made the decision to put our house on the market and move to North Carolina. Why NC? Well, Bob's company is considering offering him a position in their Morrisville, NC, office so we did some checking and have decided that we're going to take the plunge.

Our house hit the MLS Friday afternoon. By Saturday morning, we already had our first "appointment" to show the house. As the day progressed, we ended up with an additional three appointments. One of the last appointments had made an offer on the house; however, our realtor does not have their prequal so she won't present us with the offer until she receives that. Today, we had one scheduled appointment and two additional appointments. Of these three, we believe one was very interested. We've also got two scheduled appointments for tomorrow. So, I guess we'll see what happens.

Until there's more to report ....

Faith

Latest Update

Well, as many of you know, there's nothing new to report. We ended up not going forward with the domestic adoption and have decided to wait it out for China ... at least until our paperwork expires. When that time comes, we'll sit down and take a good hard look at where we're at in our life and see if we're going forward or if we're going to accept the fact that we will not have children.

There is a small glimmer .... about 2 or 3 weeks ago, I did receive an email from CHSFS advising that the CCAA had changed the way it matched waiting families with waiting children (known as WIC children). Typically, these children have some sort of medical issue. It could be something like a heart murmur or cleft pallet to something more serious like CP or something else. It has been brought to my attention that there are some older children, mostly boys, who have "aged out" and are perfectly healthy. For example, there's one little boy who is 4 years old but has never been adopted because everyone wants a little girl. Well, at this point in my life, I would consider a child like this.

The reason we have not gone forward with the process, which, by the way, would only take about 5-6 months, is that we're moving. Bob may be getting transferred to the Raleigh office with his job. We thought long and hard about this. We've decided to wait until I graduate from school (hopefully by the end of this year) and we're settled on where we'll be living. We thought it would be hard enough to uproot a child from the only home he knows (aka an orphanage or foster home) and bring him to a new country where no one speaks the same language as him, with parents he doesn't know and settle him in a home that will probably be changing in a short time.

Once we're settled, we'll regroup and figure out where we're going to go. Until that time, we'll just leave our paperwork sitting at the CCAA.

Hope everyone is well.

Love,
Faith

Domestic Adoption?

Well, I just got off the phone with our attorney once again and she's convinced me that a domestic adoption is in our future and within our reach ~~ once again. She's been extremely patient with us, answering our questions without hesitation, and offering her advice on everything. We were very luck to find her and are thankful to have her in our corner.

So, what do we do now? Well, before I do anything, I have to sit and have another conversation with Bob to see if we want to go ahead with this, which I'm fairly sure he'll agree to. Once I've cleared that hurdle, I'll go ahead and start creating our "Parent Profile". This is the short letter that will get posted on various websites for potential birthparents to read. Hopefully, someone will read our letter and decide we are the family they want to raise their child.

Nina (our lawyer) always makes me hopeful that this can happen; however, there are no guarantees, which I'm well aware of. She told me a story of a new couple that put their letter out there about 3 months ago, and they've already been chosen by a woman located in Pennsylvania who is 14 weeks pregnant. Nina says she hopes we could be so lucky.

In other news ....

We haven't heard anything more on the China adoption. We're waiting for all the dust to settle (literally) to see how the earthquake is going to affect anything. We've been told that the "one child" policy has been lifted so I'm not sure where that will leave us. Only time will tell.

Shania is doing well. We were out to see Dr. Lachhar about a week ago and he was happy with how her surgery went. He told us to start exercising her to build up that muscle in her hip again. We've been trying to walk her every night a little bit to do this. Hopefully, we can move our bed back into the bedroom where it belongs within a few weeks! My back will be ever so thankful!

There's nothing new to report on the school front. I did test out of one academic class and passed so that's one less thing to worry about. I applied for a Trainee Court Reporter position and have been asked to come in for an interview. If this works out, I can start getting some experience under my belt before I even leave school.

I have to say that Bob is a wonderful man. He's taken on the responsibility of supporting our little family while I concentrate on school. We've been living on his salary alone since early January. I don't know how he does it with all the bills that keep getting thrown at us but I am so thankful that he's putting up with this situation. My hope is to be able to repay him once I become an official reporter, or shall I say a freelance reporter (which is what I really want to do).

That about wraps it up for now. If anything new develops, I'll certainly let everyone know.

Be well and enjoy the heat!!!

Until next time, I'm signing off.

F

Popping In To Say Hello

Well, it’s been a while sine I’ve posted anything here, so I figured I’d pop in to update the site. Unfortunately, there’s not much to update.

According to CHSFS, the wait continues to be another 3 or 4 years in addition to the 2 years that we’ve been waiting already. I thought we were coming up on 3 years but I just checked and our original application was sent to CHSFS on July 25, 2006.

We did have to go get our fingerprints done again ~~ oh what fun that was. Now I’m waiting for the updated I-171H. Thankfully, we got this update for free. Next time we have to update it, we’re going to have to pay for it. However, I’m hoping that with all the people switching to the WIC or special needs program, we won’t have to wait 3 or 4 years like they’re telling us.

It’s been 3 months since Shania’s hip/knee surgery. She’s doing really well. We were in about 2 weeks ago for an x-ray and they said she was healed up and everything looked great. We still have to go out on the leash and can’t run yet but hopefully that will all end soon.

As of yesterday (Wednesday, May 21), I FINALLY passed all my 180 tests and am now officially in the 200 class! YAY!!! This is the final speed class. I’m also taking the CAT class this semester to learn how to use my software. My plan is to test out of the vocabulary class and hopefully the medical terminology class. Once all that is done, I can graduate! HIP HIP HORRAY.

We celebrated Kyla’s 4th birthday a few weeks ago. She’s such a great kid with a fantastic personality. She had a birthday party with all her little friends from school and the family. It was a great party and everyone had a great time.

This weekend, Haley and Kevin are coming down to visit. I think Uncle Bob is going to take Kevin camping ~~ even if it ends up being in our backyard! I’m planning to meet Audra to go out to breakfast with the girls (Kyla, Keira, and Haley) tomorrow.

Well, the rains are here yet again and it’s getting real dark out so I better go and shut down the computer for a while. If anything changes or comes up, I’ll pop back online to let you know.

Happy Memorial Day!
Faith

Update on Life

It's been a month since Shania's surgery. She is doing extremely well -- according to her doctors. Right now, she's laying on the bed sleeping and snoring! Yes, she's a snorer!

Life's been interesting for the past month. Living in one room in the house is hard. Essentially, the only times I leave the living room are to either eat lunch/dinner or to go to the bathroom. Otherwise, I sit here with the laptop and, at times, my steno machine.

Both Bob and I are sore from having to climb out of bed everyday. Since we moved our bed mattress into the living room, it's just laying on the floor. Our "old bodies" are not accustomed to having to climb off the floor so much. Not only do we sleep on the bed but these days, it's acting as our "couch" as well, so if you're not sitting at the hightop eating or in the rocker surfing, you're on the bed.

Shania's incisions are healing very nicely. Thankfully, we didn't have a problem with infections and she was really good about not licking them. The incision on her knee is completely healed -- the scab has fallen off and you can hardly see it. The one on her hip still has some scabs on it but it also looks very good. And I'm happy to say that her hair is starting to grow back. At first, though, it looked as if she were dirty in spots but once you look close, you can see it's her hair growing back. It'll be a while before her skin is covered but we're well on our way!

She's also starting to feel more like herself. This is evident when we go outside. She wants so badly to run to catch the squirrel on the fence or the bird in the tree. We went outside yesterday morning and I didn't notice the squirrel on the fence, but Shania did. Luckily, I was quick enough to grab the leash otherwise we would have been chasing the squirrel!

She's also trying to run around in the house -- we've added more blue tiles to the floor in the kitchen so she has more room. When she gets excited, rather than walk (as we all know) Shania runs. Trying to get her to calm down is hard but we manage.

As for other life updates, there really aren't many. I've finally passed all my 160 tests, so that's progress in school. I also got a 100 on my first test in Legal Procedures. There's nothing new on the adoption front. It's time to start updating our USCIS paperwork. I'll work on that tomorrow probably.

We're also looking into possibly doing a "Plan B" domestic adoption. What I mean by Plan B is rather than spending all that money (which we don't have because of China) to use an agency, we'll try to get the word out that we're looking to adopt through a mailing campaign and/or posting something on the internet. We haven't really done anything with this yet so we'll see what happens.

Well, I guess that's about all for now.

Faith

Shania Update

Shania went in for her surgery on Wednesday. That evening, Dr. Marino called to say that all went well. On Thursday morning, we received a call saying that she was doing well. The incision site looked go (no infection), her leg was swollen from the surgery which was to be expected and she was being fed fluids and medication through an IV. They were also going to give her lunch.

Yesterday (Friday), the doctor called to say she was doing "remarkably well". In his opinion, she was starting to feel better because she wagged her tail and raised her head when he went over to check her out. The incision site was still looking nice, she had eaten a little bit the day before and was doing great. They had also tried getting her up to take a walk. She is walking on three legs right now holding up the left leg -- not to worry, he said this is perfectly normal. It will probably be 2 or 3 days before she tries to use the leg.

We are now sitting here anxiously awaiting his call today to tell us that she's well enough to come home. We've completely renovated the living room to make it Shania's room. We were told that she'll have to be confined to one room in the house during her recovery. We put down some blue foam tiles on the floor so she won't slide around, we moved the couches and chair out so we had room to bring in my rocker with it's ottoman, the hightop table with chairs for eating, and a friend of Bob's offered their Aerobed so we could all sleep in there! We also brought in Shania's bed and her mattress from the bed by the front window (which she won't be able to look out for some time) and her food dish. It's all very cozy!

I'll post more when I know more.

Faith

Latest Information from CHSFS

We took part in a conference call with our agency on January 31 regarding the status of the wait for China adoptions. According to the way things have been progressing with CCAA, it looks like we'll have to wait an additional 4 or 5 years to bring our daughter home.

This is based on the current way dossiers are being processed. As of the call, the CCAA had matched dossiers with LIDs of 12/19/05. If you calculate how many weeks are between 12/19/05 and our current log-in date (01/11/07), then divide by 12, you come up with this horrible wait time.

With these latest developments, Bob and I are now faced with a decision -- what to do. We could sit it out and wait, we could dual list with another country, we could do a concurrent listing, or we could withdraw our application entirely. The thought of dual listing had some appeal to us until we spoke with personnel at CHSFS. We will only be able to transfer a small amount of money from the China program to the new country, plus we'll incur the costs of the new country. In most cases, those new costs will range between $25,000 and $35,000 ~~ and this is in addition to all the money we've already laid out for China.

At this point, we have no clue what we're going to do. We actually just updated our homestudy and our CIS approval will be expiring in a few months so we'll have to figure out which way we're heading so we know what to do going forward.

Well, I'm at school and class will be starting in a few minutes so I'm going to end off here for now. I'll keep updating the blog as we figure things out.

Faith

Happy New Year

Happy New Year everyone!

We hope that 2008 is a fantastic year for all!

Well, a lot has happend since my last post so I'll get right to it ~~

Christmas has come and gone. As usual, Santa was awesome again this year. I don't know how he out-does himself every year but he seems to get the perfect gifts for me all the time! I hope that Mrs. Claus did as well in her gift giving.

We spent Christmas Eve with Bob's family. Kyla loved her new Princess Castle that we bought her and Keira even enjoyed the box it came in! Who knew that was all we could get for her and she'd be happy? :o) Mike and Jill were unable to make it down for Christmas Eve so I didn't get to see them.

Christmas Day was spent with my family. It was really nice this year because Michelle and Bubs made the trip up so we were all together. Let's not forget that Jimmy and Diane were here as well ~~ they are part of this family too, ya know! We had a full house and a living room full of gifts. Once gifts were done, we headed to the dinner table where the turkey was a hit. Even my sweet potatoes (or yams, whichever you wish to call them) which were late in arriving at the table due to "technical difficulties" turned out pretty good ~ if I do say so myself!

After dinner, Bob headed back to his mom's to see Mike, Jill, Kevin, and Haley while I stayed home with my family.

New Years Eve was a quiet one. We did our usual ~~ small hor dourves instead of dinner and a marathon of "Lost" to catch up for the start of the new season. We almost didn't get to see the ball drop because we were so engrossed in the marathon. Bob got the TV switched over in time to see the last 6 seconds of 2007 tick away!

I've finally left my job at CFCD (Yay). What a relief it was!! My last day there was January 4. Now I'm able to concentrate 100% on school. I started going to both the day and my regular night classes starting on January 7. My goal is to get the rest of the tests I need to get out of the 160-180 class by the end of the semester (January 25.) Wish me luck!

Bob has also been wonderful in agreeing to let me go to school during the day next semester. Hopefully, the move will give me the boost I need to finish school. I only have 2 academic classes, 2 labs, and one more speed class to graduate.

My niece, Keira, celebrated her first birthday this past Tuesday. We'll be going to her birthday party tomorrow afternoon!

Today (January 11) is the one-year anniversary of our Log-In date with CCAA. The hope is that by this time next year (yes, January 2009) we'll be in China bringing our little baby girl home where she belongs ~~ to her forever family!

I've met a woman on the Yahoo message board that lives right here in Ronkonkoma and is adopting from China. She also told me there are 2 other families right in our neighborhood that are adopting as well. It's exciting to hear of other families going through the same experience as us who live nearby. Perhaps one day I'll get to meet these families.

Well, I guess that's enough for now. I really have to get back to practicing!

Again, Happy New Year to Everyone!

Faith