On being thankful...

I was going to post about how our psychiatrist's report finally came back after 2 months and whine about the fact that insurance isn't going to cover the entire cost. Or whine about the fact that our CBI backround checks still aren't back. Or stress over our doctors appointments this week because I hate getting my blood drawn. 

But then this happened

And our world stopped

So, today I am thankful. I am thankful that my husband is only bruised and sore and not in a hospital bed or worse. I am thankful for a truck that I wasn't sure we should buy 2 years ago that saved his life. Sometimes it's easy to be selfish and forget that God might be dealing with larger things than our paperwork. 

Going forward I hope that there will be a lot less whining (like this) and a lot more celebrating of each day and each step. Because we are very lucky and need to remember that. 

Daycare already?

 Next week we are going to check out daycares. I know, I know, we don't even have all our documents to China yet, but what can I say, I'm a planner! Plus we both have a day off so it's a handy to check them out now and I've heard there can be waiting lists. It does make the phone calls sort of awkward though when I don't know the age or gender of our child or when we will need daycare, but so far everyone has been really understanding.

Let me start by saying that we won't be sending our child to daycare until they (and we) are 100% comfortable with it. We learned some techniques from our classes on how to start the transition and while I do need to go back to work at some point, our child comes first and if I have to take more time off I will (I get more time off than Brian so I will be the one staying home longer). We have heard that many adopted kids do ok in daycares since they are used to being around children from their time in the orphanage. We hope that is the case for us, but we will be working out a contingency plan just in case we feel that it's not the right time for daycare yet.

We have decided that we really prefer to have the daycare as close to home as possible so that we are both only 20 minutes away from our kiddo and both daycares are our way to or from the gym. Plus our parents will be close in case they need to pick the baby up for us for any reason. We are also pretty sure that we want a day care center vs. an in home provider for various reasons that we have talked about.

This is where we need help! Since Brian and I know nothing about daycares (although our dogs used to go to doggy daycare, that's pretty similar right?), fill us in! What should we know? What should we ask about? Obviously if we see small children chasing each other with knives and the workers having cocktail hour, we would count that as a red flag, but what else should we look for?

Thanks for your help! I'm sure this won't be the last time we will need your advice!

Well Brian's covered, now just need to find one for the baby.....

Holding pattern

The above saying pretty much sums up how we're feeling right now. We are currently waiting on our home study to be finalized, waiting for our psychiatrist to send our reports (hopefully this week!) and waiting for our doctor's appointments next week to have our forms filled out and do the required lab work. 

Due to this holding pattern we are in, for the last month or so when people ask us how things are going or when we think we will get our baby, we generally give a fake smile like this:

and say Everything is great! We are almost done! We are learning patience! 

However on the inside mostly we are saying "This is taking FOREVER!!!! I want this to be done NOW!!". 

Now, I realize that a biological child takes 9 months to get here and we have only been working on this for 4 months. I also realize that patience and going with the flow is something that we (mostly me) need to work on as I have heard this bizarre rumor that children don't always do exactly what they are told when they are told to do it (although I'm sure our child will always behave at all times ;)). 

So, we (again, mostly me, Brian is much better at going with the flow) are trying to take a deep breath and realize that things are actually going at a decent pace (minus the CBI backround check, which is still not back after 12 weeks!!) and we should be thankful for all that has gone well and how much support we have. 

So please excuse us if you catch us flashing a fake smile now and then in the next 2-4 months.

We really do appreciate and love the questions and frankly are honored that anyone cares enough about our little journey to ask.

We can't wait to report back when things are finally moving again! 

P.S. I promise the coming weeks will bring more fun and upbeat posts like book reviews and baby room progress! 

Happy New Year (again)!

The Chinese New Year starts on February 10 this year. From what we have learned, it is the most important and oldest Chinese holiday that celebrates the start of the new year and new season. It is celebrated with visits to friends and family and special traditions designed to bring good luck. People will stay up until midnight setting off fireworks to frighten away evil spirits. Red symbolizes fire which will scare away evil spirits, so people dress head to foot in new red clothing. Kids often receive money in red envelopes to symbolize good luck in the new year. 

Our baby has most likely been born by now and it helps to know that this is the only New Years they will have to spend in their orphanage. Hopefully his/her caretakers will do something special for them for the holiday!


We are looking forward to celebrating the year of the horse next year with our little one! 

Small beads, big lesson

We had our last adoption class this weekend. It was a really eye opening series of classes and we are really grateful for all that we learned. We are also grateful that we are done with them and can check one more thing off our list :)

There was one exercise that we did today that struck me as really interesting. It was really simple and I admit, as it was in the last hour of the 8 hour class, I wasn't really taking it seriously at first. 

We were given bags of beads and each of the colors represented skin colors of different ethnicities. We were then told to add beads to our cup with the color that represented the different people in our life. They listed everyone from parents to neighbors to our pastor to our mayor. It really resonated with me how boring our little cup was (see that lonely little red bead? that's our baby).  It was unsettling that our child is going to look around and see very few people in our circle that even remotely look like him or her or look like our family. It was also surprising that it took a bunch of beads to make me realize this about our life.

So, while we didn't meet anyone that lives in our area at any of these classes, we are really hoping that we can find other interracial families to have as a support and community. I have no idea how we go about finding such a group (any ideas?), but I think its worth the effort for our future child.

What would your cup look like? 

Not so well timed trip to Minnesota

Last week Brian needed to spend the week in Minneapolis for work. This was planned several months ago and we decided that I would fly out there mid week to meet him for a mini vacation. As it turns out that was one of the coldest weeks Minneapolis has had all winter and poor Brian got to experience -30 degree windchill for the first time.

Luckily our extent of being outside was walking to and from the car and one very cold and windy photo op that Brian humored me on (must get our picture taken by the cherry every time!)

We had a great time visiting friends and seeing the (indoor) sights of Minneapolis. It's always nice to get away for a few days!

This week is going to be a busy and productive one. Brian's birthday is this week (I think I'm more excited than he is), so we are going out to dinner and going to the CSU basketball game. Then we have our last (!!) homestudy visit and our last (!!!) all day adoption class! 

Have a great week everyone! 

Love without boundaries blog series

We wanted to share a blog series that our agency told us about.
Love without borders is a non-profit agency who helps provide care to the orphans in China. They provide everything from special bottles for kids with cleft palate or lip to funds for life saving surgeries.

They wrote a blog series on the changes over the last 10 years in international adoptions from China. In case you are interested in following along, here's the link:

Love Without Boundaries blog

On the home front, we finished home study visit #3 yesterday! Woo hoo! One more home study and one more class and we will be mostly done! While this is great news, our social worker did warn us that it can get frustrating after this point because it will be mostly out of our hands. We won't have any more boxes to check off, we will be waiting for our paperwork to be processed and translated, waiting for China to receive our paperwork and waiting to be matched. Hopefully our wait time will be 2-3 months, but we just don't know. We do look forward to using that time to get some house projects done and enjoy our free time while we still have it. And working on our patience!