Digits...

We have a number! Our dossier arrived safely in the hands of our agency, they reviewed the paperwork, gave their stamp of approval and now we are official members of the waiting list.  Maybe you're wondering what number we are on the list.  Here are some clues (thank you Wikipedia):
-the number of languages spoken in India
-the number of syllables in a Haiku poem
-the number of Chlorine in the Periodic Table
-the age of Joseph when he was sold by his brothers into slavery

Do you know yet? If not, here are some more clues:
-the title of a magazine for young girls
-the age at which you can watch an R rated movie

You guessed! 17

As I've mentioned, Thailand has a very small number of children they refer for intercountry adoption.  The agency that we are working with has a largest program in Thailand and they only refer about 4 children per quarter.  That said, we are a long way from a referral.  But, we feel blessed to be eligible to adopt and will wait as patiently as possible for our number to creep upwards......

Girl toy alert

Pottery barn kids sale + free shipping + cute little Asian doll = I just bought our little girl her first toy!  Yes, the plan was to hold off on any purchases until we had a referral but I couldn't hold back...and there is good reason...we officially submitted our dossier to our agency today.  Our precious packet of paperwork that we spent months preparing made it to D.C. and back without a hitch. Thank you God.  We should know our waiting list number in a few days :)  Celebrating the small steps here...

Movin' Along

In case you were wondering.....we have checked off some additional adoption requirements.  Today we road tripped it to our state capital for dossier authentication.  Remember that word "dossier" (pronounced doss-ee-ay)? Refresh: It's that packet of paperwork including letters of reference, homestudy, letter of intent, lots of legal mumbo jumbo that is sent to Thailand for the officials to review and decide whether we can adopt a child from their country.  The secretary of state's office has to authenticate the notaries in the dossier in order to sent it to Washington D.C. for another round of authentication......whew!.......wears me out just thinking about it. So back to the road trip.....Husband, #2 and I enjoyed our state capital visit while #1 was in school.  #2 must have hummed the whole way home....that kid is a little songbird.  Another big step-Adoption training.  Last weekend, we spent 12 hours inside a conference room with other adoptive couples learning about how to parent an internationally adopted child.  Overall, the training was very worthwhile.  Our trainer knew her business......and there were other couples in attendance who had already adopted internationally-a perk we did not expect.  The training was a mixture of lecture/discussion, videos and exercises.   The exercises were mostly geared toward understanding an adoptee's life perspective...powerful stuff.  Next step: sending the dossier to Thailand and becoming an official member of our agency's waiting list. Stay tuned!

Homestudy.....check

The homestudy is a mandatory part of all adoptions. Social worker comes to your house....asks you questions about why you've chosen to pursue adoption, about your marital relationship, about your child-rearing philosophies....interviews your children....tours your home to ascertain it is fit for raising children.....looks over your financial statements.....etc. The process feels a bit invasive but in the grand scheme of things, necessary for the sake of the adopted child.  I was not overly concerned about this meeting but did want to be the best adoptive family that we could be.  Husband put together most of the paperwork for this meeting while I cleaned....and cleaned.....and cleaned....I'm talkin' cleaned out the kids' closets cleaned.  I was prepared for a detailed inspection.  That said, I was a little surprised that our visitor never even left our dining room.  She asked about the rest of the house but didn't want the see-it-for-yourself perspective.  Ah well.  She was very kind...a salt-of-the-earth personality...a person who was easy to talk to.  We liked her...which is good because we will interact with her often throughout this process.  When she interviewed #1, she asked him what he thought about adding another kid to the family.  He said, "I think two kids in a family is really enough".  Why thank you #1.  When questioned further, he basically dodged any elaboration and ran outside to play soccer. The social worker acted pretty concerned, we were a little concerned and #1 was outside having a great time playing soccer. After talking over his response, we've decided that we have a bit more work to do explaining adoption, talking about Thailand, discussing the future with an additional sibling.  I know #1 will be 100% on board...it will just take some time.  We are confident that both #1 and #2 will be excellent big brothers! 

So, here we are....one step closer to kiddo #3 :)

MMM...

Adopting from a different country involves embracing a different culture. In the years to come before we travel to meet our child, we plan to fill out minds with Thai history, celebrated holidays and language.  Though, as of now, we have stuck to filling our stomachs with Thai food.  I was be the first to admit (and virtually all sources can confirm) that I am an unadventurous eater.  Regardless, husband and I tried our first Thai restaurant a few months ago...and by golly, "Mikey likes it!".  We've eaten at a few other Thai restaurants since and last night we decided to try some Thai cooking of our own.  We made Pad Thai.....a combo of rice noodles, special sauce, chicken, bean sprouts and egg.  All in all, it was a pretty good dish.....and most importantly, the KIDS ATE IT.  They did their usual sneering, inspecting and pronoucement of "yucky" as they do when introduced to something new.....and before #1 took his first bite, he said, "Is the chicken at least American?"....then down the hatch with statements such as "This is actually good" and "I like the white stringly things".  I will consider this a success!

Timelines and such....

I've mentioned that it will be a long time before we get to meet our new little person face-to-face but thought I would post the specifics.  We talked our program coordinator earlier this week and she gave me some timelines....actually my notes from our conversation were sitting right here at my office desk before husband filed them away into some unknown location....well, we'll try to go from memory here.  Our first step is to prepare for our homestudy...which involves a social worker visit and a medium amount of paperwork. Then, comes the dossier preparation phase ("dossier" is just a fancy word for a collection of legal documents)....which involves an extra large amount of paperwork.  The coordinator said that homestudy/dossier collection period generally takes 5-6 months.  Husband is an over-achiever when it comes to forms, notaries, file collection, and all things paper so we hope to finish this phase earlier than the average time frame.  Once your dossier is submitted (and Thailand accepts it) you wait for a referral.  At this time, the average wait for referral is 18-22 months.  There are several factors that impact your wait for a referral....notably gender and your willingness to accept a child with special needs.  Fun fact of the day: 80% of adoptive couples want to adopt a girl.  No one really know why but that's the statistic.  We are in the wanting-to-adopt-a-girl camp so that could increase our wait time. There are some special needs that we are willing to accept (and embrace) so that could decrease our wait time.  From referral to travel, the timeline is 9-10 months.  So you have this little person on the other side of the world that you know will be your child but your contact will be limited to quarterly updates and care packages.  This will most definately be the hardest part of the wait.  On the whole, patience is not one of my best and most-admired qualities.....so I think God will be teaching me a lot about learning to wait. 

Da Boys...

Though we were certain adoption was in our future a couple of months ago, we didn't want to tell the kids until the application was in the mail.  They are going to have to wait a l-o-n-g time to meet their new little sibling.....we didn't want to increase the wait.  So, now that we are official, we gave the kids the news.  (For the sake of privacy, I'm now going to refer to our boys as #1 and #2..these numbers of course refer to their birthorder and not our preference for one over the other :) ). 

#2 didn't not give our news second thought....at age 3, his brain is just not able to conceptualize this far-away occurance. #1 however, at 6 years old,  had more to say. First of all, he had a small smile on his face the whole time we explained the process...which we took to be a good sign. Then, he asked MULTIPLE questions....."Are we going to have to learn to speak Thailand?" "Are we going to have to buy a different dining room table?" "Are there going to be girl toys in our house?" The questions spread out over several days.  Now, evidently his mind is at ease, because we haven't heard much about it for a few days. 

A cool thing---In the children's ministry at church, we have been raising money for orphans overseas all summer....so #1 knows the basics of what it means to be an orphan.  Of course, in his mind, ALL orphans do not get enough food to eat and ALL orphans are not clothed....which is certainly not the case......just some generalizations we're going to have to clear up.  In my opinion, siblings are a big and important part of life. I can't wait for the boys to have a sister!

Why Thailand?

We started our adoption research with an open-mind.  Domestic adoption of an infant? International adoption? Adoption from foster care? Embryo adoption?  The field of choices was WIDE open....though we were almost immediately led to international adoption.  I know there are plenty of children in the U.S. that need loving homes and a permanent family but we didn't need a baby (and there are plenty of prospective adoptive mommies and daddies out there that want a baby) and we didn't want have the uncertainty and potential heartbreak of trying to adopt from foster care.  Once we decided to go the international route, I did some agency research. Sidenote: Agency research is paramont.  We had to find an agency that was #1 ethical and had the best interests of the children they place at heart and #2 wasn't going to swindle us out of money.  We found these characteristics (and some very good client reviews) in the agency we chose.  We then could choose from their country programs.  Really all of their programs sounded terrific....China, Ethiopia, Taiwan, etc. Thailand stood out for us though for several reasons.  First, the agency functions as a child welfare organization in Thailand.  The foundation prioritizes keeping families together....if that is not possible, they try domestic adoption ...if an adoptive family in Thailand is not found, they look internationally.  Best interests of the child.  Secondly, while the children are waiting for their families, they are placed in foster homes.  Best interests of the child.  Third, we are just plain drawn to Thailand.  It's a beautiful country and from what we've read, the people of Thailand are characterized as relaxed, tolerant, unhurried, happy, willing to make compromise and conflict-avoiders.....totally our kind of people! We look forward to learning more about the country and culture during our (rather long) wait to child #3.

It's Open People!

So...as a majority of our friends and family know, we have been waiting for the adoption agency we have chosen to again open their Thai program.  It has been closed (meaning that the number of referrals have been lower than normal and the wait list is too long) since last Fall.  We were told that it would open in March...no go...we were told it would open in June...no go...then, I called our agency's local social worker a couple of weeks ago and she said that she would check on the timeline.  She talked to the program director and when she called me back, she said that the director said that (insert smiles) though the program was not open "officially", the agency would let us move forward and fill out the application! Husband and I filled out the application likity-split and now we are on our way to becoming parents of a child born in Thailand!

We started this blog (against my non-techie nature) to keep our family and friends up to speed on our process.  We still would love to chat with ya'll about it face-to-face but wanted a place where you could go to get fresh updates....in case you're curious.  We have learned a TON from reading other adoption blogs.  I don't know how many hours I've stared at the computer screen, eyes watering, reading about strangers' heartwarming stories. It's been a wonderful way to gain access to the personal side of adoption.