Starfish Poem

THE STARFISH POEM
Once upon a time there was a wise man
who used to go to the ocean
to do his writing.
He had a habit of walking
on the beach
before he began his work.
One day he was walking along
the shore.
As he looked down the beach,
he saw a human
figure moving like a dancer.
He smiled to himself to think
of someone who would
dance to the day.
So he began to walk faster
to catch up.
As he got closer, he saw
that it was a young man
and the young man wasn't dancing,
but instead he was reaching
down to the shore,
picking up something
and very gently throwing it
into the ocean.
As he got closer he called out,
"Good morning! What are you doing?"
The young man paused,
looked up and replied,
"Throwing starfish in the ocean."
"I guess I should have asked,
why are you throwing starfish in the ocean?"
"The sun is up and the tide is going out.
And if I don't throw them in they'll die."
"But, young man, don't you realize that
there are miles and miles of beach
and starfish all along it.
You can't possibly make a difference!"
The young man listened politely.
Then bent down, picked up another starfish
and threw it into the sea,
past the breaking waves and said-
"It made a difference for that one."

Paperwork coming to an end, Almost

After putting together our first dossier back in 2005, I swore I'd probably never do this again. Three + years of updating immigration stuff, home studies, social worker visits. Then came the process for Sami, which was not even close to what it took to get our China dossier prepared. But not any less difficult as I though I might be doing it for no reason. Can you fault me for thinking it might not happen? Then I was compelled to pick up and search for our Penny. I went into the process much different this time, very positive but a little guarded. I thought I'd be able to conquer this dossier much faster and with less stress. Well faster yes, not as fast as I thought due to hold up here and there, less stress, no. As many of you know, we go through so many ups and downs throughout the adoption process. Once your done with your dossier, you wait for either your child to be referred to you, or your waiting for your next of many more approvals. I think for many of us that go through the adoption process more then once, especially with special needs, we love the feeling of making a difference. When you get home with your child and realize how perfect they fit into the family, you think about "what if you never did this, your child might still be in an orphanage cold, hungry, sad." I came across the Starfish poem today as I thought about our waiting Penny and how we're going to give her such a wonderful life. I'm so happy and proud to be able to go to China and adopt our children. I am always grateful to Sami's birth mother. Again, I couldn't imagine our Sami living a life not as it is now.

800A sent!!!

So we sent out our 800A finally on Thurs 9/17. We had a hold up on our home study as NY State took forever to issue my abuse clearance report. We received the home study and sent it right off to the USCIS. They had it in their hands on Friday, the next day. I hope.
Apparently the USCIS is processing quicker at this time due to decrease in foreign adoptions.
It tyically takes any where from 30-90 days. Some people are getting their approvals in 30 days or less now. As we wait, I'm sending all our documents to get certified. When those return to me, I will send them out to get authenticated by the Chinese Consulate in Los Angeles. When we get our 800A approval, I will have to send that out to get certified/authenticated as well. I will expedite that one though. Then when all docs are authenticated together, I can send them in as our dossier to our agency. Then........it gets translated to Chinese, then..........they send it off to get logged in. This is the LID. Log in date. Remember, Penny's original date was 3/21/06, which ended up being Felix's. Funny enough, we ended up finding Penny the same time that her original LID 3/21/06 was referred. Which was in July 09. I'm hoping that we can get logged in sometime in November and travel in Feb 2010.

Great Week

We had a great week. Sami and Felix started art class and PreK. I go to both classes with them.

They learned a lot in both. They really liked Pre K as there is so much to do and there are more kids in the class. Sami sat in the front row answering all the questions and participating. Felix was a little shy in participating but really liked playing with all the boys. He liked the music part of school, gym and snack time.

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