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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Pardon our appearance

Pardon my blogs appearance. I'm in the process of renovating my blog and figuring some things out. It's a mess right now.
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Felix CA Readopt Day!!!!

Yay, 4 years of waiting and paperwork renewals, social worker visits, home study updates, fingerprints, immigration processes.......All worth it. We finally had Felix readopt today at the court. He's officially ours!!!! Can't wait to get that birth certificate in my hands. Always a big relief. I told th judge I'd see him next year. He laughted. I guess he though I was kidding. We celebrated after with a big mexican lunch and ice cream.

Ladybug

Some may not know that ladybugs have a special meaning to those of us in the Chinese adoption community. The Chinese adoption myth is that ladybugs are a sign of good luck and it is said if you see a ladybug your referral will be coming very soon. Some just believe they bring good luck.

Today I was driving and a ladybug landed on my rear view mirror. It stayed on the mirror the whole time to my destination. It moved back into the the mirror and just hung out there. Penny was to receive our care package today and I was thinking, maybe that was when she was opening it. I will post a picture of the ladybug in my mirror. It's hard to see but I'll try.

First Care Package to Penny

I received a picture of our first care package for Penny. It's the package put together by redthread in China. In case you were wondering:

The China adoption community has adopted this Chinese proverb as a sort of motto. The proverb is this:
"An invisible red thread connects those who are destined to meet,regardless of time, place, or circumstances.The thread may stretch or tangle but will never break."

I can't wait for Penny to lay her head on her new family pillow. Along with the pillow is a camera, that we will get when we go to get her, a bag to put all her goodies in as she gets them from us to take with her, translated letter asking a few questions and telling them to take good care of our little girl until we get there and candies. Our next package we will attempt to send personally or use Ann at redthread to forward it with another package from her. It's best to use 3rd parties as it is your sure way of it getting to your child.

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RedThread

http://www.redthreadchina.com/

So there is this company called Redthread.com and they are based in Guangzhou, China and will deliver care packages to your child. They will also translate a letter for you and they will find out information/pictures for you about your child. There are a few companies like this, but I always liked Redthread as the owner is awesome and truely loves what she does and Americans. LOL And she got this info/pictures in 24 hours for us. So we have these updated photos of Penny. Look at her pig tails!!! I love those high thin China pig tails!!!! So cute. John and I were just staring at her in silence. We love her so much already, it's strange. How is it possible? Ughhhh, so close but yet so far!!!!!
19 Mths old: 30 inches small, foot 4.7 inch, chest 17.32 inches. I figure we'll send her 18 month clothes the whole time until we get her.
Good Night

Referral and PA

I hope your not reading this before I get to call you.......We just received our first approval PA from China last night. I checked before I went to bed as I knew it was Monday AM in China and to my surprise!!!!! And here she is, our long awaited Penny Ray!!!!!!! DOB Jan, 11 2008 Bao xin qin from Bao'An, Shenzhen Province the Center of Social Welfare, Guangdong Welfare Institute of Guangdong province. So we got matched with her technically before we even signed on with the agency we decided to go with this time. It was kind of strange that she was not adopted yet as she is one of the most accepted and minor special needs of cleft lip and cleft palate. Not even that but she's post operative clefts. Her file said she was only post op lip but as I read throughout it seemed as though they had her scheduled for her palate. The coordinator said it was just lip and I had asked to see a picture of her palate so I could give it to our Dr's that here that reviewed her file for us. A few days past and our coordinator found out she did in fact also have her palate repaired. So she will need to go through some touch up corrective ops in the future, but she's healthy aside from all that. Because we have just started our paperwork, we do not plan to be home with her earlier then 9 months from now. And that is us moving seriously fast on everything. Our goal is to have our dossier sent to China in Nov09. Then it's all in the hands of China to process everything else. Also, she's in Guangzhou so we ONLY NEED TO TRAVEL TO ONE PLACE!!!!!!! If you remenber, it was the last leg of our trip. The stop we finally felt relief!!! So we're so happy about that. The Consulate is there so no matter where your child is from, you always end up there. More to come. Welcome to another Cibulski adoption ride.