China Adoption Update

The Pickett adoption train is chugging right along as we are making steady progress on all of our initial paperwork!

HOME STUDY

We received our home study packet on 1/23 and were able to have it completed and mailed by 2/4.  The home study packet included a 13 page application, blue print of our home, pictures of our family and home, medical forms for every family members, copies of drivers licenses and proof of insurance, etc.  Each parent is also required to answer autobiography questions, but luckily our home study agency has kept them the same for the most part.  We have reused many answers from our 2008 and 2010 home studies since our synopsis of our childhood has not changed!   Once the home study agency received our packet they scheduled our home study visits.  One will be in our home on Friday, February 15 and the second will be at their office in Waco on Monday, February 25.  They are typically very prompt about finalizing home studies so I think we will meet my goal of having it completed by early to mid March.

CCAI PAPERWORK

We also signed and notarized the service & fee agreements for our Chinese agency, CCAI, and sent in our first program fee.  Once they received that information we were given access to their 46-page copyrighted Dossier Guide on their website.  At first I was very intimidated by the amount of detailed instructions they provided.  While we received some instructions when we did our dossier for Caleb's adoption from Kyrgyzstan, it was certainly not 46 pages long!

Now that I have had time to look over the dossier packet I realized that it is a really straight forward and easy dossier.  For those of you who do not know, a dossier is a collection of documents about our family that are required by the Chinese government if you want to adopt a child.  The majority of the documents are notarized, certified by the county clerk, certified by the Secretary of State, and then authenticated by both the US Department of State and the Chinese Embassy/Consulate.  It sounds harder than it really is, especially since we have been through some of these steps before for Caleb!

Our dossier requires the following documents:

-Adoption Petition that we create (with a great sample form to copy provided by our agency)

-Certified Birth Certificates for both parents

-Certified Marriage Certificate

-Employment Verification that confirms Bryan's employment and salary

-Financial Statement of our assets/liabilities (again, great sample provided by CCAI)

-Physician Reports from having a physical done along w/ bloodwork

-Police Reports from our city saying we aren't thugs

-Home Study

-3 couple photos, 8 family photos

-3 passport photos each

-2 passport copies

-And last but not least -- the most time consuming part -- I-800 immigration approval from USCIS (US Citizen & Immigration Services)

We have scheduled physicals for 2/22 (Bryan) and 2/27 (me).  Once we have completed our dossier we will send it to our agency for critical review before it is translated and sent to China.

We are excited to make progress on the paper chase and know that once it is over the hardest part will start:  waiting.  

Caduceus Society Event

On January 19th Bryan and I had the opportunity to attend an event for the Caduceus Society, an organization of physicians and their families that support the hospital.  If you are like me, then you probably have no idea what a caduceus is -- it is the symbol used by physicians that is a staff with snakes wrapped around it.

Several physicians from Bryan's ER group are members of the new organization and invited us to attend the black-tie dinner at the Miramont Country Club.  Our friends the Jordans (who are also new to the ER group) attended with us.  My parents kept the boys for us in Houston which meant we got to get ready in peace and sleep in the next morning!

We enjoyed a nice dinner at the event and got to hear a wonderful speaker who is a NY Times best-selling author speak about his experiences with childhood cancer.  It was nice to meet some of Bryan's colleagues and their wives.  And it was nice to wear something other than yoga pants for once, too!

Here are some pictures from our fun, fancy evening together!

Being silly with Paige - doing our sassy duck lip pose

Projects

Over the past two weeks I have worked on several projects around the house.  Over Christmas Caleb had a meltdown that included him crying, "When are you going to make me a calendar???".  Poor buddy has a lot of anxiety over what we will do each day and what is ahead.  The fact that Bryan's work schedule changes every week does not help, either!  We had a small calendar at our old house but needed something more detailed for Caleb.  I had already gathered all the materials and let Caleb help me with putting it together.  It has been a huge help for him!  He loves to 'play school' and point to the calendar to talk about days of the week, the month, and our activities.

Helping Daddy hang the calendar in the hallway

The finished product - it is dry erase and magnetic.  I made laminated magnets for all of our different activities so we can update it each week.

Another project I did was to update the decor in our breakfast room.  When we moved we brought a small hutch with us that we bought at the beginning of medical school.  It served use well in previous homes but just didn't serve much purpose here.  So I sold it in one day on a facebook consignment page and got to work on a collage on my big, open wall!   After I bought all my items I traced them on wrapping paper to figure out the spacing (thanks pinterest) and that helped me know where to put the nails in the wall, too! 

Finished product!  I am very happy with how it turned out.

I am the room mom for Joshua's class which means I'm responsible for teacher birthday gifts.  One of Joshua's teachers loves holiday decorations so in addition to getting her a gift card, I also made her a Valentine's Day wreath!  Caleb modeled my initial progress as I made my first yarn wreath.  

The finished product - textured yarn wreath with a grouping of felt flowers & hearts

It feels nice to cross some things off my 'to do list' and to also do some crafty decorating things that I enjoy!

January Photo Dump

I've gotten a tad behind on blogging about life with the boys.  The past two weeks have been consumed by school, basketball practice, sick kids, Bryan working, and of course adoption paperwork.  Here are some photos that capture some fun(ny) parts of our month!

Caleb loves to be outside riding his bike!

We recently got him a glide bike (no pedals/training wheels) to help prepare him for a 'big boy bike'.

Sweet Joshie sitting in the chair like a big boy.

His vocabulary has exploded over the past 6 weeks! 

Caleb sporting an ace bandage on his head (no, he's not hurt) while using marbles to make Aggie band formations on the floor-- a favorite quiet activity while Joshua naps!

Caleb had his first basketball practice at the beginning of January!

He has learned a lot and is having a ton of fun.  Several friends from school are on his team. 

Working on buttons using a practice board.

Fine motor skills are a challenge for Caleb and activities like this really help him! 

Joshua trying to be just like big brother - practicing on the zipper board 

Joshua fell while getting off the tricycle in the driveway and got a swollen lip.  It bled a lot at first, and of course Bryan was at work! I almost had our friend (and fellow ER doc) Ty come over to look because I was afraid his lip was split in the corner.  Luckily it wasn't that bad and has healed completely.

Silly boy!

Caleb and I played Jenga for the first time while Joshua napped.  My tower-loving boy was a big fan! 

A typical afternoon in our house.  After sibling rivalry and discipline, Joshua took off his pants and diaper.  

By the middle of the month my sweet baby stopped sleeping well and just felt crummy.  I thought it may be teeth but a trip to the pedi proved otherwise -- double ear infection & sinus infection.   

Of course Joshua had to bring Boppity to the pediatrician and do a weight check on her.

Caleb is getting to be such a big boy and much more independent and helpful.

He brought the trash can in all by himself! 

Daddy helping Joshua make a basket on our new basketball goal

 Breakfast with Boppity & 'Rella (Cinderella)

Joshua worked SO hard to get Cinderella on his tricycle. 

He was very proud of himself when he finally succeeded! 

Taking a little spin with his best girl, 'Rella 

Here We Grow Again

Bryan and I have known for years that our family would be built through the miracle of adoption.  We have been blessed to see our family grow twice through both international adoption and domestic adoption.  When it comes to the size of our family, we have never had an ideal number in mind.  We just knew that our family was not complete yet, and had originally said we would begin a third adoption sometime in early 2013.

Our move to College Station proved to be a bigger challenge than we thought.  There were many adjustments and transitions as we lived in a rental, moved into our new house, Bryan started a new job and the boys started attending a new school.  Those changes proved to be especially difficult for Caleb and we truly struggled with him for the better part of the summer and fall.  We attended an adoptive parent conference "Empowered to Connect" by Dr. Karyn Purvis at TCU and changed some of the ways we were parenting, especially with Caleb.  We both agreed that early 2013 would be too soon to think of adding to our family again.

In late November I began to feel really convicted about our decision regarding any future adoptions.  I felt like our reasons- while they were good - had led us to a decision we had not prayed about.  We just made our minds up and left God out of the equation.  I felt very burdened and almost like there was an internal push telling me that it was time and we needed to begin.  Since my mind could not understand how my heart felt, I knew it was the Lord working on my heart and telling me we needed to trust Him with this part of our lives.  After praying about it I shared with Bryan how I was feeling.  At that point he did not feel ready.  While that was hard to hear, I respected his opinion and began to pray that God would change one of our hearts.

When it comes to adoption, I tend to be the gas and Bryan tends to be the brake!  I am quick to jump in and begin and say yes to something, while Bryan prefers to think things through at a slower pace.  I am thankful that God gave me a partner who balances me out in that way!  After several weeks of thinking and praying (and me keeping my mouth shut!) Bryan told me he was ready for us to start adoption #3.

We have been open to many ways to grow our family, but after much prayer and discussion we have decided to pursue the adoption of a daughter from China.  We will be adopting from their special needs program, which includes thousands of children with medical needs, from mild and correctable needs, to more severe medical issues.  At this point we have contacted our home study agency to get on their schedule, and we believe we have chosen our China agency as well.  (If your China agency is not in your home state then your home study must be done by an agency licensed in Texas).  While we have not been officially accepted into the program we feel like we will meet all the requirements.

We have been told that the average time from start to finish right now is "12-18 months".  I say that with quotation marks because there is really no way for an agency to predict exactly how long it will take.  We are prepared for a long wait, but our timing could be affected by our openness to different medical needs and how the process moves forward in China.  While China has been a relatively stable adoption program for many years, we of course understand that there are no guarantees, especially after watching many dear friends suffer from a 4+ year hiatus for Kyrgyzstan adoption (where Caleb was born).

We covet your prayers for the following as we prepare to grow our family again:
-for our decisions regarding which medical needs to be open to
-for our decisions regarding which agency to work with in China, as it can have a huge impact on how smoothly (and quickly) our adoption goes
-for us as parents, that God would prepare our hearts to love and parent another little one
-for our little boys, that God would use this adoption experience to help them better understand their own adoptions
-for our daughter - that she is safe and as healthy as possible, and most importantly that there is someone in her life right now who loves her.    I feel confident that she is already born and waiting for us.

We are excited to begin this journey and document it here for our daughter to read some day.  It is our prayer that God would be glorified in our adoption journey and that His story of adopting us into His family would be made more clear!

NYE 2012

Like most parents of young children, we had a pretty wild New Years Eve.  It included dinner with the boys at home followed by roasting marshmallows for s'mores on Bryan's new fire pit.  Both of the boys enjoyed their s'mores:

The boys finished out the night with their new favorite nightly ritual, a bubble bath followed by brushing their teeth with their new "spinny toothbrushes" that feature Thomas the Train.  

Once the boys were asleep we watched TV downstairs, which meant Bryan fell asleep in his chair (he'd worked A LOT in the previous days and Joshua had been waking us up at night!) and I perused the world wide web until it was almost midnight.  What can I say, we like to live on the wild side.

2012 was an exciting year for us:  We started building our home in College Station, Joshua turned 1, Caleb turned 4, we spent time in Denver while Bryan did a rotation, we celebrated my birthday in Las Vegas, we sold our house, Bryan graduated from residency (WHOOP!), we moved twice (ugh), moved into our new home, Bryan started a new job, Joshua started school for the first time and Caleb started Pre-K, we joined a new church and began to build a community in College Station, and we learned more about how to be better parents to our boys at the Empowered to Connect conference.

We have seen that God is faithful to equip us for the life He has called us to.  We are excited to see how He will use us and grow us in 2013!  

 

Visit with Brynn - Christmas 2012

On December 30th Joshua's birthmom, Brynn, and her family came to College Station for the day to visit.  We typically alternate locations for visits and it was our turn to visit them in Georgetown.  Bryan's schedule the week of Christmas and into the New Year was pretty heavy, so we were so grateful they were willing to make the drive to come to us this time.  Brynn's parents John & Kathy, her siblings Cody, Kaylie and Erin and Kathy's parents Loretta and George all came to our house.  I made white chicken chili, salad and blondies for lunch and also had the pleasure of introducing the McGrath family to Sister Schubert's pretzel rolls which turned out to be a family favorite!  

After lunch we exchanged gifts.  The boys loved all of their fun stuff!  Caleb had a blast playing with Brynn's little sister, Erin, who is in first grade.  They played hide and seek, play doh, jumped on the trampoline and played upstairs in our playroom.  Caleb always looks forward to having Erin as a playmate!  I think Joshua had a blast playing with everyone but especially spent lots of time with Brynn.  He has started to say her name although it sounds more like "BrynnT"!  

Brynn and her family are a huge blessing not just to our little family but to our entire extended family as well.  There are not many adoption stories that look like this nearly 2 years after a child is born.  I know that over the years as Joshua looks back at these pictures from faithful visits that he will not remember -- he will be able to see tangible proof of the love that Brynn and her entire family have for him.  I can think of no greater gift than for a child to have more people to love him! 

And now for some pictures...

John helping Joshua open some of his gifts

You have to be MacGyver to get kid's toys out of the package!

Cody enjoying the plasma car!

Caleb & Erin playing with his new play doh toy

 Caleb & Erin enjoying some trampoline time even though it was VERY COLD

And finally, my favorite picture! 

Joshua and his beautiful birthmom