Where We Were July 20, 1969

If any of you family readers are wondering why I'm writing about where we were on July 20, 1969, please rewind back to my post on May 8, 2007.

Darling Daughter,

I remember exactly where I was on July 20, 1969. I asked your dad if he remembered where he was and he doesn't. He said it doesn't surprise him that I remember because he says I have the memory of an elephant and continually amaze him with the things I can recall.

My great-grand parents lived on a thousand acre farm near Parkville, MO. Well it seemed like a thousand acres to us kids but, I might be remembering that small detail wrong. Anyway they lived in an old house perched on a hilltop. I was sure the house was haunted, but that is another story for another day. My grandma and grandpa (grandma Roxie's mom and dad) lived on the same farm in a two bedroom trailer down the hill and around a corner.

July 20th was one of the hottest days that summer. It was sticky and overcast. Carla and I and our cousins Nancy, Johnny, and Stevie spent most of the afternoon playing outside, occasionally running inside the trailer to cool off in front of the window unit air conditioner. The air conditioner just happened to be in the living room and with five kids trying to stand in front of it we managed to block the view to the TV set. This irritated Grandpa Fred to some degree and he growled, "You kids need to decide if you are staying inside or going out!".

My dad was infected by grandpa's grouchiness and told us we really ought to stay inside, sit down, and watch TV. Now those are words that we rarely if ever heard from an adult! He continued, "History is in the making! Happening right before your eyes!"

We must have rolled our uninterested eyes at him and went back outside because I don't remember watching TV that afternoon. I hope my dad is proud that even though I didn't watch the news story that was broadcast across the entire world, that I distinctly remember the day and Neil Armstrong's famous phrase, "That's one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind," as he descended from Apollo 11.

Someday when you are in the third or fourth grade, you will come home from school and ask me if your dad and I were alive when man first walked on the moon. Now I know we will seem ancient compared to your friend's parents. I'll smile and say, "Yes sweet pea, we were alive."

You will be able to go to school the next day and amaze and stun your classmates with this information because I'm sure that none of their parents were!

Love,
Mom

Mother's Day Irony

Have you ever had something happen where the significance of the events was lost on you till everything was over. We took separate cars to church this morning because I had to stop off at Wal-mart on the way home to pick up a few things and Jeff was anxious to get home and start mowing.

I took the back way home from Wal-mart and as I was heading out of town two cars passed me on the two lane road. They were young boys, obviously together. One was in a souped up bright yellow sports car and the other was tailing him in an old mustang. They passed me at a high rate of speed, in the no passing zone, on a hill. Just as you get over the hill there is one last stop-light and all three of us had to stop for it. I thought "how ironic". This was one of those times I wished I had my cell phone to call the police, before those boys kill themselves or someone else.

After the light turned green they continued on and I turned off onto a country road that goes towards our house. A little later a deer come out from no where and ran in front of my car. I was far enough back that I stopped and watched her tear off into the woods. This girl was "booking". I've had deer run in front of me before, but this one was running like a horse in the Kentucky Derby. I don't know what scared her, but honestly I've never seen one run that fast before.

As I sat there in the road it dawned on me, that had it not been for those crazy boys that got in front of me at the stop light I would be dealing with a deer in my front seat. I can't really imagine what would have happened. She likely would have broad sided me. As fast as she was running she would have sent me over the embankment on the other side of the road.

So right now, I'm thanking God for two crazy teenagers that actually saved someone rather than killing them and praying that they get them home safely to their mothers on Mother's Day.

Waiting Child Program

We decided to apply to the "Waiting Child" program with our adoption agency. This means we would be open to adopting a baby who has a special medical need. I know that might sound scary and cause some anxiety. This is a voluntary program and was not required for us to adopt from China. We are still "in-line" in the "non-special needs program". The Waiting Child program is an additional option.

Actually Jeff was on board for adopting a special needs child before I was and I had seriously gotten to the point that I doubted an adoption was ever going to take place, given the possibility of a three plus year wait time.

A few months ago we watched a movie called "Facing the Giants". There is a scene in the movie where a chaplain tells the main character (summarizing I think from Mark 11:24 and II Corinthians 9:6-7) that if there is a drought and you've been praying for rain then you better plant your fields abundantly before you see the clouds rolling in. Oddly enough this was the same message of "action and faith" at church last Sunday.

We believe there is a child some where out there that is ours. We have done or are doing what we can to plant our field abundantly. We are in the "standard program" in China, we have applied to the "waiting child program" in China and I'm working on a domestic adoption portfolio. The "reaping" part is in God's hands. It won't matter where this child comes from or what he or she comes with, we will end up with the one we were supposed to have all along anyway.

Here is a brief outline of how the "special needs" program works. Our agency has a medical condition check-list. There are about 30 medical issues on the list, some are very minor and don't require any treatment at all, for instance the Chinese think some birthmarks are a bad omens, so that was on the list. Physical defects that are easily corrected in the US, like cleft palate/lip are on the list, etc. The family goes through the check-list and for each condition determines whether it is a: yes, no, or maybe, as far as your openness to adopt a baby with that problem and your ability to provide the needed medical care.

As of last week there were about 200 families on the waiting child list. The CCAI got 40 babies sometime in April and are working on matching those babies to families. They basically go through the list and match up babies to families based on the medical conditions. They start the matching process with the families who have been on the list longest. Our agency gets a new list about every 60 days with any where from 10-50 children on it. There are people who submitted their MCC's (medical condition check-list) in October-November 06 who are getting referrals right now.

Once the agency matches a family with a baby, the family is sent the medical records for that child. They have time to review the record, visit their pediatrician, and whatever they need to do to make a decision about accepting the referral. If they decide not to accept the referral, the family stays in the "waiting child line". If they decide to accept the referral, there is more paper work to be done. It takes about three months to get all that done before they are able to fly to China to adopt their baby.

Based on what has been going on with the "waiting child matches" here lately, I'm guessing we might get a referral around December! What a Christmas present that would be!!

Blog Info Turned Love Letter

The first reason we started this blog was to have one place to keep family and friends informed about the adoption. It seemed a better idea than sending out e-mails to everyone. I knew I would forget to add this or that person to the distribution list and I would forget to send a message about this detail or that one. A blog seemed to be the answer.

Then as we joined adoption groups on yahoo and started talking to other parents, we found out that a lot of them make scrap books for their kids documenting the whole process. Well I know the odds of me getting a scrap book done are near next to 0%. I'm not a scrap book person and our photo's are in shoe boxes and zip-loc bags hidden and tucked away all over the house (not including all the pictures saved on our hard drive). In fact I just had to look "scrap book" up in the dictionary and discovered that "scrapbook" is one word. Writing is more up my alley than "cutting and pasting". Therefore, effective today, the focus of this "adoption info" web-site is now "a long letter to our daughter".

Now that sounds like a lot more fun to me than scrapbooks and I have lots of ideas about topics to include: the adoption stuff, stories from our pasts, stories about her relatives, what her daddy and I did during the long wait and who we are. Then, finally I'll download the whole thing into a book. I can handle the technical aspects of book making software, resizing photographs, formatting text, etc., but leave the "scissors" to someone else.


Darling Daughter,

I am saving a bunch of stuff for you in a folder in the file cabinet. Maybe when you are a little older we will sort through it on rainy days and get it into a scrapbook. It would be funner to do it with you anyway.

So we'll start out right now with a little bit about your aunt. Rest assured there will be lots more to come about this girl! Your Aunt Carla spent a small fortune on a scrapbook supplies. I'm sure we can borrow some of it and we will probably be the first ones to tear open the packages of pretty stickers, because as far as I know she has only made one scrapbook page since she got all that stuff. She's not a scrapbook person either; maybe you and your cousin will be the scrapbook people and can organize all our lives in scrapbooks.

Love,

Mom

P.S You'll have to ignore my "run-on" sentences, I'm historically known for them.

Recent Referrals

Here are some referrals that came in this week:

http://www.journeytoannie.typepad.com/

http://babyheaton.blogspot.com/

http://www.thepucketts.homestead.com/LauraGrace.html

There are more links on the Rumor Queen Web site. See her May 1, 2007 Post:

http://www.chinaadopttalk.com/

What Now?

The paperwork is done, the CCAA has us on a list of names that is 25000 long. I imagine we are number 25,000, maybe 24,999 if we're lucky. But no matter what the wait is going to be long. Here's an overview of what happens next. 15 months from Jan 31, 2007 our fingerprints expire. I didn't know your fingerprints expire, but they do. We'll have to go back and get them redone. 18 months from February 21, 2007 our I-171 expires. We have to reapply to the USCIS for another one. There is a bill in congress right now to extend the time of the I-171 to 24 months, but who knows if that will happen or not.

Other than those two things we are in "waiting" mode. I don't know how much you have picked up in the previous posts about the wait period, but it is going to be long, much longer than we ever anticipated in December. I don't want to get on my soap-box about what the adoption agencies knew and when they knew it, as far as the back-log of dossiers in China.

The CCAA moves through the list of names in the order that they were logged-in. When your name gets to the top of the list, they match you with a child that is available for adoption.

The CCAA just finished matching families with log-in dates through November 1, 2005. Now that doesn't seem so bad, it was 18 months ago. This is the really depressing part: the CCAA started working on families with log-ins dates between October 1 through 31st of 2005 during the first week of January 2007. It took them 4 months to get through 1 month of LID. If they keep going at that rate it will be 6 years before they get to our name on the list.

I will be 52 years old and Jeff will be 54. We expected to have a referral before I turned 48. Right now, we are just going to see what happens over the course of the next 18 months when our I-171 expires. The CCAA has some things they are trying to get more "paper ready" babies available for adoption. Hopefully we will see a speed up in the process over the next 6 months.

Stork has Lifted Off, Enroute to USA

Word on the street is referrals are on the way for families who were logged in as of November 1, 2005. These families have waited 18 months for their kids. Labor pains are just beginning though, because the referrals go to the agencies first for processing then the families will get "the call" in the next day or so. I imagine tonight will be a sleepless one for many folks out there. Rumor is some agencies in Europe have received their packages already. I'll post some links to "new baby" pics as soon as they start coming out.