Different Trips to the Same Place

This was posted by an AP and I thought it was perfect.

Different Trips to the Same Place
Unknown Author

Deciding to have a baby is like planning a trip to Australia. You've heard it's a wonderful place, you've read many guidebooks and feel certain you're ready to go. Everyone you know has traveled there by plane. They say it can be a turbulent flight with occasional rough landings, but you can look forward to being pampered on the trip. So you go to the airport and ask the ticket agent for a ticket to Australia. All around you, excited people are boarding planes for Australia. It seems there is no seat for you; you'll have to wait for the next flight. Impatient, but anticipating a wonderful trip, you wait--and wait--and wait. Flights to Australia continue to come and go. People say silly things like, "Relax. You'll get on a flight soon." Other people actually get on a plane and then cancel their trip, to which you cry, "It's not fair!" After a long time the ticket agent tells you, "I'm sorry, we're not going to be able to get you on a plane to Australia. Perhaps you should think about going by boat." "By BOAT!" you say. "Going by boat will take a very long time and it costs a great deal of money. I really had my heart set on going by plane." So you go home and think about not going to Australia at all. You wonder if Australia will be as beautiful if you approach it by sea rather than air. But you have long dreamed of this wonderful place, and finally you decide to travel by boat. It is a long trip, many months over many rough seas. No one pampers you. You wonder if you will ever see Australia. Meanwhile, your friends have flown back and forth to Australia two or three more times, marveling about each trip. Then one glorious day, the boat docks in Australia. It is more exquisite than you ever imagined, and the beauty is magnified by your long days at sea. You have made many wonderful friends during your voyage, and you find yourself comparing stories with others who also traveled by sea rather than by air. People continue to fly to Australia as often as they like, but you are able to travel only once, perhaps twice. Some say things like, "Oh, be glad you didn't fly. My flight was horrible; traveling by sea is so easy." You will always wonder what it would have been like to fly to Australia. Still, you know God blessed you with a special appreciation of Australia, and the beauty of Australia is not the way you get there, but in the place itself.

Just about through with the paperwork...

Last week John came to the bank and we signed our Power of Attorney document, had it notarized, then John had the document state certified and sent it to Holt via FedEx. Seems appropriate since I did the running for the dossier. :) Then we received our acceptance documents of Linh from Holt and we read through those over the weekend. John again stopped by work so we could sign and have our signatures notarized. We're becoming regulars at the branch for notary services. This time I took the documents to UPS after work and barely had time to put my documents in the envelope before the carrier arrived for the last pickup of the evening. Just in time! Today I copied and compiled the remaining documents to submit with our I600 to Holt. I will send those tomorrow to Holt, however, they will not submit for processing until our power of attorney is sent to Vietnam.

After I send the documents tomorrow, basically we wait for MOJ, USCIS and DOJ approvals. We will need to have an update to our homestudy, since it was done last September and the study is only good for 12 months. But we have a bit of time before we need to do that.

In the meantime, I am putting together a photo album to send Linh, along with a letter (recommended by our agency). The photo album will include photos of our house, me and John, and some extended family. The intent of the photo album is to familiarize Linh with us and her future surroundings. Our agency sends packages out each week to Vietnam, so I would like to have the album and letter sent early next week. I will send a couple of outfits to Linh as well. Last week Carters was having a Super Duper sale. Couldn't pass it up and bought about 10 outfits in 9 months, and 10 outfits in 12 months. I'm going to send a couple of the 9 months. I have learned that we will be traveling in December or January and the high temperature at that time of year is 67-70 in Hanoi which is where we will be the entire time. Now that I know this, some of the summer onesie outfits I bought will probably be too light for Linh. I may need to go back and exchange some of the outfits.

We have a daughter!

4 months (2/15/08)





















7 Months (5/6/08)

8 months (6/3/08)

Wednesday evening I was talking to my mother on my blackberry. Our home phone rang, I didn't recognize the name, so I continued talking to my mother. Then my cellphone rang- same phone number. I decided I should hang up with my mother and see who was trying to contact me. By this time, cellphone stopped ringing, but there was a voice mail message. I began to retrieve message and while I did so, home phone rang again. Apparently this person really wanted to talk to me. The answering machine (yes we have an old fashioned answering machine) picked up and I heard a women telling me she was from Family and Children Services and she had very good news for us. We have a referral. I picked up the phone and asked if she said what I think she said. She laughed and said yes. I was stunned. We have an 8 month old beautiful little girl waiting for us in Hanoi! Sue sent the email she had received from Holt (As we live in a state without a Holt branch, we work with a participating homestudy agency. If Holt had been unable to reach someone at our HS agency, they would have contacted us directly to tell us about our referral.) John was at class and would not be home until after 9pm. It was 6:30 when I received the phone call. Sue remained on the phone with me for nearly 40 minutes as we together looked at the 8 photos and went thru each page of information provided on Linh Thuy. I was so surprised by this phone call. As I said in my last post, I thought it would be 6-8 weeks for any news. Maybe this was why Minnie avoided telling me where were on the list. She probably already knew we were matched and she just could not share that news yet. Oh what a wonderful phone call! I tried at first to not look at the photos- I thought I should wait for John but I could not wait 2 1/2 hours. So I looked and looked. When John finally came home, I was looking at her photos on the computer. He asked what I was doing. I said come here and look at these photos. He said "Oh, she is so cute." I scrolled through and he finally asked whose she was. I said "She is Baby Austin." He didn't get it right away. So I repeated it again and again. Then I showed him our email. He was just as stunned as I had been. The entire evening seemed so unreal. We have spent so much time researching international adoption programs, agencies, adoption in general, Vietnam, baby names, parenting, creating blogs, planning, budgeting, following other families journeys, preparing paperwork, tracking down traveling notaries, and speaking to doctors. To finally hear the words "You have a daughter" was truly amazing. Today is Sunday, and it still seems a bit unreal.

I have learned from another family whose child is waiting in Hanoi that we will likely travel in 6-7 months from approval of our dossier. So we have quite a bit of time to decorate her room and prepare.

No news

I spoke with our agency last week. Nothing new to report. We discussed the Vietnam Childrens Right Campaign- which I have participated in by contacting my congresspeople. It is a very important campaign for the children in Vietnam. Please read and support
http://www.jcics.org/Vietnam.htm
Agency hopes more releases will be received in the next 6-8 weeks. I hope maybe Baby Austin will be one of those referrals. I can only hope and pray. In the meantime, I'm researching the cost of flights, and hotels. Not much else to do right now and its better to keep my mind occupied.
Friday the 13th we will reach the 9 month point of our official wait.