Goin' to Kansas City...

Kansas City, here we come. We're heading out in the morning to KC for the weekend. We scheduled our fingerprint renewal appointment for Monday (the 31st), so we thought we'd make a weekend of it!

Hope you all have a Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas!

Happy Birthday!!

Happy Birthday to the best husband in the world!!

Fifteen Months

Today is our 15 month LID anniversary. Not much has changed since our last update as far as timelines go. This month the CCAA sent referrals for LIDs from Dec 9, 2005-Dec 14, 2005. This means by next month the wait will have reached 24+ months. (blah!)

Hope everyone is doing well and having a good holiday season so far!!

Great Information

Missy and Brad have a great link on their blog to some articles about dealing with infertility through the holiday season. Here is the direct link to the articles put out by Resolve (the National Infertility Association).

Have a good weekend.

Adoption Documentary

I found a video that documents a family's journey to China to adopt their daughter. It's about 10 minutes long, but it's a great video. Just click on the link below...Hope you enjoy!

Journey for Jenna

We are out of Review!!!

Finally, Sept '06 LIDs are out of the Review Room! This is the first milestone we've had in a long, long time.

We started the process to update our paperwork this week. Our social worker came over Tuesday night for dinner and to update our homestudy. Next Thursday we have to get our local (state level) fingerprints redone. Once we get those back and get a new copy of our homestudy, we can schedule our appointment to get refingerprinted (federal level) in K.C. sometime during the beginning of January.

Hope you all have a relaxing weekend!

Name That Bird

I happened to glance outside yesterday afternoon and saw this bird sitting on our fence. Unfortunately, it flew away to quick for me to snap more than one picture. We've been searching the internet to figure out what it is...what do you all think??

Thanks!

A couple weeks ago my friend Marlana threw me a "Renew Your Enthusiasm" shower at Mille's. I was able to catch up with a group of girls I went to high school with and it was so much fun! Thanks girls for a great time and some great presents that did help lift our spirits as we continue to wait for Anna. Here is a picture of the thoughtful gifts everyone gave us:

Happy Thanksgiving

Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Follow-up

Good news regarding the story we shared in the last post. This is taken from the website of their agency:

Bethany Christian Services are pleased to announce the Sheldon family has received their visas and are returning home from China this weekend. “We will continue to work with the family to make sure all their needs are met,” said John VanValkenburg, Public Relations Specialist for Bethany Christian Services. “This has been a difficult situation for the Sheldon family and Bethany would like to thank everyone for their prayers and support for this family, including the efforts of Michigan Congressmen, Vern Ehlers and Mike Rogers.”

Due to these special circumstances, Bethany is accepting contributions to support the family until December 31, 2007. Checks can be made payable to Bethany Christian Services and please indicate the Sheldon family on the memo line. Checks can be sent to Bethany's Donor Records at 901 Eastern Ave NE, PO Box 294 Grand Rapids Michigan 49501. Bethany Christian Services will give all donations to the family for their “Hope for Hannah” fund.

Help needed for a family in China

I'm posting this from another blog:

Earlier this week I came to you asking for prayer for a fellow adoptive mom in China now picking up her daughter. Her husband had been traveling with her and died suddenly due to complications of his diabetes. I just received the following information from a family traveling with them in China and we need all the help we can get to bring this mom and baby home. Here is the message...

The US Consulate in Guangzhou has denied Sandi Sheldon permission to proceed with the adoption of Hannah. They want her to fill out a new I-171 and are making no guarantees after that. Sandi, of course does not want to leave China and leave Hannah here because she has no where to go. Sandi needs our help desperately! Please start a massive campaign of calling to her US Congressman and US Senator and urge them to intervene on Sandi's behalf. We have discussed this with Sandi and she wants our help. Please pressure these elected officials to contact the State Department and straighten this out. Sandi should not be denied Hannah's adoption because her husband passed away unexpectedly. The adoption has been finalized here in China. Sandi's congressman is Mike Rogers. His Washington office number is 202 225 4872. His Michigan office number is 517 702 8000, he also has a toll free number 1-877-333-MIKE. Sandi's US Senator is Debbie Stabenow. Her Washington DC number is 202 224 4822 and her Michigan office number is 517 203 1760.

Please call the numbers listed if you can and say a prayer for this family. Thank you!

***UPDATE: Apparently the U.S. reps office has received over 1000 calls and is working on this situation, also Sec. of State Rice's office has been contacted and is well aware of the situation. This family is thanking everyone for their phone calls and is now asking them to stop so these offices can focus on addressing the issue.

FOURTEEN MONTHS!!

We've officially been logged in for fourteen months today! Hard to believe that last year we thought we'd be traveling right now and would have Anna home by Christmas...now we're more realistically looking at traveling sometime in 2009 (yes, 2009, not 2008). Unless, by some miracle, things start really speeding up. This month the CCAA referred a whopping 8 days worth of LIDs, which means the wait is now approximately 23 months.

Here is an interesting website that has a handy-dandy calculator to help you "guesstimate" (based on your LID - ours is 9/12/06) when you might receive your referral - Bright Outlooks (bright, ha!).

And, for a website that is a lot more fun than "Bright" Outlooks - check out this one of a family in China right now. No, we don't know them, it's just one of the many that we look at monthly to keep our spirits up. Anyway, they've done a great job at describing their trip and have posted some great pictures. Hope you enjoy.

Have a good week!

A congrats and a picture

First of all - Congratulations to our friends Joel and Misty who found out last week that they'll be having a little girl!! You have to check out their blog for the latest pictures of Garrett ...he's such a little cutie!

B - Here is the cutest picture of our niece and nephew from Halloween night. Nathan was a magician ("Nate the Great") and Katie was Raggedy Ann. They were super cute (as you can see)!!

And 4 - Hope you all have a great week! ;-)

Happy Halloween!!!

Can anybody guess who this handsome devil is??

Here are a couple pictures of our 1998 1st prize Sumo pumpkin (back when we both worked at Bank of America).

Hope you all have a happy and safe Halloween!

p.s. In case you haven't figured it out yet...that handsome lounge lizard above is my husband! He fooled quite a few people that year! :-)

Paperwork...again....

Well our I-171H is going to expire soon, so we got a packet in the mail from our agency reminding us to renew it. For anyone out there that may have forgotten - the I-171H is the piece of paper issued by the US Immigration Department when you file your I600A that gives you advanced permission to bring a foreign child into the US as an immediate relative. Unfortunately it is only valid for 18 months and ours is set to expire in January. So off we go again with the paperchase. According to the checklist from our agency, this renewal process will include getting our homestudy updated (which will probably include more paper-gathering), getting re-fingerprinted, and taking another trip to K.C. to file it all. Think we'll make a weekend of it this time!

The good news is that despite the fact that the USCIS recently raised rates on just about every immigration application out there, including the I-600A to 750.00, they have allowed for 1 free extension if you already filed an I-600A. So, except for the fee to update our homestudy, we won't have to pay for our renewed I-171H. Now we just have to hope we won't have to do it again in another 18 months!!

Happy Birthday Nathan!!

Today is our nephew's 3rd birthday! We had a great time at his party yesterday!! Here are a few pictures from the Blue's Clues Bash!

Lucky 13

Today is our 13 month LID anniversary! We'll probably go out for dinner tonight to celebrate. I won't rehash the wait time in this post since we just talked about it...we'll just say that the wait is long and only getting longer.

On a lighter note - has everyone been enjoying The Office this season as much as we have?! Here is one of our favorite clips from last night:



Have a great weekend - enjoy the beautiful weather!

Six Long Months...

That is how long it took the CCAA to get through referrals for families logged in November 2005! Let me repeat that...it took 6 whole months to get through one month of LIDS!! Referrals just came this week for families logged in from Nov 26-Nov 30, 2005. At least they are finally done with November!! Word on the street is that there were less dossiers received in December than in November....so hopefully they'll be able finish Dec. '05 by this coming January or February.

We found this chart which compares the number of days referred last year to this year - it really gives you a good idea how much things have slowed down since last year.

Once they finally get done referring the last of 2005, they'll be able to start on 2006 and from what we hear, there were a lot less dossiers submitted in 2006 than 2005. Hopefully that means the CCAA will be able to start referring closer to 15 days at a time.

Well, that's probably enough analysis to last you all a while!! Sorry for the dry stats, but sometimes it helps us get a clearer picture of what is going on and when we'll get to see Anna for the first time! Have a great weekend!!

August is out of review!!

This means we are for sure in the review room! Prayers that our paperwork gets through review without having to redo anything. This is a case where "no news is good news" and hopefully the only thing we'll hear is when the CCAA updates their website saying that they have finished review of Sept. 2006 LIDs...hopefully in the next month or so!!

Have a great weekend!!

Happy Belated Moon Festival!

Oops, yesterday was the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival...and we sort of forgot, guess you could say we weren't feeling quite as "moony" as we were last October. This time last year we celebrated with our moms by enjoying some good Chinese food and some not-so-good mooncakes. We'll mark our calendars for next year and go with moon pies instead of mooncakes!!!

We're both on vacation this week and just enjoying some downtime! We went to a matinee yesterday and saw 3:10 to Yuma - it was really good! Basically we're just doing a whole lot of nothin' and loving every minute of it!!

Welcome baby Emma!!

Congrats to Kevin & Mandy who welcomed their first child into the world yesterday morning! Little Miss Emma made her debut at 9:08 in the morning, weighing 5lbs. 14oz. Our Sunday school class has gone baby crazy...it will be so much fun for all the kiddos to grow up together!

On a separate note - Programming Reminder: Survivor China premiers tonight at 7pm!

Hope you all have a great finish to the week!

Wii for Wednesday

Okay, so we don't have a Wii, but we love the song on the commercial. Here are the actual musicians behind the song. Wii love this song.

Happy Friday

Has this been a long week, or what!?! We hadn't seen much of each other this week, so last night we had a great evening at home consisting of carry-out sushi from Haruno (we're convinced we could live on the Miami Roll!!), a walk with the dogs, an ice cream run, and catching up on the last 2 weeks of Top Chef. It was nice to see each other for a change and have a relaxing evening at home!

Here's your Friday Fun Video. This is pretty much the cutest thing we've ever seen... What a little actress!

ONE YEAR!!

As of today our dossier has been logged in one whole year! It's funny how your perspective changes...last summer we could hardly imagine waiting a year (remember we thought we'd be traveling this fall), now we've conquered a year and are preparing to take on another one or two.

To give you a sense of how much things have slowed down on the China adoption front, the CCAA has completed only four months of referrals in the past year. Also, September’s referrals arrived earlier this month, and they covered a measly four days worth of dossiers (November 22-25, 2005). That means the folks who just received their referrals waited a little over 21 months. There are a little over nine months of dossiers ahead of us.

On the brighter side, July 2006 LIDS are out of the review room and August 2006 LIDS are being reviewed by the CCAA right now. This means our dossier will be entering the review room in the next month or so. Hopefully, we’ll get past review in the next couple months without needing to redo any paperwork . The danger is that depending on the nature of the paperwork, having to redo stuff could mean losing your place in line by a month or more. Our dossier should be in good shape though, our agency does a very thorough review before sending it to China.

Greg has class tonight, but we're planning on some serious sushi eating tomorrow night to celebrate reaching the 1 year mark. Yes, we know sushi isn't Chinese, but we extend our celebration dining to all kinds of Asian cuisine. :-) Hope you all have a great week.

Love,

Greg and Laura

Aunt & Uncle Times Two!!

Introducing the newest addition to the family, Katherine Elise, who came into the world on Wednesday, September 5th. Greg's sister, Julie, gave birth to this beautiful and very healthy 9lb 4oz baby girl at 7:45 in the morning... just in time for breakfast!

Mother and baby are doing well, and are due to come home sometime on Saturday. Congratulations to Brad, Julie, and big brother Nathan!

Uncle Greg with Baby Katie

Nathan doing his best "baby crying" impression,
as he tells Aunt Laura about his new little sister

Blog much??

Nope, not lately. Guess you could say we've hit a blogging slump in the last couple weeks.

A few weeks ago we got a call from our social worker at AAI. She was basically calling to check in on us (as she does monthly) to see how we're coping with the wait and to also "share some information" about the wait with us. Somehow we knew that "sharing information" wasn't going to be anything great. Turns out it really wasn't anything we hadn't already heard from the RQ website, but somehow it took the wind out of our sail a little more to hear it from our social worker.

Ming, the China coordinator for AAI was in China and was able to have a 3 hour conversation with the director of the CCAA. Here are some of the highlights (lowlights) from that conversation: there is currently a backlog of 30,000 dossiers in China; the wait will for sure climb to 3 years; they hope to get through Dec. '05 LIDs by this Dec. (so the wait will probably be up to 2 years by Dec); the number of dossiers received in 2006 appears to be less than in 2005; the CCAA is only receiving 500-800 child files a month from orphanages. That may sound like a lot, but not when compared to the huge numbers of waiting children. So, obviously this relatively low number of children being referred is not due to a lack of children, but due to a lack of orphanage directors wanting to prepare paperwork for all the children that wait (we've gone over this in the past).

Most of this was not new news, it was just the first time we'd heard it all at one time, from one source. What does this mean for us?? Well, we've almost been waiting 12 months and we are trying to hold out hope that we might somehow travel by the end of next year...not sure if that'll happen, not at this rate.

Our social worker talked to us about some of the different tracks other families in our agency are taking. I guess some families are just pulling out of the program altogether, some are doing a concurrent adoption (in another country), some are switching to the special needs program, and others (like us) just continue to wait.

It's hard for us to know what we should do. I guess you could say we might be at a point of no return as far as a change of plans. We know in our hearts that we have a daughter in China, and we have every intention of sticking it out until she's home. But things have now come to a sloth-like crawl, and it's hard to think about waiting another 2+ years before we have our first child in our arms. So what do we do, if anything, in the meantime?

In case you were wondering, we have considered a concurrent adoption. Our hesitation is that we're far enough into our current adoption that there are certain things we have to keep in mind... "Rules" about the age difference of the children, and the relative length of time in the home, etc. What if we start another adoption and there's a speed up in China? What if we hit a snag in the other country? To add to that concern are the conflicting stories we keep hearing about whether or not China would even allow a concurrent adoption. Of course, there are also things you have to consider financially. Any of these factors could put things in jeopardy, and we're not sure if we're willing to risk things not working out. We have too much invested emotionally.

We knew going into this that the world of international adoption could be volatile. We were willing to accept that. Now we're getting a pretty heavy dose of that reality, as all who wait on China face unprecedented developments and delays. China, the country once known for it's stability in the adoption process, is becoming somewhat of a black hole for waiting children and families.

We say all that to say this... We try to stay up, but our red thread is stretching beyond what we thought possible. It's very disheartening at times. Lately, there hasn't been much to feel encouraged about with respect to the adoption. But we try to stay positive, take it day by day, and along the way look for guidance.

We continue to pray that something will change and the process will somehow speed up, we pray for all the waiting children and all the waiting families.

Love,
Greg and Laura

Happy Weekend!!!!

Here's a clip of one of our favorite SNL skits from last season. Maybe this will get your weekend started off right!



Be sure to check out the link for Joel and Misty's new blog with their exciting news!!! Also, check in on Missy and Brad - they have some exciting news as well!

Have a great weekend everybody!

Eleven Schmeleven

Today marks our 11 month LID anniversary. Wow, can't believe we've been waiting that long already...in a way it's actually gone fast, lets hope the next 11+ go just as quickly!

The last group of referrals were sent out at the beginning of August and were given to families logged in through November 21, 2005. This puts the current wait to just over 20 months.

Tonight we'll go out for our monthly LID anniversary dinner and enjoy some tasty Asian cuisine, maybe catch a movie.

Staying positive with humor...

Family of 3

Congratulations to our friends Joel and Misty who arrived home this past weekend with their son, Garrett!! Garrett is absolutely adorable and it was so great to see them together at church last Sunday. We have a link to their blog on the right if you'd like to read a bit about their journey...

Ni Hao, Kai-lan

This fall, Nickelodeon is going to air a new show featuring a Chinese American little girl named Kai-lan. The half hour show will be interactive for preschoolers, giving them the opportunity to learn Mandarin words and phrases as well as aspects of Chinese culture. Kai-Lan will also help children to identify emotions and coping mechanisms to deal with their feelings.

The show's executive producer said she "hoped the series would have a special resonance for the estimated 60,000 girls in the United States who have been adopted from Chinese orphanages." And the 10-year-old girl Jade-Lianna Peters , who is the voice of Kai-lan on the series, was herself adopted from China.

We can't wait to tune in!

p.s. - Ni Hao means "hello".

The Great Outdoors

Over the weekend, we got a chance to do a little camping. We used to go quite a bit, but haven't been able to get away in some time. We don't usually like to go in the middle of the summer due to the heat, but when we saw the mild temperatures forecasted we decided to pack up the camping gear and the dogs and hit the road. It turned out to be a beautiful weekend and we all had a great time.

So, we thought we'd give you a glimpse into one of our favorite ways to take it easy, enjoy some good food, and be one with nature. Here are a few pictures from our version of "roughing it".

Double-Digits

We've been logged in 10 months today! Ten down, how many to go?? That's the big question!

Just how many months left and why the heck is it taking so long - those are probably our two most asked questions lately. While there isn't really a cut and dry answer to this, we'll do our best to try and explain it.

First, here is what we do know - the current wait has gone up to 20 months. The most recent group of referrals were for families that were logged in between 11/8/05 and 11/14/05 (our LID is 9/12/06). The wait has gradually increased a little every month for over a year now. The word from most agencies is that the wait will likely hit the two year mark by this December. There are many reasons for this increase (we like to call it "the perfect storm"), but what it comes down to is there aren't enough children who are "paper ready". To be clear, there are still plenty of children needing homes, just not enough that have their paperwork ready for adoption. Another bit of speculation is that with the upcoming 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China would like the rest of the world to think that there has been a decrease in baby abandonment in their country.

There are many more things that could be influencing the wait, but these are the two with the most validity. "Why does it take so long?" is a difficult question to answer briefly because of the complexity of the issues involved, but our "in a nutshell" response might be that China just isn't doing a very good job of keeping up with the number of families waiting to be matched with a child... plain and simple. So, if you'd like to delve deeper into the China adoption rumor world, check out this link. This is a site that we frequent daily to keep up on all the latest and greatest.

There was a time when we thought we'd be traveling to China late this fall, now we are hoping to see Anna's sweet face by the end of next year. Our continued prayer is that there is a speed up in the process and that all the waiting children and families can be united sooner than they thought.

We are heading out tomorrow afternoon for a weekend of camping. Hope you all have a great weekend - enjoy the beautiful weather!

Love,
Greg and Laura

Preparing for Rain

When it came to thinking about the nursery, when to start became a subject of much debate. To be honest, at first it was a little hard to feel too enthusiastic about getting the nursery ready when we began to see what was happening with the wait times. One thing's for sure, we didn't want to have a completed nursery and be staring at it for a year or more with no Anna. We heard varying opinions from people who had endured a lengthy wait with an adoption. Some people said to work on the nursery now... others advised that we wait. And there were definitely those times when we didn't want to even think about it -- just let the room sit as it was until we could at least see a speck of light at the end of the tunnel.

Then we recalled a scene from a little movie that came out last year called 'Facing the Giants'. They didn't exactly roll out the red carpet for this one, so many of you may not have heard of it. It was actually made by a church in Georgia. Our understanding is that the writing, directing, acting, film editing, even the camera-work were all done by members of this one church. If you haven't seen it, we recommend that you check it out on video. The acting probably won't win any Oscars, but it delivers a very powerful and inspiring message.

The main character is a high school football coach who is feeling like nothing is going his way. In this pivotal scene of the movie, the coach is sitting in his office when he is visited by a somewhat mysterious character, Mr. Bridges, who walks the hallways of the Christian school, praying for the students as he touches each of their lockers. Knowing that Coach Taylor is feeling dejected, he decides to tell him a parable about two farmers who both pray for rain. One just prays and waits for the rain hopefully, the other not only prays and waits for it, but he also prepares his fields to receive the rain. The question he posed to the coach..."Which farmer are you?".

So, which one is truly trusting God? We realized that we weren't demonstrating that kind of faith with the adoption. Faith isn't frantically tilling your fields when you see the rain clouds rolling in. True faith is working the soil even though you're in the middle of a drought and there's no relief in sight. So we decided that even though the forecast isn't favorable for that packet to arrive on our doorstep anytime soon, it was time to start preparing for Anna.

Even so, we didn't want to go gangbusters with the nursery and end up twiddling our thumbs for two, maybe three years... so we're pacing ourselves.

It's been a little while ago that we picked out the bedding, which was a gift from Laura's mom and grandma. We decided that this would most likely establish the theme for our room, so we thought it might be a good place to start. We knew we wanted something cheerful, and ended up finding just the thing with brightly colored flowers and flies of the butter and dragon variety. :)

The bedding provided our color pallet for the walls. It might be hard to see in the picture below but our main color is a subtle green called Soft Reflection. To mix it up a bit we painted one of the walls a pale yellow (Blazing Star) and added a touch of pink (Cotton Candy) in the little cubby-like entryway to the room.

One of our favorite things about the nursery is the furniture that we're using. The dresser and bookcase in the pictures below were Laura's when she was a baby, and we were very happy when Laura's mom suggested that we use them for Anna's room. The pieces need a little work, so we plan on refinishing them and found some knobs to give the dresser a little update. We picked up a pair of lamps and a new light fixture to tie in the brushed nickel knobs on the dresser.










We went several months ago to start looking at cribs (a gift from Greg's mom) and found one that we really liked. This is something that we haven't quite pulled the trigger on yet, but we are ready to buy and maybe just leave it in the box for a little while before it gets put together... looking at an empty crib for too long might be more than we can take!

Of course the closet is already pretty full with clothes for lil' miss thang as well.

Anyway, thought you guys might want to have a sneak peek at the nursery. We will send out periodic updates as construction continues.

Love,
Greg and Laura

We're heading out of town early Thursday morning for a couple of days, so we probably won't have time for a post this week. Have a good one!!

Making the Turn... (sort of)

Today is our 9 month LID anniversary! Can't believe we've hit the 9 month mark. This time last year the wait was about 10 months... unfortunately the current wait is 19 months and climbing. The CCAA has just made referrals for families logged in through Nov. 7, 2005. We spoke with our agency coordinator last week...she was still hopeful that we might get our referral by the end of next year... we hope so too!! All we can really do is continue to faithfully wait and pray for that day.

Hope you all have a great week!

"Pardon me??" - Adoption Etiquette Part II

As promised, for this post we've compiled a few of the most common inappropriate and/or insensitive questions & comments that adoptive parents often hear. A few we have already experienced personally, others we've just heard about.

Here is our list of things NOT to say:

"How much did she/he cost?"
This question makes it sound like your child is a commodity, not a human being. Children are not possessions to be bought and sold. The costs associated with adoption are for the numerous governmental/agency fees and expenses that are necessary to complete the adoption. The truth of the matter is, any question about cost is inappropriate in the first place... After all, you wouldn't ask someone how much their C-section cost, would you? That said, if you are thinking about adopting a child yourself, there's no harm in asking someone about the agency they used and their fee schedule. But please don't ask someone how much their kid cost them.

"Do you know anything about her/his real parents?"
Any question or comment referring to a child's "real" mother or father is bound to offend any adoptive parent. After all, he or she is the one raising the child, and feels as real a parent as any other.

"Where did you get her/him?"
Even though most people who ask this are doing so only out of curiosity, this question is not posed in a way that would be appreciated by a parent.

"Now that you've adopted, you'll probably get pregnant."
This is one of the most annoying comments for couples to hear. First, it suggests that adoption is only a means to an end, not a happy and successful end in itself. Second, it simply isn't true... just a ridiculous myth. No one is saying it hasn't happened, but studies reveal that the rate for achieving pregnancy after adopting is the same as for those who do not adopt (taken from the RESOLVE website).

"Don't you still wish you could have children of your own?"
She is our own. Did you have any other questions? :)

"She/he is so lucky to have you."
This may seem like a harmless comment at first, but consider how it might make the child feel if she/he were old enough to understand. Every child deserves loving parents and a safe home. Hopefully, every adopted child can have that. Children are always a blessing. It's the parents who are the lucky ones!

Of course this list could go on and on, but we'll just leave you with that little sampling for now. Obviously, the chance of encountering such comments and questions increases when you are a "conspicuous family", meaning that your child(ren) are of a different race or ethnicity. Please remember that there is nothing wrong with having questions about how adoption works. The key is to make sure that what you say doesn't insinuate anything negative about the adoptive relationship.

Hopefully these last couple of posts have shed some light on an important topic. Thanks for taking the time to read them!

Take care,
Greg & Laura

P.S. By the way, rugs and vases are oriental... people are Asian.

"Say WHAT?!!" - Adoption Etiquette Part I

Over the past three years, through our many hours of researching adoption, we have learned a lot... including the use of proper language when speaking about adoption.

We feel this is a very important topic, and so we wanted to share with you the following article from ADOPTIVE FAMILIES magazine, titled "Positive Adoption Language".

The way we talk -- and the words we choose -- say a lot about what we think and value. When we use positive adoption language, we say that adoption is a way to build a family just as birth is. Both are important but one is not more important than the other.

Choose the following positive adoption language instead of the negative talk that helps perpetuate the myth that adoption is second best. By using positive adoption language, you'll reflect the true nature of adoption, free of innuendo.

Negative - Real parent
Positive - Birthparent

Negative - Natural parent
Positive - Biological parent

Negative - Own child
Positive - Birth child

Negative - Foreign adoption
Positive - Intercountry adoption

Negative - An Unwanted child
Positive - Child placed for adoption

Negative - Handicapped child
Positive - Child with special needs

Negative - Foreign child
Positive - Child from abroad

Negative - Is adopted
Positive - Was adopted

Words not only convey facts, they also evoke feelings. When a TV movie talks about a "custody battle" between "real parents" and "other parents ", society gets the wrong impression that only birthparents are real parents and that adoptive parents aren't real parents. Members of society may also wrongly conclude that all adoptions are "battles".

Positive adoption language can stop the spread of misconceptions such as these. By using positive adoption language, we educate others about adoption. We choose emotionally "correct" words over emotionally-laden words. We speak and write in positive adoption language with the hopes of impacting others so that this language will someday become the norm.

We hope this post has helped with some of the "do's" and "don'ts" when talking about adoption. In our next post we will go over some of the insensitive and inappropriate comments and questions that parents of adopted children, and the children themselves, sometimes face.

Just Survivin'

We just heard that the next season of Survivor will be in China! We haven't watched in a few years, but will have to catch the upcoming Fall season for sure!

We are headed out of town for the weekend... have a good one!

8 is Enough

Today is our 8 month LID anniversary! We're almost to the double digit mark! The next group of referrals should be sent in the next few weeks, so we'll update the wait time then.

Have a great weekend everybody!!

Congrats to the soon-to-be parents!!!

Our friends Joel and Misty got the amazing news yesterday that this August they'll be the proud parents of a baby boy!! How exciting!! We are so happy for them and can't wait to meet the new little guy. Check out their blog (we have a link on the right) for all the details of their life-changing day!