We're Here!

After a 10.5 hour road trip (including 4 stops and one wrong turn) we are here in Newark NJ. ChallieJayne is on her way here (Via Frankfurt, Germany, which is so appropriate since my Mom's family was from Germany) as of this posting! Her flight is scheduled to arrive at 3:40PM.

During her stop over in Frankfurt, she was able to spend some time with another family from our agency, and she will be sending some pics. It was nice to wake up to a Facebook update from her today confirming she is on the way!

We are about to become a family of FOUR!!! in a few hours.

More later!


(The view from our hotel room)

 

FINALLY!

Well, I have finally put aside my caution and decided it was time to post-CHALLIEJAYNE IS COMING HOME!!

As international adoption goes, this has been a roller coaster. We knew on May 25th that ChallieJayne's embassy appointment for the visa interview would be on June 2nd, and that her homecoming was tentatively set for June 12th. We have been waiting for the final itinerary (which we still do not have)so we wanted to keep things under wraps until we had that. However, our agency assures us that this *is* happening, which means we will leave next Friday, so I simply cannot keep this quiet any longer! I am trusting in the Lord that this will all happen according to His perfect timing.

A couple of other families from our agency were in Ethiopia this week adopting their children, both of who were at the embassy with her during the appointments. One e-mailed me and wrote "Just wanted to let you know Samantha and I saw your little Chaltu at embassy today. Jessica brought her and was raving about what a great personality she has. Afterward we all went to Kaldi's for coffee and Jessica bought her some ice cream. She was having a great time. We wanted to get a picture for you but they didn't allow cameras at the embassy."

Another posted on my Facebook wall just today "Guess who I hung out with in Ethiopia?! Your Chaltu! I held her on the way back from her embassy appt! I learned that she loves: gum, sunglasses and ice cream! Got pics too!"

Can I say WOOOOOOOO HOOOOO???!!!!???

We are so thankful for all the support of our friends and family during this seemingly endless wait. A big thanks to all of the families who have traveled to Ethiopia to meet their children, who have taken photos of our girl for us-those are precious and helped sustain us during the long wait.

There will be more to come. Check back soon!

One more milestone

Just a quick update here.

We received a notice from the National Visa Center yesterday, informing us that ChallieJayne's immigration approval was forwarded to the United States Embassy in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia! Once the staff there downloads the information, they will issue her an appointment for the visa interview, and issue her a visa to enter the United States-and she'll come HOME!

We are not sure what the timing will be, but we are hopeful it will be in the next month or so. WOOOOOO HOOOOO!! Praise God!

Stay tuned. More to come :O)

5/10/10......SO WHEN!!????

Well, on May 10th we found out that our document to classify Chaltu/Challie as our immediate relative was in fact approved. In fact we found out it was actually approved on May 6th!

For those of you who do not know this, this is the document that states she can be issued her American Visa to enter the country and come home to us!

So now we wait for notification that she is ready to be escorted here. We have been told it could be on the East Coast on May 28th, or the West Coast on June 2nd. Or even DC on Jun 10th. All we can do is wait!

What a day that will be!!!!!!

Check Back Soon!!!!

Of Mothers & Daughters...............

Today I am celebrating the best gift I have been given (next to my hubby of course), being a Mama. Four years ago today in a hot and stuffy room in Changsha, Hunan, we met AlinaJayne for the first time. I have been blessed beyond comprehension to be able to parent AlinaJayne. I tend to be very focused and driven, and she makes me stop and realize what is truly important in this world. It's amazing how much a 5 year old can teach an almost 42 year old about life. God knew what he was doing when he made us a family.

I am also thinking about our youngest daughter who is waiting for us in Ethiopia. I would give anything to have her here with me on this Mother's Day, but we are at the mercy of a less than perfect Immigration system that does not see the importance of bringing children home to American parents. I will never be able to fix the system, so all I can do is pray that she is safe, send love in my prayers, and hope that another family who is traveling to bring their child home will take pictures for us. Her birthday was May 7th, and we missed that. Our agency spoke with the immigration officer on April 28th, and he said the supplemental documentation that our agency provided would be sufficient, so we expected to receive written confirmation of this last week. Unfortunately, this did not come, so we keep waiting. I have to say that I am doubtful that she will be home by the end of June-even though our agency predicted the end of May/early June. A Mama always knows...

On this Mother's Day, I also find myself thinking about AlinaJayne & ChallieJayne's Birthmothers (and AlinaJayne's Foster Mama/ChallieJayne's nannies).We owe so much to them. Without the selfless and painful decision their Birthmothers made, we would not be their parents. We are also so grateful for AlinaJayne's Foster Mama and the nannies who are caring for ChallieJayne until she can come home. They have all had such an important part of these children's early lives.

Today we did the annual Mother's Day planting. We always landscape my Mom's grave for the spring/summer season, and then come home to plant roses and lilies for AlinaJayne's Birthmother (aka Tummy Mama) and Foster Mama. Next year we will also be planting a rosebush for ChallieJayne's Birthmother.

I will end this post with a profession of love and gratitude for my own Mom. She sacrificed so much for us, always putting herself last to be sure we had what we needed. When you are a child, this selflessness is lost in the drama of day to day life. As a Mama, I realize that I own her more than I could ever re-pay her. I can only hope to be a fraction of the woman she was.

I saw this on a friend's webpage today and wanted to share it.

IF ROSES GROW IN HEAVEN


"If roses grow in Heaven, Lord, pick a bunch for me, place them in her arms & tell her they're from me. Tell her that I love &
miss her and when she turns to smile, place a kiss upon her cheek & hold her for awhile. Because remembering her is easy. I do it everyday. There's an ache within my heart that will never go away."

Enjoy the pics. You can click on them to enlarge them.

Happy Mother's Day.

 

(Mother's Day)

 

(ChallieJayne)

More USCIS............

(Immigration Officer)


You have all likely read the drama from Monday 4/26, concerning the non-existent documents that USCIS was requesting from us. Items and documents that simply are not available in Ethiopia.

After we mentally processed this information and e-mailed our agency, they contacted us and said they would have their coordinator in Ethiopia write a letter, as would our agency's United States office, which would be sent back to USCIS for review this week. However, if this was not helpful, we should get our senators and congressman involved. Sounds like a lot of fun, right? Well, while we waited, the immigration officer contacted our agency on Thursday 4/29, to let them know that they accepted the extra documentation that both the United States and Ethiopia had provided, and were ready to adjudicate the file...... Oh, but not without a catch....they could not seem to find the notarized divorce decrees for our previous marriages (which I most certainly sent.) Matt gave our agency permission to fax those decrees directly to USCIS (so now they have them).

Based on all of this, our agency told us that as long as the National Visa Center receives this information by next week, ChallieJayne should be on track to be home by the end of May or early June!


Still praying fervently here......................
Our agency has really been here for us when the times got rough!

More later.....................




I WILL PRAISE YOU IN THE STORM.....................

Crushed, confused.............

I am not even sure where to begin or what to think.

I just arrived home from work to find that USCIS rejected our I600 application. Their reason is that they say that part of the supporting documents were not filed. Specifically, they will not approve the I600 because our daughter's birth mother did not provide a *written* statement relinquishing her parental rights, and because there is not a death certificate for her birth father.

I called and e-mailed our agency but of course, they are closed already.

We are so worried about this. They do not keep accurate legal birth and death records in Ethiopia (and sometimes no records at all)-what if these documents cannot be produced? We passed court in Ethiopia, the judge accepted that her birth mother appeared at the hearing and stated she could not care for her, the Ministry of Women's Affairs approved the adoption and wrote the letter supporting it.....we thought the tough part was behind us. We followed ALL of the rules, it is all legal, and now our own country will not allow this adoption?

We don't even know what to think.

So, What *IS* Taking So Long????

Tape. Red that is. Government, bureaucracy.

While I admit I *think* I have a better handle on the unexpectedness of adoption this time around, I am still impatient. I also still find myself "concerned" about the details.

We have noticed (and it has been pointed out to us), that families who passed court 3 weeks after us are already home with their children. On top of that, families who just passed early in April have May 19th embassy dates. Hmmmm. We passed on February 1st (although I noticed that the adoption paperwork from Ethiopia says February 2nd). But still no embassy date. We know the I600 (the document that is filed to classify your child as a relative) was filed by our agency on March 22nd, and we received written confirmation that USCIS did in fact receive it on March 24th. So where is our embassy date?

I finally stopped wondering and broke down and asked our agency. We were told that the notice we received from USCIS verifying that they had received the I600 application, simply means that it was received in their central lock box (I think this was in Missouri). From there it was sent to our local USCIS office (Detroit), and they are NOTORIOUSLY SLOW in terms of processing anything. While I knew this, I guess it did not occur to us that the notice we received did not mean Detroit had our file yet-which is where all of the action will take place. I pulled out a copy of our immigration approval, and the cover letter listed some of the common applications and the respective processing times for the Detroit office. I almost fell out of my chair! They listed 3 months as the processing time for the I600! T-H-R-E-E MONTHS! This does not include the time it will take to then get an embassy date, OR the additional time it will take to get the escorting arranged! YIKES! Math is not my strong suit, but it seems to me 3 mos will be sometime after June 24th, then another month (or so) to get an embassy appointment, THEN about another month to have the escorting arranged. According to my math, it looks like.......August?

I keep re-reading some encouraging e-mails and Facebook messages from some of my Christian friends, reminding me it is not in *my* time, and that worrying will not do me any favors. Most recently, my friend Anne reminded me "God already knows our future, and even if we're craning our necks to try and figure it out we aren't going to accomplish a thing except wasted energy and frustration. Trust Him. His best is a whole lot better than ours."

I am reminding myself of that constantly.

On a more positive note. AlinaJayne had a good, healthy week. No headaches, no fevers, no infections-just one nosebleed that stopped with a nose clamp and Afrin nasal spray. She still needs to see the specialist in May, but we welcome the good week. Plus, she gained back the 3 pounds she lost in the hospital. My Dad had to undergo some unexpected cardiac testing Friday (stress test Monday which was abnormal/different than the last, and then a cardiac cath on Friday) and he does not need another bypass or more stents at this time. PRAISE THE LORD!!!


So there you have it. See, I promised to keep this blog updated now :O)

Adoption Update!

There has certainly been no lack of activity in this house-just a Mama who has been remiss in reporting the recent events. In order to bring you up to speed, here is the latest news.

On March 4th we received Chaltu's (I will likely refer to her as ChallieJayne or Challie from now on) Ethiopian birth certificate. We were told by our agency that they were just waiting for the rest of the adoption and court documents to arrive so that they could file the paperwork to classify her as our relative (this is the I-600 in adoption/immigration speak). On March 11th, we found out that the local immigration office officially updated our approval to reflect an older child, YAY!
Then on March 22nd, our agency informed us that they had in fact submitted the I-600(and immigration verified that they received it on March 24th)!

So now what?

We wait for an embassy date in Ethiopia. This is when the visa interview occurs, and when she is issued a United States entry visa to come to the US! We don't know when or where, but we were told by our agency that it has typically been taking 6-12 weeks from the time the I-600 was filed to the embassy appointment. She will be escorted to the US, and although we do not know the exact port of entry, it looks like there is a good chance that it will be Washington, DC. We will drive there a day or so before and rest up before we have our "Forever Family Day." We were hoping it would be before her birthday, but since that is May 7th, it does not look like that will happen.

Reminding myself that it is all in His perfect timing.

I have posted some pics. Thank God for the families who have already traveled to pick up their children and volunteered to take pics of our sweet girl (THANK YOU AMANDA)! From the pics we have, we have determined a few things:

(1) There are a LOT of pics of her eating-she will fit in well with this family :O)
(2) She has a LOT of personality (will be very interesting with AlinaJayne)
(3) From the bruise on her forehead, she is as graceful as the rest of this family
(4) I may finally have a daughter who is short like me

The other thing we found to be amusing-there is a pic of her on the potty, and she has the exact same undies that AlinaJayne had when she was 3!

Check back soon. I promise to be better about keeping this blog updated! In the meantime, enjoy the pics.


(you can click on the collage to make it bigger)

 

Absence explained.........

Hello all,

It has been a LONG time since I have posted. I want to bring you up to date on what has been going on and why I have been absent from the business of blogging.

As some of you may know, AlinaJayne has been sick a lot this cold and flu season. It seems like this normally healthy child has caught every bug imaginable this season. The last time was March 31st to April 5th. She had a high fever , 2 severe nosebleeds a day and headache. We took her to the ER on April 4th for a nosebleed that would not stop, and they completely dismissed us. Sent us home with a nose clamp. No labs, no testing. Being a Nurse Practitioner, I struggled to maintain my professionalism. After this last round of sickeness, she saw the doc, and I asked for labs to be checked. Her white blood cell study came back last Friday, and was markedly abnormal. There are a handful of possible causes for this, and unfortunately, of the possible reasons, leukemia is one of them. I made an appointment for her to see a pediatric oncologist this week.

Fast forward to he evening of Monday 4/12. She woke up in bed, grabbed her head screaming "it hurts so bad, make it stop" and simultaneously projectile vomited. While we were trying to get her ready to go to the ER, she continued to hold her head and scream and vomit. She had a CT scan in the ER and blood work (at this time her white cells were normal again, so the ER doc did not think she needed to see the oncologist), and was admitted for further testing. She had a brain MRI, EEG, and a LOT of blood work. Saw and ENT and neurologist. The tests were normal, the ENT said she has large, fragile veins in her nose that are easily ruptured and not to worry about that (thank God), and she was diagnosed with migraines. On top of this, while she was in for all of the above, she developed some sort of stomach issue, and had 15 watery stools in 2 days-for which they could find no cause-thank God she had an IV. To our disappointment, her white cell count is markedly abnormal again, and she will need to see the hematologist/oncologist.


She came home Thursday PM, and is acting fine now. I really feel bad that a 5 year old has migraines (I have had them for 25 years), but our biggest concern is obviously ruling out leukemia. We are praying that it is only a congenital disorder. The tough part is not having any birth history to tell the physicians about.

Needless to say, we appreciate all prayers and positive thoughts.

I will post an adoption update soon. I feel ChallieJayne deserves her own posting.

More later.

More 02/01/10 News!

We found out today that Chaltu's case PASSED COURT! Praise GOD!

What does this mean? According to Ethiopian law, we are legally her parents! We still have a LOOOOOONNNNGGG way to go in the process. We found out on Tuesday that there have been some errors on the part of the USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Service) in updating the immigration approval. We were originally approved to adopt a child up to 30 months-but once we accepted the referral of Chaltu, we had to update the approval to reflect an older child. We found out Tuesday that USCIS did not receive all of the documentation needed to update the approval. We are praying that this is resolved soon. This must be done before any of the "usual" steps can be taken to bring her home-and that process is lengthy. So lengthy that we are not even telling our employers, most families, or posting on Facebook-we just don't have any concrete answers about *when* this will happen. Plus, those who are not familiar with adoption tend to not understand the process, and it makes for a difficult wait.

So you say you want details? Her tentative b-day is May 7, 2007. Her name is Chaltu, we will name her ChaltuJayne Keaton Baird, and will call her ChallieJayne/Challie for short. Like "Charlie" without the "R." Like my Dad (Charles) and my Mom (Jayne).

Now that the court case has passed, we can post pictures :O) Thanks to all of the families who have traveled to Ethiopia, we have 53 pictures of ChallieJayne. However, I need to scan them, so only a handful are digitized. That is going to take me some time to do!

So, until then, enjoy the photos I have posted. I have included a caption under each, and you can click on any pic to enlarge it.

Check back again!


The first picture we saw of ChallieJayne-referral


The second referral picture


Ethiopian Christmas


ChallieJayne with the gifts we sent her in her welcome bag-photo album, ladybug and t-shirt that says "Special Delivery From Ethiopia."

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALINAJAYNE-02/01/10!

Today our girl turns 5! I can hardly believe it. It seems like just yesterday we were receiving our referral from China, for a "baby girl who just turned 13 months old."

We baked cupcakes for her school snack on Monday. Well, I baked and frosted, and AlinaJayne was in charge of the detail work-like the sprinkles and conversations hearts. I think they turned out pretty cute :O)

Time sure does fly. I keep telling her that I want her to stay little forever, that I want her to be my baby girl just a little longer. But she reminds me "Mama, I've got to grow up, I can't stay little forever."

She is right. So I cherish these fleeting moments.

We love you our sweet girl!

We'll post more pics later-small party for Grandparents on Saturday.

Here's the scoop

Here's the scoop on this seemingly never-ending adoption process.

Chaltu was supposed to have her day in court on January 6th. None of the cases scheduled for that week were heard. Some were re-scheduled for February 1st, some were "pending." Ours was allegedly re-scheduled for January 14th.

January 14th came and went, and you guessed it-no news. Was her case heard? Wasn't it heard? Did it pass? Did it fail? Our agency said "they did not know anything. Period.

Being "seasoned" adoptive parents, we tried to sit back and be patient. However when other families found out Monday that they had court dates THIS Wednesday January 27th, and then they passed (praise God for those families and their great news), we decided it was time to make some noise.

Matt called our agency Thursday and once again, he was told they did not know anything, and that a lot of families were in this limbo that we are, but for a lot longer. He pressed the issue. Was the case heard on January 14th? If it did not pass, why? When might it be re-scheduled? The agency rep said she'd contact the attorney in Ethiopia to see what she could find out.

Turns out, there was some documentation missing from the file (nothing we missed, on Ethiopia's end) and that the case was scheduled to be heard again on Monday February 1st...........AlinaJayne's 5th birthday!

Could be an even more exciting day than usual.

Praying for God's perfect timing.

Miss you Mom.......................

"May the road rise to meet you, May the wind be always at your back, May the sun shine warm upon your face, May the rains fall soft upon your fields, And, until we meet again, May God hold you in the Palm of His hand." Miss you Mom, more than you can ever know......Jayne Anne Keaton (Alderman)
08/25/1948-01/18/2000..................

Ten years ago today, my Mom went home to be with our Lord and Savior. I miss her more than anyone can imagine.

No word whatsoever about whether or not our case was heard in court on 1/14.

Will post when we know something.

No Dice.................

We found out on Wednesday that there was no good news-we did not pass court. That is all our agency knew as of the close of business. They knew if the other families who were also scheduled for a court hearing had failed, were pending, or were re-scheduled-but did not know what *our* status was! Not a lot of useful information :O(

We did find out today that none of the cases that were supposed to be heard this week actually passed. It seems they were all missing required letters from the Ministry of Women's Affairs (MOWA).

Our case has been re-scheduled for January 14th.

Stay tuned.

Oh, and Merry Christmas (Melkam Gena). It is Christmas in Ethiopia.