First Blog...

And so it begins...

All the cool adopting parents have a blog, so we think it's time we start one as well.

Why are we doing this? What's wrong with us? We have a perfectly good family. Life is sweet. We have two sensational children, great friends and a strong marriage. Well, hopefully this is a great place for an adoptive child to live. And besides... we just aren't done raising children. It's our passion, and it's what we are best at. We have devoted our lives to helping kids, and this just feels a logical, natural step. Once the idea got into our heads, it wouldn't leave, soooo...We thought and thought and thought. Then we rearranged and ciphered finances, then with a lot of planning and a huge leap faith, we decided we need her, want her and already love her! This decision was helped along by all of our family and friends who both approved and disapproved. Thanks to you all for your honest input, we listened carefully to everybody. Finally, we got completely addicted to Jodi and Dave's blog . Jodi and Dave are friends who just adopted Ava Mei from China last month. They told their story so well and with such humor, it, as I told Jodi, "just pushed us over the edge."

We started the process on our 15th wedding anniversary (that'd be November 2, 2006). Best present ever!!! (kind of like giving each other one of those coupons for a free unquestioned room cleaning, but with a baby instead) So today is January 27 and we have managed to slog through most of the paperwork (more on that later) and now, the long, long, long wait begins. Great time to start a blog!

Welcome to Red Tape. To get yourself an orphan from China, you need a ga-ba-zillion (thanks Ross) documents. But, no, documents does not describe the process. For example to get Mike's birth certificate, he had to request one from New York City (born in the Bronx, Mikey from the block), send it back to the Westchester County Clerk (sent back to us and told to send it to the New York City clerk). When I called the New York City clerk, they said, they only do weddings, not births. I finally figured out after 4-5 calls to the delightful, cheery, government workers of New York City, that there exists a New York County clerk (although I was not born in New York County, my birth certificate was issued from there), to whom I sent it and finally got it back. Then I sent it off again to the Secretary of State of New York (easy), and finally, it now is sitting in the Chinese Consulate of New York City awaiting certification. Each one of these little trips my birth certificate took costs about $50. Glad I started early. The paperwork could be pretty daunting. We've learned the difference between authentification and certification, and have gotten official letters from the Department of Homeland Security. We've taken days off of work to get our documents notarized, apostilled, and blessed by the Pope. Finally, we are in the position where we sit around and wait. Next step...fingerprinting!!!

Incidentally, a word about my wife and her dogged determination. Hurricane Anne has attacked this process like nothing I have ever seen. She is on the website every day, looking at other adoptive families, getting advice from our intrepid social worker Susan,and getting tips on what to differently from other adoptive families. (Thanks Shanin!) As a result, I think we are pretty well ahead of the game.

China has added some additional Red Tape coming May 1, that may make the wait even longer. We were panicked that we would be "too old" to qualify for an infant by the time our paperwork made it to China, but happily, that is not the case. Once we're in, we're in.

Other, "while we wait," tasks...
The Baby's room. Casey, our 14 year old, is moving to the basement, so that her room can become the nursery. We are having the basement overhauled in February so that Casey can have the coolest room in the house (literally, it is a basement).

So here we go, we promise to keep everybody up to date on the news about the adoption, and we sure hope you will all send us comments and questions and support, we are gonna need it!
Cheers to all!
Anne, Mike, Casey and Ross

p.s. if you want to leave a comment, just click on the green "comments" just below