Meadows Family Adoption

The wait is over

2012-08-29T15:27:00.000-05:00

Well lets get right to introductions then I will give you the longer story. I would like to introduce Evan Frederic Meadows. He was born on August 8 weighing in at ~4lb 7oz and 17 inches.

Now the long story. It looks like I last posted on this blog one year ago. Since that time it has been mostly just waiting. On occasion we would get a RFS (Request for summary) which means a birth mother wants to look at our information. For some reason these always seemed to come in groups. No one would look for a few months then we would get two or three looking at the same time. At first you would get excited by this. Sometimes the short profiles of what the birth-mother wants in parents would seem to fit us perfectly and we would feel our chances were good. I think after enough of these though, you start to not to get excited, just so being rejected AGAIN would not be so bad. We have probably gone through this at least 20 or so times since we started. I was just starting to think that we would end the search when our stuff expired next spring.

Well on August 10th we got another Request for Summary. It looked like a good fit to me but like I said, I try not to even think about it. The profile was a little different in that that baby was already born - most of these happen several months before the birth-mother is due. The next day, on August 11th, my grandfather died. It was kind of unexpected but probably happened at a good time for him. He lived in Florida but hd just made a trip to MN so I got to see him a month before he died. He was 91 years old. The funeral was in Paducah, KY on August 17th.

We took off for Kentucky on the 15th. On the afternoon of the 16th we stop for lunch in a little diner and before I get our food I get a cell call from Tiffany, out social worker. She tells me we were selected to be parents to this little boy and wants to know if we can come to the hospital the next day. I explained why that would be a little difficult since we were in Missouri at the time. She was a little concerned since if the baby is released from the hospital they go to a foster family and that triggers a whole bunch of stuff that would need to happen before we could take hie home.

We had originally heard he would be in the NICU for 3-4 weeks since he was premature and had low birth weight. Well looks like he was healthier than they thought since now they were saying he might be released
on the 19th or 20th. The hospital also wanted us to stay overnight for at least one night at the hospital. We setup a time to meet at the hospital on the evening of Sunday the 19th.

Lara got her dad to come up to watch Victor. We made it home from Kentucky with about two hours to go home and re-pack for our overnight at the hospital. At the hospital we met our social worker and she took us right back to the NICU where that handed this beautiful baby boy. He was small, but seemed to be a normal healthy boy in every way. The hospital gave a very good report on his health. We were at MN Children's Hospital - Riverside, it seemed like a very nice place to me. The had a nice room for Lara, the baby, and I to stay in for the night. All the nurses were very nice - they showed us everything we needed to know to take care of him. They knew we were a little bit exhausted from the trip and even did the middle of the night feeding for us. The next morning they checked him over one last time and told us we could take him home.

We decided to stop on the way home to pick up some things we needed and grab some lunch. That did not go well. We couldn't find what we wanted, then at lunch they messed up our order three times and finally gave us our money back. It took a long time so Lara just fed him while we ate. Then we got a call from the hospital. Turns out they wanted to do one more glucose test on him since the last one they did was not normal. We were not far and went back to the hospital. After a lot of apologizing - they say this never happens - they do the test. They also tell us it will not really be a good test since he just ate - hmm - so why are you poking our baby if the test is not good. They want to keep him longer to do a test before he eats - and oh - his feeding was down yesterday - could we keep him another night.

Lara wasn't really happy about this but it seemed we shouldn't go against the doctors recommendation. I think a lot of the nurses thought we were back because of something we did so they were treating us kind of weird at first. I decided I would go home to take care of Victor and get the house a little prepared, and Lara would stay another night with Evan. I brought Victor and Lara's dad to meet the baby. As you can see - Victor really liked him.

Well, one more night at the hospital and we got to go home again. I went and picked Lara and Evan up and we finally made it home. I don't have a lot of experiences with a newborn but I think he has been a pretty normal baby. Sleeps a lot, except when he wakes us up to eat. Lara and I are a little sleep deprived but it hasn't been too bad. I guess the real test is when Lara goes back to work this Friday.

I said the wait is over but that is not totally true. There are several different things we have to wait on now. We have to wait for the birth-mother to sign off on it - then there is a waiting period where she can change her mind. We have to wait to see if the birth-father claims any rights. Finally there is a 90 day wait before the social worker signs off on the whole thing.

Pray for us and pray for baby Evan and stop by if you would like to meet him!

Now it is waiting time

2011-08-15T21:56:00.002-05:00

Looks like I haven't posted since January. It has been a busy time since then - partly with the adoption stuff and partly just with life. In some ways the domestic adoption process has been similar to the international process but in other ways it is very different. We had to do another auto-biography for out home study - it was a little easier the second time around but is still difficult. The training for this adoption was all reading books and online training - while we did more of a classroom setting for our international adoption. There have also been several sessions with the social worker answering lots of questions about yourself.

The biggest difference in the two processes is the "Adoption book". With domestic adoption we had to put together a book about our family with lots of pictures and information about ourselves. It also includes what they call the "Dear Birthmother" letter. Putting this together was way harder than anything we had to do for the international adoption. You are trying to write a letter to someone you don't know - but hope to have a relationship with in the future. You are trying to "sell" yourself while trying to be honest and open about everything. You are trying to feel empathy in the letter while knowing nothing about their situation. It is all a very difficult thing to do.

Anyway - that is all done now. We completed the books and I think they came out very nice. So now it is time to wait. When a birthmother wants to see a profile they send out a request. It has some information about the birthmother/father - and also says what they want from the family. We have had a few of these and sometimes it is obvious we don't fit what the birthmother wants. The birtmother may have very specific requests for siblings or pets or location. We have only been shown to two birthmoms so far - the first rejected us right away (we were kind of expecting that since they did not want any siblings) and the second is looking at us right now. I can tell you the waiting with the international was easier since it was just that - waiting. With the domestic process you have to wait for a profile request, decide if you want to be shown, then wait to hear if they are sort of interested in you or not, then wait to here if they pick you.

Well - that's enough of an update for now. Hopefully you will hear from me again sometime in the semi-near future.

We're back!

2011-01-23T22:07:00.003-06:00

It has been almost exactly 2 1/2 years since I last posted on this blog. I have been an at home dad and I have loved (almost ) every minute of it. Victor is a great little boy and I know everyone always says it - but it is true - they grow up very fast. It seems like one second you are wondering if they are ever going to grow up - will they ever walk, will they ever talk, will they ever be out of diapers. Next thing you know they are walking, talking, little people. It is so much fun watching him learn new stuff.

So why am I all of a sudden writing a new entry in this blog. I am very excited to announce that we are currently working on number two. Actually we have been working on it for a while now. Starting last summer we investigated a few different options and decided that an international adoption might not be the best for us right now. We would have loved to go back to Guatemala but it has been closed to adoptions since we adopted Victor - with no sign of opening in the near future. We decided to look into domestic adoption. There were a lot of ideas we had about domestic adoptions and a lot of reasons we thought we didn't want to go that route.

We decided to go to a intro meeting with New Life Family Services. We knew a little about New Life because our church is a supporter of theirs and we occasional see videos t

hat they have put together. After attending the intro meeting we found out that if we were to use them to adopt they require a class on openness that is only offered once or twice a year and it was going to happen less than a week away. A little short notice but we had to attend that class if we were going to use New Life and not extend the adoption search by an extra six months. We weren't telling family what we were doing so I had to tell my parents a "small" fib in order to get them to babysit while we went to the openness seminar.

I can tell you the openness seminar made me feel a lot better about the whole open adoption thing. The seminar was just a panel of three birth-moms who shared their stories and answered questions. Nowadays most domestic adoptions are open at least partially. It can be scary thing for all involved but hearing these moms talk really made me feel that it was the right thing. I think at the time I felt it was really the right thing for the birth-mom, that they deserved it for making this decision. Since then I have done a lot of reading on the subject and now think that it is really the best thing for the child - which is what everyone should want.

Well that all happened back in May and June. Since then we have re-done a lot of what we did with our first adoption. We had to fill out a bunch of long applications and forms. We had to do another autobiography ( that is the fun one). The difference with this agency is that instead of a lot of classes you do a bunch of reading. There are four different books that both Lara and I have had to read. Some of the reading is not fun since it tells you all the stuff that can go wrong - all the problems that can happen. There are also a lot of good stories though and I am learning a lot that will h

opefully help us with issues that may or might not occur.

With New Life there is a lot of waiting. They like to keep just a small group of people at each stage. At any time they only have so many couple working though the social worker part of the process and then they only allow so many to be on the list to be seen by birth-moms. Even after you get to that last stage it could take or year ( or it may not happen at all). It could be long process. Our preliminary application was approved in June. Our full application was approved in September. Then at the end of December we were told we were moving to the next stage which is where we have to complete all our homework (mostly book reading) and we have to meet with a social worker to do our home study. This will be several meetings few week apart so it will take several months.

So it is an exciting (and terrifying) time for us. I can't speak for Lara but it is a little scary deciding to adopt again. I go to ECFE classes and hear all the other Mom's problems and I can't help but notice that 90% of the problems come when you put more than one child together. Hopefully we are up for the challenge.

Happy adoption day

2008-11-14T17:49:00.003-06:00

We didn't really know what to expect today. We have had Victor for 8 months now and this kind of felt just like a technicality - it is not like they are going to take him back at this point. We had been waiting quite a while for the court case to be scheduled and finally ended up calling the courthouse. They gave us the choice of three dates so we pick Nov 14th. November 14th is also Lara's Birthday so it will make this day even easier to remember for us.

We were supposed to be at the courthouse at 8:30. Victor and I are both working on getting rid of colds so it was a little early for us to get up. My parents were able to get out of watching their other grand kids for the day and also made the trip up. I knew where we needed to be in the courthouse but we went in a different entrance and I was totally lost. We finally made it where we needed to go and found my parents and Karin from Hand in Hand already there waiting for us.

We had just a short wait in the waiting area before it was time to go in. The judge said he likes to start the day with adoptions - he said adoptions and marriages are the only cases he sees where people come in happy and go out happy. The judge then proceeded to ask a lot of questions:

Were you married Oct 27,1990

Have you had Victor since March 12, 2008

Does Victor have any mental or physical issues

Did you get any property or estate with Victor

Is there any issues with Victor being a different race

Do we agree to on religious upbringing for Victor

Are we able to provide for Victor

Do we agree to provide him with the best education

.....

I had to answer all of the questions and then at the end he just asked Lara if she agreed with me. They were only yes or no questions so it wasn't too bad. These are all questions that we have answered at least once before this point so nothing should really be a surprise. Then the judge approved the adoption and said that his name is now Victor Patrick Meadows.

It was a fun day. I don't know if we call it adoption day or re-adoption day or what but I am sure it will be a nice memory for us.

Dinner anyone?

2008-11-02T10:00:00.003-06:00

Nothing to do with adoption but I thought I would put in a plug for my current project. Since I am staying home now I have a lot more time for one of my hobbies - cooking. Since I got into blogging here I thought I would start a cooking blog. I am trying to post something at least once a week so if you want to see what Lara and I are having for dinner check it out here:

A Cooking Dad
http://acookingdad.blogspot.com

Check it out and subscribe to get future updates.

Happy Halloween

2008-11-01T10:48:00.005-05:00

Victors first Halloween - isn't he cute. It was a warm night for Minnesota (in the 50s) so we were able to go out without too many layers. We made it trick or treating to a total of three houses and Victor enjoyed playing with his candy when he got back.

We also got some good news yesterday. We were wondering how long it was supposed to take to get our court date. We called Karin - our adoption agency person - and she said that we should have gotten it by now. She gave us a number of someone to call in Anoka County. When we called them they scheduled the court date right over the phone. If all goes as planned Victor will become an "official' adopted and re-adopted US citizen on November 14th - same day as Lara's birthday.

We are still here

2008-10-22T18:06:00.005-05:00

I don't know if anyone is still reading. Lara tells me you are and that you want more pictures. Well - here you go. I'm not sure where I heard it by I once heard that you can't take a bad kid picture in a pumpkin patch. As you can see that might be good advice. Lara and I took him to a place down the road to pick out some pumpkins. They had pony rides, hay rides, bouncy castles, and all sorts of other stuff that costs money. Well - luckily Victor is not old enough to know about any of that. I suppose next year we will have to shell out a lot more for those things, for now Victor is happy just seeing all the people and kids and climbing on the pumpkins.

Life with Victor has been very good so far. He is 15 months old today. I have been enjoying my role as stay at home dad. We have been going to swimming lessons every Monday, story time every Wednesday, and I take him to daycare at Lifetime on Tuesday and Thursday. Last month I brought Victor to Rochester, NY, where I grew up. He got to meet some of his relatives and had a lot of fun seeing all the sites in Rochester. I was a little worried about taking him on the plane by myself but there was no need to worry. When you travel with a 14 month old they give you the whole row to yourself if possible. I'm not sure if they do it for you or for the other people - but it works out either way.

We are a little slow with the decorating but we finally got it done. Actually it has been done for at least a month now - so it is not so bad. This is the completed nursery. It is done in the Zanzibar theme. There are lots of things in the room that we got as gifts in our showers - or at least bought with baby's r us gift certificates that we got as gifts. You can also see the hand made Noah quilt made by Linda from our church. The grass was all hand painted by Lara and I - that was the fun part.

Want more news on the adoption? Well - technically it is still not complete. Because we didn't see Victor before we picked him up - the Visa that is issued makes us "re-adopt" after we have had Victor for six months. Well - we filed for a court date a few months ago and are still waiting for that. None of this is anything to worry about. It has nothing to do with Guatemala - it is just a US thing.

So much stuff for such a little guy

2008-05-22T22:29:00.002-05:00

I just thought I would post something to see if anyone was still paying attention. The above picture shows all the great gifts Victor has received so far - and he still has one shower to go. There was a shower at out church and a shower at Medtronic. I attended the Medtronic shower since Lara wanted me to meet a lot of people - I think she also needed a little help with Victor. Lara has been working on organizing all the gifts so we know if we need to change things for different sizes, trying to figure out if he will be the correct size for the short outfits during short wearing time, etc. I think so far we have only gotten one duplicate which is pretty amazing.

Today was Victor's ten month birthday (he doesn't get a party for that). Things have been going well. Lara is almost done with her three months off work and I am about to start mine - a little scary. At least I will have some nice weather for my time off.

Here is a little about where Victor is at for ten months old:

He sleeps - 9pm - 8am and two naps usually.
He just got his first two teeth
He is just starting to crawl
He was on the lite side when we got him - but he is catching up quickly - Lara feeds him a lot and he likes everthing we give to him
He apparently has no veins - they have tried to do a blood test on him twice with no success.

Home at last

2008-03-23T21:41:00.006-05:00

Actually we have been home for a week now. For some reason I have not had a lot of time for finishing up this blog post in the past week. I lot of you have already had the pleasure of meeting Victor - if you haven't I am sure it can be arranged. This is a picture of us with Victor and Hortensia (Victor's foster mother) and Hortensia's mother. Hortensia was crying soon after this picture was taken - I think it was pretty difficult for her.

The next morning I went by myself to the embassy for my 11:00 appt to pick up Victor's Visa. I got there a little early. The embassy was closing early (noon) because of the holiday so I figured I didn't have long of a wait. I had the taxi driver wait for me. Well - I sat and sat. It was 11:30 before there was any activity - they opened one window but spoke only Spanish - so not for us. It was 11:45 before they started calling lists of five names to come up. I thought I heard my name in one of the lists but they gave the packet to someone else. The next group they had a name with no person to pick it up. Well - you guessed it - all the high security - multiple finger printing and DNA tests - and they give Victor's passport and Visa to the wrong person. Luckily the person checked their documents and came running back. Tons of traffic to get back to the hotel at noon. It was still only $10 for the whole taxi ride - including having him wait at the embassy.

That afternoon I went and grabbed lunch for us - McDonald's for Lara and a local sausage sandwich for me. After lunch we went to a local attraction in Guatemala city that Lara had heard about from a friend of hers. It is a relief map of Guatemala that was created in 1905. It is to scale (I think 1:10000). We also enjoyed the ride back to the hotel. We rode through markets and past some kind of large demonstration with people wearing Che Guevara (probably best not to stop at that one).

The next day (Saturday) was time for the long ride home. We took the shuttle from the hotel to the airport. It took what seemed like forever to get through check-in. We finally got through after a few issues and still had enough time for Lara to get something to eat and drink and to get a little food into Victor. Getting on the airplane they had a last minute extra security check - where they told us we could not bring the drinks on the plane - a little quick thinking and we saved the bottled water ( used the baby card). The flights went well - on time and Victor was as good as could be expected. He slept most of the way. We had a couple hour layover in Houston, and made it back to Minneapolis around midnight.

Karin from Hand in hand was waiting for us at the airport with a gift. Victor was very tired so he did not cooperate much for the pictures she wanted to take. I called my dad, who picked us up about 20 minutes later in our car with waiting car seat. After a quick stop by my parents house to drop off my dad (and for my mom to get a quick peek) we finally headed for home.

Once we got home we got our first sign that Victor might not be the perfect baby. He cried for about an hour straight (2am-3am). We thought it might have been his ears since he slept through the last landing so we gave him some motrin. He did finally get calmed down and we made it to sleep.

It's a week later now and it has gone much better since that Saturday night. Most nights he goes to bed at nine and gets up around eight in the morning. I can't say it has been easy but I imagine it could be much worse. I returned to work on Wednesday at GE so Lara has had a few days on her own. We have had lots of visitors (Victor loves the attention) and many wonderful gifts.

Thanks to everyone for all the prayers and support. It has helped a lot though the process. There will probably be a few more milestones that I will blog about so keep reading if you are interested. I will also try to post a few more stories and pictures I have from the trip. It is a wonderful country and hopefully we will get back when Victor is a little older to show it to him.

Almost there

2008-03-13T21:32:00.002-05:00

I wish I could post some pictures since he is so cute but I can't from here. I just thought I would let everyone know that everything is going great here.

Our flight was delayed on Tuesday so we did not get to the hotel until 11:43 - we were very tired. We were told to call the attorney when we got in but weren't sure what do do since it was so late. We decided to call - next problem - figuring out how to call. We has three numbers for her but they were all seven digits and all the local numbers seemed to be eight digits. Looking at the phone book it looked like most started with a 2 so we tried that. One of the three numbers went though to something but we didn't know what - we still left a message.

We tried calling again on Wednesday and got right through. Carlota said she was planning to come by in just an hour with Victor. She came by around 11 am with Victor and with the Foster mother Hortensia and with Hortensia's mother. She went through Victor's whole routine - what he eats, when he eats, when he sleeps - that is pretty much his whole routine - eating and sleeping.

Victor is a very happy baby. The first day we decided to venture out a little bit to find some lunch. Lara decided she wanted Schlotzky's - I'll pick lunch some other day. We used our new baby carrier and Victor fell asleep strapped to Lara. We tried out the hotels baby room later in the day. They have two rooms converted into a baby room with lots of toys and other baby's. They also have microwaves, fridge, sink, and internet. It is very well setup. Victor loved the walker. We met some people there that we had met in the plane from Rochester that had just picked up there baby the same day. We decided we would eat dinner in the hotel sports bar. Probably a bad idea - they had a Guatemalan soccer game on TV very loud - and much louder when they scored. Victor managed it very well though and didn't cry at all.

They told us Victor would go to sleep around nine and wake up between five and six. They also said he wouldn't sleep in a crib - but should sleep in the bed with us. We put him in the crib anyways and after 15 minutes or so of messing around he went to sleep.

We had to be to the embassy at 8:00 am on Thursday for the Visa appointment. I got up a little after six and Victor was still sleeping. I showered - then Lara went in the shower. I tried to be a little noisy to wake Victor. He finally woke at 7:00. It won't be so bad if he is like this every day. The Visa appointment is not fun. Sit and wait, pay $400, sit and wait, get called to stand in line, meet with immigration for about 1 minute, sit and wait, get called to talk to someone else for 2 minutes, done. That's about three hours worth of waiting.

We got back to the hotel and decided to venture future today. We got a driver to take us to Antigua. Antigua was Guatemala's original capital and still has a lot of older buildings. We ate in a very nice hotel/ museum that was originally a church and monastery. It was good food in a gorgeous setting. After eating we went through the museum a little which includes the church and some crypts. After that we had our driver take us to the local market. Antigua has a nice local market were they sell locally made craft items. We bought several to give Victor when he is a little older. Next the driver took us to the Central plaza. We walked around a little. They had a old catholic church there and they were busy getting ready for Easter. They have some local traditions which I will mention in another post when I can post pictures. We then were driven to an arch that is the only thing left from an old convent. The arch was so the nuns could cross the road without coming in contact with other people. Finally we were driven up one of the surrounding hills to see a cross that you can see from Antigua along with a nice view of the city. We were kind of mis-informed and did a lot more walking than we needed too. Long day - we had the driver take us back to the hotel. We ate - Victor got a little cranky - think we messed up his schedule. Lara took him to the baby room and fed him a little. He just fell asleep about ten minutes ago and Lara took him to the room while I finished typing (Looks like I am typing a lot).

Probably a little calmer day tomorrow. I have to go to the embassy (I can go by myself for this one) to pick up the Visa. This should be much quicker. Then I will try to convince Lara to try a little . They had street vendors cooking little sausages and they put them in a bun with all kinds of stuff - I want one of those. They also have a lot of taco places with Tacos al pastor (like a shawarma) - I might convince Lara to eat there so I can try one.

Anyway - just wanted to let you all know it is going well and looking forward to being back home on Saturday.

USEmbassy Guatemala Appointment - Meadows, Victor

2008-03-03T13:29:00.001-06:00

This past year of waiting for this to happen has honestly gone fairly fast. Probably because we never expected it to go as quick as it did. That being said these past three weeks since we have known we were almost done have seemed like a long wait to me. Less than two hours ago we we got notice that the wait was over. We are scheduled to go to the US Embassy in Guatemala on March 13 - just ten days from now. I guess it is time to make some travel arrangements.

He Moves!

2008-02-12T14:45:00.000-06:00

I know I just posted yesterday but we just got this photo. It has been a long time since we have gotten one and this is the first one we have gotten were he is actually doing something - and smiling. I look forward to him being this happy all the time - especially the plane trip back from Guatemala.

The photo is from Jan 29 and he is 25.6 inches and 13 pounds, 2 ounces.

Is there such a thing as too soon?

2008-02-11T09:39:00.000-06:00

We have been waiting since July which seems like a long time. I think we have kept busy enough that it has not seemed like that long though. With all the stuff that has been going on in Guatemala we had prepared ourselves for more waiting. I have been thinking it would probably be April or May. We knew that we would have a little time to prepare once we were out of PGN - there are still several steps which would take about six weeks. We decided to take a vacation to Jamaica for a little break from work and get away from the -10 tempuratures that have been the norm here lately. It will probably be our last chance for a real vacation for a little while.

So that was how we were thinking yesterday. This morning I got a call from Karin. She was a little suprised but she was just notified that we were out of PGN. And those other steps that would take six weeks - most of them are done as well. They have all the final sign-offs in Guatemala and they have Victor's passport. The only thing left is a final DNA test on Victor. Our six weeks notice is now down to a couple of weeks.

We still don't know exactly when. I wasn't really able to form complete sentences when I was on the phone with Karin. We are not sure if we will be able to go on vacation next week (Keep watching the blog for a possible cheap trip to Jamaica). Lara was just mentioning how busy she was going to be next week - I don't think that included the time we would need to get a nursery ready, pick a name, get carseats, clothes, diapers, .....

Who says Lara can't post to the blog?

2008-02-05T10:22:00.000-06:00

The gauntlet has been dropped. Todd doesn't think I can do this. Hmmm.
Here are my (Lara's) answers:
Four jobs I have had in my life:
Dishwasher
Shopko baby/child department staff
Medtronic SW engineer
IBM-Mankato SW tester

Movies I have watched more than once:
Pride and Prejudice (I could watch this every day)
Unlike my husband, I watch every good movie more than once - you can imagine the home discussions....
Emma
Sense and Sensibility
The Italian Job

Four Places I have lived:
Markesan, WI
Mankato, MN (didn't want to duplicate Todd's list, but this is where we met)
West Concord, MN
Blaine, MN

Four T.V. Shows that I watch:
Amazing Race
Stargate Atlantis
Miami Ink
What not to Wear (yeah, I know I should pay better attention!)

Four Places I have Been:
London
Murren in the Swiss Alps
St. Chappelle
Shojoshinin monestary

Four People who email me regularly:
Donna Doll (sends me humor)
Todd
(then define regular)

Four favorite foods:
Macaroni and cheese
Beef Stew (that my husband made for my 40th birthday)
Beer Can chicken (Bonfire, yum)
Chocolate Chip cookies

Four favorite beverages:
Dr. Pepper
Dr. Pepper
Raspberry Lemonade
Dr. Pepper

Four Places I would like to visit:
Australia (when they get that Star Trek Beaming technology going, I'm there)
Luxemburg (why didn't we take that 10 mile detour)
California (someday I'm going to visit my friend Pat)
Oregon

Four friends I am tagging to do this:

Four things I am looking forward to this year:
Walking around the block pushing a stroller
Victor's first birthday party
Meeting my neighbors (while walking around the block)
Victor meeting his cousins (Ethan, Alex, Stella and Aaron)

Half Birthday

2008-02-03T21:32:00.001-06:00

No - that is not actually Victor's picture but it has been a while since we have gotten a new picture so that may be what he looks like by now. Actually it is not that bad. We have not heard much but Karin did let us know that because of everything going on in Guatemala we would not be getting all of our normal monthly pictures and reports. We would love to be getting new pictures but we can understand that there is a lot for them to do right now. Whenever it seems like a long process for us we think of our friends from class that are in a lot longer of a process than us - I know it is a lot harder for some of them. The good news is that Victor probably does not look like the picture at the left. It was Victor's half Birthday a week ago.

Since I don't really have any news to post - just seemed like it has been a while - I am also responding to my blog "tag". Not sure I really understand the whole tag thing but I think it is a list of questions that I answer on my blog - and it is passed on kind of chain-letter style through blogs. I have Rachel to thank for this "opportunity". We went through adoption class with Rachel and Dave - they are adopting from Philippines. You can check out Rachel's blog at http://ribaradoption.blogspot.com/ - she is much more prolific than I am.

Here are my answers (Lara can give her answers if she wants):

Four jobs I have had in my life:
Paperboy
Ice Cream Truck Driver (Skippy guy)
Pizza Delivery (Dominos)
Security Dispatcher

Movies I have watched more than once:
Lord of the Rings
Star Wars
(I don't really watch movies more than once but those are both trilogies so I suppose that counts for at least four.)

Four Places I have lived:
Rochester, NY
Rochester, MN
Mankato, MN
Ham Lake, MN

Four T.V. Shows that I watch:
Stargate Atlantis
Amazing Race
24
Simpsons

Four Places I have Been:
Germany
Japan
Philippines
Alaska

Four People who email me regularly:
Lara
Umm - that's it - don't get much non-work email

Four favorite foods:
Italian Sausage
Cheesecake
Pie - any pie
Sushi

Four favorite beverages:
Coke Zero
Squirt
Iced Tea
Real Lemonade

Four Places I would like to visit:
(Any place I haven't been but I will name four)
Greece
Israel
India
Amsterdam

Four friends I am tagging to do this:
I hope there is no "curse" for breaking a blog tag like with chain letters but I don't think I know four other bloggers. I am not even sure that there are four people reading this blog.

Things I am looking forward to this year:
Adoption (Have to put that one - don't I?)
Jamaica - We are going to Jamaica Feb 21 - looking forward to warm weather there
Taking some time off work with Victor
No treasurer duties at church this year (didn't attend church all last year since I was always counting money)

That is the end. Hopefully I will have some real news for everyone soon - or at least a new picture.

Still not a done deal

2007-12-19T13:54:00.000-06:00

No new picture but I thought I would post what is currently going on in Guatemala. Even though Norm Coleman says everything is good - it is not. We are still optimistic but also know that nothing is a certainty. I have been reading about the issues on the web and we just got an email from our adoption agency confirming them. I will post the contents of the email below so you kind of get an idea what is going on. The email is from MaryLee who if the founder of Hand in Hand (our adoption agency) and it is the report from a call she had with Carlota - the lawyer in Guatemala who handles all of Hand in Hands cases:

Dear All,

Trouble continues to boil in Guatemala. Rumors, threats, etc. are everyday occurrences now. No one can still unscramble all that is going on, but bits and pieces keep coming out in the Guatemalan newspapers that are disconcerting. The latest news involves our Embassy Consul who has been meeting with the Human Rights Commission of Guatemala and suggesting to them, to stop all international adoptions until the children can all be checked and cleared. A bill has been presented in the Guatemalan court supposedly 2 days ago, but nothing has come out as of yet. Carlota is also very upset with what is going on everyday at the U.S. Embassy. Giovanni has been going to the Embassy everyday (in the middle of the night) to be in line to submit cases (for second DNA), and the processes keep changing. Everyday the Embassy staff become angry, the workers on the street trying to submit cases break into fights, pushing and shoving each other, and today, the Embassy chose only 4 individuals (instead of 40) to allow entry. Giovanni will go again tomorrow, but that is his last chance for the specific cases he is working on (none of them MN cases). If he isn't selected or allowed to submit the cases, Carlota is suggesting that the families should consider going to Guatemala next week and as U.S. citizens, they would be allowed into the Embassy to present their own papers. My concern is that there are going to be multitudes of families doing just that and the Embassy is going to get furious with the families, but it might work. There may be other options if that won't work. There are only 2 days next week that the Embassy will be open (Dec. 26 and 27). I wish we had a crystal ball to look into the future to know what will happen, but unfortunately, we don't. The system is currently a mess!

Hang in there everyone.....we are on a wild roller coaster ride!

Anyway - things are still moving forward but it will not necessarily be easy.

No news is good news?

2007-11-27T11:23:00.001-06:00

It has only been a few days since my last entry so I don't really have any news. We just got a new picture though so I figured I better get it posted.

It is interesting all the Guatemala news that everyone (family, friends, us) noticices while this is going on. Some of the articles seem to be just wrong or misleading or just a little light on facts. I know we have had friends come to us and say that they are sorry about the news (when there really has not been any news). They have also told us they have heard that everything is cleared up and in-process adoptions will go through. In reality nothing concrete has really happened for quite a while now.

For anyone interested in the state of Guatemala adoptions, the sites I use are:

http://www.jcics.org/Guatemala.htm - seems to just report the facts and also has a lot of information on the Guatemala adoption process.

http://www.guatadopt.com - Also a good resource on Guatemala adoption

Overall the news does seem positive. I think most people want to do the right thing. It is politics though so it is not an easy process getting to the final state. We will stay optimistic though and assume that no news is good news for now.

Embassy Approval!

2007-11-20T20:24:00.001-06:00

It has been six weeks since my last entry so I figured I should get a new picture out there. We got the new picture on 11/1. He is really changing so fast.

Part of the reason I didn't post it right away was because I didn't really have anything to say with it. We have been waiting for news on a new law going through in Guatemala that has the possibility of affecting the adoption. The news seems to keep going back and forth - especially if you listen to all the rumors on the web. First the law was not going to be passed until next year. Then it was passed last minute but they had to wait for the new government to come up with the exact details (including a possible grandfather clause). Then a rumor that Guatemala was going to put it off until April. Then a rumor the US was pushing them not to wait. The vote was supposed to happen on Nov 14th -then it didn't. I try not to think about it all too much - and everything we hear from hand in hand is very positive. It sounds like everyone does want what is best for these kids - and what is best for them is not to put them into an orphanage. Hopefully we will hear something a little more firm on that soon.

On a good note we were just notified that we got US Embassy approval yesterday. That was the first step in Guatemala. The US gets all the evidence that Victor should legally be allowed to be adopted - and then they issue this approval. Now it moves to the PGN in Guatemala. The PGN is the central authority in charge of adoptions in Guatemala. This stage is the longest stage and will probably involve the most waiting.

Done with class

2007-09-24T10:21:00.000-05:00

It took us a while to finally get to our last adoption class but on Sept 15 we finally got it done. The class was with all new people - two couples both adopting from Russia. It was fun being able to show off pictures of Baby Victor. In this class we got to spend some time going through Guatemala books learning about their history and culture. I think I will probably get one of the books so I can spend some time learning a little more.

We also got to talk to Karin a little bit about possibly taking a trip down to see Victor. We learned that taking a trip down will actually change which Visa Victor would get when he travels to the United States and would make him a citizen immediately instead of having to wait for that. In the long run it probably doesn't make much difference but gives one more reason to go down and see him. We did learn when you are down there you do have to stay in the hotel with Victor. I am not sure I would want to be in a foreign country with a baby trapped in a hotel for too long - but I am sure I could manage a few days and do some tourist stuff for a while before or after that.

We just got a new picture today as you can see. We are told that as of Sept 13 he was 6 pounds, 9 ounces and 50 cm (19.7 inches). I am not sure if that is good or bad but I am sure Lara and a lot of you know. I just think we need to get that tiger rug he is on so we can compete with Grandpa David's tiger rug from Nepal.

Meet Victor Hugo

2007-09-01T13:01:00.000-05:00

I am pleased to present Victor Hugo. No - not that Victor Hugo. Of course there is still a lot that needs to happen and a lot of things that could go wrong but right now it looks like we may be able to adopt baby Victor. Victor was born on July 22, 2007 in Cuilapa Guatemala. July 22 is also Lara's Grandmother's birthday so it is easy to remember for her. He seems to be very healthy from all the reports we have received. Now it is mostly just waiting for us. It is a slow process now because of the Hauge but we can live with slow. Our best estimate is sometime around 6-8 months from now so hopefully sometime by May of next year.

As far as Victor's name - we really haven't thought of it much yet. We will probably wait until we are close to getting him before we decide on what to call him. For now I will just call him baby Victor.

One or Two?

2007-08-15T17:01:00.000-05:00

One of the big questions we have been trying to answer is whether we should get one or two children right away. I've thought all along that eventually I would like us to have two children, but should we get them both right away or one now and one later? We decided we would like one boy and one girl. I would go with the boy being the oldest ( it worked for me ) but Lara thinks the girl should be oldest (it worked for her). This is the time we have to decide since they have to prepare two copies of the paper work for two babies. After much deliberation, we decided that we would get two right away.

A few days after we make this decision we get a call. The time pressure created by the Hague that I discussed in my previous post is creating some issues. They want all of the people adopting from Guatemala to be matched with a child and a fair way through the court system as soon as possible. We are the last couple that Hand in Hand is matching in Guatemala because of this. They called to say there are three other couples in front of us and they all want at least one girl. That makes it probably that we would not be able to get two children with one being a girl.

We talked it over and decided there is no rush. We will just get one child now, and we can return later after these issues work out if we still think we want two. So that was our decision, just get one for now. The next day we get another call. They say they think they have two available for us if we will take two boys. Thats certainly a lot of pressure. Way to much deciding for one week. We still decided to stick with one for now. I think either decision could have been right but there is no reason to rush. There are certainly pluses and minuses either way.

If we decided to adopt another in the future it is MUCH easier. There would be no more classes, most of the paper work would be done, we wouldn't have to do a new autobiography, and there would be only a small home study update. I can't say for sure we will adopt another, it all depends on how God leads us. For now we will just focus on getting this adoption finished .

The Hague Convention

2007-08-11T16:14:00.000-05:00

I thought I would give you a little information on the Hague Convention since that is what is making the time-line so important for us. I won't give you a lot of boring detail because I don't understand it all myself. The Hague is a international treaty designed to make sure that adoptions are done in the best interests of the children. It does many good things to prevent illegal adoptions. The US signed the treaty in 1994. Guatemala also signed this treaty. Move ahead 13 years and the US is almost ready to ratify the treaty that Jimmy Carter signed.

The problem is that after Guatemala signed the treaty, their congress decided it was unconstitutional and they were not going to do it. Apparently with international treaties there are no take-backs. When the US actually ratifies this means that a bunch of rules take affect for adoptions with other countries that have signed the treaty. What this ultimately means is that at some point adoptions between the US and Guatemala may stop for some period of time until Guatemala has proper controls in place. To us this means we have to get things done as soon as possible. Most people seem to think this date will be some time around the end of the year. Our adoption has to be a good deal done at that point in order to continue. Hopefully this won't affect anything, but anything can happen.

Douments, Tests, and more Documents

2007-07-30T22:41:00.000-05:00

The past several months have been spent doing all the required forms, tests, and paperwork that is required for an adoption. Here is a brief summary of what is required:

Numerous State and Federal Forms filled out
Reference letters from four different people
Certified Birth Certificates
Financial letters from all banks listing balances and transactions for the past year
Employment Letters
Financial statements
State Police clearance letters
Marriage Certificates
Medical Exams
Fingerprinting by INS
1040 tax forms
Power of Attorney forms
Psychological Evaluation (Need to take MMPI test which has 550+ True/False Questions.)
Photos
Autobiography
Home Study

I would have to say the big things are the last two. The autobiography is a 5-20 page autobiography that we each had to do. Mine was 6 1/2 pages long, Lara's was probably closer to 20 pages. They give you an outline on things to include (How were you disciplined, what was good about each of your parents, what was not good). I know my Mom would like to get her hands on mine but we all know that is never going to happen.

A lot of this paperwork is ultimately a requirement for the Home Study. The Home Study was a day long (1-7) meeting with a Social worker that we had on July 20. It is a lot of questions that are required by Guatemala and a lot of questions required by Minnesota. They include questions on how we would parent, on religion, on how we and the extended view adoption and international adoption specifically. It was definitely the longest I have talked in a long time. A lot of the questions they require the man to answer first so it was tough on me.

It is July 30th and we have just been told that the report from the Home Study is complete and they are ready to start certifying the dossier. I don't think we expected it this quickly but they are trying to rush everything with Guatemala because of possible issue. Anyway, most of the work is done now; now comes the waiting.

Adoption classes

2007-03-17T12:00:00.000-05:00

Today was the first of the three required all day classes. These are all on Saturdays, once a month. The class is in the local Hand in Hand office, which is located in Karin's basement. There were three other couples in the class. It was the first class for us but everyone else had a one class head start on us. That was actually kind of nice because we got to hear from people going through all the steps before we actually had to do them. The other three couples all were adopting from different countries than us (Philippines, Haiti, and China) The class was a lot of hands on worksheets and activities. We learned about different issues with adoption and how to handle them. We learned a lot of what to expect with the adoption. We learned all the things we need to do to make the change easier on the adopted child (No party at the airport and a lot of alone time for us and the child). It was a lot of information to take in.

The Application

2007-03-05T12:00:00.000-06:00

It is one month after the orientation and we have everything to turn in our application. The application is only a six page document. This is mostly routine information about employment, family, references, and finances. The big thing is the selection of a country. You're not actually locked in at this point but there are some differences in things needed for different countries so this is the point you select and sign fee agreements for the country. We have decided on Guatemala. There are many reasons for deciding on one country over another. I think I had a hard time choosing but Lara seemed to make up her mind on Guatemala without much difficulty. One of the things we liked about Guatemala was the fact that the children are in a foster home before the adoption instead of the orphanages of some countries. Another thing we liked was the speed and order of the different parts of the adoption. With some countries you are matched with a child fairly quickly and then have to wait a long time to actually take your child home. That seemed like it would be torture for us. Guatemala also matches children very young so we would be able to adopt an infant.