Closing out 2008!

On this New Year’s Eve I, like most, find myself taking stock of 2008. It didn’t really dawn on me how much we’ve accomplished this year until now. We have completed both our homestudy and dossier for our adoption, have been approved, and are now officially on the wait list to receive a referral for a child from Ethiopia! It took 7 long months and felt like writing a thesis, but now that work is behind us and we’re a step closer to having our little bambino/bambina. Adoption aside, we’ve also completed a remodel project that we had talked about doing for years: converting our detached garage into a liveable, insulated space with a bathroom and closet. It’s essentially an in-law, but without a kitchen and it looks fantastic! It will soon be our office and refuge from the madness that will ensue with parenthood. Then our current office/spare bedroom will be the baby’s room. I’ve settled into my job and feel comfortable being a nurse now. Chaat continues to like his work, his co-workers, and we both feel fortunate to be employed in these times.

Back to adoption stuff though. I realize in reviewing our previous posts that we never explained a bunch of background that lead to our adoption. We actually started trying to have our own biological child way back in 2003, went through many trials (of all kinds!) and tribulations with that (which many of you already know about), then I got accepted to a graduate program I had been dreaming of doing for many years and that put having a child on the back burner for a couple of years. After I was gainfully employed with my new degree, we came back to the idea of having a child, but with a new perspective. We knew we wanted to adopt instead of having our own. Frankly, at my age, the idea of pregnancy and birth is altogether unappealing. And neither of us was up for more bodily manipulations of IVF, the hopes, expectations, and disappointments, not to mention the unknown risks. Looking back on all that now, we feel relief to no longer have that attachment to seeing our own genes play out and to be free of that obsessiveness of IVF that so many people suffer in.

At first, the whole world of adoption was pretty intimidating for us. Where do we start, what agency do we use, how do we decide international vs. domestic? It took awhile just to get educated about it all. One reason we decided against domestic adoption was that the birth mother has up to 30 days to change her mind after giving birth, despite the adoptive parents thinking everything is final and they’ve taken the baby home and bonded. We couldn’t imagine potentially going through something like that. Of course many people complete domestic adoptions successfully, but that was a risk we weren’t willing to take. International adoption just felt right. We’ve both travelled a lot and I’ve always loved other cultures and languages, so that choice wasn’t so difficult. But then it was which country? Naturally, because of Chaat’s heritage, we looked into both the Phillipines and Thailand, but neither worked out. To adopt from the Phillipines you need to be Catholic, something we weren’t even willing to feign, and under 40years old. Thailand doesn’t do many adoptions at all and the children they do have up for adoption are around 4-10 years old, often with a known medical condition. We want a healthy infant. Then we thought of South America because I’m fluent in Spanish and have travelled the continent, but there’s very few countries doing adoption, it takes a long time, and is difficult to get infants. Then we looked into Kazikstan, but that requires 3 trips, one of which has to be 6 weeks in length – out of the question for two people working full-time. Ethiopia is one of the countries that’s moving a little faster than others, it only involves one trip for one week, and you can still get infants, so it’s definitely the best fit for us.

Although Ethiopia is moving faster than other countries, it still takes a long time; we expect to get a referral in December of 2009 and then travel to pick up our child in around March of 2010. So that gives you an idea of how challenging international adoption has become! Basically, there was a lot of corruption – people kidnapping kids and selling them, so many countries shut down (like Guatemala and Vietnam) and something called the Hague Convention was implemented to prevent this kind of thing. I don’t’ want to bore you all with too many details, so you can google it if you want to find out more about it. Ultimately it’s a good thing, but it means that there’s more red tape and things take much longer.

There’s much more to tell and I’ll explain the referral process in the next blog entry, but now it’s time to get out and celebrate the new year. Happy New Year everyone!!! May 2009 bring us a speedy referral and everyone lots of good health, fun, growth, and prosperity!

Getting back on the horse

Hi everyone,
I know it's been a very long time since our debut post, but we're committed to getting things going again! much has happened since. Where to start?

After we put our dear cat Latte to rest in late August, we have since completed our homestudy with Bay Area Adoption Services. The home study is one of the first major milestones that we need complete on the road to adoption. Basically, it's a ton of paper work, essays, getting letters of recommendation (notarized), doctor appointments and tests (all notarized), finger printing, and a series of interviews with our social worker. The last of the interviews included a visit to our home, which of course will be the future home of our child!

That's the short version, but don't let that fool you! It's a lot of time and a work, but we just keep our eyes on the prize. So now what happens? Well, we're onto the second phase where we sign up with a referral agency, one that will ultimately put a child in our home. This is going to require more applications, more paperwork, and many of the same papers and letters (except different).

Adoption can be stressful. It's a self-regulated process. no one is hanging over our shoulders making sure we're doing things. and life can offer distractions. for example, right now I (Chaat, author of this post) am sick and have been ill for several days. it's been debilitating. Also, I had been traveling for work. Bek and I recently took some time away from home, but we didn't get nearly as much done on adoption as we wanted to during the vacation. and we've been working on some major house projects that have sucked up a lot of time and energy. Here are a couple of pictures from our recent trip to the Mendocino coast and Anderson Valley.


We've got other friends adopting, and that's been supportive because we know what each other is going through. and that helps. We're signing up with message boards and researching and all that. sometimes it can be frustrating to think about all this work we have to do, when we KNOW there is a child out there meant for us. International adoption wasn't always this laborious, but it's grown in popularity (thanks Madonna and Brangelina), and several countries recently have been closed for adoption, and there are a lot more rules and regulations that did not exist before (Hague Convention).

Well, that's a little teaser for now to let you know that we're back on the Blog. We promise to be more current and up to date with our journey. And we'll also explore more about the process, externally (what we need to do) and internally (what's going on in our heads as we march ahead). thanks for reading and for all your support!

Closing and opening chapters

Well, here we go - finally launching into the blogoshpere to share our news with friends and family! It's something Chaat and I have talked about doing for months, mostly with the intention of keeping people in the loop about growing our family. For those of you that may not already know, we are in the process of adopting a child. Naturally people have many questions about how it all works and what the time lines are, so this seemed like the simplest way to impart that information.

But before talking about growing our family, I just want to share that we lost a family member; we had to say goodbye to our beautiful 16 year-old cat Latte yesterday morning. I've had her since she was 6 weeks old, so she's been with me for most of my adulthood. Chaat has known her for 10 years and we both loved her so immensely. Needless to say, we are grieving and will miss her tremendously. Of course those of you that have cat allergies are probably breathing a secret sigh of relief right now, but realize that you no longer have an excuse for not coming over! ;-)

Latte became sick fairly suddenly and when I noticed that she hadn't eaten for a few days I took her to the vet, did a blood panel and UA and found out that she had a UTI and extremely elevated liver enzymes. We were then faced with difficult decisions about various treatments vs. euthanasia, which was tortuous. I've never had to euthanize a pet before, but that is what we decided to do for various reasons (I'd be happy to explain to anyone who is interested) and it was extremely difficult, but ultimately peaceful. I truly think it was the best thing for all 3 of us and despite our sadness, we also feel relieved. We spent a good part of yesterday digging a grave for her in a spot in our backyard where she used to like to sit. We feel comforted by having her here, still close to us.

Latte was an amazing cat, the best I've ever had, and I grew up with several in the house. She was funny, adorable, gregarious, obedient, playful, and of course, flirtatious. I laugh remembering her quirky 'bonking' with furniture, her fetish for leather shoes and bags, and her silent meow. I already miss talking with her and the house is strangely quiet. So, it's been a somber weekend, but we feel certain that Latte is in kitty heaven and has been relieved of much discomfort. We'll post about adoption stuff next time when we're re-juiced.