An adorable diaper bag & a new Yahoo DTC group...

Last week I received a diaper bag that I had bought from an adoptive mom on Ebay...
it's adorable and perfect for a short trip! The woman who makes them, Terri Fleming, is a member of the September 2005 DTC group. It is so well made!!! Tim has already told me that although it's "cute", he won't be using it. Not manly enough for him, I suppose.



Today I joined a Yahoo group for families that will be DTC in October, anticipating that we might not be able to become DTC in September. I recognized at least one family that had hoped to be DTC a few months ago as well. I did hear back from CAWLI, who told me that we should expect a call within a few days to schedule our homestudy update.

Tomorrow painting on our attic, which will become my office space, will begin. There's lot of prep work to do - stripping wall paper and priming the wood paneling for painting. Tim and I are going to attempt to do his office space and Isabella's nursery ourselves. We'll see how that goes! I had a good laugh today because even Tim's longtime childhood friend Jon Olsen can't really envision Tim painting...Tim claims to have "soundly scolded" Jon.

I really have to get my camera up and running, especialy once Tim picks up a paintbrush.

We are winding down here tonight...Tim is watching WWE Raw (I know...I cannot believe I married someone who watches professional wrestling, which he describes as "ballet in the ring"). Indie is curled up with Tim and Buca is playing with one of his sqeuaky toys, which he always does once anyone starts watching TV!

Waiting, waiting, waiting

Well, we are still waiting for a social worker from CAWLI to call us on scheduling a home study update. I just wrote an email to CAWLI to ask them what's going on. We feel REALLY frustrated that after being so close to getting our I-171H approval, we are now at a standstill. Grrrr. Hopefully Monday will bring some news! If we aren't DTC soon, then some of our documents, like our medical reports, will expire. That would be bad!

I am on a DTC email board, and it's hard to see people who started their homestudies after ours was already finished becoming DTC. Of course, I am happy for them, but it feeds my sense of frustration and disappointment. I've already left the July and August DTC boards, and it seems like I will soon be an ex-member of the September DTC group too.

OK, enough whining and self-pity. I am sure I have some more boxes somewhere to unpack!

Back in Massachusetts...

So, we've made it!!! We are now in Massachusetts, and somewhat settled in our new home. Our wood floors were refinished before we moved in, and they are beautiful.
75% of our boxes are unpacked, and we are looking for someone to paint the finished part of our attic (which will be my office), Tim's office, the finished part of the basement, and what will be Isabella's nursery. I've chosen some colors for her nursery, which you will eventually see once it gets painted.

Isabella received some beautiful gifts recently! Our friends Cheryl and Bruce gave us two outfits for her: a pink polo style dress and a yellow sundress. Their neighbors John and LaSalette, who have become our friends as they are bringing home their daughter Emma from China in October, bought Isabella a Fisher Price Language Littles Sonya Lee doll, and a pink outfit with Winnie the Pooh characters. They also gave us a ceramic "I" for Isabella, which is also Winnie the Pooh themed. Both Cheryl and Bruce, and John and LaSalette, have Winnie the Pooh themed nurseries.
I was overwhelmed by the gifts. Then Bruce opened a bottle of champagne and made a toast to our daughters ... Emma (who will come home in October), Mya (who will come home in March or April 2006) and Isabella (who will come home sometime in Summer 2006). It was very sweet, and very moving.

Once I get my camera going, I will have to take pictures of the beautiful new things Isabella has received.

Right now we are eagerly waiting to hear from CAWLI to find out when a social worker will be able to do our homestudy update.

An update

Now that I am a slightly calmer state, I will give you an update on our I-171H status. After talking with our adoption agency CAWLI, I learned two things One, CAWLI has never heard of something like this happening before and two, there isn't much either CAWLI or we can do. CAWLI was very sympathetic, and helpful in where to go from here.

Our file has been forwarded to the Boston USCIS office. We will get a homestudy update as soon as possible after moving to Boston - the earliest appointment would be the week of August 29th. We also have to re-do our police and child abuse background checks. Once all of that is complete, our homestudy update will be sent to the Boston USCIS office, and hopefully, we will get our I-171H approval shortly after that. There will be at least a one month delay, maybe two or three, depending on how fast the I-171H gets issued once the homestudy update is complete.

On August 10th, an INS approval was mailed out for a family in VA that got fingerprinted in the same office, on the same day, as us. I guess they aren't moving. I am happy for them, but sad for us.

I've decided to stop trying to predict when we will bring Isabella home. All I can say with any degree of confidence is that it will be in 2006.

We are hanging in there, and trying to keep on eyes on becoming parents of a beautiful daughter.

A big blow from USCIS

Yesterday I spent the day hoping I would get a birthday present of the I-171H in our mailbox. Today I got very bad news...

Our homestudy was received the NoVA/Washington DC field office on 6/20, and we were fingerprinted on 6/25. We have been eagerly awaiting our I-171H, since our dossier is complete with the exception of the INS approval.

However, we are also moving to a new home we have purchased in MA, and our move is on 8/17. I have been on a fellowship at the US EPA for a year, but we have continued to be employed by our normal employers, all of which was explained in the HS. We were fully aware that we needed a homestudy update and a form needed to be filed with Boston USCIS, but CAWLI told us that as long as we did that before we traveled, we would be OK. Our homestudy agency in VA, the Datz Foundation, agreed with that.

I just received a call from Officer Perez from the NoVA/DC USCIS field office. She says that we cannot receive our I-171H from that office because we are moving. She said she was going to forward our file to the Boston USCIS, and we would have to do our homestudy update first (which we plan to do with CAWLI), sent that to Boston UCSIS, and then we would get out I-171H at some point.

What angers me is that they've had our file for 6+ weeks and it says that we were planning to move right in the file! In April, they were running about 20-25 days between fingerprinting and receipt of the I-171H form. Officer Perez said that if we were going to be around for another two months she could send it.

I am devastated. We had so hoped to be DTC by August or September.

I have written to CAWLI asking what I should do.

Sometimes it's really hard to keep the faith.

No I-171H on Saturday

Tim and I were really hoping to get our I-171H on Saturday ... this would have made sense since a family who was printed at our USCIS field office on 6/11 received their form on 7/23. But it was not to be for us ... I brought up the mail and said to Tim "Guess what's NOT in the mail?" Things don't always make "sense" when we most want them to.

This part of the process has been very hard...and there's not a whole heck of a lot we can do about it. Tim is anxious for the form as well, but also focused quite a bit on work and on the new house. I have a harder time focusing on much else besides the adoption, and I sometimes feel pretty alone. I think it's because wanting to be a parent is one of the few things I've ever been certain about. And somewhere, in the core of my heart, I sometimes fear that it won't really happen.

This baby is the first thing I think about when I wake up, and what I am thinking about when I go to sleep at night. And I dream about her, as I've read many pre-adoptive parents do. Maybe I am normal for a pre-adoptive mom, but it is still a bit scary!

PASD?

I think I have a disorder, which I have decided to call Pre-Adoption Stress Disorder (PASD). I am pretty obsessed with this INS I-171H approval form right now. There's a woman I've chatted with on the adoption listservs...she is also using the Northern VA/DC USCIS field office and was fingerprinted on the same day as Tim and me. We've promised to email each other immediately if we get the form. Someone was fingerprinted on 6/11 and received their form on 7/23, so by that timetable since we were printed on 6/25, we should receive our form tomorrow. God, I hope so.

I've also looked up the phone number of my Congressman (Moran), who is a Democrat. I am really glad I registered to vote in VA, because many people end up getting their congressperson involved when they find their field USCIS offices to be unresponsive. I am hoping it doesn't come to that. But if I don't get it this weekend, I am going to take the advice of my fellow Fall River, MA native Emeril LaGasse and "kick it up a notch"!

Now, you would think that moving from VA to MA in 12 days would help me forget about my PASD symptoms, but you'd be wrong! Somehow packing up my scads of precious possessions (which Tim incorrectly, callously terms "junk") does not compare to thinking about Isabella. "Thinking" isn't even the right word. "Aching" is better.

Getting Anxious...

OK, so even Tim, the ultra-calm one, is getting frustrated that the I-171H form has not yet shown up in our mailbox! I called the DC USCIS field office this morning and left a very polite message, but my guess is that the call won't be returned ... I am sure they have frantic parents-to-be calling all the time. I also made an appt. to go into the field office on August 15 (that was the earliest appoint I could get-2 days before we move)and speak to someone about our case. My hope is that the form will come before that. This waiting business is hard! I have to mention what a wonderful source of support all the adoption groups on Yahoo have been...I am a member of APC, Loving China's Children, China Families (the CAWLI group), the August 2005 DTC group, and the September 2005 DTC group. I've talked to so many wonderful people, many of whom are going back to China for another child.
It's very comforting to have a group of people who understand what receiving that I-171H form means. So a big thank you to all of you!!!

And because we know you want a close-up...

Close up ... 

Yep, it's a skull. A skull with a cute pink nose and pink bow, but still a skull...
Now you see why I've done most of the shopping!

Tim shops for Isabella!

Tim buys a dress for Isabella... 

OK, here it is! Tim told me he had a package arriving with something he had bought for Isabella...today it came. This dress! Somehow, when I think of my daughter to be, I'm not thinking SKULLS. And where and when is she supposed to wear this? Halloween? At least Uncle Bobby will approve!