Trick or Treat!

EJ's Halloween Costume (Syracuse Univ. Basketball Player)

Now that I know people are checking in on our blog regularly, I feel compelled to try to update it frequently. Problem is, the adoption process doesn't always move so fast. In fact, sometimes it feels like it's moving in the wrong direction (see post below re. our attempt to get another certified copy of our marriage certificate). I also learned today that while my employment verification letter is sufficient for our agency's purposes, I will need to obtain another one for our dossier because the notary statement (you know, the part where it normally says "subscribed and sworn to me...") is not formatted appropriately. Oh well. What fun would this process be without a few bumps in the road :) Next up is our homestudy. I'm oddly calm about it now, but check in with me again this weekend when we're trying to clean our apartment and get things ready.

What else?

Happy Halloween to everyone!! My goal today was to hand out more candy than I ate and I think I succeeded (although not by much!). So much fun to see all the kids dressed up. To think that next year we could be trick-or-treating with our own child.... Still very surreal.

It was also fun to see all the adults dressed up, although I'm not sure if that was due entirely to the fact that it's Halloween - this is New York City after all. I am still trying to decide if the man I saw at lunch wearing tin foil on his head was dressed for Halloween or just because (I'm actually leaning towards the latter).

Guess that's it for now. Be back soon.

does this work?

What do you do if you're stuck in a 2 day CLE on "Outsourcing and Offshoring Transactions" and you're a bit... um... bored halfway through day 1? Well, if you're me, you start playing with your blackberry in an effort to keep yourself entertained. (It is sad, I know.) Anyway, I think I figured out how to blog from my blackberry- woo hoo! (to be confirmed when I hit the "post" button after I finish writing). This is a big deal for me, as I am quite technologically challenged! Anyhow, I don't actually have any news to share. I'm just very excited about my new skill.

introducing e.j.

Forgive me for a moment while I vent about the NY State process for obtaining a certified copy of a marriage certificate. We went online to the NYS Dept. of Health website and downloaded the form for "Obtaining a Copy of a Marriage Certificate." We filled it out, wrote our check for the stated amount and sent it in to the address listed on top of the form. A week or so later, NYS returned the form and check to us with a letter saying that there is a different address for requesting certificates of marriages that took place in NYC and to please send our form and check there. We did. This week we received it back again. Now we're being told that not only is there a third address for sending the form... but we need to fill out an entirely different form and the fee is different (lower than what we'd initially sent, so I guess that's the only good thing?). What's up New York? Why are you making this so difficult??

Okay... just had to get that out.

In other news, I've been asked why we don't have any pictures or personal details on this site. I guess we're sort of in this strange place of having shared our adoption plans with close friends and family (oh yeah - and anyone with internet access who may come across this blog!), while still trying to keep the news relatively secret. For various reasons, we're not ready to spread the word far and wide just yet. Kind of like a pregnant couple in the early stages of the pregnancy - although we can't quite figure out exactly where we are in our "pregnancy" ;)

Anyhow, in an effort to make this blog a little more personal, here's a picture of the real star of our family (would post pictures of us, but I assure you, he's much, much cuter). I've been trying to prepare him for the arrival of a new family member, but I'm not sure he's very interested; I think he's quite happy being the center of attention.

application complete (sort of)!

So we have just about completed our application paperwork - yeah! Technically I still owe Gladney a form from my doctor signing off on my good health - just waiting for my Nov. appt with my suddenly very, very busy doctor. In ten years of seeing him, I never had to wait for an appointment - now it's a 6 week wait. Ugh! But otherwise we're done with paperwork.... at least for a little while.

And now we sit and wait. Wait for certified copies of birth certificates and our marriage certificate... wait for our criminal (state and fbi) and child abuse clearance checks to be processed... wait for our homestudy visit to be completed.... wait for DHS to send us an appointment for fingerprinting (which will be set #3)..... blah, blah, blah. Then we'll finish pulling together a few more documents and forms for the dossier that we send to Ethiopia.... and we'll wait some more.

Kidding aside, the process has been fairly smooth so far. The biggest challenge was trying to locate the street number of a college apartment I lived in for a few months in 1993. I somehow managed to make it through the NY State Bar's background screening process without this valuable information (I know this because thank goodness I actually still had a copy of my application to the Bar, where I was also asked for every address I'd lived at), but it seems NY State is a lot tougher on potential adoptive parents than it is on potential lawyers (feel free to insert lawyer joke here).

Anyhow, I think we're making good progress and moving along at the pace we hoped. Funny though, I sometimes look at how much we've done and can't help but feeling like things are moving so quickly, only to realize that we are still very much at the beginning of this process and still have a long way to go. Lots more to come....

faq's

Not surprisingly, once people hear that we are adopting, we get lots of questions: why adoption? why Ethiopia? what's the process like? have you considered surrogacy (yes - this one keeps coming up) or [fill-in-the-blank] other options for having a child? I don't really mind the questions. I'm glad that people are interested and I understand that they are curious about how we came to our decision.

Adoption was always our "plan a." We knew from day one that we would pursue adoption when we ready to expand our family. It's simply something we both believe in deeply. Sure, we've talked about lots of other possibilities, but there was never really a question that adoption would be for us.

Choosing a program was a little bit harder. Sadly, there are so many children in need worldwide. On a practical level, we felt that the Ethiopia program requirements, the time frame, the costs, the process, etc. were a good fit for us... We've both been to Africa and felt a connection to the area. We wanted to adopt from a country we were likely to travel to in the years to come with our child. And we have been comforted by what we have read about Ethiopia's approach to their orphans and adoption. Once we started focusing in on Ethiopia, we never looked back....

I imagine I'll be venting here about the process quite a bit as we continue on. It's mostly a lot (a lot!!) of paperwork and what seems like 100 sets of fingerprints (okay, maybe only three). Proof of employment, proof of insurance, birth certificates, marriage certificates, proof of our good health... Making sure we've dotted all our i's and crossed our t's... and becoming very friendly with notaries. We're struggling to recall all our various addresses since 1973 (m: 12; r: 10 - we think) for our state criminal clearance (not to be confused with the fbi clearance we'll need). And we're anxiously awaiting a homestudy visit from a social worker in the next couple of weeks. This post is already too long, so I won't describe every step now... needless to say, we think it is all worth it.