An Online Journal of Our Adoption Journey

It Begins

We sent our preliminary application in to Holt on April 11, 2001, the same day that the 24 US Navy airmen were released by China.  It was purely coincidental, the envelope was in the mailbox before we even heard the news.  But the eleven days preceding that did cause us some alarm as to what would happen with US - China relations if things continued to spiral out of control.  Happily, they did not (however, I have noticed a marked increase in the amount of rhetoric being generated on both sides... much to my unease).

For Christmas we received two wonderful books about Chinese adoption, Adopting in China: A Practical Guide / an Emotional Journey and I Love You Like Crazy Cakes.  The first is a nice little diary of what it was like, day-to-day, to adopt a baby girl from China in 1998.  I liked the frank honesty, the details of each day, and the lack of PC (Politically Correct) attitude.  I did notice when setting up these links that many personal reviewers at the Amazon.com website highly disliked the 'ugly American' attitude in the book.  They felt like all he did was complain.  And they're right, but it helped me to realize that this journey wasn't going to be a wonderful picnic.  That, just like our trip to the top of Mt. Whitney, it would be a difficult, but rewarding, ordeal.  Although, I'm sure this one will outstrip it by magnitudes!

The second is a children's book about a single woman who goes to China to adopt a baby girl.  It is the sort of story one would read to a small child, and it brings tears to my eyes each time I read it. I highly recommend it.

I have just ordered The Lost Daughters of China : Abandoned Girls, Their Journey to America, and the Search for a Missing Past after reading all the recommendations to it.  I look forward to another book to read while waiting for the process wheels to begin to turn.

We received our Application Package on Monday, April 16th!  Quite the quick response!  We read over the contract (lots of disclaimers, of course... can't guarantee this, can't promise that... all to CYA themselves, I'm sure it's pretty identical to any agency we would have chosen), the basic info packet, the schedule of fees, and the real application (not to be confused with the pre-application we sent in last week -- this one requires some serious stuff: copies of tax returns, photos, all the usual personal stuff, and it has to be notarized).

We emailed off some questions to the local rep, mostly about the timeline.  We got a response the next morning!   I fear of getting a child photo (the referral) sent to us from China too early for us to go get her... although I imagine that in the worst case scenario Lise could postpone her State Bar until the fall exam.