An Online Journal of Our Adoption Journey

Winter's Quiet

"Any news on your adoption?"

A week doesn't go by that we don't hear from a coworker, or family, or friends, asking about how the adoption is going.  All we can answer is that we are in the big wait, and as such, have heard nothing.  We don't expect to receive any news until October at the earliest.  It has been a quiet winter.

Our dossier is there, sitting in China, with piles and piles of other dossiers.  Currently, the wait is about 13 months.  If it stays at that pace then we won't hear anything until December.  

A Fortune Cookie

About once a week we have lunch or dinner at a local Chinese restaurant called Szechuan Mandarin.  One day I broke open a fortune cookie and read this prognostication.  It gave me goose bumps.  

Year of the Horse

The Chinese New Year arrived on February 12th, 2002.  That's 4699 on the Chinese calendar.  We went downtown for the festivities.  We walked around, had some food, and watched the parade.  It was heart throbbing to see all the little kids running around with the handmade paper lanterns.  

We also found a wonderful print by Caroline Young.  We just had to pick it up.  Her artwork is fantastic.  It will go in Autumn's room.  

And speaking of things for Autumn, the stuff is already accumulating.  Last fall I picked up a used chest of drawers made in Korea with a dark brown-red lacquer with brass moldings.  We've received a couple of stuffed toys -- a very soft panda pillow and a hefty, floppy leopard -- a doll, and a box of infant toys and clothes.  I suspect that this is just the beginning.  

Immunizations

On March 14th we started our Hepatitis B vaccine series.  You get three shots.  The first two are a month apart, the last is five months later.  We've already had recent Tetanus shots, and we've both tested positive for the Measles antibody.  

The whole immunization thing seems to fall into two camps.  I posted online with the FCC-SD group as to how necessary there are and got two very distinct answers: those who did no immunizations whatsoever and had no problems, and those that did them all and felt great that they did.  It looked very fifty-fifty.  It is rather expensive for a rather statistically low possibility, but I think, as they say, one is better safe than sorry.   

However, Hepatitis A vaccines are hard to come by, and since that disease is less threatening (one generally recovers from it) than Hep B, we did decide to forego that one.  

There is no vaccine for Hepatitis C, in case you were wondering why we aren't getting one for that.

A Boyfriend?

Our close friends, Chris and Susan, are expecting a second child, a boy.  Their little girl, Rachel, is now 3 1/2 and the new baby is due in late July.  They are planning on naming him Randal.  It will be great to have another infant in our circle of friends for Autumn to interact with.

I foresee much swapping of babysitting services in our future.

Our latest spend list is Here.