1 Year Ago, The Day After Christmas

Yesterday was our first Christmas with Abigail.

Because one year ago today (American time), we met Abigail for the first time.

1 Year Ago, The Day After Christmas

Yesterday was our first Christmas with Abigail.

Because one year ago today (American time), we met Abigail for the first time.

Letter To An Unknown Birth Mother

I once read that a child's birthday really celebrates the mother, more than the child, or so it should. I want you to know that I thought about you today, in the middle of the excitement of aunts and uncles and grandparents and cake and too many gifts. I wish there was a way to let you know that she is doing well, better than that, really.

She is thriving.

I know you must be beautiful, because she is gorgeous. You must be intelligent, because she is quick to learn and very very clever. I know you have a big heart because you loved her enough to give her a chance at life when you couldn't give her that chance yourself, and you should know, she has your huge heart. Experts might say that a just-turned-2 year old is not capable of empathy, but when someone she loves is feeling sad or sick, she readily shares her toys or hugs, trying to elicit a smile. In fact, she is full of smiles, songs, hugs and kisses, giggles, teases and creativity. She is athletic and coordinated, a good dancer. She loves learning and reading and is fiercely independent but sweetly vulnerable.
Thank you a million times over for the gift of your daughter. Our daughter.

Letter To An Unknown Birth Mother

I once read that a child's birthday really celebrates the mother, more than the child, or so it should. I want you to know that I thought about you today, in the middle of the excitement of aunts and uncles and grandparents and cake and too many gifts. I wish there was a way to let you know that she is doing well, better than that, really.

She is thriving.

I know you must be beautiful, because she is gorgeous. You must be intelligent, because she is quick to learn and very very clever. I know you have a big heart because you loved her enough to give her a chance at life when you couldn't give her that chance yourself, and you should know, she has your huge heart. Experts might say that a just-turned-2 year old is not capable of empathy, but when someone she loves is feeling sad or sick, she readily shares her toys or hugs, trying to elicit a smile. In fact, she is full of smiles, songs, hugs and kisses, giggles, teases and creativity. She is athletic and coordinated, a good dancer. She loves learning and reading and is fiercely independent but sweetly vulnerable.
Thank you a million times over for the gift of your daughter. Our daughter.

Baby, We Were Meant for Each Other

Baby, We Were Meant for Each Other: In Praise of Adoption is Scott Simon's new book. I read it this morning; it was a quick read.

I loved that Simon is honest about his experience: that it wasn't all perfect but it was worth it. That sometimes people don't know what to say to adopted kids or parents. That adopted kids carry around a loss and that adoptive parents get to help their children through that, and really great parents will let their children grieve that loss and help them grow from it. That adoption isn't about heroics: that a child gets a home, but we get something better: a child.

I really hope that my friends and family and parents read this book before we bring Abigail home into all of our lives.

Baby, We Were Meant for Each Other

Baby, We Were Meant for Each Other: In Praise of Adoption is Scott Simon's new book. I read it this morning; it was a quick read.

I loved that Simon is honest about his experience: that it wasn't all perfect but it was worth it. That sometimes people don't know what to say to adopted kids or parents. That adopted kids carry around a loss and that adoptive parents get to help their children through that, and really great parents will let their children grieve that loss and help them grow from it. That adoption isn't about heroics: that a child gets a home, but we get something better: a child.

I really hope that my friends and family and parents read this book before we bring Abigail home into all of our lives.

Travel Info, LOA

Today we received our LOA from the CCAA. Our agency over-nighted it to us and we signed it and over-nighted it back. Other forms and paperwork were sent with it that need to go various places. Our estimated window of when we get to (finally) go to China is around December 4th through January 6th.

We are unsure of how the American holidays may or may not affect our travel. We are desperate to bring her home by Christmas break!

Anyhow, everyone pray to your favorite deity that we get to travel closer to the December 4th part of that window than the January 6th part! We can't get her here soon enough: for her or for us!!

Travel Info, LOA

Today we received our LOA from the CCAA. Our agency over-nighted it to us and we signed it and over-nighted it back. Other forms and paperwork were sent with it that need to go various places. Our estimated window of when we get to (finally) go to China is around December 4th through January 6th.

We are unsure of how the American holidays may or may not affect our travel. We are desperate to bring her home by Christmas break!

Anyhow, everyone pray to your favorite deity that we get to travel closer to the December 4th part of that window than the January 6th part! We can't get her here soon enough: for her or for us!!

Wo Ai Ni Mommy PBS POV Documentary

This evening, Larry and I watched the PBS Point of View Documentary about a New York family who adopted an 8 year old from China. The video was stressful to watch. Our hearts were breaking for that child: she just wanted to be listened to and understood.

Larry and I will be discussing things from this video for a long time.

Wanting some closure or other information following the viewing, I saw the following facts posted on PBS's website.

In 2001, there were 1.5 million adopted children in the United States, representing 2.5 percent of all U.S. children.

The Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute's 1997 public opinion benchmark survey found that 58 percent of Americans know someone who has been adopted, has adopted a child or has relinquished a child for adoption.

Though U.S. citizens adopted nearly 13,000 children from 106 different countries in 2009, a little more than two-thirds of all children came from only five sending countries: China (23 percent), Ethiopia (18 percent), Russia (12 percent), South Korea (8 percent) and Guatemala (6 percent).

In 2006, the Chinese government proposed a new set of rules requiring that adoptive parents must meet certain educational and financial requirements, be married, be under 50, not be clinically obese, not have taken antidepressant or anti-anxiety medication in the previous two years and not have any facial deformities.

Domestically, the percentage of infants given up for adoption has declined from 9 percent of those born before 1973 to 1 percent of those born between 1996 and 2002.

Same-sex couples raising adopted children are older, more educated and have more economic resources than other adoptive parents. An estimated 65,500 adopted American children are living with a lesbian or gay parent.

Wo Ai Ni Mommy PBS POV Documentary

This evening, Larry and I watched the PBS Point of View Documentary about a New York family who adopted an 8 year old from China. The video was stressful to watch. Our hearts were breaking for that child: she just wanted to be listened to and understood.

Larry and I will be discussing things from this video for a long time.

Wanting some closure or other information following the viewing, I saw the following facts posted on PBS's website.

In 2001, there were 1.5 million adopted children in the United States, representing 2.5 percent of all U.S. children.

The Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute's 1997 public opinion benchmark survey found that 58 percent of Americans know someone who has been adopted, has adopted a child or has relinquished a child for adoption.

Though U.S. citizens adopted nearly 13,000 children from 106 different countries in 2009, a little more than two-thirds of all children came from only five sending countries: China (23 percent), Ethiopia (18 percent), Russia (12 percent), South Korea (8 percent) and Guatemala (6 percent).

In 2006, the Chinese government proposed a new set of rules requiring that adoptive parents must meet certain educational and financial requirements, be married, be under 50, not be clinically obese, not have taken antidepressant or anti-anxiety medication in the previous two years and not have any facial deformities.

Domestically, the percentage of infants given up for adoption has declined from 9 percent of those born before 1973 to 1 percent of those born between 1996 and 2002.

Same-sex couples raising adopted children are older, more educated and have more economic resources than other adoptive parents. An estimated 65,500 adopted American children are living with a lesbian or gay parent.

The beginning happened very fast

"We learn, not for school, but for life."

A little more than a year ago, full of spit and fire I decided to start a blog about eduction in America. I posted one entry, included one of my favorite quotes ("Our species needs, and deserves, a citizenry with minds wide awake and a basic understanding of how the world works."- Carl Sagan) and then I got distracted by another idea.

I decided that I did not feel the need to carry and give birth to a child, but that I wanted to raise a child. To educate a child (not home-school, but expose to many ideas and places in this world). My husband Larry and I spent 5 or 6 months researching all types of adoption. By January 2010, we decided to pursue a special needs adoption in China.

We were prepared to wait a year or two, save some more money, live it up as DINKs a while longer.

During the second week of July, while visiting my brother Jim in Virginia, Lar and I made a trip to the State Department and to the Chinese Embassy to finalize our dossier. Later that day, we missed a call from our agency, called back and left a message and figured if it was something important, they'd call back.

On July 18th, along with my Dad, Jim, and Steph (Jim's wife), Lar and I left for a week-long bicycle trip from Pittsburgh to Washington DC. On July 20th, our dossier arrived at our agency in Georgia. On July 21st, while eating pizza in a hotel room in Harper's Ferry, WV we got another call from our agency in Colorado wondering why we hadn't accepted the little girl with the cleft lip.

The rest of the evening is a blur of Dad, Jim, Steph, Lar and I passing around an ipod with her picture, calling doctors, and trying to keep the pizza down!

Could this big-eyed little girl be our daughter?

We were expecting a 2-year-old.

She was not quite 9-months.

In the two weeks since then, we accepted this child, CCAA "pre-approved" us, our dossier was sent for translation, and we began to buy baby furniture and rearrange our perfect, organized house!

The beginning happened very fast

"We learn, not for school, but for life."

A little more than a year ago, full of spit and fire I decided to start a blog about eduction in America. I posted one entry, included one of my favorite quotes ("Our species needs, and deserves, a citizenry with minds wide awake and a basic understanding of how the world works."- Carl Sagan) and then I got distracted by another idea.

I decided that I did not feel the need to carry and give birth to a child, but that I wanted to raise a child. To educate a child (not home-school, but expose to many ideas and places in this world). My husband Larry and I spent 5 or 6 months researching all types of adoption. By January 2010, we decided to pursue a special needs adoption in China.

We were prepared to wait a year or two, save some more money, live it up as DINKs a while longer.

During the second week of July, while visiting my brother Jim in Virginia, Lar and I made a trip to the State Department and to the Chinese Embassy to finalize our dossier. Later that day, we missed a call from our agency, called back and left a message and figured if it was something important, they'd call back.

On July 18th, along with my Dad, Jim, and Steph (Jim's wife), Lar and I left for a week-long bicycle trip from Pittsburgh to Washington DC. On July 20th, our dossier arrived at our agency in Georgia. On July 21st, while eating pizza in a hotel room in Harper's Ferry, WV we got another call from our agency in Colorado wondering why we hadn't accepted the little girl with the cleft lip.

The rest of the evening is a blur of Dad, Jim, Steph, Lar and I passing around an ipod with her picture, calling doctors, and trying to keep the pizza down!

Could this big-eyed little girl be our daughter?

We were expecting a 2-year-old.

She was not quite 9-months.

In the two weeks since then, we accepted this child, CCAA "pre-approved" us, our dossier was sent for translation, and we began to buy baby furniture and rearrange our perfect, organized house!