Chen Chronicles

Speaking for Aaron and myself, words do not even express how much it means to us that you would take a moment out of your day to pray for our court hearing to be this year so we can bring granny rose her grand daughter and bring our baby girl home. She might be two years old, but to us, she is our baby girl and ALWAYS will be....even though she's more of a toddler. We just want to get her home ASAP so we can bond with her, show her what individual LOVE is about and show her God's love. These are things we American children take for granted every day: being rocked to sleep, having mommy or daddy kiss your bobos, story time, bath time, time at the park, reading time at the library...all these things we can't WAIT to experience and teach her. We are getting an excellent age and for the most part she is in good health. But I am going to say that it took EVERY ounce of strength I had to leave her in Russia, come back and work on that 2nd dossier....which is on its way to Russia ...

Well, it does not guarantee us a hearing before the end of the year...but we sent our second dossier to BBAS today overnight and they should have it to get it to Vladivostok by November 4th! I'm am SO glad that it appears it is done, for now.  They tell us to expect that additional documents might be requested and that we should know soon.  Although, they know everything there is to know about us.  So, if you're considering an international adoption, be ready to reveal anything and everything!  I don't know what else they could possibly ask for, but this has been stressful.  I think BEING a parent will be easier than this paper chase.  We have a friend planning us an adoption shower on November 13th and we've already gotten a couple gifts!  :-)  We have Katie's car seat and a cute little umbrella stroller for her, though I really want a jogging stroller at some point.  Her room is now done, but has served as a storage place for clean laundry ...

If you're reading this and you have never completed an international adoption and/or dealt with USCIS, consider yourself blessed.  I am venting and this is the place where I do it...so this blog contains happy and sad moments.  I guess it's like real life.  So, we were promised that USCIS would have our I-171H amendment fed exed to us on the 20th, meaning that it should have gotten here by the the 21st (yesterday), and at the VERY latest today.  After it did not come today, I decided to check our their story.  I have two emails from USCIS stating that we'd have the document by today....one from a supervisor and one from a case officer.   So, after it did NOT come today, I called Federal Express and I had them do a search on recent shipments to and FROM us and basically check out account activity.  I guess USCIS thinks I am stupid because I verified that NOTHING has been initiated by USCIS through Fed Ex.  I don't know if they sent it regular ma...

I know this blog should really only pertain to all things adoption, but I have to write about this somewhere or I might really scream!  Does anyone else feel like they have it all together and then one things happens out of our ordinary patterns and we kind of freak out?  Well, that is what happened tonight.  I had been talking to my maternal grandmother (who basically raised me, as my mom was a teen mother and with my brother's health problems, she had to take care of him mostly!   Anyway, this wonderful grandmother of mine had what she thought was a stomach virus all this week.  She got SO dehydrated that my grandfather had to force her to go to the emergency room this evening.  Well, she is a type II Diabetic and that makes things worse for her also.  He basically had to drag/carry her to get her there.  She had some blood work taken and the ER doctor sent her home with medication to treat her pyelonephritis (kidney infection) and she wil...

At this point, I feel honestly like we could be experts on what NOT to do on dossier documents.  Wow, it seems like we have had every hurdle thrown at us, but it seems to be calming down now and maybe we can breathe easy for a little while.  When friends told us it was going to be like an emotional and frustrating rollercoaster ride, I believed them.  But I guess I never realized (figuratively speaking), that we would cross over one loop only to be stranded at the top with several documents.  I think I could write a manual for military parents to be who are adopting internationally.  We've had to have our physicians complete our documentation three separate times because they either put ditto marks or arrows somewhere on it or unnecessary information.  And, oh, don't EVEN get me started on the whole how do we get the licenses on our medical providers.  That took an act of the Hospital Legal Department and they STILL would not release them.  So, ap...

Dear Katie, Today (well, 10/10/2010) is your second birthday (but it is technically already 10/10/2010 in Vladivostok)!  We wish we were spending it with you and though it has only been a week since we last held you in our arms, it seems like forever since we've been gone.  We're working feverishly on paperwork that WE can complete for dossier #2 and just praying we get our court date before the end of the year.  There is SOME comfort in knowing you're in a decent orphanage, but we just can't wait to bring you home and relish all the attention in the world on you.  So, our promise to you: Gotcha Day and your third birthday will be a HUGE bash!!!!  Don't forget how much your whole family, other than us...Mommy & Daddy....love you!  We'll be back as soon as we can to bring you home to your forever family.  Happy Second Birthday, Princess!

So, this week has been a hard week and I would even say that it has been harder than actually being a parent to our little one when we actually get her home!!!  It seems like the Devil has been trying to put up EVERY possible road block to our adoption.  First, we did our fingerprints that are "rolled," and it seems pretty straightforward, right?  Not exactly!  I had to go BACK to the Greene County Sheriff's department to have them add the city and state of the Place of Birth .  It is SO hard to make sure every t is dotted and every "i" is dotted!!! This is frustration to the max.  OK, so this seems it MIGHT be fixed.  Our most frustrations have been getting the medical forms completed and the necessary laboratory work done for our dossier (which, by the way, is ONLY good for three months).  After a four hour "sit-in," I finally got a result and we were told that they WILL have our paperwork to us for my medical by next Thursday, the 14th....

Enjoy this video~!!  She loves music!!!  

So, we had limited bandwidth while in Vladivostok.  So, I get to post video(s) since we're home.  Now, we have to move as fast as possible to get our dossier #2 submitted so that we can get a court date before the end of the year.  Our trip was wonderful, but the jet lag is catching up with us both!!  Our world has basically turned upside down with two ten hour flights back to back and a 15 hour time difference between here and Vladivostok.  We stayed in NYC Sunday night near the JFK airport and basically "fell" into bed out of sheer exhaustion.  We used Aaron's Marriott points and the room was SO much cheaper.  Thank God for those points!!!  Over the next few days, we will be posting more.  :-)      Katie's First words to us...Mama and Papa (Listen closely) 

Today, we spent about an hour and a half with Katie and it was late when we got to the orphanage because our coordinator had court today with another family.  She wasn't in the greatest of moods when we first arrived, but Aaron and I were able to calm her.  I did the calming part and Aaron is just the BIG kid and made her laugh so much!  At first she wouldn't even go to him until he started to play the piano with her.  She really, really loves music and when we get home we will post video of her singing with her daddy.  So, just hang on a couple months little Princess Katie and mommy & daddy will be back to take you home to your forever family! Her smile is contagious! That smile makes me melt everytime and especially when she reaches out her little hand for Mommy!!! Mom's the comforter and daddy's the BIG kid!!! She also LOVES being thrown in the air and played with a lot!!! Katie LOVES music!!!  She was singing with daddy here. ...