christofu.net

The Pictures

Part of the adoption dossier is nine pictures of you and your spouse (if you are a couple) together. This was not an easy task. 1) We're both a little vain (you're not going to submit that picture) 2) Most of the pictures we have are "group pics," i.e. pics with our friends. 3) Usually one of us was holding the camera with the pictures we had, so "couple" pictures were few and far between. Here's two that made the cut:

What can you tell from these pics? 1) We're nutty dog people (yes, we did make a veil for the dog at our wedding) 2) The kayak picture must be from the beginning of the trip, because we're still both smiling (think cold, rough bay water, a two-person kayak, and one hyper-competitive spouse)

A family weekend

The rainy weather was no matter. My father- and brother-in-law came into town for an albeit too short visit. Blake is headed for Iraq in several weeks so this was a last visit to see us before he deploys. We got on instant messenger with his twin sister, Katie, who is living in Spain for a semester, asking them to be godparents (they agreed).

Take good care Blake. We have a godchild that will be waiting to see her uncle when he gets back.

The Great Paperchase

Our adoption process was/is split between two organizations, ACCEPT, which handles our homestudy visits, reports, etc. and USAA, which translates our documents, interfaces with the Chinese government, and accompanies us to pick up our child in China.

There is a fair amount of paperwork and background checks which I find quite reassuring, and therefore don't really mind. However, it does take a little organization and planning.

An example: we got fingerprints which were sent to the State Department for clearance, got a written clearance from our local police department, and got fingerprinted again for the INS (now USCIS). Requires planning? Yes. Difficult? No.

And now for something completely different

Just had to pop in this non-sequitor....

My friend Frank has been staying with us. In addition to being a great friend, he's also a hell of a cook and I've been doing my best to glean a little knowledge from him (i.e. we did a two hour trip to Ranch 99 for a little grocery education).

We didn't have much success the first night trying out the Vietnamese delicacy, Banh Xeo, but by this afternoon we were getting close. By the way, the stuff goes down well with a good India Pale Ale.

Out of the frying pan

We started our home study and application process at the end of last May. SARS was on everyone's mind at the time. A couple of adoption group's travel plans got delayed. The local Channel 7 news was interested in doing a story on how SARS was affecting people's decisions on adopting from China (obviously, it wasn't affecting our decision at all).

Our social worker asked if we would be interested in commenting for them. We agreed thinking that they would ring is in a few weeks. Laura Marquez, a local news reporter, rang up that night and asked us what we were doing the following day. As it turned out, we were planning on meeting our social worker for our first home study visit (no pressure at all). So we did some TV commentary, and then spent time with our social worker discussing all things important to raising children.

Choosing an agency

We officially started the process last summer by choosing an agency to do our home study. There are many excellent agencies from which to choose. Like many of the decisions around adoption, it's quite subjective and what's right for one person or couple may not be right for another. We chose ACCEPT after an initial interview. We really felt comfortable with the person we met, both in his competence in the process as well as for his understanding of the importance of this very personal decision.

The Process begins

With a few mortgage payments under our belt, we started to move on to the "family" process. It's funny... no amount of spreadsheet budgeting makes you comfortable until you actually make the payments and realize that you do make enough money for the loan(s), property taxes, maintenance, blah, blah, blah. You also realize that the days of quitting your job, pulling up stakes and traveling the world for 6 months are a thing of the past (welcome to being a grown-up).

We had done a fair amount of research on adoption the previous summer. Christi & I knew that we would only focus on international adoption. Adoption was a first choice for us, and the needs of parentless children overseas seemed obvious. However, before I start receiving flaming emails, let me state that the decision to adopt and where to adopt is very personal with many factors involved. Domestic adoption and the sometimes tangled legal issues that ensue was just something that we were not willing to undertake.

Focusing on adopting from China came pretty quickly. We attended an open house meeting on international adoption that discussed the process for adopting from Latin America, former Eastern Bloc states, and several countries in Asia, including China. Living in Northern California, especially in southern Marin County, it is not uncommon to see Asian children with Caucasian parents. Other factors in our decision: we have friends whose children were from China, I had lived in Taiwan briefly and (still) speak pretty atrocious Mandarin. We also felt we understood Chinese culture better than the other countries we were considering.

We're married, now what?

Pre-marriage, Christi & I were not known for long-range planning. As a matter of fact, any plan beyond a month was pretty much "out of scope."

Post-marriage, we initially found ourselves struggling with this. Broad-brushed five-year goals seemed a little too intangible, so we broke it into tasks.... buying a home (at the time we lived in a great log cabin in the redwoods, but our landlord wouldn't part with it) and starting a family were the ones most important to us.

A year later we accomplished the home goal, staying in cozy Mill Valley. A smallish home, but on almost a half an acre and facing national recreation area. Family comes next.

It started before we were married

It was a casual conversation. Knowing that our relationship was moving in a more "permanent" direction, the talk of children crept up. We discovered that both of us were interested in adoption. At the time, it seemed somewhat pragmatic as well. We were in our mid-30s, probably wanted to start a family sooner than later, and who knew whether natural children would come quickly, or at all. However, the more serious discussions were still a couple of years off.

So it might as well start here

Life is about to radically change...

Within the next three months, I will find myself on a plane, traveling to China to pick up our child. I'm elated and nervous at the same time. How did this all start?