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Godspeed Home Study July 8, 2008
Our home study is done. Yes, we got a copy of it last week and read the entire document cover to cover and it was a winner. No mistakes, not even little ones. We had been warned by other adoptive parents to read through the home study with a fine tooth comb because social workers were known for making glaring mistakes. One woman even told of how her social worker didn’t even get the husband’s name correct in the home study. Ours was great though.
From here, our home study must embark on a journey of sorts. It will be signed by our social worker and the director of the Korea program at Lifelink. From there, it is sent to DCFS in Illinois where it waits for approval from a state level and a letter of approval with some sort of official seal / stamp. We were told that approval takes somewhere between 2 – 4 weeks, but from the boards it sounds like it is taking people 6 – 8 weeks to get approval from DCFS.
Once the state of Illinois gives us the green light, we send our home study on to the United States Citizenship and Immigration office and they send it to the US Department of Homeland Security. Homeland Security will then review it and send us each individual appointments to get fingerprinted (yes again) and pass (yet another) FBI clearance. Once we are deemed to be upstanding citizens, we will get our coveted I-171H form.
Oh how I long for the day when I can twirl around my living room holding my I-171H form close to my heart.
Once the I-171H form finds its way home to us, we truly just wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and for the phone to ring with news of our referral. Then a whole new round of paperwork fun begins.
Tire Swings and Picnics June 20, 2008
He saw the tire swing. Life will never be the same.
The highlight of the first week of summer for me revolved around a tire swing at one of our local parks. Wilson and I decided to take a walk to enjoy the gorgeous weather we have been given this past week. We mosied all over the neighborhood and eventually made our way to Green Park. This park was given its name because the jungle gym, swings and other play equipment is all a dark green color (I am pretty sure Wilson is the only kid who calls it Green Park – it does have a real name, I just don’t know what it is.) We don’t often get to visit Green Park as it is a little farther from our house than our regular Choo-Choo Park.
On this particular day, Wilson noticed children playing with a tire swing. They were having a great time and the second the children left the tire swing, my boy decided that he wanted to try it too. I lifted him up on the tire and he decided there and then that he never wanted to get down. The only way to convince him to get off the tire and head home was to promise him that we would come back – that night as soon as Tom got home from work.
Wilson and I decided that we would have a picnic dinner at the park and he could show Tom the tire swing. We headed to the grocery store and bought rotisserie chicken with a few sides and came home and packed our basket (laundry basket that is – we are not fancy at our house). Tom got home and the three of us headed to the park together. We ate dinner on a few huge beach towels and then played on the tire swing for about half an hour. It was so much fun and so special for Wilson. He loved his picnic dinner and now requests every meal to be eaten on a beach towel at Green Park.
Daddy, I wuv you. June 20, 2008
It’s one of the best things ever.
Our three-and-a-half-year-old son likes to have me sit next to him in the back seat of the car, and I’m happy to do it. This weekend, we were headed somewhere and I was riding in the back with him. He asked me if he could hold my hand, so I reached over and he promptly intertwined his fingers with mine. It was not unusual for him for him to do that.
“Daddy, I wuv you.”
That was out of the blue. It made me feel warm and fuzzy, and it was the best moment of my week.
The Loveliest Days June 19, 2008
For those of you who have been out of school or are not lucky enough to be in the field of education, try to think back to the anticipation of summer vacation when you were a child.
There is nothing like summer vacation. The feeling of freedom from work / school for two months is incredible. I love it. There is so much anticipation that builds at the end of the school year. I am pretty sure our staff summer vacation countdown began the morning we all returned from spring vacation with weekly email reminders of how many days we had to go since those cold March days. 55 days still meant we had a good 3 months of school left. When there were 30 days of school left, you could almost let yourself believe that carefree summer days were going to get here. When there were 19 days of school left, well heck we were in the teens! At 10 days of school left, was there really any point to going to school anymore? At 5 days, I had to put together the annual fifth grade picture montage and while it was a little sad to see our 5th grade class get ready to embark on middle school (especially when I could clearly remember this group of children when they came through 6 years earlier for kindergarten round-up), but I could say things like, “This is the last Monday of the school year. One week from today, I will be wearing my flip flops!” Then 4, 3, 2, and 1 day until summer vacation. Then it is here. Summer vacation finds me every year.
Since Wilson was born, I have felt the need to make summer vacation especially meaningful and memorable. This is the only stretch of time when he truly gets my undivided attention. There is no competition with work deadlines, emails, meetings or lesson planning. I have to make summer count mostly so I don’t feel so guilty when September rolls around once again. Last year, I kept a journal of all 80 days of summer vacation. I wrote about one special moment that we shared each day. Sometimes it was an observation I had made of him or something funny he said. Other days I would detail a laundry list of everything the two of us did together. When I read my journal now, I can vividly remember the particular moments I wrote about.
I love that I had the discipline to keep that journal last summer.
We have officially been on summer vacation for 6 days as of today. I have to admit that I have not started a summer journal for 2008 and I am not sure that I will keep one this year. Maybe this year I will keep a weekly journal and chronicle the ten weeks that will fly by as if they were merely 10 days. Perhaps I will use our new blog as my online weekly journal for our summertime events. Hmmm… You’ll have to check back tomorrow when the official one week of summer has hit and see what week 1’s highlights have been. Perhaps I will even figure out how to post a picture by tomorrow as well. Probably not, but perhaps.
Home Study – Visit 5 – The LAST One! June 13, 2008
We’re back! Sorry I have let the blog go for so long, but really life was just not that exciting so you didn’t miss out on too much. Well, life was not that exciting until this week that is. This week, Tom had his final and is now finished with school for the next three months, my school was let out for summer on Thursday and we had our LAST home study meeting this morning!
We had our home study visit this morning and Tom took the rest of the day off so we could have a family day together. The home study visit was so much easier than I had imagined it would be. I had this vision that the entire house had to be spotless, including every closet and under every bed. I spent the last week cleaning and organizing the house. I hired a maid service to come in yesterday and touch everything up. Our social worker was so relaxed though, she didn’t open our closets or crouch down to inspect under the beds. I must say though that I am glad I was so obsessive in preparing though because it is really nice to have such a clean house.
It feels so good to be done with our home study meetings. At this point, our social worker will write up the home study and send it to DCFS to get approval. That will take 5-6 weeks to get done. Once the home study is approved, we will be sending it on the USCIS (US Immigration office) to get approval at a federal level. I’ll go through that more later though, we need to get through DCFS first.
Our family day was so nice. After our social worker left the house, we walked to the Children’s Fair that our city holds every year on the last day of school. We had a great time together. Wilson got cotton candy, rode on a few rides and played some games. Of course the favorite “game” was the Candy Castle – this is a cut-out of a gingerbread house that the kids walk through and find a big kiddie pool filled with candy at the end. They get to take a dixie cup and fill it with as much candy as they can. We tried this last year and Wilson didn’t really understand what he was supposed to do, but this year he is a Candy Castle pro. I’m confident he could be a team captain.
The Children’s Fair continues through tomorrow so I am sure we will be back there for another giant stick of cotton candy and maybe even a snowcone. Don’t you just love summer?
Meetings and Checklists May 24, 2008
Wednesday was a big day in our adoption world. We had our fourth home study meeting at our agency. This was a meeting that both Tom and I had to attend together. We discussed our marriage and our views on parenting. The next meeting will be in mid-June at our house and that meeting will complete our home study meetings. After that, we just have to rely on government agencies to help us move things forward.
On Wednesday, we also had a meeting with a doctor from the International Adoption Clinic (IAC) at The University of Chicago. The doctor helped us go over the medical checklist that our agency asked us to fill out. To anyone pursuing an international adoption (IA), I could not recommend talking with an pediatrcian who specializes in IA more. He went over every diagnosis on the list and told us exactly what ramifications the diagnosis could have on quality of life, cognitive development, physical development and emotional development. We feel so much more confident in filling out the checklist now that we have spoken to an IA professional. If we had not spoken to him, we would have been relying on Google (which I did try before making our appointment) for our medical information and we would have been very misled in many of the cases.
Sniff Sniff Sniff & Home Study Update May 16, 2008
Allergy season is back with a vengence. I never had outdoor allergies as a child, but for the last few years I am a miserable mess from the first bud to the first snowfall. I knew I was tempting fate by not starting my allergy medication the second I saw the color green appear and I am paying for it now. I have spent the last day and a half in a haze with an incredibly stuff nose and watery eyes. I finally started my 2 medications back up last night and I am praying that when I wake up tomorrow I will be able to breathe through my nose.
On the Adoption Front:
After 24 days, our agency updated their tracking list and I was excited to see another pink referral come through in April. That made 2 pink referrals in 2 weeks! That should make up for the 65 days of no pink referrals.
We have our next home study meeting at our agency’s office on Wednesday. It will be the final meeting that we have to drive to Bensenville for (until we get our referral, that is). We also meet with the pediatrician from the International Adoption Clinic at the University of Chicago next Wednesday. We will be going over the medical checklist we have to fill out for Eastern Social Welfare Society (the adoption agency we will be going through in South Korea). The checklist has a list of diagnosis and a place to check yes or no for each diagnosis. Since I got my medical degree via Google, we thought it would be best to consult an actual doctor so we could make an educated decision as to what we can comfortably handle.
Happy Mother’s Day 2008 May 11, 2008
Happy Mother’s Day to everyone. I am actually writing this post from the comfort of my own bed. It is 8:42 in the morning and nobody has come to get me up yet. They have no idea I am already awake (and have been for at least an hour). It is so nice to just sit in bed and relax. Later today, we will be joining family for dinner, but for now I will enjoy the peace and quiet of my morning.
Of course, on this Mother’s Day, I can’t help but let my mind think about next Mother’s Day – Will I be celebrating with 2 children instead of 1? I realize that is doubtful due to the current waiting times in Korea, but it is fun to think about.
Happy Mother’s Day!
Sad News May 10, 2008
We just got word that Tom’s grandpa died tonight. We are very sad. He was quite ill and we knew that this was coming. We are so grateful that he got to meet our son.
