Let There Be Light!

Here is a sneak preview of some work that was done on the house this week!  The one side of our house that makes up the outside walls for the formal living room and dining room was completely windowless.  Although Cody was skeptical about adding a window to the formal living room since he didn't think we would be spending a lot of time in the room anyway, I managed to convince him.  After it was done, Cody admitted that it was the best decision and we both are so excited about our new window!  It was actually completed in one day.  As of right now: roof finished, windows finished and the siding is being done as I write this!

Before Picture

New paint and here comes the new window!

Ta-dah!!  Our awesome new window!

On the move!

Wow, what a crazy month!  We closed on our new house on March 12th, a tad more than one month after we put in an offer, so it may have been the quickest short sale ever, ha.  Right after closing that day we picked Auden up from daycare, drove out to the house where Cody proceeded to rip up every carpet in all five bedrooms and life has been in overdrive ever since!

The last two weeks of March were all about getting the townhouse ready for sale.  We got rid of more than half our stuff (stored it in the basement of  new house) and painted practically the entire townhouse.  Then came in the professional staging company that gave it the finishing touches.  The hard work paid off, we had over 20 showings in 48 hours and 150 people through the open house!  The end result was a bidding war which landed us a contract for well above our asking price!  We are excited for closing on the 27th.

Here are some pics of the townhouse staged:

                                                        Newly painted white cabinets

                                      No, that is definitely not our bedding or pictures on the wall

We are planning to move completely into the new house by the second week of May.  Cody has been working tirelessly with the all the contractors and is getting a tad frustrated because he thought we would be a bit further along in the renovations by now.  But isn't that usually how it goes?  We have already done a couple big things like refinish all the existing hardwood floors and installed new hardwood in the family room which didn't have it.  The new railings for the stairwell are on their way as well.  Cody's parents were a big help in power washing the deck and pulling out all the dead huge bushes in front of the house.  So, what still needs to be done?
- Exterior: windows, roof, siding, shutters, front door, garage door, paint the brick, gutters, new fixtures
- Interior: all new interior doors, crown molding in one room, recessed lighting, paint throughout, fixtures
I know Cody is going to look at this list and say I left off about 20 things too, ha.  Daunting, you bet.  Cody is overseeing all the renovations on the new house and doing a great job despite how stressful it is right now.  All his hard work will be worth it once when we see our amazing house in the end!

I'm sorry if you all are anxious to see pictures but we really want to wait until we can show before and after pictures...so you will have to wait a couple more weeks!  However, here are some pictures of the primary reason why we bought the place- the land.  It sits on a cul-de-sac and is the biggest lot in the neighborhood.  It is a walk out basement, then a pretty drastic hill that flattens out at the bottom.  Next to us is woods that are parkland owned by the county.  About 50 feet into the woods is a creek, which Auden can spend hours throwing rocks into.  The bike path that Cody will take to work runs behind the neighborhood.  As for the neighborhood- we've already been to a potluck dinner that rotates around the neighborhood, there was a neighborhood Easter egg hunt, there is a "community" trampoline, and every weekend someone else invites us into their house to check out all their updates and renovations so we can get ideas.  Did we hit the jackpot or is this what all suburban neighborhoods are still like in 2012?

                                                                               View from our deck

                                                                    Creek in the woods

            Our friends gave us this awesome swing set that they weren't using!  Thanks Peter and Patty!

Auden loves going to the new house, he has lots of girlfriends that he already knows by name and repeatedly says "shoes off! shoes off! trampoline!" when he wants to go on the neighbor's trampoline which is like every second.

Stay tuned for more pictures!

A little good news to share

I have two little pieces of good news from the Korea program to update everyone on.  First, the Korean government has finally decided to start issuing emigration permits again after a two month hiatus.  So this means that shortly they will be allowing the first babies of 2012 to leave the country with their adoptive parents.  Hopefully, this continues to flow throughout the year and no more long breaks are taken since this causes travel wait times to increase down the line for everyone in the program.  Secondly, I confirmed two weeks ago that we are now #5 on the girl wait list.  We moved up three more spots from my last adoption update due to, once again, three families switching to boys ahead of us.  So, hopefully the girl referrals will start coming in soon because there are only four families ahead of us.  Feels so close, yet so far away!!!

In other news, we met with the domestic private adoption attorney two weeks ago.  It was very informative and a bit overwhelming as he basically told us everything we need to know about how to do a private adoption in the U.S.  We decided that if we were to pursue domestic adoption, this is the route we would likely take rather than signing with an agency.  We just like the idea of not limiting ourselves to birth moms at a particular agency, rather be able to market ourselves on adoption websites nationwide and have hundreds of birth moms be able to choose us.  It is a lot more work since you are basically finding the birth mom yourself, but we like how we will be in the driver's seat, rather than an agency having complete control.  With all that said, we are not ready to embark on this journey until we see how the Korea program pans out for the rest of 2012. 

Happy 2nd Birthday Auden!

 In keeping with the tradition of writing Auden a letter on his birthday every year, below is his 2nd birthday letter that has been a work in progress since his birthday on the 12th of February.  

Dear Auden,

Happy 2nd Birthday little monkey!  What a big boy you are now!  You were born smaller than the size of a football and now you hold it high above your head!



2 months old (due date, approx. 6lbs) 



This year we had a small birthday celebration with mostly family, because let’s face it, we will probably never be able to get away with doing that again!  In honor of our airplane theme, we went to the air and space museum in the morning which you (and your cousin Reegan) loved running around, had a neat birthday cake with an airplane on it, and Grammy and Grandpa got you a cool toy airplane that you love flying around the house.  Here are some pictures of your special day:

I can’t believe how much your little personality has been changing lately.  You have become very attached (dare I say-clingy) to mommy and daddy (especially mommy) in the past two months. You frequently want to be picked up and carried these days...which we really don't mind:-)  You are still very good when it comes to sharing and are almost a pushover when other kids take something from you, you just move on to something else (which they then usually take from you too, ha).  Right now your “big issue” is patience, or lack thereof!  When you decide you are thirsty, we can’t get the water or milk out of the fridge fast enough for you.  When mommy says you can pick out a book after you get your pajamas on, you are not a happy camper.  And your teacher says trying to get you to put on your jacket before you go outside is no easy feat- you just don’t want to bother with it!  Oh yes, I should mention that in the last three months you decided you hate getting your haircut.  After mommy had a mortifying experience at the barber shop and you left with half a hair cut, we have since resorted to daddy cutting your hair at home!  It still is not pleasant, but at least it is in the privacy of our own home.  And we have to give daddy credit, he is doing a pretty good job!

So, what do you have to say lately?  Everything!  When you are around the house with mommy and daddy, we call you our little parrot because you repeat everything we say.  We can’t keep track of how many words you have anymore, I would guess over 200 by now.  Everyday you try to put more and more words together.  It is so fun that we can actually have a “conversation” with you now!  You point at something you want and you say “I want it please,” you point at the front door and say “go outside, park?,” you go to the basement stairs and say “down, purple choo choo train,” during our bedtime routine you always say "more books please" in efforts to stall and in the car you always point out the “yellow school bus” and say “see big crane” when we drive by the construction site every morning.  Your newest discovery is sizes, everything is “daddy size,” “mommy size,” or “baby size.”  Whether it be the different size mustards we have in the house or the dinosaurs in a book...it's so cute!

You are getting pretty good with colors, you can say them all but still confuse red and green (crossing our fingers you aren't colorblind, ha).  You can say and identify the majority of the letters of the alphabet now and currently we are working on singing the alphabet song.  With your birthday came the love for the number “2,” but other than that, your interest in numbers isn’t quite there yet.  Your teachers still can’t believe how much you sing all day long and insist you are going to be a very musical person (which makes daddy and I laugh since we are not at all).  Most importantly, you have been learning very good manners and we are so proud of how you remember to say “please” and “thank you” the majority of the time.  You even say “thank you” when you give people stuff, which we aren't quite sure how to correct, ha.  You are definitely a typical boy, you LOVE trucks, tractors and planes!  You have been working hard at saying “motorcycle,” “helicopter,” and “excavator” for months and I think you are at the point now where someone else (besides mommy and daddy) can understand it!  You love running around outdoors more than ever...mommy and daddy are working hard to give you a wonderful BIG backyard very soon as we are currently under contract on a new house!

In other news, you have been off of the medication prevacid for three weeks now and doing great!  We have tried to get rid of it in the past without success so we are thrilled right now that no reflux signs have crept back yet.  We couldn’t be happier that you are down to only one medication now (heart meds) and hopefully that will be gone in the next year too.  We are thrilled about how well you have been eating lately.  You have never been much of a breakfast or snack kid, but you have nice big lunches and dinners.  You ask for “tots!” almost every day but you also like meatballs, turkey meatloaf, breaded fish fillets, ravioli and chicken dogs/hotdogs.  You have always loved fruit, veggies and yogurt so that makes us parents happy for sure!  At your 2 year well visit with the pediatrician you weighed in at the 25th percentile where you have been since 9 months old, so it looks like you are probably just meant to be a skinner than average kid, nothing wrong with that!  You did fall from the 75th percentile in height to about the 60th percentile, but let’s be honest, it was only a matter of time with these genes!

Auden, we are so very proud of you and are nothing short of amazed at how far you have come in these 2 years.  I'm sure that as you grow up you are going to get sick of hearing how you were a preemie and about your rough start into this world.  But you see, when a mommy spends the first 47 days of her baby's life sitting at his bedside in the hospital, watching her son turn blue in her arms countless times when he “forgets to breathe” it's impossible to forget.  It makes everything you do, that much more special in your daddy and my eyes.  We can’t believe what a strong and healthy little boy you have grown into, we feel blessed beyond reason.  Happy Birthday sweet Auden angel! 

Embracing Confusion?

     If I could sum up where we are in the adoption right now, I would say- confused. 

        January started off promising when we moved up 3 spaces in the Korea girl line due to 3 families switching to boys.  This brought us to #8 on the waiting list.  This sounds promising considering we started at #21 in July, but unfortunately it is anything but.  You see, with the new year came more disappointing news regarding the program…that there are going to be a lot less referrals (children to be matched) this year due to the government lowering the quota of kids to be adopted internationally every year .  The government is only suppose to decrease the quota by 10% every year but for some reason the impact seems to feel a lot greater.  So, where we stand right now- we could be matched with a Korean boy immediately because our agency has no families waiting for a boy right now.  And if we choose to wait for a girl, the director is still hopeful that we will be matched by July.  But I’m not holding my breath on that statement.  

       Unfortunately, waiting for a girl referral is not the only problem with the Korea program.  There are two other major issues- the yearly quota of number of kids that can leave the country creates a backlog that is causing travel times to grow and grow.  Right now they estimate it will take 18 months to go your child from the time you are matched with them.  That is 18+ months watching your child grow up on the other side of the world with a foster family.  To make matters worse, every time a politician questions an aspect of the adoption process (typically post-adoption procedure), they freeze all granting of visas indefinitely.  Right now they are in one of those freezes.  People who thought they were going to travel to go get their child this month are just sitting and waiting for things to resume.  This, as you can imagine, just makes the travel times even longer for everyone else as well.   It is easy to see that things are stacked against us with this program, yet it is so hard to walk away from it.  My biggest frustration is knowing that if we started this process a year earlier than we did (not that we could have), we would likely have our baby girl by now and if we started the process a year later, no way in hell would we have ever chosen this program.  We just went into it at the worst time where things were just starting to slow a little but they had no idea how everything would play out.

        So what happened to China?  Despite our original excitement about the program, the more we think about pulling the trigger (putting $$ into it) the more apprehensive we are about it.   I think we would feel a lot more comfortable if we were adopting a child 2-3 years old and could see pictures, videos, reports about them walking, talking, etc.  But due to Auden’s age they would match us with a baby around 12-15 months old (and we want to go in birth order as well).  Babies that are institutionalized all have development delays.  It is not uncommon for a 12 month old to barely be sitting up on her own yet and a 24 month old to just be learning how to walk.  This is understandable when the vast majority of babies in China spend most of their day in orphanage cribs.  So, when you are dealing with accepting a child with a special need, in our case a minor/repaired heart condition, it would make us feel better to see that the child is in good enough health to be walking, talking, etc.  If we are matched with a baby under 15 months, we will not get this reassurance by pictures/videos/reports.  And unfortunately we hear that sometimes medical profiles are less than accurate or something gets lost in translation.  I do think it is an amazing program, but I can’t help but think we (and when I say we, I mean Cody more than I) would be more comfortable adopting an older toddler with likely a repaired heart issue where we can better assess their general health and development delays.  So, maybe our third child will be from China?  Or who knows, maybe we will find ourselves still without a second child in two years and we will pursue it then since we won’t be restricted to babies?  Or maybe we will just take a leap of faith and just do it now?  This is where the confusion comes in.   

         Additionally, we recently received information about another couple (friend of a friend) in our area that was successful with quick private domestic adoption.  Cody has an acquaintance that also did this type of adoption fairly quickly as well.  When I say private domestic adoption, I mean “Juno” style.  Just like in the movie, you advertise yourself to find a birth mother, no third party agency to assist.  There are several reasons why a couple may choose this route instead of going with an agency.  I’m not going to go into them now though.  Hearing the latest couple’s story, intrigued us enough to set up a consultation with their adoption attorney who knows everything there is to know about private domestic adoption.  I’m not sure where it is going to lead us, but at this point Cody and I are just trying to cover all our bases and gain more information. 

          Now can you see how confused we are?  

         But I am learning from it.  I am learning to let go of any control I thought I had over this process.  I am learning to accept the fact that it may be years before we meet our next child.  I am learning to be okay with the idea that Auden may be 4 years older than his sibling.  Because honestly, in the grand scheme of things, none of this matters.  We will eventually succeed in adopting a child- and that child will be meant for us and we will be meant for that child.  

Happy Holidays and Updates!

Happy Holidays!  Well, this update is a month late…what can I say, life has been busy!  But the month of November brought an exciting update in the world of Auden that is definitely worth sharing.  We had an appointment with the development specialist that he sees every three months who performs an evaluation on his development and skills.  With Auden’s recent speech explosion, I knew it was going to be a good appointment, so I insisted Cody go with me for the first time.  Cody enjoyed going, although he likened it to watching your child take the SATs (nervous for them and wanting them to prove what they are capable of, ha).  As I thought, the specialist was absolutely thrilled with the huge speech difference between his last appointment and this one.  His last appointment was just before he turned 18 months and he only had 3-5 words.  At this appointment, just three months later, Auden had more than 50 words which put him on target with his actual age, an average 21 month old!  Absolutely amazing what three months can do.  Since he is no longer delayed in speech, he is officially caught up in every developmental area.  Some fine motor skills Auden exhibited even tested well above his actual age.  We are still going to go to the specialist for regular check-ups, but hopefully from here on out, we will no longer hear the word “delayed" when it comes to our little guy.  In light of these developments we have decided to cut his speech therapy back to monthly visits (instead of bi-weekly).  We had the choice of stopping therapy all together but we decided it’s probably best to keep him in the Early Intervention program for a little while longer, rather than have to start up services again if there is an issue in the not to distant future.

So what does Auden have to say?  Now at 22 months old he has more than 75 words (speech therapist makes me write them in a notebook, ha), adding new words everyday and he is beginning to say some phrases.   His phrases include: anything with “hi” and “bye” like “hi momma,” and “bye truck,” words in combination with “go,” like “go truck,” he also says “I got you!” when we play chase around the house, and just recently I’ve been getting him to say “yes please” instead of just “yes."  He is also starting to say some names in the last month which is really fun.  Looking at pictures around the house, he now identifies mommy’s dear friends “aimee” and “linsdey” (“insey”), he can say his friends’ names “jack” and “shane,” but most importantly in the last 2 weeks he has learned his own name and loves to run around the house with pictures of himself yelling “Auden”!  Much to our surprise, he has picked up letters really quickly.  I bought the foam bath letters thinking he would just like to stick them to the tub but he rapidly started remembering what I was calling each letter!  He can identify over half the alphabet and can say almost 15 letters.  The cutest things he is saying right now that make us laugh are “cock a doodle do” (sounds like cock-a-do) for a rooster sound, "up-sa-daisies" every time he wants us to pick him up and he says the word “avocado” with the best Spanish accent you’ve ever heard!  The sweetest thing is definitely his made-up song he sings at least once a day that sounds exactly like “I love mamma, I love dada, I love mamma, I love dada, hmm-hmmm-hmmmm.”  He “sings” all the time and will definitely catch us off guard when he all of a sudden belts out the real words instead of just his made up words! 

We had another check-up in the month of November for Auden as well.  This was an appointment with his cardiologist (who we usually just touch base with over the phone to discuss Auden’s current weight so he can then adjust his heart medication accordingly).  We thought it was time for a discussion on how much longer Auden should be on his medication (called Digoxin).  As of now, it’s been 15 months since his last SVT episode (extremely rapid heart beat that typically needs intervention to stop).  So, what does that mean?  There are several options: 1) He has grown out of the condition permanently, 2) He temporarily has grown out of the condition but it may come back during adolescence like it frequently does, or 3) He still very much has the condition but Digoxin is doing a great job of keeping under control.  Of course, we will never know if he has grown out of the condition unless we take him off Digoxin but Cody and I told the doctor we don’t feel comfortable taking him off quite yet.  His cardiologist said it is completely our choice and he sees no problem with keeping him on it for six more months and checking in again with him.  We decided if I was a stay-at-home mom, it would be different and we definitely would take him off the medication because I would be able to check his heart frequently with a stethoscope and be able to identify any issues quickly.  However, with him at daycare 4 days a week, we are just not comfortable taking him off of it yet.  Once he can verbalize that he doesn't feel right, the medication becomes a lot less important...so hopefully as he gets a little older we will feel better about discontinuing the medication.  Worst case scenario, Auden still has the condition and when he is old enough (age 6 or up) he will be able to get the ablation surgery to correct it (fairly minor surgery).  Cody and I partly just want him to get the ablation surgery anyway because it will not be fun just waiting and wondering if it is going to come back in adolescence at any given moment.  However, he would have to have a few more SVT episodes to qualify for the surgery (which obviously we do not wish for).    So, that is that for now.  In the meantime, we will count our blessings that he either 1) has grown out of the condition for now or 2) that his body responds to this medication so well. 

Here are some recent pictures of our little man…

As for adoption news.  Background checks are in, additional reference letters have been written (BIG thanks to my dear friends who wrote them), so now our social worker is in the process of writing our home study specific for China.  Once she gives us a copy, we can file the first form that kicks off the whole process (called the I-800A) which basically asks China to give us their approval to adopt a child from their country.  Two catches though.  It takes 60-90 days after you submit the form for them to grant your approval and it has a hefty application fee.  After discussions with our agency and the Korea program specialist, everyone feels it would be in our best interest to wait to file this form until February because January is traditionally a huge month for referrals (or matches) in the Korea program.  Right now we are number 11 in the line of families waiting to be matched with a baby girl from Korea.  If January does end up being a huge month for matches and we get to number 5 or below on the waiting list, it may make sense to continue on with Korea.  Of course I want to submit this form for China a.s.a.p. in order to have another ball rolling, but unfortunately due to the expensive fee that goes along with it, financially it makes the most sense to delay starting China by one month just in case.  Of course, due to the state of the Korean program now and all the disappointments and extended wait times as of late, I am desperately trying not to get my hopes up for the Korea program.  It is good to know that by the end of January we will have a good indication of whether we should just call it quits all together on the Korea program.  We would appreciate any thoughts and prayers that 2012 brings us good news and great strides in our journey to finding our daughter.

Happy Holidays to all our friends and family near and far!  May 2012 bring you lots of happiness and good health.   

Our Next Steps

As I was driving Auden to daycare one morning this week, I heard an advertisement on the radio for the Adoption Expo at the Grand Hyatt that we went to exactly one year ago on Saturday which started us off on this crazy journey.  In some ways, it feels like we have come so far in one year- chose an agency, got through the “paper chase,” completed our home study, and we have been on the Korean program’s waitlist since July.  But due to the unpredictable nature of adoption, in many ways I feel like we have barely taken any steps closer to finding our daughter. 

This brings me to an update on some decisions we’ve made recently in light of the increased wait times for the Korean Program.  By the way, since I last wrote the estimated wait times have increased again (sigh).  The first decision we made is that we definitely want to wait for a girl.  It saddens me that there are so many more boys available for adoption (internationally and domestically) because I think boys are the absolute best (of course I’m biased, ha) but we feel in our hearts that a little girl is right for our family at this time.  So, then the question is, do we stay in the Korea program even though we probably won’t be able to go get our daughter until 2014?  Cody went to an informational meeting at our agency last week to discuss the future of the Korea program since things have been slowing down significantly lately.  The consensus is that things aren’t going to get better, if anything, they will just get worse (no surprise there).  So it seems pretty unnerving at this point to put “all our eggs” in this basket.  We also decided against moving to domestic adoption.  We’ve invested so much time and money with this agency already; I really don’t think I can handle starting all over again with a domestic agency.  However, if we were starting the process right now, knowing about the severe slow downs that occurred in many international programs this year, we probably would have went the domestic route.  But international is where our heart is now. 

The past month has been a whirlwind of learning as much as I can about the China Waiting Child (special needs) program, and then relaying that information to Cody, ha.  We had the opportunity to meet with a family that has adopted two boys from China who had cleft lip/palate who were gracious enough to have us to their home.  We also had an appointment with Auden’s cardiologist which gave us the opportunity to ask him about various congenital heart defects (CHDs) that are typically seen in the special needs program.  These two issues are typically the most minor/correctable in the special needs program which is why I focused on them.  Cleft lip/cleft palate is minor in the fact that you are just dealing with oral and cosmetic surgery (nothing life-threatening or serious), however, there are typically many surgeries involved throughout childhood and speech therapy is typically necessary on a weekly basis into grade school.  While, CHDs on the other hand can be more serious in that you are talking about the heart.  However, Auden’s cardiologist reassured us that many of the CHDs (or at least the ones we would be open to- ASD, VSD, PDA, PFO and maybe TOF) are generally no big deal, some requiring no surgery, some requiring just one surgery.  It was wonderful to hear that he actually has experience in looking at adoption files from China and he would be happy to review our potential daughter’s file when we get matched.  He is an extremely well respected doctor affiliated with Georgetown University and we trust his opinion.   

So with all this information we have decided to pursue the China WC program. Cody has decided he wishes to pursue CHDs only at this time.  I am still open to cleft, but will of course respect Cody’s decision.  Because young girls with correctable CHDs are typically the most desired by potential parents, we will have to wait longer for this type of match.  Especially because the China WC program, just like the Korea program, is composed of 75% boys.  Still, our agency has promised us that the longest it has ever taken for them to find this type of girl match for a family has been 8 months, so that would still put us in the 2013 time frame that we have been hoping for.  We are actually going to stay on the Korea wait list for now, and do what is called “dual listing” (which I found out I could do since my last update).  Our agency will let us be on two waitlists at the same time but as soon as we accept a match, we have to get off the other waitlist.  We figure, no sense in getting off the Korea waitlist now since we already paid for the Korean homestudy.  Now we can get started on China right away. 

So, what’s next?  More and more paperwork.  Korea was the easiest program to apply for because they didn’t belong to an international treaty called the Hague Convention that most countries belong to.  So we got away with doing less paperwork.  Unfortunately, for China we have to now do that additional paperwork.  First, we had to do two more background checks of two states we didn’t need for Korea.  We submitted them last week and New York will likely take 6-8 weeks to come back.  In the meantime, we needed to complete a couple more hours of education requirements (webinars) and we had to bug some more of our close friends and Auden’s daycare provider to write a recommendation letter for us for China’s specific requirements.  As soon as our background checks come in, our social worker is then able to write a homestudy report specific to China.  After she writes our homestudy report, we can then start to compile what is known as a “dossier” which is the additional paperwork that Hague Convention countries require.  I will discuss this more in detail when the time comes.  They can’t start looking for a referral (or match) for us until our dossier is sent to China.  I’m hoping we can get our dossier sent to China by April, but we will see. 

 It’s hard not to all of a sudden feel “behind the game” with China since I feel like we are starting over in many respects.  But I have to keep reminding myself that we couldn’t have started earlier anyway because of Auden’s age.  Since they match children in the China WC program when they are typically over 12 months old, our agency wants Auden to be 2 years old when they start looking for a match so there is a least a year age difference between the children (which makes sense to us too).  Also, China requires parents to be at least 30 years old, which Cody just turned in May, ha.  Although the paperwork is obnoxious and getting on another country’s waiting list means considerably more expenses, it feels good that we are going to have options.  I like the idea of doing all that we can, then having God lead us to the path that is right for us.  A big thanks to our friends and family who have been so supportive the past month as we worked through our next steps.