More Names

I love having a laptop and wireless network! I got a laptop for work since I have to be on-call for problems with our computer system. Now I can sit on the couch and type on my blog.

Anyway, here are a few more names that I am considering:

Sophia/Sofia=wise
Alicia=truthful/nobel
Priya=beloved/sweet natured
Rayna, Raina, Reyna=mighty, pure, clean, peaceful, queen
Roxanna=sunrise
Marisol=sunny sea (I really like this one)
Safiya=pure, serene, best friend
Sadie
Natasha=resurrection
Tatiana=fairy queen
Tavia
Viviana=full of life
Victoria=victorious

I still like Elizabeth and Evelyn too.
I think I have settled on May for a middle name. It seems to go with most names that I like.

I think I will probably not make a decision until I see the pictures and see what her given name is.

Baby's First Quilt

About 6 or 7 years ago, I took a road trip to a quaint little Amish village here in Missouri. I explored the town and found a quilting goods store. I found some nice flannel fabric that I decided that I would like to have. I would make a baby quilt for one of my future children. Well, I cut out the fabric and just decided on a very simple pattern of squares arranged on the diaganol. I cut it out and sewed the top together pretty quickly. I decided that I would hand quilt it since I was not in a hurry. I had still yet to meet the man of my dreams after all. I set the quilt aside and worked on it every once in a while. But in the meantime, I started (and actually finished a few) other quilts. My sister had 3 children and a brother had a child during this time span so I made 4 other baby quilts for my niece and nephews as well as many other baby quilts for friends.

Well, here it is 7 years later and I have finally finished the baby quilt. It feels so nice to have a baby room to put it in to wait for my girl to come home. My mom is making me another flannel quilt and my friend Peggy has told me she has a quilt top done and jus thas to quilt it (she won't let me see it until the baby comes home). I am so glad that I was able to get my quilt done before everyone else. I am very appreciative of the quilts that are being made but it feels nice to say that I made my daughter's first quilt. I hope she can grow up loving quilts. I know that Peggy and I plan to raise our daughters with a love of quilting and hope to start them young!

This quilt was made with much love and anticipation of my little girl cuddling up with me on a cold winter night.

Susan

Friends

Well, the water park opened today. I went and had a very relaxing day. However, the whole time I was there I kept thinking that it would be so different next year when my daughter is with me. It will be a totally differnt. I can't wait. My friend Peggy has a 21 month year old. Last year was OK with her but this year will be a lot funner since she is really walking and talking. Then next year our girls will be playing together. I was really struck by an email that Peggy sent me yesterday talking about our girls growing up together and being friends. Hopefully they can have the same long lasting friendship that Peggy & I have.

I never had a lot of friends but the friends that I have mean everything to me. I hope that my daughter can have quality friendships also.

What is in a name?

Not much happening lately other than work and normal daily routine. I finally got cleared by the doctor to go back to working out. I had a stress fracture in my foot and bad tendonitis. I was in a boot air cast for 2 months and then physical therapy for a month. I gained some weight and am glad to be back working out. It motivates me to eat better too. My neighbors are very good about walking and have recruited me to walk with them. The loop around the neighborhood is about 1.2 miles. After two weeks I can do 2-3 loops a walk. It feels really good and is especially nice to have people to walk with. I have really become good friends with my neighbors (Chris & Leila). They wrote a very nice letter of recommendation for my adoption and are very supportive and excited about the adoption. They don't have any kids and have already told me they will spoil her rotten.

So I checked out a bunch of baby name books from the library a week or so ago. There are too many. It seems that names are so important. I would hate to curse my daughter with a bad name. I always thought my own name was pretty plain "Susan Marie." Maybe that is why I have always felt like a plain person. Or maybe that is why I am so down to earth and practical. Anyway, I had a few ideas of names before I checked out the books.

Evelyn was my grandmother's name. One book says it means "hazelnut" another says it means "optimistic." I know it sounds old fashioned but it is also not a terribly common name anymore and I would probably call her Evvy. That has been the name that has stuck with me for quite a while.

Elizabeth is also a nice name that I like. One book says it means "consecrated of God." I had a sister named Stacy Elizabeth. She died on the same day she was born due to a birth defect. I thought it would be a nice tribute to her short life. One of my favorite movies is Pride & Prejudice (have the A&E version as well as the newest version). I love the character Elizabeth in that movie. She is strong willed, thinks for herself and doesn't care what anyone else thinks about her. If I name my daughter Elizabeth, I would probably call her Lizzy which the book says means "devout.". There are a ton of variations/nicknames that come from Elizabeth and it is a nice name when she gets older.

Middle names that I am thinking of are May, Mae and Marie. May is my mother's middle name and I would really like to honor her because she has always been so supportive of me. In one of the name books it says it means "bright flower." Another book says it means "great", "discerning" or "flower." Mae is a variation of May and is part of my dad's stepmom's name (Flora Mae). Another one is Marie. That is my middle name and was my grandmother's (mom's mom) middle name. I also thought it would have some latin connection to Maria.

I guess I am more a traditionalist as far as names are concerned. I may look at the books some more. One of the books is quite interesting. It doesn't so much give meanings of names but it rates them as far as popularity through history. It shows trends and also shows names that would be good sibling names for both brothers and sisters. Not that I am thinking that far ahead of having a brother or sister for my girl.

Well, if anyone has any advise on naming, I would welcome feedback. No guarantees on whether or not I will take the advise but I would be interested in how other poeple chose their children's names.

I am in a waiting mode right now as far as the adoption goes. I am still waiting for my USCIS (INS/Immigration) approval to come through. It has been almost two weeks which is the short end of the average wait time of 2-6 weeks. I did notice they cashed my check so maybe that is a good sign that the paperwork is being processed.

I did apply for a couple of grants this past week to see if I can get any help financing the adoption. I need to write another proposal to give to my employer who offers no paid time off or any other adoption benefits. I gave a proposal that I received from the Dave Thomas foundation to one of my HR reps who said he would forward it to the appropriate corporate HR person. I have my doubts that he got it to the right person. Anyway, I have decided that I would do the proprosal over again and send it electronically the the VP of Human Resources at our company and maybe she can channel it to the right person at the main corporate office who handles the benefits for all the subsidiaries. That is one of the things that I plan on working on this holiday weekend. I really would like them to pay me for part of the time off that I am taking when I bring my daughter home. They should at least give me 6 weeks paid time off like they do when mothers give birth at the company. Those mothers are covered under short term disability insurance so it isn't officially "maternity leave."

Well, I am going to sign off for now. I will hopefully write some more this weekend. I just got a laptop at work to bring home for when I am "on call." So now I have wireless networking at home and can sit on the couch with my laptop and type on this blog. Much better than sitting back in the office.

Hoping for a sunny weekend and some time at the waterpark.

Later,
Susan

Immigration (INS/USCIS) Appointment

I had the lovely experience of enduring some good old fashioned bureaucracy first thing this morning. I had to go to the Immigration office to submit my application to the government requesting permission to bring a child into the US. The process seemed easy enough. I was to go online and request an appointment time to ensure that I could get in and out in a timely manner.

So I followed the instructions and was granted a 7:30 appointment this morning. This was the first appointment of the day. The doors opened promptly at 7:30 and I went through the metal detectors and x-ray machines (just my purse was x-rayed, not me). The guards were very courteous and looked at my appointment confirmation and directed me to the correct window to be helped. Behind me in line there was a group of about 5-6 Vietmanese people who were directed to the other end of the room to wait for whatever it was that they came for.

I was very quickly serviced by the employee at the window. She looked over my form, verified that all the correct paperwork was attached (home study, birth certificate) and took my check. She then gave me a receipt and advised me to go to the other end of the room (where all the other people behind me had been directed) to be fingerprinted. And, oh by the way, that office doesn't open until 8:00. So my appointment was just to turn in my forms and check and didn't apply to the fingerprinting part of the process.

Well, I sat down and the crowd in the room grew larger. Promptly at 8:00 the window of the fingerprinting office opened and there was a mad dash for that window. Thankfully, I was sitting close enough and got on my feet quickly enough to gain position #6 in line. We then had to go through the line, show our ID, show the insides of our hands (to ensure there were no cuts) and received a form to fill out while we waited. You wouldn't think it would take too long to process 5 people's fingerprints but oh how wrong I was. Apparently, it takes longer if you don't speak much English because it took an hour for the 5 people in front of me to be processed. It only took me about 5 minutes to be processed. That was very frustrating. It seems like if they are going to issue appointments to turn in your paperwork (knowing that you also have to be fingerprinted) that they should issue an appointment for the whole process. But I guess that would be too easy. Would it be unfair to process US Citizens first? I know that sounds a little harsh but I sure did feel that way as I sat there listening to people speak in non-English languages.

Oh well, that part of the process is now complete. It takes 2-6 weeks typically for the approval letter to be received. After that letter is received, my dossier paperwork should be ready to be sent to Guatemala. My caseworker told me that part of my dossier paperwork has already been received back from the secretary of state and has been forwarded to the Guatemalan consolate. That was very quick!

Well, I need to get to bed so I can try to work a little more effectively tomorrow. I was discombobulated today arriving 2 1/2 hours late and going through the process at immigration. Just threw my whole day off.

I did stop at the library tonight to pick up some baby name books. I have a couple of names in mind but want to look to see if I can find the perfect name. Suggestions are welcome!

One step closer to bringing my daughter home.

Susan

More pictures

Here is another picture of the nursery. The Moses basket is from Guatemala. It currently has the quilt that I had on my bed when I was a young girl. The walker was a hand me down from my friend Anne. The toy baskets are from Guatemala.

This is Duchess my big momma cat. She has claimed this as her new hiding place from the baby cat Bella. The cats have been pretty funny checking out all the new things in the nursery. This used to be their room. I am trying to put stuff out so that they don't endure too much of a shock when the baby actually comes home.

This is the baby Bella. She is 1 1/2 years old and rules the house. I got her from the pound when she was .9#. She is now up around 10 pounds. She really likes the baby toys.

This is Bella checking out the new walker. She likes climbing up leg holes. If I am wearing shorts, she will try to climb up through the holes when I am sitting on the toilet (that was probably too much information;)

Appointment with Adoption Coordinator

I had a meeting with my adoption coordinator today after work. I signed the final papers required for my dossier and she swapped out a page of my homestudy to include my CPR certification. Now I have everything ready to go to Immigration on Monday morning. She is just waiting for two more documents from two of my references and one document that I have to take back to work AGAIN. The HR Manager has to sign and have notarized a letter stating that I am employed with the company and that has my salary. It has to be notarized by a notary who's commission doesn't expire before May 2007. This is all expained on the coversheet that the adoption coordinator sent to them. Well, the first time he used a notary that expires in December. The reason they require the notary to have a longer commission expiration date is that if the adoption isn't finalized and the commission expires, the docuent becomes invalid in the eyes of the government. So I took it back to them and I found a notary at the office who has a commission that expires in 2009. Well, this time he signed it with a different date than what the notary signed/stamped. So I have to go back and request that they do it again. What a pain. They weren't terribly thrilled about doing it the second time either. Oh well......

After these three remaining documents are back to the adoption coordinator she will send the documents notarized in Missouri to the Secretary of State of Missouri to be certified. The documents notarized in Kansas will be sent to the Secretary of State of Kansas to be certified. After the Missouri documents are certified they will be sent to the Guatemalan Consulate in Chicago to be authenticated. The Kansas doeuments will be sent to the Guatemalan Consulate in Denver to be authenticated. Hopefully these steps won't take longer than six weeks.

The goal is that my approval from Immigration (USCIS) and the authentication process will take about the same time. After both of these steps are completed, then my dossier goes to the lawyer in Guatemala. I should then be matched with my daughter within 2 weeks! Then the next phase of waiting begins as everything moves through the Guatemalan court system.

So far, things have been moving smoothly as far as preparing all of the documents. Thanks to all of my friends who have promptly sent their reference letters back twice! Once for the home study and once after being notarized for the dossier.

I am so grateful for my supportive friends and family. I would not be able to do this without your love and support!

Susan

Nothing spectacular happened today. I have finished filling out some more government documents to be used for the finalization of the adoption when that time comes. I also filled out my application to take to the Immigration office next Monday. That is my appointment to go and be fingerprinted and submit my homestudy and application to ask permission to bring a child into the country. As I go through this process, it makes me think that if there were such tough guidelines to get pregnant, maybe there would be fewer cases of neglect and child abuse. OK well I guess that is probably not feasible.

Tomorrow I have an appointment with my adoption coordinator to sign some more paperwork for my dossier. She also has to give me an updated page to my homestudy. She forgot to include my CPR certification information in the homestudy and I guess that is one of the things that they look at.

I am starting to tell more people about the adoption now and it is encouraging to feel their support. You always wonder what people might think about someone choosing to be a single mother. It was not an easy decision to make and I didn't take it lightly. I think that I can be a good mother and offer a good home to a child. If I didn't think so, then I wouldn't be going through all of this. I have a good life but I think there is more to life than what I have right now.

Well, I need to go to bed. Maybe I will get some pictures of my current children (2 cats) posted soon. I have some pretty cute ones of them checking out the nursery.

Thanks for reading.
Susan

Pictures of the Nursery

Here is me in the newly painted and wallpapered nursery. As you can see, I am going with a butterfly theme. I did the painting a couple of weekends ago and yesterday my friend Peggy helped me hang the wallpaper border.


These are my inspiration pieces that I am building around.

I bought this butterfly mobile last October before I went to my first meeting with the adoption agency. I have had it hanging in the room as my inspiration.



This is my best friend Peggy. She has 3 kids of her own but still finds time to help me prepare for my first child.



These pictures are the before pictures of what the room looked like when I moved in. I then scraped a layer of paint and two layers of wallpaper off of the walls. The original wallpaper was very sweet from the 1950's but not salvageable.

Steps to Adoption

Ok. So here are the steps that I have completed so far in the adoption process. I hope it isn't too boring.

1) Decide on a country from which to adopt. I did a lot of research on the internet into all of the different international adoption programs that are available. I then narrowed my options down somewhat based on those that allow adoptions by single women. The different options that I looked into were Bulgaria, Colombia, China, Guatemala, Haiti, Kazakhstan, Romania, Russia and the Ukraine. After a lot of research I finally decided on Guatemala for a couple of reasons. First, I had spent a year in Guatemala when I was 21-22 and fell in love with the country. I have been able to travel back twice with friends and family so I definitely have a bond with the country. Secondly, Guatemala is very open to allowing single's to adopt. Also, there is only one trip required to pickup the child and it is only 3-5 days of travelling. With many of the programs, two trips were required and the length of stay varied from 10-21 days.

2) Find an adoption agency to handle the details of the adoption. Initially I thought it might be possible to work without an agency and just file all of the paperwork on my own and work with an orphanage in Guatemala. However, after doing more research into all the details, I became somewhat overwhelmed. I looked into quite a few agencies that handled Guatemalan adoptions. I got very lucky to find the agency that I am currently working with. A lady at the gym where I work out was talking about her adoption. We got to talking and I asked which agency she was working with (she is also adopting from Guatemala). It is a local agency in the Kansas City area that I hadn't run across in my search. I looked into the agency and was able to get more information from them. I eventually went to an informational meeting with one of my friends and was very impressed with them. So far they have been wonderful to work with. I receive very personal attention and quick followup on everything.

3) I completed an application and was accepted into the agency's Guatemala program. I then attended an orientation meeting with my adoption coordinator to go over the complete process from start to finish. I came away feeling somewhat overwhelmed but assured that she would be there to support me throughout the process. I think I am very lucky. My caseworker has interned with the agency for the past year and has now graduated with her Master's degree so she is a full time employee. She is very detailed oriented and quick to respond to all of my questions.

4) After the orientation, I was given a task list of items to complete to get ready for my home study. Here is the list of things I had to complete:

• Copy of my tax return
• Employment verification letter notarized
• Letters of reference from six non-relatives
• Notarized health report from my doctor (had to go get a physical)
• Copy of my driving record (oops had a ticket on it!)
• A child abuse screening from the state of Missouri (had to complete an application and they did a background check to make sure I had no criminal history and no abuse allegations).
• Copy of my health insurance policy stating that my child would be covered upon finalization of the adoption.
• Financial statement listing all of my assets and debts.
• Complete a pediatric CPR class
• Write a 2-3 page autobiography to help the adoption coordinator become aquainted with me prior to the actual home visit.

5) Have my social worker come to my house to perform the home study. This consisted of about a 2 hour interview to go into the details of my life from birth to the present. I had to tell about my parents and siblings and nieces and nephews. It was a challenge because I was asked for ages, dates of marriage, education, employment. It is hard enough to keep track of my own life but to have to remember the details of everyone in my families.....well I did get through it. After the interview process, she took a tour of the house which was a lot less painful than I anticipated. She really just looked into each room and made sure that I had smoke detectors and fire extinguishers on both levels of the house. She then walked around the yard and that was it.

6) Rough draft of home study. The homestudy has to be written up in a certain format. The Monday following the homestudy (the previous Wednesday) my case worker, emailed me a rough draft to make sure she had all the names, dates and details correct. I made a few corrections. Today I received the final, notarized copy of the home study as well as a copy for my own records. I am now ready for the next step!

7) Apply to USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) which was fomerly called INS (Immigration and Naturalization Services). I have to complete a form called the I-600a which is a petitiion for advance processing of ann orphan. This basically gives me permission to bring my daughter into the United States. The application is just a 2 page form. The home study is part of the requirement for this process. So my next step will be to make an appointment (which can be done online) to submit my application and go be fingerprinted. I should be able to get this done in the next week. The approval process takes 2-6 weeks typically in the Kansas City area.

8) Prepare my dossier. What is a dossier? It is a compilation of about 25 documents that are required to be submitted in a particular format. Most of them need to be certified and authenticated. Many of the documents are similar to the home study docuements but have to be put into a specific format for the Guatemalan courts. Fortunately, my adoption coordinator takes care of the bulk of this process.

• Get a ceritified copy of my birth certificate. Thankfully, I started on this back in January because it took about 2 months to get this back from the State Department (since I was born abroad while my father was in the Air Force). The agency had actually advised me to start on this even before I had formally been accepted into the program since it can take a long time. I am grateful that I did otherwise I would still be waiting for it.
• Get a passport. I had already applied and received my passport so I just had to send a copy of it.
• Get a police clearance letter from my local police department. This had to show that I had no criminal history in the town I live in. Also had to be notarized.

So, today I received my completed home study in the mail with the instructions on completing my I-600a with USCIS. I have gathered the items that I need to for my dossier and just need to go into the agency next Wednesday to sign a couple of other documents and have them notarized there in the office. Things are moving along very smoothly so far.

While I am waiting for my approval from USCIS, my adoption coordinator will be working on my dossier. All of the documents have been notarized but they also have to be ceritified which basically means that they have to be taken to the Secretary of State of eitherKansas or Missouri (depending on where the notary was commisioned from). The Secretary of State attaches a letter of certification to each document that basically says that the notary is really a notary and has a current commission. After all of the documents have been certified, they have to be authenticated. This process is done by sending all of the certified documents to the Guatemalan consolate who basically reviews all of the documents to make sure they are in the correct format. They then attach an authentication letter to each document.

After I have received my approval from USCIS and my dossier has been authenticated, my dossier will be sent to the adoption attorney that the agency works with in Guatemala. They will then match me to a child. The typical wait is 2 days to 2 weeks but could be longer. I have requested a daughter ranging in age from 0-18 months. I will be sent pictures and a brief medical history of the child and have a couple of days to decide on whether I accpet the referral. At this point, the process enters the Guatemalan part of the process. I will put those 10 steps in my next post.

As you can see, adoption is not an easy process. Thankfully, I have been blessed with good friends and family who are supporting me and encouraging me through the process. Also, thankfully I am somewhat organized and have created a task list for myself to keep me on schedule to get everything completed as quickly as possible. The hardest part will be when things are no longer in my control. The waiting will be hard but the end result will be worth it! I have created more tasks for myself to hopefully make the waiting more bareable.

Well, enough for now. I will try to write more and post some pictures soon.