The Black and White Doll

Very interesting video clip, sad but true. I'm interested as to what fellow adoptive families think, please comment.

What is stress?

Stress is learning you have a 50/50 chance of a referral just around the corner, and a 50/50 chance of having to wait until after April. URGH!!

Valentines Day & Tet

This year we celebrated Valentine's day & Tet on the weekend (I had to work evenings on Valentines day). We spent the afternoon at a spa on Saturday, made an Asian dish for dinner, and watched a movie. On Sunday we started the nursery, we painted and put the crib together, we had so much fun! We made a home video of building the crib, and took pictures of painting the nursery, I'll post the pictures soon.
This was on my Valentine's Day/Tet card:

"You can't make someone love you, all you can do is be someone who can be loved, the rest is up to the person to realize your worth." ~ancient vietnamese proverb

Wishing everyone a happy "year of the boar", a " year of the baby" for many of us.

Adoption Year in Review

One year ago today we took the first step in persuing adoption. We had been researching adoption as a choice to start a family for a few months, but February 10th 2006 changed us forever.

The year in review:
February 10th - attended information seminar with agency
February 11th - decided on adoption as our family choice
March 8th - 1st homestudy meeting
March 14th - fingerprinted for interpol clearance
March 15th - 2nd homestudy meeting
March 16th - Dr. appointment for physicals
March 19th - requested police information access report
March 27th - 3rd homestudy meeting
March 29th - received interpol clearance letters ( with errors!)
April 6th - received updated interpol clearance letters
April 19th- transfer pf medical records to new Doctor
April 20th - home visit for homestudy
May 5th - Dr. appointment to receive updated medical letters
May 29th - sent homestudy to agency
May 31st - homestudy sent to Ontario Ministry for approval
June 10th - 11th - attended AdopTalk workshop in London, ON
July 21st - received Ontario Ministry approval
July 24th - received letter of approval
July 26th - Dr. appointment for updated medical letter
July 28th - sent updated medical letter and application for adoption to agency
August 4th - sent updated employment & financial letters to agency
August 11th - received "option C" forms to begin immigration paperwork
August 16th - sent updated interpol clearance letters to agency
October 13th - Agency received verbal confirmation to open the program
October 16th - 5 files sent from agency to Vietnam
October 23rd - We are DTV!!
October 30th - mailed first part of immigration paperwork
November 6th - began immunization for TwinRx
December 7th - 2nd part of immunizations
January 3rd - received confirmation that our file had been translated

and all of that brings us to where we are today.