The Referral

It's a Girl!

On Tuesday, November 15 our agency called and asked if we were ready to hear about a referral.
(our homestudy is not even complete) We said, Sure! So they faxed us information on a little girl named Pei-Yi. She was born January 5, 2005. (Just a few months younger than Sawyer) We had our pediatrician review the medical information as well as his nurse who reads Chinese. Everything looks good. So we have accepted the referral and we're getting quite excited about Pei-Yi becoming a part of our family. Judson thinks she is quite pretty (as we all do) and is ready for her to come live with us and be his little sister. We have not yet settled on an American name. (Sound familiar) We'll let you know as soon as we figure that part out. Stay tuned for more information. We have to wait for our homestudy to be finalized before we can even start the legal processes.

The Home Study

We have our final home study visit this coming week. This is the visit in our home. (Previous visits were at the case workers office.) The case worker will speak with all of us and check out the house. (Oh, NO!) After that, the report will be completed and we will go onto the waiting list.

I've emailed with the agency and they expect us to get a referral very quickly. They said most people are being very flexible as to their child's gender. They also said they are having equal numbers of girls and boys being born. So it seems like we have a 50-50 chance as to getting a boy vs. girl referral. That's very cool. I'm confident we will get the child that is just right for our family.

Won't be long now!

The Quilt

I've had wonderful responses to my quilt request. I truly appreciate it. There's plenty of time to get the fabric to me. I won't start it until after the holidays so if you can get them to me by 12/31/05 that would be great.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, here is the short 411. The quilt is called 100 Good Wishes. It is a Chinese tradition to ask friends and family to donate material for the quilt along with an explanation of why you chose that particular piece of material (and a wish for the child). The material is made into a quilt for the child. The quilt is then passed on through the generations.

I wanted to do the quilt as a way of preserving the cultural heritage of our child and to help him/her realize how much we truly wanted them to be a part of our life.

The Journey Begins

As many of you know, Randy and I have been talking about expanding our family through adoption for several years. Well, now is the time! After years of research and speaking with adoption agencies and adoptive families, we've decided to adopt internationally. We've chosen an adoption agency in Washington state. They have a program that is a perfect fit for our family. The adoption will take place in Taiwan.

We started our home study in early October. After it is complete, we will be placed on a waiting list. The list is based on First In, First Out. Once our name pops up on the list and a baby is available, we will be given the referral for that child. Since we are open to either a boy or a girl, our name may come up quicker than others. (Some people have a definite preference and are willing to wait as long as it takes for that preference) The program we are in does not have birth mother involvement in the selection process. This is unusual for Taiwanese programs. Most programs allow the birth mother to choose the adoptive parents.

About the child: The child will be an infant around 2-6 months old at the time of referral. He/she will be healthy (with no known or minor correctible health issues). At the time we accept the referral, the child will be placed into foster care (as opposed to an orphanage).

About the process: The referral process takes 2-6 months. After that, we will have to jump through some hoops and put together our dossier. Once all the I's are dotted and T's crossed, our case enters into the Taiwanese court system. This phase takes 4-6 months. After the court process is complete, we will be able to travel and pickup our child. Randy and his mom are planning on doing the traveling and Jan will stay with Judson and Sawyer.

So that's it in a nutshell. We are extremely excited about this journey. We hope that you will be excited for us. We'll keep this site updated as new information becomes available. However, the wheels on an adoption ship turn very slowly so we won't be updating it every week.

Love,
Randy, Jan, Judson, and Sawyer