Noelle Dreams & Beyond

Well, it's the eve of the last day of 2007. I have to say I'm ready for 2008 and the hope that it brings. Of course this year has brought lots to celebrate, and we have ended it with a wonderful, busy, fun-filled Christmas with family. We're so blessed to have the love of family at Christmastime and every day throughout the year. I thought I'd share some of our joy in pictures: HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!

We traveled 6 hours yesterday to be fingerprinted for the second time by the federal government for our adoption, which means we've been fingerprinted 3 times in 2 years. The SBI doesn't talk to the FBI and vice versa, so we had to do separate fingerprinting for our adoption and for our fostering license. And because fingerprints expire after 15 months, we've had to do them twice for our China adoption. Oh, the joys of red tape. On the bright side, we got to spend lunch with my sister Rachel, brother-in-law Justin, and the now famous from talking about them so much and posting pictures on my blog, Savannah and Byers. We love being Uncle Chris and Aunt Kat. Of course Mama and Daddy would be nice, too. Santa, do you hear me?

Whew! It's been a busy few weeks since Thanksgiving. I celebrated my 33rd birthday this past Monday and haven't had time to blog about it until now. I'm working 4 days a week again at my day job (temporarily, until we hire another replacement for me - don't ask), and I've been feeling pretty wiped out between that and teaching yoga and holiday preparations - not much energy left to blog. But I have some updates, and I want to share some birthday pix. Turning 33 was not all that fun for me, I must admit. Chris and I certainly thought we'd have kids by now. I was actually a bit glum when I woke up Monday morning, knowing that we'd be spending another Christmas without children and without any idea of when there would be children in our lives. But with Chris' help, I pulled myself together and made the best of the day. To start off, he gave me the loveliest gifts - two scarves from my favorite store, Ten Thousand Villages, and a hat to match one of ...

For children here and children-to-be and doggies and home and laughter and tears and sunshine and moonlight and rivers and streams and mountains and snowfall and parents and grandparents and vacation and weddings and sisters and brothers and rain and fertile soil and nieces and nephews and meadows and wildlife and trees and flowers and old friends and new friends and birthdays and holidays and long walks and talks and health and yoga and work and play and community and unity and spring blooms and autumn leaves and oceans and lakes and summertime and boat rides and dancing and dinners and peaceful moments and CHRIS and so much that I receive every day - for all of this and more I am thankful .

This essay was posted by the NY Times this month in a series of international adoption stories. A father shares his experience of finding and connecting with the Chinese gentleman who discovered his daughter the day she was abandoned and took her to safety. This story in particular deeply touched me, especially when the father, who doesn't speak Chinese, describes how he longed to express his gratitude to this man, who doesn't speak English, during their first phone call -- he was overcome with emotion and didn't have the words. His friend who translated for him during the call whispers simply, "Xie xie" - thank you. Happy Thanksgiving to all!

2nd Update: They're coming HOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 1st Update: NO MORE CALLS ARE NEEDED. Apparently the elected officials' offices were swamped with phone calls today. They are working on helping this mother bring her daughter home. ----------------------- I just found out today on chinaadopttalk.com that there's a woman in China whose husband has died unexpectedly, and the U.S. Consulate in China is not allowing her to bring her daughter home, even though the adoption has been finalized in China. Friends of this woman are asking people to call her U.S. senator and representative for help. If you feel called to do so, you can find the information here at the Wusterbarth Family blog.

We had our follow-up appointment yesterday with the reproductive endocrinologist to discuss the test results from last month, and we got really good news overall. One of my hormone levels is a little high, but all the other tests came back normal. We are really lucky. Both my dear doctor friend Meghan and my doctor are optimistic about our chances of conceiving again. We are of course quite relieved to hear this, especially in light of our growing timeline for Noelle (it's looking like fall of 2009 at this point) and the seemingly impossible task of obtaining our fostering license. The latest news in foster land is that I got an email from our licensing worker last week, one week after she said I'd have the license (glad I didn't hold my breath!), and she had figured out that our paperwork was now being held up because the old background check form was used instead of the new one. "Excuse me?" I wanted to say - "You're preventing a child from having ...

I've not been a very good blogger lately. If anyone actually follows my blog regularly, I apologize, and I do hope you'll keep coming back. There's just nothing much to report. We have had a pretty low-key October - the warmest I remember ever - and the driest - thank goodness for the rain this past week! (After re-reading my post, I realized our October was busier than I thought!) We made our annual trip to the state fair this month, which is one of our favorite things in the world. We love to eat all the bad-for-you food and people-watch. We even enjoy all the displays and demonstrations, which are basically the same every year. This year we actually rode a couple of rides - a ferris wheel, which was much slower than I remember them being - and some crazy spinning thing that made me scream. It was quite the rush, and I was dizzy when I got off, but it was a lot of fun. We have some traditions that we follow every year, and this time was no different: Stopping by...

As adoptive parents, Chris and I have heard stories about all the questions we will get from people we know and from strangers when they see us with our children. It's important to be prepared for this because our children will be listening and looking to us for reassurance when folks (with perhaps good intentions) make rude remarks. Rather than coming up with my own post about this issue, I thought I'd copy an article from the experts. GRACIOUS ANSWERS TO AWKWARD QUESTIONS ABOUT OUR ADOPTED KIDS by Deborah McCurdy, MSW via Lois Paul of Help the Children When we adopt a child who looks different from us, we generally feel we can handle the stares and loss of privacy that go with the territory. We may find, however, that the frequent questions and comments of strangers and relatives sometimes annoy and worry us. At the heart of our anger and anxiety is the fear that our adopted child will be hurt by thoughtless questions, or that their older siblings, who look less exotic, wil...

I got the best news from a local friend yesterday - she and her husband have received their referral from Vietnam!! They are also adopting from China on essentially the same timeline as we are (their log-in date is 8 days ahead of ours). They began their second adoption from Vietnam this past spring around the time we made the decision to become foster parents, so we are leading somewhat parallel lives relative to our parenting journeys. We are so glad we met them last year (I somehow found their blog and realized they live in our city, and the rest is history). We very much look forward to future playdates with our kiddos, along with sharing all the parenting lessons to come. Biggest congrats, Danesha and Tod! We couldn't be happier for you, and we can't wait to meet your little guy!

As I posted last month, my sister Jessica had her second baby, and just last week my friend Jessica had her first baby. Both are girls and both weighed 8 lbs. 6 oz. at birth! And they both have gorgeous names: Maia Soleil and Ilsa May They even rhyme! I'm in baby heaven. Now if only their future baby buddy would arrive. I wonder if it will be a boy or another girl...Any bets out there?

Many, many, many thanks to our friend, Danesha, who made this baby quilt for the child we will foster. We love it! Thank you for your thoughtfulness and generosity. I will have to think really hard to come up with as special a gift for you and your wee ones to come. Give me some time, OK?! XOXO

Look at this cutie pie! (Kat and Doug's Charlie) Our tow head (Nephew Ben) Sweet curls (Andrea and Banks' Miles) Hip 3-year-old (Niece Savannah) Beautiful bald baby (Niece Maia) Shaved head (Nephew Byers between his sister and cousin) And finally, my new do - Life is so much easier! No, I did not do Locks of Love, and I really regret this!! I had totally planned to ask my stylist, Maggie, about it, but I was late (shocker), and I didn't want to annoy her more than I'm sure I already had. But still - this is no excuse, and I promise if I ever have long hair again I will do it! I found out later that it's really simple, which makes me feel even worse. I'm admitting my mistake here as my penance. Click this link for more info.

This is not the easiest post, so please bear with me. I'm explaining this as best I can as a non-scientist. I urge you to read on. Recently, I emailed friends and family members about the dangers of plastics, both to the environment and to physical health (which are ultimately one in the same, though that's another topic). The main message I wanted to share in this recent email is that there is a substance in some plastics of the #7 variety, (i.e. polycarbonate, the "good" hard stuff of which many water bottles are made) called BPA, short for Bisphenol A, that is harmful to the body. (Note: Others to avoid are #'s 3 and 6, but for this post I want to discuss BPA.) What is most alarming is that the majority of baby bottles on the market are made of the BPA-laden polycarbonate plastic. (For safe alternatives, see Born Free .) I first learned about BPA several years ago following my first miscarriage and a subsequent surgery. This surgery involved removing my...

I got my hair cut short this morning. The weather is getting milder - finally! Change is in the air. Today was a good, rather leisurely day for me. I took care of some adoption business after my haircut, then had lunch with Chris at home before he went to work, then visited my mom and later ate a doughnut with her at KK (actually 2), came home and did some laundry, and walked for a long time this evening. Walking outside does amazing things for my outlook, not to mention my doggies really appreciate it, so I hope to get back to walking regularly now that the weather is getting cooler. It was great to be able to mark a few things off the getting-ready-for-baby to-do list today as well: -My new, safe plastic bottles (by Born Free) and glass bottles arrived this week, along with my sheets for the cosleeper. -I cleaned the cover on the infant car seat my sister gave me, which fits so nicely in the stroller from my friend Claudia. I'm ready to stroll! -Last weekend, I picked up the...

For parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, not only of transracially adopted children, but of all children, this is an excellent resource with advice from real parents on issues of race, racism and parenting. I hope everyone in our family will read this and put the advice into practice. Click on the post title or copy and paste this link into your browser: http://www.newdemographic.com/Ebooks/How_To_Be_An_Anti-Racist_Parent.pdf

My dear friend, Penny, who is also adopting a daughter from China, gave me a CD of this song last year. I just saw the video for the first time tonight. Have a tissue handy if you watch it. :) In all my bitterness lately, I forgot that parents are being united with children every day, and that's a beautiful thing. I'm so happy for all the people that have gotten the call from their agencies this week and are seeing their children's faces for the first time. Peace and blessings to all!!

The CCAA has updated their website again announcing that families with log-in dates through November 25, 2005 have been matched with their children. This means that in the last month they've only matched 4 days of LID's. I read on a blog recently that they've only matched 4 months of LID's in the last year. Considering there are almost exactly 7 months from the last date matched to our log-in date of June 23, 2006, we could be looking at 21 months from now to referral (i.e. being matched with our daughter) if nothing changes. That would be a total referral wait of nearly 3 years!!!! -Not to mention the 6 months it took us from starting the process to our dossier being logged in with the CCAA. WOW. We never imagined this scenario, and our agency certainly did not prepare us for this. In fact, they gave us a projected referral timeline of 6 months when we started the process, and when I questioned this early on after reading some rumors on the web, they revised it t...

I've got that uneasy feeling again. It tends to show up when least expected. I found out from Chris upon returning from my weekend with family that he has to have his fingerprints redone for our foster parent certification. They must have gotten lost, the licensing worker has informed us -- it's been two months since we had them done and a month since our paperwork should have gone to the state for approval. What the heck??!??!? Did it really take two months to figure this out??? And how did they get lost anyway??? We literally got them done 2 minutes apart, and somehow mine showed up within days at our licensing worker's office, and Chris' never arrived, yet no one thought to check into this until we basically forced the issue. GEEEZZZZ!!!!!! I realize it's not such a big deal for Chris to go downtown and be fingerprinted again, but it's just ONE MORE THING in an ever-growing mountain of delays to parenthood. Couldn't we get a break just once? Afte...

(Daughter of Jessica, my sister, and Mark, and little sister to Ben) Isn't she an angel?!

A lot has been going on! First and foremost, we have some wonderfully exciting news: Our niece, Maia, came into this world on Saturday, August 18. She was born at home under the care of two midwives, and everything went perfectly. I'm so proud of my sister for following her heart and having the beautiful birth experience she envisioned. Everyone is doing great, and I can hardly wait to meet Maia this weekend. We have had quite a busy summer with trips to Colorado (vacation and friend's wedding), Ocracoke Island (long weekend getaway), Winston-Salem (cookout for adoptive families), Charlotte (visiting w/ sister and fam), Waynesville (visiting w/ sister and fam), Wrightsville Beach (friend's birthday day-trip), Atlanta (Chris-work and visiting w/ friends), Enfield (Chris' brother's engagement party) and Hyco Lake (visting with friends). We've had a blast, but I have to say I'm looking forward to sticking close to home this fall, and I think our doggies will be...

Children grow so quickly! Our niece Savannah is 3 going on 4 (or is it 13?) this October. Her brother Byers (the one with the short haircut) is 2. In this picture he's trying to tackle Uncle Chris - he's quite the little scrapper! Ben is 2 and will be 3 in November. He's such an independent fellow these days. Here he's watching Uncle Chris fly-fish. Pretty soon we'll be adding a 4th angel face to this crew - my sister Jessica (Ben's mom) is due with her 2nd baby (a girl!!) in two weeks! And the 5th (our 1st) might come pretty soon after that! We had our 2nd home visit with the foster parent licensing worker yesterday, and she thinks it will take another month or so to get everything finalized with the state. After that, we'll just be waiting for the call. It should be an exciting few months!

Well, the CCAA is doing one thing quickly right now - we're already out of review, which means we're officially on our way to being matched with a child. This is what RQ had to say: "June 2006 is out of review!!! The CCAA review department is smokin’! Congrats to all of the families who are breathing a little easier now, that’s another milestone behind you." Now we'll go into the pending referral stack, probably for many months, but at least we know things are moving along. Penny, thanks so much for the heads up - this is definitely something to celebrate!

Chris and I made a big decision this spring. We decided to become foster parents while we wait for Noelle. Since then we've taken the class, completed our paperwork, gotten fingerprinted, had our first home visit, and just today we had our fire dept. inspection - all that remains for us to be certified is a trip to the doctor for a physical, a final visit from the social worker, and paperwork processing by the county to make it official. This means that in another month or two we could be getting the biggest call of our lives - to become parents to a child. Even if it's temporary, we couldn't be happier about this prospect. A couple of weeks ago after meeting with the social worker, we began gathering the baby items we didn't already have - bottles and bibs and blankets and burp cloths, to name a few - and tonight I've begun washing clothes sent by my sisters. We don't know whether it will be a boy or girl, so I'm getting prepared for both. We're a...

From the CCAA website: The CCAA has finished the review of the adoption application documents registered with our office before May 31, 2006. Our LID month is next! This doesn't mean things are speeding up, but it is nice to know that our dossier, which has been sitting in an endless stack of dossiers on a shelf in China for over a year (with the exception of when it was being translated), will finally be reviewed by the adoption officials in China.

I copied the following from today's post at chinaadopttalk.com (Note: RQ=Rumor Queen, the website owner). This information apparently came from delegates in the China Center of Adoption Affairs in response to questions, largely about the wait, from various adoption agency representatives during recent meetings. The news isn't good, but I think it's somewhat reliable, and at the very least it's information, which is something we're getting very little of from our agency these days. In addition to the info from the CCAA and RQ's notes, I've added a few notes of my own after the ~ sign. 1) It seems that about half of the agencies were told the wait will reach from “two to three years” and the other half were told from “two and a half to three years”. (RQ: The important number here is that they are acknowledging the wait could reach three years.) ~To clarify, this means 2-3 years from LID. Our LID is 6/23/06, so we're likely looking at another 1-2 years ac...

Chris and I have been married nine good years as of this past Wednesday, June 20th. NINE YEARS!!! That is hard to believe when I really think about it. Time sure marches on... And yet this last year has felt like an eternity at times. This Saturday, June 23rd, marks one year since our official wait for Noelle began (the date our adoption paperwork was logged in with the China Center of Adoption Affairs). When we received our log-in date last August, we were absolutely elated, and we thought that by this time our daughter would be home with us - or at the very least we'd be on our way to China. So this is a somewhat bittersweet anniversary. However, we can say we're a year closer to holding her, and that is truly something worth celebrating. We are excited to be spending the weekend in one of our favorite places - Ocracoke Island. We dream of the day we'll take Noelle there for the first time. Perhaps not next summer, but surely in two summers we'll be watching Noelle pl...

Happy Father's Day to Dad, Keith and Kevin and all fathers in the world! And most of all to my dear husband, who feels the absence of his child as much as I do. Thank you, Chris, for your strength, devotion, steadiness and amazing, unconditional love. You're going to be the BEST dad. I love you.

We know a family that is being united for the first time this very week. The couple has waited through a long difficult adoption process, and now they are parents to two beautiful children. It really does happen. They give us incredible hope. The mom reprinted the following on her blog just a few hours before meeting her daughter for the first time yesterday: Not flesh of my flesh, Nor bone of my bone, But still miraculously my own. Never forget for a single minute, You didn't grow under my heart - but in it. - Fleur Conkling Heylinger

Along with thousands of other China adoptive parents, Chris and I are anxiously awaiting the next referrals to be announced any day now. Based on recent months and internet rumors, we don't have high hopes that the CCAA will make much progress in terms of the timeline. We'll likely see the timeline lengthen yet again. Last month it reached 18 months (period from dossier log-in at CCAA, i.e. LID, to official notification of family-child match from CCAA, i.e. referral), and it might get to 19 months this time around. If this trend continues (we pray it won't!), it will be 2009 before we finally meet Noelle. Regardless, we'll keep truckin' along. The timing of the following email I received today couldn't be more perfect. It's for us all. (written by a Unity minister) ***It can be that the troubles you go through in life are for the benefit of others. In some sense, you are a model for others. You are a model even when you are not a good example. However ...

Ok, I have to get on my soapbox for a moment. This weekend I attended a friend's wedding and of course got lots of questions and comments about the adoption. I appreciated all of this for the most part...until MONEY came up. What is the deal with people asking if it costs a lot of money to adopt (and sometimes asking how much)? We get this question more often than I care to say from people we know as well as from people we don't know! I realize that most people are simply making conversation. I just don't know why this has become the "How's the weather?" question to ask when making adoption small talk. I never know what to say. Yes, it's a lot of money. But it costs a lot of money to be pregnant and birth a baby these days, too. Nobody talks about that. The difference is that insurance doesn't cover the costs of adoption; however, there is an adoption tax credit, which helps. I'd like to add that it also costs of lot of money to buy a car ...

Happy Mother's Day to all mothers throughout the world!!! To birth mothers and adoptive mothers and foster mothers and surrogate mothers and mothers-to-be and brand new mothers and step-mothers and grandmothers and great-grandmothers and mothers-in-law... And especially to my fellow waiting adoptive mothers. Peace and joy to all, Kathryn

The crib belonged to cousin Savannah, and Nana gave us the rug a few years back - a perfect fit and match. Mee Mee and Pappy gave us the very soft blankie. We love the rocking horse, which we found at a consignment shop for $10! The growth chart is a lively illustration of a tree with critters and kids playing instruments - awaiting our growing girl. China waiting families, check out the ladybug in the window;) Here's a closeup of the crib bedding ("Nursery Time" by Gordonsbury), which we bought practically as soon as we filled out the adoption application! We think it's so sweet. There are other nursery characters around the bumper, including two mice, a frog, a couple of bears and a rabbit - and tiny bees, bugs and flowers throughout, as in the scene here. Here's our glider rocker with blanket from Nana and pillow cross-stitched by my Grandma for my birthday when I was nine years old or so. And lots of books already, including a Dr. Seuss set from Nanny and Gra...