Saturday, August 30, 2008

Another School Year......

Well, we have started a new school year. This marks the FOURTH school year since we started the China Adoption. And I can't help but wonder if we will get our daughter this year? I think when it finally happens, we won't believe it at all! I can see us standing in China being handed a baby and still not believing it. I miss the excitement I used to feel about the whole process. It's been so long and drawn out that I never feel excited about it anymore. I simply don't. I guess that's the way my heart protects itself......I'm scared to get excited or to even look forward to it in case it doesn't happen. It will be easier to take. On Sept. 5....it will be our 29th month of waiting! No end in sight. At least those darn Olympics are over! Now let's see if they speed up.......oh that's a big laugh.....can you detect the sarcasm????? For YEARS we've heard over and over......"AFter __________________________ (some event), the CCAA is going to speed up referrals." Yea, right! We used to believe it and get all excited as each event came and went, but now we have wised up and realized that it's just some sick joke to them to keep us waiting. But still we wait.......

Monday, August 18, 2008

Letter I Sent To Congressman Virgil Goode

I was sitting here tonight thinking about our I171H expiring in April 2009 and how we already used our one free extension. Doug had called INS and talked to them about whether or not we could get a second free extension but was told that we would have to file the I800A this time and pay the fees all over. That just doesn't seem fair at all and then I thought, "Susan, just write to your representatives and see if you can make a difference in this whole situation." It worked the first time so maybe they can pass some sort of legislation and get another free extension. You never know. As the old saying goes, "Nothing makes a failure except not trying." So, I wrote this letter to him and then wrote a similar one to our senator, Senator Jim Webb. Yep, I'm an optimist!


Dear Congressman Goode,
I am one of your supporters and am asking for your help with something. My husband, Doug, and I are adopting from China. We have been involved with this process for over 3 years and still do not have our baby girl. We are continuing to hang in there and do all that we can to make this dream of ours come true. We really do want to have a family and have tried to adopt through Social Services but have never been given a child to love and take care of. That is why we turned to the international adoption program. Back in September 2000, I was diagnosed with cancer and cannot have a biological child of my own but I KNOW that I am supposed to be a mother! I am also a school teacher in Danville Public Schools and while I love my students tremendously, I know that I want to be a mother to my own child. My husband, Doug, is going to be a tremendous father too! The problem we have is that our own government is going to make us renew our I171H (with Immigration) and that in itself will cost us another $700. The first time we filed the I600A and paid the fees for the form and the fees for the fingerprinting we knew that it was a required step and we did it without hesitation. Well, the China process continued to slow down and the Chinese have stretched a wait that was supposed to be 6 months long into a wait that we have had to endure for almost 29 months with many months left to go. During that time our I171H expired but by that time Congress had changed the rules with the form and we could get a free extension of the form! OH HAPPY DAY! We didn't have to pay for the extension and we were elated! It will now last through April 2009, but the predictions for us getting matched with our daughter does not look positive and we are afraid that the I171H will once again expire and now we will have to file the new form I800A and pay the over $700 fee. We are writing to you to see if you can somehow bring this issue before Congress and discuss maybe a second free extension. Nothing has changed with us except we are a little older (I'll soon be 41 and Doug will be 36) but we are still healthy, both still working, and both STILL wanting this baby so very much! This wait has been so hard for us and there were many times when we were tempted to throw in the towel, but we both know that there is a baby that is going to be OURS and we will be her parents. We know that once we get her, this wait will be a memory (kind of like when a woman endures labor pains and forgets about the pain once she holds her baby). I just don't see the justification in making us pay more money when the whole delay is not our fault. We are hard-working, honest people whose only desire is to love and raise a baby. Shouldn't our government be proud to have citizens like that? Shouldn't someone out there be representing us and supporting us in this wholesome endeavor that we are in? We certainly don't feel like the Chinese government has been very supportive or caring, but isn't there anyone in the U.S. government who can hear our pleas and be on our side? There are THOUSANDS of us in the adoption community who have banded together during this long wait and who are pressing forward with the same ultimate goal in mind. We need to know that our representatives, such as yourself, hear us and are willing to reach out and help us. Someone, somewhere along the line did help when they passed the regulations to allow us the first free extension. Surely, they can do it again. I personally think that once you pay for the first I171H, you shouldn't have to pay to do another one as long as you are still going for that same child. We have not changed our course. The length of the course has changed, but that is not our fault. Can you PLEASE help us with this????? Can you please be the one to get the ball rolling on this???? Maybe I am an optimist who believes that I can sit here and write my Congressman a letter and it WILL make a difference. I'm asking you to please show me that my optimism is not in vain. PLEASE!!!!
Sincerely and respectfully,
Mrs. Susan P. Appleton

Saturday, August 16, 2008

Doug Got Us Cell Phones!


Today Doug went out for a bit and when he came back he had gotten us cell phones! hahahahahahahahahaha Oh Lord, it is going to take me FOREVER to learn how to use this thing. I haven't had a cell phone in five years! This one has a keyboard for text messaging and a camera! How in the WORLD do you use that?????? He has his all figured out and has been using it but mine is still charging! It's so cute and it's PURPLE! hahahahahahaha Doug said that we're going to eventually need it when we have Rebekah and he feels better knowing I have it in case of an emergency! What a sweet hubby! He is DEFINITELY more technologically advanced than I am though.

Monday, August 11, 2008

CCAA Made It Through 1/31/06!!!!!

Well, at first we heard that CCAA only matched referrals through 1/27/06 which would have only been 2 days worth of referrals, but our agency emailed tonight and said that the OFFICIAL word is that they made it through 1/31/06! YAY! Of course now they are closed until after the stinking Olympics so next month probably won't see any referrals being made (I think). But at least they FINISHED January 2006 and the first few days of February will be freebies because they were out on vacation due to Chinese New Year that year being those days so they didn't have in LIDs. So hopefully they will get on through February quickly. Once they finish February, then we have to endure March and THEN, they will get to our dossier in the first week of April 2006 (04/05/06). So....we'll keep hanging in there and hopefully they will REALLY speed up after the Olympics!

Thursday, August 07, 2008

Bawling Like A Baby

Well, I sat here and watched the Steven Curtis Chapman family on Larry King Live.....oh my gosh.....what a TOUCHING and faith-affirming experience! I have cried for the whole hour! I bawled like a baby when they told the story about finding her artwork that she did the morning of the accident. She had drawn a flower that had six petals but had only colored one. They have six children and Steven said that when he went home with one of his sons after she died, to get some clothes for the memorial service, they kept saying aloud to God, "Please let us SEE your purpose in this, please let us see that she is ok and she's whole and she's happy." And then they found the picture she had drawn. Only one petal was colored WHOLE and under the flower she had written in crayon the word, "SEE", like she was saying, "See, I'm ok." Oh my gosh, I am STILL crying just thinking about it! The Chapman family explained it as a little "breadcrumb" that God gives to us to let us know that things are ok and things are going as HE plans it! I thought of our adoption and this HORRIBLE wait that we are having to endure and I KNOW that it is NOTHING compared to the grief that the beautiful Chapman family has had to endure. I guess this Larry King show was a little "breadcrumb" for me to let me KNOW that Heavenly Father knows what he's doing and that we will see our baby's face when the time is right. Now I'm not promising that I won't have some rough moments as we continue to wait, but I feel very strengthened by this show and just the faith that family showed. (Yep, still sitting here sobbing). So, with that said, I just pray that Heavenly Father will continue to bless this family in their grieving hearts and may he bless them for sharing their story and seeking to give hope and comfort to everyone who saw it! My faith was certainly strengthened! God bless them and all of you who read it!
Love to you all!
Susan

Tuesday, August 05, 2008

LID #28

Big whoop-dee-do here! NOT!

Monday, August 04, 2008

NOT A GOOD DAY!

Well, since this is MY blog and I can say whatever I want to say and vent any feelings that I am having.....here goes.......
We are in the process of updating our freaking homestudy and tonight I got TWO emails from the social worker who is supposedly working on our "simple and painless" update. She keeps asking me if we are working on a concurrent adoption with Danville Social Services. I have NO earthly idea why she would think that we are doing that. My gosh, do I just have IDIOT stamped across my forehead? Would I REALLY adopt a child through Social Services at this point and time in our China Adoption Process KNOWING full well that if we did, we would have to wait another YEAR before we could accept a referral from China??????????????? OH MY GOD! GET REAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I wrote to her the first time and told her no, we had worked with social services BEFORE we got involved with China, but once we started on our dossier, we closed our file with the social services. Plus, social services had never given us a child in the first place after we worked with them for two years, so we had given up on that route before we even switched to China. But, then she writes me again asking if we are working with Social Services.........ok, at this point, I got hot! Doug is talking about calling a lawyer because last year when we updated the homestudy, nothing was ever even mentioned about all of this, and now it seems to be some sort of issue that we have NO CLUE about the origins of. Plus, she stood in our livingroom during her visit and told us that all of our background checks, criminal checks, etc. had come back EXCEPT my fingerprints were messed up and I would have to redo them at the police station which I did once they sent me the new card. Tonight, she emails me and says we're missing some of those things in our file........WHAT THE HECK????????? I feel like I'm being jerked around and not being told the truth about the stuff. I hate that feeling. We had that happen to us with our first social worker who took 23 weeks to complete our homestudy when it was SUPPOSED to be a 6-8 week process. We could have been logged in by December 2005 had it not been for this person and we could have our baby by now. We explained that to this new social worker and asked her to please help make this process a positive experience.........I guess that was a waste of my breath. It just seems like EVERY STEP of this adoption is made to be harder than it should be. I just started a new school year, had one sleep last night, and now I have to deal with THIS. It's not fair to be treated this way after everything we have been through. 29 FREAKING HELLISH months of waiting and now we have to endure questions that make no sense at all and a social worker that won't listen when we plainly tell her that we are NOT adopting from Social Services.....how much plainer can I make that??????????? I have called our China Coordinator and the agency rep. and left them messages, but no one is in the office to call us back at this moment so I'm trying to hang in there until I can talk to one of them tomorrow. And now it is almost 10:00pm and I still have a pile of work to do. I have tears in my eyes just flowing out of frustration and impatience with the whole situation. This is MY blog so I can vent here and get it out of my system. If we don't get some answers soon, we'll be visiting a lawyer. Maybe then they will take care of our case like they should.

Sunday, August 03, 2008

Security Blankey For Rebekah


Well, over the summer, I sat down and made Rebekah a little security blankey with little taggies (to keep her little hands/mind busy). It is actually made of soft flannel and quilt batting inside. The little taggies are securely sewn on the inside and the outside. I have noticed a few newly adopted children who love their blankies so I decided to make her one. It's about 12 inches X 12 inches and was a lot of fun to make. I might make an identical one to send to her one day in a care package before we go to China. It really was fun to make.