A little more paperwork done!

I am happy to say that we have done a little more of the paperwork needed to bring Warren home! The adoption petition is done along with my letter of non-employment. Today we went to our local police department to get our police clearance forms. They were happy to inform us that they couldn't do our forms because we lived outside the city. Whatever, they did it last time! So then we had to head to the county sheriff's department and try our luck there. Things were not looking so good there either! The lady was new and did not understand that she could not sign the form and then notarize her own signature! Seriously!!! Finally she signed it and had someone else notarize it! Yhea us!
We also finished our Hague training online through our agency. We had to finish this before our homestudy agency will even come out! So now we have our physicals and a few other things to do and of course wait for our wonderful homestudy agency!
I am also going nuts not having any information on Warren's orphanage! Jaden was from one of the biggest orphanages in China if not the biggest, so there were pictures galore! Of course she was not in any of the pictures because she was in a foster home but at least I had something! This time there is zilch on Warren's orphanage. I have been told they just started international adoptions last year. I have actually started a yahoo group for his orphanage and we have a total of 6 members! Jaden's yahoo group has 922 members! I really just want to see what the orphanage looks like! And of course I want to see pictures of our son. I think this is going to be a long hard wait!
I am also sad that I wont be with our China family! You know the family we made on Jaden's trip. There are 7 families who are pretty close and I just don't feel right not having them there! I have tried and tried to get them to adopt too but so far there is always a reluctant spouse! (no mentioning names Gary and Madeline!) How I will get through China without them I don't know! I know there will be other families and who knows they may be just as great as our first China family! But I doubt it, we all clicked so well. And I am sad that I wont get to see them this year because our reunion is in the summer and that might be travel to China time. So I think they should make the reunion in China this year! That sounds like a good idea to me!!!

Paperwork progress...

For Jaden's adoption I blogged about everything! If I mailed something to someone for the adoption it was blogged about. With Warren it is different. I think mainly it is because Jaden keeps me so busy and when I do have time to blog it is about her! I am determined to try to blog Warren's story. Jaden has these nice books that I have made out of her blog so I want him to have the same thing. Of course I am pretty sure that he will not need two books to cover his wait because Jaden's wait for referral was so long!
So where are we in this wonderful journey through adoption? Well the homestudy application was mailed over a week ago. And let me just say that that application was crazy long and every line had to be filled out or it would be returned to me. So we should have our social worker assigned to us very soon and we can get the fun stuff going. We get to have someone come into our home and dissect our every move. This time they will have Jaden to talk to and I can only imagine what she will tell them!
We have also sent in the first set of papers to our adoption agency. This of course called for a notary. Thank goodness one of Rusty's employees is a notary so that will save alot of running around! For Jaden's adoption I took a picture of both Rusty and I filling out the application. This time that did not happen because that was all done before we were sure that China was going to give us PA for our little man and I didn't want to jinx it! But I did take a picture of Jaden holding the application before we mailed it!
I did take a photo of myself and Rusty signing the financial agreement for the agency though!

First care package on it's way!

We had fun last week shopping for little boy things that we could send to Warren. I have to get in the mindset of a boy otherwise the poor kid will have all pink toys. I picked up three toys and they were all pink. When we were on the way to the checkout it dawned on me boys like blue! So back to the baby section we went to get some more manly baby toys! Jaden picked out a blue elephant with a blanket. She also picked one of his shirts because it had an alligator on it!
So our box contained clothes, blanket, stuffed animal, baby toys, snacks for the babies, cameras, snacks for the nannies and a photo book for Warren! We packed it all up and headed to the post office to fight the Christmas crowd! One man told Jaden she had a big box and she told him "it's not yours it for my baby brother in China!" She wasn't very nice about it either! So $52 later our box is on its way to Henan China to a little boy who has no clue how his life will change in the next year!



In adoption paperwork news We finally got our application from our Homestudy agency and it is in the mail back to them. Now that we have to follow the Hague rules we have to use a Hague homestudy agency and there are only two in Ohio! The application was crazy and if you left one space empty it would be mailed back to you! If it didn't pertain to you it had to have N/A in the space! And I have been told they will not start our homestudy until we have done 22 hours of online classes! It's nuts! Oh well, he is worth it!

Today Warren's first Christmas ornament came in the mail. His big sister has 4 just like it, her wait was a little longer then his will be!

Celebrating our referral!

This weekend we finally took the time to celebrate our referral and PA in the same way we did for Jaden's. We went to a local Chinese restaurant with the Roger's family! Over two years ago we did the same thing when we were celebrating Jaden and Sophie!

This year we were celebrating our son!

Baby brother has a name!

While I have gotten used to calling our little guy baby brother I knew he would need an actual name. Unfortunately for me, back in 2005 I made a deal with Rusty. I would name our daughters and he would name our sons. I did this thinking we would adopt again from China and at the time knowing China it would be a girl, so I never thought Rusty would be given the opportunity to name someone. But surprise surprise we have a son which requires Rusty to pull out the baby name book. Ever since we saw him I have been throwing out names like Jackson, Cameron, Wesley and Joshua, you know cute baby names! Rusty on the other hand has been thinking about what he is going to name his business when he gets older! (I am not kidding here) The deadline was quickly creeping up on him because he had till today before I did my Christmas cards. So he FINALLY came to a decision. Our son will be named.....Warren Anthony!And while I would like to say he named him that because my grandfather's middle name was Warren and his great grandfather's name was Anthony, I think it is actually because he wants my son to make as much money as Warren Buffet! I am going to tell myself and my dear son that he is named after his great grandfather and his great great grandfather. And when he gets older he can name his business WAP enterprises! Rusty is very happy with his choice and thinks it is a strong name. I think it is a nice name and I will get used to it. I can not make a nickname out of it so I will have to go with his Chinese nickname. We call Jaden JJ but WW just doesn't sound good to me, neither does WA WA.So now we are done with the name and I am done with Christmas cards. Now I have to get busy with adoption paperwork! Don't you all envy me?

Pictures of our guy!

Well I was trying to wait for Rusty to come up with a name before I did another post but I am tired of waiting! He has to have it by this weekend because I told him that I refused to put "baby brother" on the Christmas card so he has till Sunday! But until then you can feast your eyes on all the cuteness that is "baby brother" AKA Qian, Geng Jiu!



So there you go your cuteness fill for the day!

He we go again!

So I thought I would post about how we got where we are today! It started when we got back from China with Jaden. I really wanted to go back for another baby but we no longer fit China's guidelines so I thought it would never happen.
We came home and started our lives as a family of three. Jaden kept us very busy and entertained but there was still something nagging me about baby number 2. A year ago I really felt like our family was missing someone. I started looking into other countries and even domestic adoption. I contacted ALOT of agencies to see what our options were. Every time I was ready to sign up I hesitated. I kept going back and forth thinking maybe we were just going to be our family of 3. All this time I kept looking at our China agencies list of waiting children thinking there was no way. I contacted our agency and asked about getting a waiver since we didn't fit the guidelines and they said it was possible. I still kept that info on the back bunner until October of this year. I really felt like I had another child in China. I contacted CCAI and was told that since we did not fit the guidelines we could try the new special focus program, this children have more complicated special needs or they could have minor needs but be a boy! So on 10/10/2011 I filled out the online form for our agency and requested a file for a little boy who had a malformed right foot. I got the email back saying no one had requested his file and they sent it to me! I knew when we opened up the file that I was looking at our son! I sent his file to a friend's wonderful mother and got there take on the situation. I also talked to Jaden's pediatrician. We got a good response from everyone. Rusty and I talked about it and decided to go for it. On 10/13/2011 I sent the email to CCAI letting them know that we felt Qian, Geng Jiu was our son and we wanted to try to get PA from China. After a crazy few days of filling out paperwork and getting letters for my doctor our LOI was sent to our agency on 10/20/2011. Now we had to begin our waiting. Our agency had to hold our LOI until the perfect time and that time finally came on 11/23/2011! Our letter of intent was finally sent to China and now we began to wait again. We were warned that it may take a while since we were a special case and that we may get asked for more information. I figured we would wait about a month to hear back and then they would ask for more info. Boy was I wrong! Yesterday I was at the mall with some wonderful friends when I looked down at my phone and saw I had a missed call. I checked the number and knew right away from the area code it was from our agency.(I had that number memorized after our wait for Jaden) I called back and talked to Sarah who informed me that they had received our PA from China!!! We had a son! I think I was in shock first because I was not expecting it! So now we begin again! We are starting that crazy paperchase for our son! We are so excited and I am so happy I followed my gut and kept trying to get our agencies help. I knew our second child was in China. Now the real fun begins!