Lost Children of the Coal

This mini-documentary (22 minutes long) takes place in the province Reese is from. Jinzhong, where this is filmed, is southeast of Taiyuan (where Reese is from). Shanxi is a province where most, if not all, of the children abandoned are left with birth defects. The cause of the abandonment may not be that they have special needs, but most of them do have special needs. This is most likely largely due to the pollution found in Shanxi province, one of the most polluted places in the world due to the coal mining and burning there. This is about a lady called Mama Kong, who has taken in a total of 31 abandoned children and adopted them as her own, getting them identity papers and such so they can go to school and get jobs, as well as working with NGOs to get the children the surgeries they need.

Also, a special HI! to all of the readers coming over from No Hands But Ours.

We are working on collecting our child abuse clearances and getting birth certificates and marriage licenses and all for our home study (and the dossier for China). Mom is also working on the autobiographies for she and dad. We're also calculating costs and time frames for everything we have to have done.

We will ultimately have to file an I-800A with the USCIS= $720.
Fingerprints for everyone over 18: $85 each (x4)= $340

And yeah, it just goes uphill from there. International adoption is expensive, but worth it.

More Pictures!

This is a picture of Ana-Cherie that I cropped down. I believe this was fall of 2011 (so she was 3).

While blurry, this is our most recent shot of sweet A-C. A family who just got their daughter on the 22nd of August snapped this one. She's so tiny!

She's so little! We're guessing size-wise she'll maybe be a 4T next summer when we travel (gosh, that seems like forever away!). She's about 30 lbs and 42 inches tall last update we had. And adorable. Did I mention adorable? Love those little pigtails.

This Post Brought To You By...

The letters...

 

Yes, folks, I am not kidding. We're going back to China! China gave us PA for a sweet little girl who will be 5 in January (to Reese's 8 in October).

Under current Hague laws, which are kind of confusing to begin with, I can't give a whole lot of information about her, as I understand. But I can share this.

Introducing my new little sister, Ana-Cherie!

Like Reese, she has a facial birthmark, and it is listed as being elsewhere as well (that's more than we got with Reese...we were somewhat surprised that she had port-wine stain elsewhere, but that didn't matter.) She had a seizure last fall, but she has had physical therapy for it and everything seems to be fine. At the last update we have of her, she was 30 lbs and 36" tall. We hope to travel to get her next summer.

Current Timeline:

I first saw Ana-Cherie's picture: 06/27/2012

Submitted Application for Pre-Approval (PA) and Waivers: 08/09/2012

PA: 08/20/2012

We have until Feb 21, 2013 to be DTC (Dossier to China).

This is a completely surprising adoption, as we really were not looking to adopt again, but here we are, unexpectedly "expecting".

We currently have 2 fundraisers running for our adoption. This was kind of a surprise "pregnancy", as we really weren't thinking we would ever go back to China.
Current Fundraisers:

1. Puzzle Piece Fundraiser- $5 buys a puzzle piece, which we will write your name on.
2. Tupperware Fundraiser- This runs through OCTOBER 26. We get 40% of the proceeds towards our adoption of Ana-Cherie. They have some really awesome products, and because this is online, they are shipped straight to you.

Current Trends and Status in Chinese Adoption

I wrote this for a class in college called "Writing for the Workplace", and it got an A, so I thought I would share it. It has some interesting information in it, if nothing else, and I thought maybe someone else would appreciate it. Please forgive the formatting issues for the bibliography, it didn't copy properly, and it didn't want to repair easily. But I assure you, it was done properly originally.


Current Trends and Status in Chinese Adoption

Annotated Bibliography
by
Monica D.



Askeland, Lori, and Elizabeth Bartholet. "International Adoption." Children and Youth in Adoption,   Orphanages, and Foster Care: A Historical Handbook and Guide. Westport,     CT: Greenwood, 2006. Print.

This chapter details some of the reasons why international adoption came to be prevalent in many countries, as well as reasons for the closure and decrease of adoptions from some other countries. It also addresses the recent legal developments in the area of adoption, such as encouraging domestic adoption and providing more protections against the “selling” of children. These changes are addressed in the Hague Convention. Some of these factors may be affecting the formerly high number of children being adopted from China. The point of view from both the side of advocates for and against international adoption is mentioned.

"Country Specific Information for China." Department of State: Intercountry Adoption. Mar.     2010. Web. 01 Feb. 2011. .

The United States Department of State releases information on international adoption. This website displays the most recent information on procedures for adoption from China from a legal standpoint, as well as statistics for the amount of adoptions from China to the USA from 1999-2009. It includes information on the requirements to adopt from China, legal fees, how to obtain a visa to travel to China, finalizing the adoption process and obtaining the adopted child’s citizenship, and more.

Crary, David. "Adopting China's Special-needs Kids." Msnbc.com. 28 Mar. 2010. Web. 01 Feb.     2011. .

In the wake of an increasingly long wait for a young, non-special needs child, many couples seeking to adopt from China are turning to the special needs program and adopting children with special needs, ranging from minor to severe. This article tells of a family who adopted two girls, one with an underused right arm, and one with a now-repaired cleft palate; it also addresses other perspectives of people in the adoption community. Reputable sources in the article say that as many three out of every five adoptions from China today are special needs adoptions, with adoptions from China having plummeted 60% since its height in 2005. In some adoption agencies, perhaps even most, special needs adoptions comprise 50% of their caseloads.





Davidson, Cheryl. Personal Interview. 02 February 2011.

We discussed recent changes in the flow of adoptions from China, as well as the increase in acceptance towards deciding to adopt special needs kids. We spoke of personal adoption experiences, both of experiencing her own adoption and that of friends, and the way things have changed since she first became involved in the Chinese adoption community in Arkansas. Adoptions have slowed drastically, and families coming home with their children are few and far between. The lack of adoptions was a contributing factor to the end of the group, Families with Children from China-Central Arkansas, of which she was a member from 2004 until its end in early 2011. 

Dowling, Monica, and Gill Brown. "Globalization and International Adoption from China."     Child & Family Social Work 14.3 (2009): 352-61. Print.

Globalization has made the adoption world much more acceptable and commonplace. This globalization has made there be closer links and understanding between various cultures, including that of America and China. Pursuing an adoption, and having to travel to China to receive one’s child, allows one to experience another culture on a level that books and movies cannot provide, allowing for more understanding and comprehension of the culture. This article also discusses the reasons behind infant abandonment in China, including the One-Child Policy and poverty, and how it is contributing to a wide gender gap in China, with as many as 145 boys being born in some areas to every 100 girls. Increasing domestic adoption within China is also addressed, as that is a key component to the lack of healthy babies available for adoption internationally. All of these components are crucial factors in the major slow down of Chinese adoptions from only a few years ago.

"Foreign Adoptions by Americans Hit 15-year Low - FoxNews.com." FoxNews.com. 31 Jan.     2011. Web. 01 Feb. 2011.
            americans-hit-year-low/>.

Foreign adoptions by Americans are at a 15-year low, with many countries having either closed their programs down or severely cutback the amount of children being adopted internationally. Chinese adoption has been steadily declining since 2005, Russian adoption was slowed down significantly by the highly-publicized story of the 7 year old boy shipped back to Russia alone for being “difficult”, and Guatemala all but halted adoptions due to alleged “baby selling”.

"Special Focus Child Adoption Program." Great Wall China Adoption. 22 Oct. 2010. Web. 01     Feb. 2011. .

In 2010, China initiated a new program to further encourage the adoptions of children deemed “special needs”. It is called the Special Focus Program, and it allows children who have been on the shared special needs list, a list of children available for adoption released to all licensed adoption agencies, for more than two months or who had attended a China Center for Adoption Affairs (CCAA) “Hope Camp,” to be adopted by families who have their dossier in China already, or who can have a dossier completed in six months. A dossier is a collection of paperwork detailing information about the prospective parents’ health, monetary value, and their reasons for desiring to adopt a child. This project also allows families to adopt two unrelated children, at least one being a Special Focus child, to be adopted in one trip to China, though it does extend the length of the trip to China, as paperwork must be done in each child’s province; for a family to adopt a Special Focus child while remaining in line to wait for a non-special needs referral; and to allow a family who has returned home with a child to begin a second adoption of a Special Focus child within one year of returning home using their original dossier. This increases the desirability of adopting a special needs child, and also lessens the overall cost in some cases of adopting two children separately.





Summary and Conclusion


    Based on the referenced information, international adoption from China, as well as other countries, has dropped to a 15-year low. Adoptions from China to the United States of America reached an all-time high in 2005, topping out at over 7,900 children being brought home to the USA in that year. In 2009, the last year for which data is accessible, adoption dropped down some 60% to a mere 3,001 adoptions. Adoptions from China are processing through the China Center for Adoption Affairs, or CCAA, at a trickle, it seems, and adoptions are progressing slower and slower for families choosing to take on the non-special needs track, asking for a healthy baby, usually female and as young as possible, averaging between 6-12 months old at referral. Families with a Log-In Date, or LID, of their paperwork to China in 2006 are facing a minimum of a 4 year wait to referral, and the time frame for families logged in after 2006 is even longer. As a result of this massive slow down, many families are looking to the special needs track to adopt. Once a family switches to the special needs track, they can usually have a referral within 12-18 months. It is becoming a problem, however, that families are switching to special needs to shorten their wait without thinking of the possible consequences adopting a child with special needs can have. While many children have limited, minor special needs, such as cleft lip or cleft palate, or missing limbs, or birthmarks, some special needs can be much more severe, such as heart defects, blindness, deafness, and many other things. It is up to the family to decide what they are capable of handling, and some families do this more reasonably than others.
    With the increased wait for a non-special needs adoption, special needs adoptions have become the emphasis for adoption from China. Some agencies are no longer accepting applications for families wanting to adopt a non-special needs child, and some are reporting up to half of their caseload is involving special needs adoptions. More families are thinking about it and deciding that they could handle some special needs and switching to the special needs program. In contrast to 5 years ago, special needs adoptions outnumber non-special needs, though to what extent no one is sure, as the CCAA does not release this information. The CCAA has recently implemented new rules making it easier for the child who have special needs to be adopted, including allowing children who have been on the shared list, a list of special needs children available to be adopted made accessible to agencies, for more than two months, called Special Focus children, to be adopted by families as long as the family has a dossier in China, or can get one together in six months (former rules required families to have a dossier in China before submitting paperwork on a child, or only gave a very short three months to collect a large amount of paperwork). Families can also adopt two unrelated special needs children at one time, as long as one is a Special Focus child, and they can also return to China to adopt a Special Focus child within one year of having adopted another child using their old dossier. Formerly, families had to wait a year from returning home from China to start the process again, with new paperwork. Families are also now being allowed to adopt a Special Focus child, while keeping their dossier in line to adopt from the non-special needs track. All of these new rules have increased special needs adoptions further, even though these rules are still relatively new. Some professionals are theorizing that perhaps China is looking to phase out the non-special needs program and go to exclusively special needs, but nothing official has been said about such a thing.
    Anyone involved in the Chinese adoption world can speak to the fact that adoptions have slowed down drastically. “Why?” is a question difficultly answered. The CCAA holds to the fact that there are fewer girls being abandoned, leading to a lack of healthy baby girls to refer to a growing list of prospective parents. Some parents who have asked for a girl are even being referred boys, as the amount of healthy boys abandoned has seemed to have increased for a reasons no one can seem to pinpoint. Domestic adoption is also being encouraged in China, in keeping with the Hague Convention, which further decreases the amount of healthy babies available for international adoption. While the Chinese people are more and more willing to adopt healthy babies, most are not willing to take on the responsibility and cost of a special needs child. Therefore, the special needs children deemed eligible for international adoption are made available to adoption agencies worldwide to match with families.
    Current trends in Chinese adoption are a vast slow down of non-special needs adoptions, a vast increase in special needs adoptions, and overall lower number of children coming home to waiting families in the United States and other countries who participate in adoption from China, such as Norway, Sweden, England, Ireland, Spain, Canada, and more. China is pushing for more special needs adoptions, making them easier to do, and seemingly hoping for more people to choose to adopt special needs from the beginning or for families on the non-special needs track to switch to the special needs track. There is currently no sign of the non-special needs track speeding up, with only a few days worth of Log-In Dates being referred each month, and families are simply having to wait patiently until their day comes. Agencies, and the CCAA, are definitely encouraging the special needs track, as there are so many children with special needs, some of whom their special need is just the fact they are older and were not adopted as babies, that need homes.

"Accidental Adoption"

I kidnapped this from here
This is just...hilarious, lol.




Honey, sit down. I have some news for you.

What is it?

Well, I don't know how to say this, so I'll just come out with it. I went to the mailbox today and... well, we got an I797C.

A what?!? An I797C? As in, we're going to have a(nother) child?!?

It looks that way.

But how? We've been so careful! I put away all the blank I-800A forms. Didn't you hide our homestudy update?

Of course I did, but don't forget, there was that one night...

What night? (pauses) Ohhh, that night, But it was only once. We were just messing around. I didn't print clearly. I didn't even use ink! (pauses again) But it was kind of fun. (giggles).

It was, wasn't it? I'll never forget how cute you looked getting your fingerprints. So now we've got our I797C, eh? But that doesn't always mean you'll adopt, does it? I mean, shouldn't you see the agency or something, make sure everything's okay?

I already did.

And?

I'm five documents along.

Five documents! And they're all notarized, certified and authenticated okay?

Just great. There was one small scare when the agency couldn't see the Notary's middle initial but it showed up just fine under the magnifying glass.

Thank God.

And you, honey? Are you feeling okay?

I'm feeling fine. As long as I know you're happy about this.

Happy? I'm thrilled! It's always a shock at first when something like this happens, but of course I'm happy.

Author Unknown



P.S. All you lovely readers out there...I love comments. :) It gives me something happy amidst all of this insanity that is the finals of a particularly insane semester as a college sophomore.

A Year Ago Today...

Coming into the room

The long hallway

Michelle and me trying to calm her down

A year ago today, we were in a raggedy van on our way to the Civil Affairs office in Taiyuan. That had to be one of the longest rides ever. I distinctly remember crossing the river that cuts Taiyuan down the middle, the Huang He (Yellow) River, I believe. The bridge was probably as long as the one that crosses the Arkansas River that we go over every so often. There was a large dragon statue in the middle of the river that was made to look like the dragon was winding up and down in the river. Pretty nifty. I also remember a big gold building, probably 4-6 stories tall and big! It was the Shanxi Provincial History Museum, which I would have loved to go to. I also remember what appeared to be a large alley with a blow-up gate with Chinese characters on it. I didn't ask what they said, but what with the large amounts of balloons and a general carnival type atmosphere, I assume it was something to do with Children's Day which was only a few days away. We actually saw a Children's Day celebration at the hotel across the street from our hotel later in the week. Finally, we got to the Civil Affairs Office. We went up to the 3rd floor, I think it was, maybe the 4th, and walked down a long hallway, with no lights on. The only light was from a large window at the end of the hallway. We then waited outside the Shanxi Province Foreign Adoption Administration Office, as no one was there yet to unlock the door. Finally, the notary, I believe it was, arrived and let us in. And I paced. And stared out the large windows down to the ground to see if I saw anyone coming in with a little girl. And paced some more. Then paced back to windows. They were running late. I read the English parts of the board about adoption and the board about marriage in the room. It was a kind of dingy room, fairly large, not really decorated, save for the big boards on the wall, and the windows were kind of grimy, but given the pollution that is common place in Shanxi, washing them all the time probably would have been a waste of time. I walked in between the windows and the couch for what seemed like forever. After looking at her picture for a year, what was another 30 minutes, really, but still. Finally, I heard a little girl crying and people talking in Chinese from down the hall. Somehow, in my pacing to the window and back, I had missed her coming in. She came in carried by a nanny, if I remember right, from the orphanage. The orphanage she had only spent 2 months in at the beginning of her life as an orphan, and the last week of it. I guess they told her what was going on, because Reese was very upset. Our guide took her from the nanny and tried to calm her down. I tried to play with her. I gave her Lifesavers, which she liked, but she continued sobbing. I tried a camel a person on my Mom or Dad's route had given her. It was very soft. She didn't like it. To this day, she doesn't like it. Bad association, I suppose. We tried letting Mom hold her, that made it worse. Finally, she passed out in Michelle, our guide's lap. We let her sleep there while we did some paperwork. Finally we had to take the adoption certificate picture. To do so, Michelle slipped Reese into Mom's lap on the floor. Sadly, we had to wake Reese up for the picture. So she's crying in our adoption certificate picture. She shut down for a little while, but apparently, she'd done the majority of her mourning there at the Civil Affairs Office. She was fairly quiet the whole way back to the hotel. At the hotel, we tried to get her to take a nap, but she refused. So she "watched" cartoons, and we changed her clothes and put the ones she came to us up. I'd love to take a picture of her in them now, but I'm worried it would upset her...or she wouldn't want to take them off. We then went to Wal-Mart.

I'm gonna try to take some pictures of her later this evening for her Gotcha/Forever Day.

News, news, news

We received our LOA on April 4, 2007...whatever number day that was, I don't remember. It was returned to China on April 13, 2007. And apparently my mom accidentally only signing her first and last name, then going back and signing first, middle, and last beneath it worked because we got our TA today! : ) We're leaving on the 24th, and we should have a Consulate appointment on either the 4th or 5th of June. That's my current exciting news. (At left is Reese on her 2nd birthday, and at right, is Reese in March of this year, almost 2-1/2! The wonders of laser treatment and eye pressure surgeries and drops.)

Now for some brain food:

Port-wine stain is a vascular (containing blood vessels) birthmark made of enlarged capillaries. It effects 3 out of every 1,000 people born and is present at birth. The mark may darken as the child gets older and can be lightened with a laser. This usually has the most benefit when begun early in life, before the birth mark thickens. PWS covering the upper and/or lower lids is often associated with glaucoma. It can also be a symptom of Sturge-Weber Syndrome (SWS) or Klippel-Trenaunay-Weber Syndrome. So any large birthmark, particularly across the face, should be evaluated. Doctors may order a pressure exam of the eye to rule out glaucoma if the mark goes over the eye and/or and x-ray of the brain to rule out brain involvement (a.k.a. seizures).

Places Visiting My Blog

It is actually May 21st as I revamp this post. I have decided to make this into a list of places, mostly outside the U.S.A., that have visited the blog. Yes, I am easily amused. If you would like to comment and leave your place of residence (U.S.A. or not, I don't mind either), that'd be awesome. Here's the list as I remember, which is kind of a sad list...because I remember the countries but not the all the cities:

Bombay, India
Beijing, People's Republic of China
Australia
Bad Doberman, Germany
Finland
Iceland
Nova Scotia
Las Palmas, Spain
La Canada, Mexico
Guam
Malaysia
Pusan, Republic of Korea
Lelystad, Netherlands
Little Rock, AR, USA
Patterson, MO, USA
Virginia Beach, VA, USA
Belmont, MI
Green Lane, PA
La Place, LA
Brookville, FL
Rockledge, FL
Afton, NY
Tallahassee, FL
Rio Rancho, NM
Lacombe, LA
Minot, ND
Bolingbrook, IL
Grand Rapids, MI
Tucson, AZ
Wallingford, CT
Phoenix, AZ
Waukegan, IL
Rosedale, MD
Everett, WA
Westchester, IL
Brisbane, Australia
Valencia, Spain
Salt Lake City, UT, USA
Cabot, AR, USA
Philadelphia, PA, USA
Saint-Eustache-sur-le-Lac, QC, Canada
Bunnik, Netherlands

TBC