Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Immigration | Reece's Rainbow

Great news!!! Our Home Study has officially been approved and finished!!

So now what?

We get to start the wonderful paperwork journey of the US Immigration system! Woohoo!! We first have to file an application for "Determination of Suitability to Adopt a Child from a Convention Country." This is one form that will go into our Dossier (fancy word for a pile of papers we need). This one form costs about $1,000 to file and takes about 2 months to get approved. Everyone pray they don't take that long!

In the mean time... we are slowly working on Quinn's room! Obviously all of our disposable income is going towards adoption costs so it is slow coming,  but it is going to be so great! Pictures to come!

Wednesday, April 20, 2016

The Home Study | Reece's Rainbow

The first thing required to adopt a child from anywhere be it domestically or internationally is a home study. This entails filling out a bunch of paperwork that includes everything from the standard things like where we live and what we do for work, to really personal questions about our childhoods and family situations, and what we consider to be our own personal strengths and weaknesses when it comes to raising children and being parents. 

(I would just like to take a moment to impress upon all of you biological families out there how grateful you should be to not have to answer to anyone about why you will be a good parent. It's crap. There, that is the only pity party I will have!)

The great thing about The Home Study, is that it comes with a giant checklist. I. Love. Checklists! I rock at checklists. Copy of our Drivers Licenses, check! Copy of our bank statement, check! copy of our marriage certificate, check! Employment verification letters that have to be on company letterhead, state our annual income (even though I'm paid hourly), and notarized, Check! Check! Check! Check! Down the list we went. We had that thing done in no time. It actually took forever, but now that it's over it feels like we did it pretty quickly.

Next comes referrals from family and friends to get their opinion on why we will be good parents. I'm sure that was painful, awkward, and terrible for everyone who we asked to do one, so THANK YOU! You know who you are and we think you are amazing!

Next came the home visit. This was a really fun time where we took the morning off of work so that a social worker whom we had never met before could come to our house, sit in our living room, and ask us personal questions. For 3 hours. So glad that is done!

Just a note, I never want to be a social worker. That would be such a hard job! Who wants to go into strangers houses and try to evaluate if they are mentally stable enough to provide a safe, nurturing, home for a child? Not me! But kudos to her, because she was great.

Then our social worker had to type up a huge document stating her opinion of us using her visit and all of the forms and documents we submitted. This form is then sent to our international agency for approval and then translated into Vietnamese and used as one checklist item in our next task: the Dossier!

Tuesday, April 19, 2016

Quinn, AKA Ryan | Reece's Rainbow

So, we are adopting from Vietnam... now what?

In 2014 Vietnam joined the Hague Adoption Convention, which ensures that adoptions that take place are safe and ethical. Because they just recently joined the Hague, they are only adopting on a limited basis through a pilot program. That means that only three adoption agencies in the U.S. are licensed to adopt from Vietnam, and children who meet a certain criteria are eligible to be adopted in the U.S. These children are either older than 5 years old, have special needs, or are in sibling groups.

First things first, we chose which agency we wanted to work with. We chose HOLT which is an agency located in Oregon. We filled out some paperwork, paid some fees, and then got to look at a photo listing. It was pretty overwhelming. There were about 20 children waiting to be adopted that we saw at that time. Most of them older and with minor to major special needs.

Mark and I each looked at the photo listing separately. We each found the same boy that we liked. We were trying to keep an open mind but knew he would be on the short list. We requested more information on a couple of the kids and looked each of them over and prayed and prayed. Our U.S. agency has assigned all of the kids English names so we can all pronounce and say specifically who we are talking about. One night while we were playing some board game Mark said, "OK, write down the name of the kid you feel the best about. We each wrote down the name on a paper and on the count of three flipped it over. We both wrote the same name: Ryan.

We wrote to our agency to let them know we found our son! We were so excited. We started thinking of what we wanted to name him and imagining our life with him. Our agency wrote back 4 days later. That was a long 4 days. Apparently everyone was out of the office, in Vietnam, seeing how things were working on that end. They told us that they were excited that we chose to adopt Ryan, but that another family was interested in him too. I've never felt so much anxiety in my life! From there we had to wait 2 weeks for a phone interview with a social worker and then a committee would decide which family would adopt him. We had to pull the reins in on names and our imagined future and wait. What if they choose the other family? We felt so good about our decision! What if it doesn't work out? We just had to put our faith in God and know that He obviously was in charge and whatever happened was for our good and learning.

We had the interview on a Tuesday and we both felt like it went well. The social worker told us that she still needed to interview the other family and then they would let us know when they would hold the committee to decide and let us know the night after the meeting. Then on Thursday shortly after I got home from work someone called me and from the caller ID I knew it was our agency. My heart about leaped out of my chest. It was the social worker. She said "I hope someone told you that the committee was held today." I awkwardly and with much surprise told her that "no, I had no idea!" She said that they had just finished and decided to place Ryan with us! I immediately started crying uncontrollably and hung up with her and called Mark. Poor guy. It must be distressing to get a phone call from your hysterical wife. All I could say was that they had called me. He of course thought the worst because I was crying uncontrollably. I told him that they chose us, and he said "Oh... well that is good!"

I don't think I've ever reacted to news so hysterically :) That was the straw that broke the camels back to be sure. I had carried so much anxiety, hopes, fears, doubts, everything about the adoption, having kids, the future and life in general that to get that news was more than I could even contain. Needless to say it was a great day.

Our match with Ryan is currently contingent on us completing a successful home study (more to come on this later). Because nothing is set in stone, and because we don't want to jeopardize anything with the adoption, we won't be talking much about our son-to-be (that shouldn't be hard as we don't know a whole lot) but we have been advised not to post pictures, or really anything about him. We also want to respect his privacy, as we currently have no rights to his well being at this point.

However, we will tell you that we have chosen to name him Quinn Aaron! We can't wait to meet him!


Monday, April 18, 2016

Why Vietnam? | Reece's Rainbow

The first question most people ask us when they learn we are adopting is "Why Vietnam??!" and that is an excellent question! It took Heavenly Father years to tell us, so here is the story in the 10 minute version.

When Mark and I were in China we got to go to the World's Fair in Shanghai in 2010. If you haven't had a chance to attend a World's Fair before, you should definitely go! Basically every country in the world showcases their country, culture, customs, and uniqueness. It's so fun! Larger countries with the means to do so construct entire buildings to exhibit their country, other smaller countries have a booth next to other smaller countries. When we got there we purchased a little fake "passport" and every country you "visit" stamps your book with their country stamp. It's the best! Anyway, long story short, Vietnam was my favorite exhibit. As soon as we walked in there I said "we have to go to Vietnam!" I can't even say why it struck me so much, or what was so great about it, but it was meant to be. Heavenly Father was talking to us in any way he could and at that point in our lives it was to put that little thought in my heart. "We have to go to Vietnam."

Fast forward years later, after learning of our infertility and learning to love life just the way it was, we embarked on many different travel adventures. Vietnam was of course on the list and we had our chance last year. Mark's parents were serving a mission in Hong Kong and we knew we wanted to go visit them. We also wanted to go somewhere we hadn't been before since you know... we were over there anyway. This was our chance! We took a fast break in the middle of our trip visiting Mark's parents to take a quick flight over to Vietnam. Because of work schedules, we were only able to stay for a couple days so we missed out on a bunch of the things we wanted to do and see, but we got to explore Hanoi and loved it! We had pho for every meal and sweat bucket loads while we walked around the humid city streets, but that is what vacation is all about right? While we were there Mark had the prompting that "maybe we should adopt from Vietnam." He shared it with me, and me being me immediately shot it down. "It will be way too hard!" "You're just thinking that because we are here and you see poverty and people in need and want to help." "It's because we are here and we have been talking about adoption a lot lately."

Then, at the beginning of this year Mark's family was all gathered in the living room while his parents were opening their next mission call. Hanoi, Vietnam! As soon as Mark heard the call he was overwhelmed with the prompting that we needed to look there to adopt. He pushed it away with the same kinds of things I had said before. "No, it's too hard." "I'm just thinking that because my parents are going to serve a mission there." But that prompting wouldn't go away. In fact it just kept getting stronger. (I, in the meantime, was feeling simultaneously proud of myself that I had guessed the mission destination correctly and terribly sorry for myself that his parents were leaving AGAIN so soon and for so long.) Soon after everyone had said their congratulations and had done all the hugging, Mark pulled me aside and took me into the back office. He was crying (which I had NEVER seen him do to this extent) and as soon as I looked at him I knew too. We are adopting from Vietnam. I think's Mark's exact words were "I'm sorry, I know you don't want to, but we are supposed to adopt from Vietnam." I of course started crying too and while we were crying and hugging Mark's dad awkwardly walked in on us and I'm sure he thought we were fighting or something.

Now that we have "the plan" I can see how Heavenly Father was watching out for us and I'm sure wanting to give us the answers we were so desperately seeking the whole time. We just weren't ready to hear them until all the links were in place for us. He told us as soon as He could so that we would understand.

That night we went home and immediately started researching what adoption in Vietnam looks like. We quickly learned that the twists and turns and surprises were only beginning. We had the place we needed to adopt from, but that "infant/newborn" that I wanted to adopt was not what was going to happen. Not only that, but only special needs children are adopted from Vietnam. My mental image of what our family would look like was changing faster than I could comprehend. But there was a sweet peace that accompanied these new revelations. This is what Heavenly Father has in store for us. It's not anything close to what we expected or planned... it's so much better.

Why Adoption? | Reece's Rainbow

Mark and I started trying to have kids of our own back in 2011. After several months of excited anticipation we still weren't pregnant. I scheduled an appointment with a fertility specialist and had several tests done which all came back with no obvious problems. I started taking chlomid and we crossed our fingers.

Nothing.


Nothing.

I like to think of myself as a patient person, but I was going crazy. I learned something important about the medical profession: if you don't press the issue they wont do it for you. I kept wishing they would call me to check in (which I knew was not their job... but I wanted them to take the initiative so I wouldn't have to). I had no idea what to do. So, I finally called the doctors office to see what our next steps were. That was when we had the bright idea to get Mark tested. That was wonderful and not awkward at all ;)

The results came back: Azoospermia. Which is medically defined as "A complete absence of sperm in the semen." Yeah, minor problem.

Next came a couple years of research, meeting with our doctor again, being referred to a specialist, meeting with said specialist and having a general sense of indirection. There are medical options we can pursue. However, they come with a lot of unknowns, no guarantees, and expense. In addition to that it requires very invasive surgery on Mark's part, followed by invasive Invitro treatments on my part. It just didn't feel like the right decision for us.

What did feel much more promising and a better fit for us, was adoption. But what type of adoption? Fostering, Domestic, International? While we knew we were moving in the right direction, we felt a LACK of direction. The only thing we ruled out pretty quickly was fostering due to our lack of parental experience and the emotional roller coaster that comes with the foster system. That left us with International or Domestic adoption. The only thing I felt like I knew we wanted was an infant or newborn baby. Wasn't there someone out there who had a baby they wanted to give us??! We are nice people I promise!!

We met with several wonderful families that had all grown their families through adoption. They offered us a wonderful opportunity to talk to people who knew exactly what we were going through. Of course we have wonderful family and friends who love and support us, but they don't understand the heartbreak of infertility. Our only dilemma was that all of these great adoptive families had adopted years ago through LDS Family Services, which no longer facilitates adoptions.

Enter a year of indecision and constantly feeling a lack of direction. We knew that Heavenly Father was very aware of us and our situation, we just couldn't figure out what His plan was. Little did we know he was just waiting for us to be ready. I know... we were ready YEARS ago. But not for what He had in store for us.

Now that we understand His specific plan for us we can see the wisdom in His timing. I knew I would get to say that someday!! It was just a long time coming!

Friday, April 15, 2016

Introductions | Reece's Rainbow

Hello!

I'm Callie and I'm married to Mark. Let me just start by saying that Mark is the most amazing person in the world. I love being married to him, which I have been fortunate to have been for the last 8 years, 6 months, and 4 days. He is funny, smart, hard working, the best travel partner, and will make the BEST dad. Just so you know.

Let me tell you a bit about us. We got married in 2007 while we were in college at Utah Valley University. I graduated in 2009 with a Bachelors degree in Deaf Studies (I'm an ASL interpreter) and Mark graduated in 2010 with a Bachelors degree in Integrated studies focusing on Psychology and Biology. After graduation is when life really began :) We spent a semester in mainland China teaching English to children, which was one of our most favorite/best/most fun things we have done to date. We got to travel quite a bit within China and grew to love the culture, people, and country.

When we got back from China we both started working full time. Mark works at Enterprise Rent-A-Car and has now been there for over 5 years. He started as a cute little management trainee and worked his way up to a management assistant, assistant manager, and branch manager before his promotion to the business rental department. He now works as a business to business sales executive, and loves it! I started interpreting, primarily in education settings for Deaf students and now work for Sorenson Communications as a Video Relay Interpreter. That means I interpret phone calls for Deaf individuals using a Video Phone (think Skype or FaceTime).



We love to travel! China was my first time out of the country and it definitely ignited a lifelong love of travel for us. We have taken trips together to Australia, England, France, Switzerland, Italy, Hong Kong, Vietnam, and Iceland. Somewhere in there we also bought a house! We have become the masters of home projects and love to tackle them together.





We are excited to be getting some traction on our adoption journey and are looking forward to sharing the joys, frustrations, mundane tasks, and overall excitedness as we grow our family through adoption!