Citizenship Part 1 Complete - December 2, 2010

Well, I have been told recently that I don't blog often enough, LOL!  My apologies.  Life is busy and there hasn't been much to report.  But, we are happy to say that our Citizenship Part 1 paperwork has just come in.  We were originally told by letter that it would take 8 weeks.  When we followed up we were told that was incorrect, that it now takes 16 weeks.  So, we followed up at the 16 week mark and were told they will look into it but that the department had 30 days to respond to the inquiry.  Well, fortunately in the meantime, our paperwork has arrived.  So I guess we are trully just in wait mode now.  We're not aware of anything else that needs to be done at this point and the last update was we can expect 18 months to 2 yrs for a proposal (that was in September).

On a different note, Ray and his Dad have started working on the basement and are about 99% done the framing.  Will have to take some pictures soon and post them.  I am so excited...we'll be able to move at least one of our offices downstairs, possibly both which will free up so much of our living space!

Kitten number two, (Sawyer bean, as we call her) is doing well and growing quickly.  She is a "teenager" now, at about 6 months of age.  She's wreaking havic on our Christmas tree but she's adorable so she's getting away with it.

Since I started back at work in September I feel like my house is a disaster.  We had our furnace and fireplace cleaned recently and the guys said it's one of the neatest houses they have seen so, I guess it's all a matter of perspective.  I will be so happy to get alot of stuff moved down to the basement when it's done and it will feel much more clutter free.

Gotta grab my breakfast and head out the door.  Happy Holidays everyone...I hope you can find some calm in the midst of everyone else's chaotic spirits!

October TDH Newsletter - October 2010

Please visit http://tdhontario.tdh.ca/newsletter.html for the latest adoption news.

As for us, with the exception of the addition of a new kitten, Sawyer, back in June...not much is new!  We were anticipating the 1st part of the Citizenship Application to be returned to us in July, however, a follow-up phone call said it will be sometime in November.  Well...time is flying by and we are coming up on the end of October already, so November will be here before we know it.  Hopefully, that will come in without issue and then we will trully be ready for our proposal of a child.  The main tidbits from the newsletter, with regards to Vietnam, are that as mentioned in a previous post, the new law comes into effect in January.  TDH and Vietnam will be trying to process as many adoptions between now and the end of December.  The hope is that 25 families will be matched with a child.  We are not anticipating any referrals from January to May 2011, and the hope is that the referrals will start coming in after then, without delay.

  On a different note...Ray has bought 2x4's and drywall to start finishing the basement.  It will be a good, dusty, winter project but we need more room as we are running our personal life and part time business careers from home!  Ray has recently started a photography business, as most of you know.  If you would like the website, please contact me personally and I can send it to you.

I started working full time as an Office Manager here in town.  I am loving the new position...the people I work for are amazing and make the days alot of fun.  M has started full time Montessori and, along with German at home, he is learning French now too.  Last time I posted I said M is hoping for a baby brother, well, now he wants a baby sister...LOL.  I guess that's too be expected from a 4 year old :)

We hope all is well with your family, and thank you for your continued interest and support of ours.

New Law Passed in Vietnam - June 29, 2010

A new law was recently passed in VietNam with respect to adoptions.  At this point, we don't know all of the details of the new law, however, we do know that it will come in to effect in January 2011.  The government will be working over the next few months to inform necessary parties, including the orphanages, as to the changes and how the new law is to be implemented.  A possible "slowdown" is anticipated for January.  The Director of the Department of Adoption, Mr. Binh, has asked for our patience.  Adoptions will continue and there will not be any temporary suspensions as the law is being put into effect.

Hopefully what this means, is that there will be more due diligence on the part of the authorities to find biological family for orphans PRIOR to their being referred to prospective adoptive families.  Time will tell!  In the meantime, we anticipate Part 1 of the Citizenship process to be completed in the next couple of weeks.

Ministry Approval!!! May 12, 2010

It's official...someone thinks we're good with children...LOL!!!  Our ministry approval came in today and we are very excited.  Our documents will be sent to Vietnam today.  Apparently we are around 65-70 on the list for a healthy boy or girl, and between 5-10 on the list for a boy or girl with mild correctible disorder.  That's a little scary actually!  We anticipated 18-24 months for a referral to come in, but now we are wondering if it will be sooner than that.

M... is still sticking by his request for a baby brother so I told him to put that out to the Universe and we'll see what happens!  R&I will be thrilled with either.

So, the next step is to complete Part 1 of the Citizenship application.  This is to varify one of the adoptive parents Canadian Citizenship.  Once we receive our confirmation letter, it will be sent on to the adoption agency to hold for when we get our referral.  Part 2 will be completed when we know who we are adopting!  We had to do some research to decide whether or not we would go the Citizenship route or Landed Immigrant.  We ultimately decided to go the Citizenship route as it is much faster, however, the law currently states that if our adopted child gives birth outside of Canada, and the other parent is not a Canadian Citizen, then the citizenship does not automatically flow to the child.  It is a small risk we are taking, in that regard, however, the adoption agency is confident that the law will be amended, and we know there has already been a press conference in Ottawa to address this issue.

We don't expect there to be any more news for awhile, but we will definitely keep you posted!

Welcome - April 7, 2010

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 7, 2010

Welcome to our blog!  We are setting this up so family and friends can keep up to date on our adoption process from Vietnam.

Back in June of 2009, R&I met a very nice lady in M's gymnastics class who had adopted a little boy from Tra Vinh, Vietnam.  She is on her way in this month to pick up her second son from Ho Chi Minh City.  We are so excited for her and are looking forward to meeting her new addition.  We were very interested in the process and grilled her for information.  After giving it alot of thought, knowing we wanted to expand our family, we decided to proceed with our adoption plans.  We contacted the agency in August 2009.  They had so many families waiting to adopt, so they put us on a preliminary waiting list.  In the meantime, we had alot of work to do!  R&I met with our social worker on several occasions and we attended a parenting class which was two full weekends in a row.  M had fun with his grandparents those two weekends!  We completed our homestudy in December 2009 and were excited to finally be able to send our documents to the adoption agency and be added to their primary wait list in February 2010.

The next step, after signing the contract, was to send all of our documents to the Adoption Unit of Ontario to be approved.  We were told to expect the wait to be 10-12 weeks.  We are at the 6 week mark now.   Hopefully we are more than half way there...yaaay!  Once we have been approved, our documents will be translated into Vietnamese and sent to Vietnam so we can be added to their official list of waiting parents.  It seems to be that most parents wait 18-24 months to receive a referral for a child and then another 6-10 months to travel to pick them up.  The way it works in Vietnam is, after we receive the referral and say we want to adopt the child, then they put out ads in the local papers to try to locate the childs family.  If no one responds after a reasonable amount of time, then the adoption proceeds.  If a family member responds to say they can care for the child, then the child is united with that person and they start to look for another child for us.  There are so many children in the orphanages that they can't possibly do searches for all of them until a family comes forward to say they want to adopt that particular child.  So, although we will receive a picture and fall in love with it, we have to keep in mind that this process must take place and it is in the best interest of the child if they are reunited with birth family.  Many children are abandoned at the doorsteps of the orphanages due to poverty.  However, that's not always the case so some investigation is necessary.

We look forward to updating you when we receive our approval to adopt from the Ministry!