Ahhhh, a glitch - February 17, 2012

It's Friday, 3 weeks after our proposal, and we have received word from Vietnam that the child proposed does not match our home study...ahhh!  Why do these things happen on a Friday???!!!!  Luckily, and by the grace of our WONDERFUL social worker, we met with her, co-ordinated the proper wording we were missing with the adoption director in Ontario, and have amended our home study.  We emailed and couriered the documents to all parties that needed them and now we wait, fingers crossed!

The Official Acceptance to Vietnam - Jan. 29/12

Happily, we received our approval from the Ministry and our official acceptance has been sent to Vietnam!  Now the hard wait begins...will all be okay?  Will we get to adopt this little boy?  When will we travel?  So exciting, but so many questions right now too!

Our Proposal!!!! January 22, 2012

We are THRILLED to announce that we have been proposed a beautiful baby boy.  Currently, he is 5 months old.  He is considered to be special needs due to a blood test when he was born, but fortunately, subsequent tests show he is just fine!  Now we must work on reviewing his medical tests with local doctors and we need to push the Ministry for our official approval letter.  Over the course of this week, we will receive pictures and videos of this little boy to review and show to our doctors.

2nd Homestudy Complete - Jan 21/12

Since we changed provinces, we had to re do the majority of our paperwork, including rcmp checks, medicals, referral letters, etc.  The process took just as long as our 1st home study, unfortunately, but our social worker was wonderful, and very understanding/compassionate with respect to our frustrations at having to redo it all.  We moved mid May 2011 and we are so happy to report that our paperwork is complete!  Fortunately we didn't lose our place on the waiting list, as our new adoption agency works with our old one to facilitate adoptions in Vietnam.  Now we just need the Ministry Approval (generally takes about a week) and we are officially back on the wait list.  Referrals for children who are considered to be healthy still have not started in Vietnam due to their becoming Hague compliant, but special needs adoptions are moving forward.

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.