I Don't Know...

I am slowly telling more people about our baby boy in Vietnam, family and friends are always very excited for us and I appreciate their congratulations and well wishes. But fairly quickly I am asked the question “when do you go get him?” This is a hard question both to answer and for people to understand. The real answer is “I don’t know.” I wish I knew, and I wish it was sooner, like tomorrow, but the reality is I just do not know.

In Vietnam there is a mandatory 60 day search for birth family for every infant before an international adoption can proceed. So right now we are in that stage. We are waiting for those 60 days to be up so that all of the paperwork can proceed. Many people ask me if I am worried about this. What if the birth family wants him back? Honestly, I am not really worried about this. This is an obligatory stage in the international adoption process but with the number of Vietnam blogs I’ve read and in all the questions I’ve asked, I’ve never heard of birth family claiming back a baby. There are many different social reasons for this, which I will not go into – but suffice it to say, it just does not happen. I am actually more concerned that political policy or relations between Canada and Vietnam would change and hinder the adoption than I am about the birth family search.

Once the 60 days are up, we should be able to get updated information (medical and other) about the baby and more pictures. It is at that point that the paperwork process can proceed. There are many different people and departments which must review and approve our application to adopt. As each level approves and stamps / signs the paperwork, it is able to proceed to the next level. As I am sure all of you can empathise with governments and paperwork are two terms that never seem to go quickly, in our country or abroad! The other thing to remember is that for some of the departments that need to sign off on things such as police investigations, adoptions are really not their main focus so even though we are anxious to get the baby, for them it is business as usual and I am sure they have many pressing matters in their daily work schedules.

Taking all of this into consideration, it has been predicted that we will travel in November but that is not a sure thing. It could be sooner or it could be later. We are also waiting for Group 7 to get travel dates. Once we know how long it takes for their paperwork to be completed, we should be able to make a better estimate on when we can expect to travel. Realistically, we will probably not get travel dates until 10 – 14 days before we are to be in Vietnam. So, if you think it seems odd that I don’t know when we will be able to see, hold, and have our little guy for real, now you know why...we just don’t know!

Pho for Three!

Erwin and I had not been out for Vietnamese food since we go the proposal. So on Sunday we decided to head to our favourite Vietnamese restaurant to get some pho for lunch. Anyways after our delicious meal Erwin went up to pay. He wrote out the Vietnamese name of our little one and asked how to pronounce this name. We, of course could ‘read’ his name but we were pretty sure we were not pronouncing it correctly in Vietnamese. Anyways the girls looked at it and tried what they thought but then told us to wait just a minute, that they’d go into the back and ask their mother because she would be better. So once they had taught us how to correctly pronounce the name (I still cannot say the first name correctly, Erwin definitely one ups me with Asian pronunciations!) they asked jokingly if this was for a ‘most wanted’ man.  Erwin said no and told them that we are adopting a baby from Vietnam and this was his name. They were so happy for us, it was just so sweet. I almost think they were as excited for us to travel to get him, as we are! They made us promise to bring him in when he is home in Canada. We promised, but told them they would likely see us again before that.

A Celebration Get Together!

On Saturday evening we had a lovely get together with three other families from Group 8. We had planned this BBQ back around mid June and one of the other couples had teased at the time that with any luck, who knows it might be a celebration dinner. We all laughed but really did not think that would be the case. Well it certainly was a celebration! None of us had expected the proposals to come so quickly.

As you can imagine all of our talk was about our little ones, their photos and travel plans. Our little guy is the only boy of the group as all of the other families were proposed girls. And such beautiful babies they all are. I have to say it was kind of funny, since we all only have one photo of our proposed child, to find out all the different ways one photo could be used or photo shopped to make it seem like more!

Our big “lottery” now is trying to predict travel dates. We figure we will get a better estimate when Group 7 gets their travel dates. Of course we all want to go as soon as possible but know that we still have months to wait. When we do hear about travel dates, we will probably only get about two weeks notice. Right now we are all thinking it will be around November, although a few are holding out for October! It is so exciting; our lives are going to change so much, in a fabulous way, over the next months! I think we are very fortunate to have such a wonderful group of people to go through this experience with.

The writing says "Congratulations Vietnam Group" in Vietnamese of course!

Signed, Sealed, Delivered

Just got back from dropping off all of our signed forms in triplicate! It was a bit of a journey but well worth it knowing that everything got to our agency safely. There are just some things that I don’t like to rely on Canada Post for! This way I was also there while they checked through them all and made sure everything was done correctly. I am a sort of cross your ‘T’’s and dot your ‘i’’s sort of person! Everything was fine so now it is just a matter of waiting some more. They need to get all of the forms back from everyone in Group 8 and then they will send them all together to where ever they need to get to in Vietnam.

Afterwards I went for a nice little stroll through the public market and shops in the area. It made for a relaxing time on such a gorgeous Vancouver day. I thought about all of the places I will get to visit next summer with my little boy. Thoughts like that always put a smile on my face!

The Moth

On Tuesday night, after we got the proposal for our little boy, Erwin and I were heading out to share the news with my parents. (After I convinced Erwin to bail on movie night with the guys...not an easy thing to do, I might add). On our way out the door I thought there was a leaf stuck in the soffit above the door as I took a closer look, Erwin commented that it was a moth and that it had been there, in the same spot all day. He had seen it in the morning on his way out to work. This was a very large moth by BC standards – not your everyday white gypsy moth at all. I had never seen one like it before. It was large and had white, grey and brown patterns on its wings with a very fat abdomen.

Once we got in the car and were on our way, Erwin said it was funny about the moth. He had noticed it this morning and had thought to himself then that we must be going to get a visitor. He explained to me that in Tamil (Erwin has a Tamil background) superstition / tradition / folklore a moth over the door of your home means that you will get a visitor. I wonder if that includes a new member of the family?

After we got home I wanted to take a picture of the moth to remember its significance. Unfortunately the moth had flown away by then. I tried to find a picture of a similar moth on the internet but didn’t find anything that I thought looked the same.  Oh well.

Our First Doctor Appointment

We finished our appointment with the paediatrician and everything looks great. I did not realize how much information the doctor would be able to give and how reassuring it would feel to hear it. She was great and went through every line of the medical reports with us. There had been a couple of things (slight highs and lows) in the blood work we were wondering about but she explained that the norms they had listed were adult norms not infant norms so once that was taken into consideration everything was fine. We were also thinking that the information provided seemed kind of scarce but our paediatrician has reviewed a number of reports from this same doctor in Vietnam and says they are all like that. Also, she has now had the opportunity to see many of the children since their arrival in Canada and could say that the initial health reports were all very accurate and the children are all healthy.

So with the doctor appointment behind us we have officially accepted a proposal for a baby boy!

The Day the Proposal Came...

We got our proposal on Tuesday!! I have to say I was shocked to see it sitting there in my inbox. Although I knew we were getting closer to a proposal date, I really did not think we’d get anything until the end of August. But this is how it all happened on Tuesday...

I am at home for summer holidays right now so I have been taking things pretty easy, watching tv, reading, lunch dates, etc. Anyways, Tuesday had been no different I ate breakfast while I watched the Tour de France, came upstairs thinking I was going to get a shower and actually do something, however I got sidetracked by my book and ended up on the couch reading a few chapters. I finally put that down and headed upstairs to get a shower. My computer takes forever to turn on so I turned it on then and went and put in my contacts, I returned to enter in my password before my shower. Something must have distracted me (can’t remember what) because I ended up checking my e-mail then. It was about 2:00.

That is when I saw that glorious subject line of *proposal*sent at 1:39. I immediately called Erwin at work as we had an agreement that we would open the proposal together. When I called the conversation went something like this...

ME: Hi, you have to come home immediately.

ERWIN: Why is the internet down again?” (That is my common complaint when I call him at work)

ME: No, we have a proposal!

ERWIN: a proposal for what?

ME: A BABY! (I think my voice was becoming louder and more exasperated)

Erwin now feeling a bit in shock (as was I) had to explain that he was just heading into a meeting. I told him he had to phone me back as soon as he could because I couldn’t open it until he was home.

While I waited, I typed up a quick e-mail to the rest of Group 8 offering up my congratulations to them. I was having a really hard time doing that though because my fingers were shaking and I found it extremely hard to type. Erwin called back sooner than I expected. I asked if he was on his way home now but he said he couldn’t leave just yet. He was logging into his home e-mail account as we spoke. Then we had a quick conversation about whether we should wait until we were together or open it together over the phone. Over the phone won for both of us so we both clicked it open at the same time.

Here is where you can see the difference between Erwin and I. I very carefully start reading every piece of information that I see in front of me, the first few pages were medical reports. I finally say, as I am scrolling to the next page “ahh, more writing, isn’t there a picture?” Meanwhile Erwin has skipped all of the writing and scrolled to the last page of the document and says “yes, it is on the last page, I’ve been looking at it the whole time!”

Our next step is to go through the medical reports with a paediatrician to make sure we fully understand everything. Then we make the decision whether to proceed and accept the proposal. My days may suddenly get a bit busier!

We Got It!!

I just opened my e-mail a little while ago and there it was just sitting in the In Box - an e-mail with the subject line of *Proposal*.  The moment we've been waiting for so long.  I am positively shaking with excitement!!

I will post more later...