Sunday, September 21, 2014

Thank you.

Just a quick post.  We are so grateful to those who shared with us. We had our first donation within hours of posting our link. I was moved to tears! Thank you. We had very generous donations, we are just in awe. I know that not everyone can contribute monetarily, but just your support, kind words, love, friendship... it makes a world of a difference and we appreciate it from the bottom of our hearts.
We can't wait for progress. Can we fast forward a few months? :) Mila talks about her sister all the time now. I guess she changed her mind because a little while ago she wanted a brother. She says she has many girly things to share with her sister and not a lot of boy things. Another thing that she worries about is that she doesn't "want to have to buy another bed for a brother." She can just share hers with her sister. I explain to her that her sister or brother will have their own bed regardless. But she refuses. She wants to sleep with her sister. Okay, baby girl. No problem. :)



She "tidied" the bed all by herself.

Monday, September 15, 2014

Who? What? Where? When?


 
Ha! We’ve received these and so many more questions. But most of all, an inundation of overwhelmingly wonderful, positive, loving, generous comments and private messages. Warm hugs and well wishes in person. We are so humbled and thankful.  

We signed with a home study provider here, out of Dub@i.  The social worker is licensed in the US. She will prepare our home study docs for us.  We are currently researching agencies that will work with us in our unique circumstances. Obviously, we also want the best, quickest service and that has their fee schedule very clear.  China is part of the Hague Adoption Convention and by law agencies must be transparent with where all fees go. 
We’ve been paper chasing this summer.  Many documents are required. Notary stamps. Aaall kinds of stamps and signatures. Sigh. And lots more are needed. As you might imagine, we’re planning on adopting from China. Preferably from the orphanage in which I volunteered at. At the very least, the same province. Well, we’d love to  be able to visit dear friends we have there.  We are leaving gender open and keeping with birth order,  0-4.  This process takes 12-18 months average. Sometimes more, some times less.

Most people who have reached out to us are asking what they can do to help.  Support is very important. We can tell who supports us in this amazing time in our life – growing our family. It’s a very exciting, yet trying time. There will be days that we might get overwhelmed with paper work. There will be days that we will just want to be there already meeting our baby. There will be days – after we get matched – that we will feel so much joy in seeing our child’s face, finally. The little eyes I’ve imagine for so long looking back at me through pictures. These days will be joyful, but also very hard. So emotional support will be so appreciated. 
Our wonderful family has asked specifically how they can help us financially.  We set up two easy ways that they can gift us. We weren’t comfortable with making that public; but after some gentle persuasion from some of our amazing friends who have fund-raised to help with the costs of adoption, we will.  International adoption has so many fees, stamps, immigration, papers, papers, papers...
For now what we’ve set up, donors’ amounts and well wishes will be able to either be private, public, or anonymous.  We encourage anyone who’d like to gift us with any amount, to not be shy to post it publicly. Every single penny will go towards bringing our child home. And we will always remember that you were a part of that.  Feel free to share this with anyone you think is keen on helping an orphan to become a beloved daughter/son, sister/brother.

Again, thank you for just being excited for us. We’re so happy and looking forward to many blessings in our little family.

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Monday, September 8, 2014

Why are we so happy?

























All photos shot by Natalie Atick @ Natalie Atick Photography Studios. All photos are copyright of Natalie Atick.