Another TTC update

Since the adoption is on hold for now, we've been back into the fertility treatments. I'm in my third month of Lupron. I'm only doing 4 months total, which the doctor said was fine. Timing is an issue now that Eric will be deploying, so I'll get my 4th shot October 15th(ish) and that will make our first 2 chances to try to get pregnant right around Thanksgiving and Christmas, both of which he'll be here for, so this is our best plan. If I don't get pregnant before he leaves for the boat I'm done with fertility treatments until after we adopt at least one child. The doctor has said that the Lupron treatment is our best chance to get pregnant, so if this doesn't work it's going to mean more tests and more treatments. I don't want to do IVF, it will cost more than an adoption and there's no guarantee of it working. It makes more sense to spend that money on an adoption.

I'm so ready for the fertility stuff to be over. I either want to finally get pregnant, or have the peace of knowing that that isn't the way our family is supposed to happen. Right now everything is just so crazy.

On another note, we're finally going back to church tomorrow. We haven't gone in months, mostly because Eric's schedule has been so crazy, but I've had a lot of times where I didn't feel very happy with God and had no desire to go to church, but I'm realizing once again, that things happen for a reason, whether I can see it or not, and I just need to trust in that.

Decisions

Since we have to put the adoption on hold for about a year I was considering adopting from Poland instead of Ukraine. Originally that is what I wanted to do, since Eric is part Polish. The Polish program takes longer, is more complicated, and more expensive, but there is a much smaller risk of a child with FAS (Fetal Alcohol Syndrome). For some reason it just doesn't seem to happen as much in Poland as it does in Ukraine. If we go with the intention of adopting a healthy child, we still may get a child who has some delays. If there is no indication of FAS or any other medical reason for the delays, they'll assume that they are a result of the child living in an orphanage. There is always the chance that after getting home and expecting the child to catch up that they don't because of an underlying condition that wasn't diagnosed. From what I have read, those chances are higher in Ukraine than in Poland.

Still, I have this feeling that our child will be in Ukraine. Logic and reasoning tell me that Poland is a safer choice, but my heart keeps pushing me back toward Ukraine. I have a love of the language and the culture that I just can't explain.

We have a long time to wait, but I was hoping to make a decision before Eric deploys because I'd like for both of us to learn a little of the language, so we need to know which language to learn.

I've learned over the last few years that God's plans don't coincide with mine. Now I'm also learning that his plans aren't always the one's that make the most sense. I keep trying to change our plans to work with whatever situation we are put in (domestic adoption, Poland, Asia, or adopting Jo's baby), but He keeps bringing me right back to the same decision and the same feeling... Ukraine is the right choice for us. It may be more risky, and yes we may adopt a child with special needs. But even with biological children you have the risk of a child with serious special needs, it can happen to anyone regardless of family history. We have control over the types of special needs we can handle (probably just correctable special needs) and which children we want referrals for.

This just feels like it is what we are meant to do...

We're still keeping our fundraising efforts going. We have some simple fundraisers going that donate money when people buy either magazines, or anothe website that has lots of knick-knackish around the house things, cookie mixes, candies (gift ideas for the holidays???). Here is the link to the post (or you can just scroll down to find it). Take a look... see if there is anything you might like... http://christensenadoption.blogspot.com/2008/02/fundraising.html

Done with our home study

So yesterday we got the final notarized copies of our home study report. We got 2 copies and USCIS (INS) got 1. We have been approved to adopt a child under the age of three from Ukraine. Our application will be processed in order of filing date. Ours was filed 12-23-07 so it should be processed by late April. My letter says that I shouldn't call and inquire about it until May 10th. I plan on calling as soon as I wake up that day to call them if I haven't recieved my I-171H from them yet. The I-171H is the government's approval form. They go over all of the paperwork we sent them, and our fingerprints we had done in Charlotte, and they determine whether they will approve us to adopt. I can't see why they wouldn't so I'm not too worried about it.

Now I've started gathering the documents for our Dossier (application that we send to Ukraine). This is where things start getting expensive. I have to pay for some of the documents that we need, we have to pay for county stamps and state stamps, then I have to pay Cathy at Ukrainian Angels for her services and I have to pay for the facilitators. So I have to find a way to come up with $6000 in the next few months. I don't know how we're going to do it, but we will find a way.

TTC Update

Ok, so I've decided that I'm tired of being miserable all of the time. I was supposed to get my second Lupron shot yesterday, but I'm not going to. We are doing something wonderful by adopting a child, I want to really get to enjoy the process. We are still young, and since Eric is most likely going to retire from the military, we have about 15 more years of health insurance that covers 100%. Maybe, once we have the adoption finished and are settled at home with our new child, we'll start trying to have biological children, but for now I want to focus on our adoption.

The baby's room

Eric's dad is building us a crib and dresser/changing table. The changing table part comes off the top and it can be just a dresser, and the crib turns into a toddler bed. I've also pretty much decided on bedding. It's called Koi and i think the little fish is just way too cute. It reminds me of a pillow that Niki bought for me. The paint that we picked out is light blue with a darker blue for stripes, so it will match really well. Don't have any pictures of the room itself yet. It's still filled with a friend's things. As soon as some progress is made I'll put pictures on here.

Fundraising

Ok, so adoption is a very expensive thing. I'm trying to find ways to raise some money.

If anyone wants a new magazine subscription or needs to renew an old subscription, buying them through www.magfundraising.com/ChristensenAdoption will save you money on the subscription, plus 40% of what you spend will go toward our adoption expenses.

Also if you go to www.currentfun.com , they have a lot of interesting things to buy (houshold items, magazines, cards, flowers, cookie mix, candies, snacks, and lots of other things). We will also recieve part of the profits from anything you buy from that website.
If you do choose to shop there, there are certain things that you have to enter in the check out process.

The Organization's state is North Carolina

On the next page you choose the organization. Scroll down until you find "Meredith and Eric Christensen."

Then you just proceed through the checkout like normal.

Our Adoption Timeline

Dec 14, 2007 - Mailed the homestudy application.

Dec 18, 2007 - Got a phone call from our social worker and set up our first appointment.

Dec 21, 2007 - Mailed I-600A to USCIS

Dec 22, 2007 - Met with Rose, our social worker. Really like her!

Dec 29, 2007 - Second meeting with Rose.

Dec 30, 2007 - Home visit with Rose. SO much easier than I had thought!

Jan 23, 2008 - I had my medical form filled out at the doctor's office.

Feb 7, 2008 - Got our fingerprints done in Charlotte.

Mar 11, 2008 - Sent My passport off to be renewed with the right last name.

Mar 21, 2008 - Am VERY impressed with the government. I got my passport back in just 10 days (without paying the extra fee for speedy processing).

March 27 - 28, 2008 - Eric went to medical to get his form filled out and the Navy insisted on doing a full physical and updating his shots.

March 28, 2008 - Faxed paperwork to Rose! We are DONE with home study stuff!!

April 3, 2008 - Applied for a grant through the National Adoption Foundation.

April 4, 2008 - Happy birthday to me! We recieved the draft of our homestudy. Everything looks good so far.

April 8, 2008 - Got the final copies of our homestudy, which means USCIS should have their copy too.

April 19, 2008 - Recieved our I-171H today. We're approved to adopt 1 child, of either sex, age 0-3 years :)

July 15, 2008 - Eric was transfered down to VMM-263. He'll be deploying in the Spring and won't be allowed leave after September '08. So we'll have to start the adoption process again when he gets home in Fall 2009.

I will be updating this as things move along...

Our Journey Thus Far

So as a lot of you already know, we are in the process of adopting a child from ukraine. We are still waiting for our homestudy report to be finished. Getting Eric to actually go to medical isn't the easiest thing, and we're still waiting for letters of reference from friends. Our next step is going to be to get my passport renewed with my married name on it and get one for Eric.

We had a pretty stressful situation a couple of weeks ago. We thought that Eric would not be able to get enough leave for us to travel to Ukraine, so we started looking into domestic adoption. While I would love to adopt a newborn, it just didn't feel like the right decision for us. We've gotten information together for the people in his squadron, so that they understand why and how we've made this decision. After talking to a few people, we know that Eric should be able to get 30 days of leave with no problem (assuming that his shop doesn't cause issues). That way he should be able to be there to meet the child and do the court hearing and then come home. I can stay to finish the process after that. I'm hoping that he'll be able to get more leave or get PTAD orders so that he can stay for the whole process.

I'm still hoping that we can have biological children, but right now I'm just going to focus on the adoption (If you don't want to know about my reproductive system now is the time to stop reading LOL). For the next 6 months biological children are out of the question anyway. In my laparoscopy, the doctor found endometriosis, so I'm now on a medication called Lupron to treat that, which also puts me into menopause (fun fun fun!). The doctor also found that one of my fallopian tubes is blocked. If that was caused by the endometriosis, it may open back up after the Lupron injections. I'm also still on medication to treat my polycystic ovaries. We're finally beginning to understand why it has been so hard for us to get pregnant.

That's about all i can think of to say for now.