Waiting for a referral

Well, dear family and friends, I've been so impressed with reading "the blogs" from others who, as I type this very minute, are in the process of adopting from Vietnam - or who have recently returned from Vietnam with their new baby(ies) in hand - that I have been inspired to follow suit with our story. Which is, in fact, just starting to unravel. I do this as our self-appointed family historian to document our story and to keep our web of wonderful family and friends updated. (Considering I never completed sending Christmas cards out this year - featuring the cutest photo ever of Max - the convenience of writing a blog and the possibility of connecting with so many with the least amount of effort possible, I couldn't resist the opportunity!)

In addition, I am hopeful that perhaps these entries might be of some use to other families planning to adopt from Vietnam, now and in the future, in the spirit of continuing the amazing, lightning speed spread of the most current and up-to-date information available. I don't have too much to report or say right now but hopefully in the coming months I will be writing many missives about our upcoming journey to the Far East.

As you probably already know, Tom and I are full swing in the process of adopting a healthy infant from Vietnam. If you didn't know, I am sorry you are learning about it first on our blog but we did want you to know. Where we last left off with Catholic Charities in Baltimore over a year ago, we were able to pick up with ease and grace to begin our relationship with World Child International, an agency based in Rockville, Maryland. We would have loved to have stayed with Catholic Charities, with whom we adopted our beloved three and a half year old son Max from Korea, but unfortunately, Catholic Charities does not, at this time, do adoptions in Vietnam. (There's been a moratorium on adoptions in Vietnam for years and this new opportunity to adopt there is only six months old.) Leslee, our beloved social worker and adoption angel from Catholic Charities, says we are pioneers which I suppose is true considering Holt has been handling Korean adoptions for over 30 years.

By the way, this is merely a segue but I just want to add for the record that the old adage of "you don't know a good thing til it's gone" is so true in regard to our relationship with Catholic Charities. They are a first class adoption agency and I had no idea how well they had prepared us for adoption issues in general and our adoption with Max in particular until we switched agencies. They fully, honestly and clearly prepared us for every single step of that journey from beginning to end and I imagine our relationship with CC will be lifelong. This is not to diss WC at all! We just haven't been with WC long enough to compare yet but I do miss our buddies at CC after years of traveling back and forth to their office in Baltimore for yet another adoption workshop or interview.

On another note, you may be asking why are we adopting now from Vietnam? Well, believe it or not, we actually stumbled on this possibility months before Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt made international news by adopting their third adoptive child (which just happened in Vietnam last week). Over the New Year, both the Korean and Chinese governments made drastic changes in their international adoption policies. Not to mention that there are waiting lists for both countries and the process - especially the waiting time - has grown from months to years in just a short time. At age 42, I am no spring chicken, my hair gets greyer by the day and the thought of waiting a few years for a baby was not appealing. Plus, truth be known, for reasons unknown to me, we (ok, well me) had our hearts set on a healthy girl and, frankly, the younger the better. Not to mention that Max, on his own accord, has been talking about getting a sister for the past year. (Sometimes I think he knows things we do not.) We've been told that it's tough to adopt girls in Korea because Koreans adopting nationally prefer girls to boys, with hopes that one day they might be able to procreate and when that day happens, their desire more often than not is for a boy to carry on the family lineage.

When we learned about the possibility of Vietnam (thanks to friends in Easton who had just adopted a beautiful Vietnamese baby girl over Christmas) our hopes for expanding our family and giving Max a sibling were heightened. Hearing that not only does the process move very fast through this particular agency, but that it is possible to adopt girls and there were few, if any, waiting lists, we decided to do a little research. Sure enough, everything we had heard was confirmed by Sheryl Goolsby who is the executive director of World Child International. Why so fast? Why such quick referrals (in comparison with other countries and even other agencies)? According to Sheryl, World Child is the only American adoption agency that has access to two regions in northern Vietnam. So as we speak, it's an untapped source though I imagine as word gets out, it won't always be that way. Bottom line: in the present moment, adopting a baby from Vietnam suits our family's needs the best. We want a baby and our baby needs a family and a home and this option feels like a great match.

In a nutshell, we are at this very moment awaiting a referral for a healthy infant baby girl. The first few mountains of paperwork are finished, at least on our end. We were grateful Leslee was able to do our homestudy and that was submitted in early February. Then we got approval from Homeland Security to adopt a baby (or, really, immigrate an orphan to the U.S. if you want to be technical). After that, I ran around completing our dossier on a seemingly unnecessary wild goose chase of certifying the authenticity of our paperwork. (Just about every document had to be notarized, then certified by the Talbot County clerks office, then given a state seal from the Maryland Secretary of State and then to the Vietnam Consulate in San Franscisco for authentication. We believe the dossier is now on it's way to Vietnam for translation, approval and a referral. We're keeping our fingers and toes crossed.

Our prayers are for a healthy young baby - hopefully around four months old - an age which I have stuck in my head for no rational reason except that Max was four months old when we adopted him. In fact, Sheryl told me on Friday that she hopes to have a referral for us within the next week or two. Holy shit! Pardon my French but I don't know what else to say. The butterflies are zooming around in my tummy and our hearts collectively missed a few beats after we heard that. Sheryl predicts that we could be traveling to Vietnam in about three months. THAT SAID, it is also important to add that NOTHING is set in stone at this point. Things change all the time in the adoption world, rather like weather patterns. Our friends Andrea and Scott, who adopted Maxine over Christmas, were moved along much faster than they anticipated. They were quick to travel with little warning but then had to wait for weeks in Hanoi for the US Embassy to give their daughter a visa to travel home. Things happen fast and then things slow down with little reason or predictability. The best thing we can do now is buckle up our seat belts, pray for the best and highest good and flow with the ride into the unknown. (Please remind us of that mantra when things slow down or we are impatient waiting, waiting, waiting without knowing why.) It's also important to keep the big picture in mind. If all goes well, we're going to have a baby!!!

Adopting Dumpling #2 (or "Gopala" as Max calls her) is a way different process than how we adopted Max. Oh, the bureaucratic dance, fingerprints, butt sniffing, invasive questioning (the adoption agencies know way more about us than our mothers do!) and piles of paperwork are very similar. What's radically different is that when we adopted Max, we had the benefit of collecting him at Dulles Airport (on Sept. 29, 2003 by the way!). We didn't have to go to Korea. The process of adopting a Korean child is so smooth and has been done for so long now, that the children are escorted to America. Of course, parents pining to make that 25-hour flight to Seoul to pick up their child can but back then, Tom and I thought the better rested and grounded we were, the better parents we would be to welcome Max in our lives. But now, with this adoption, it won't be as simple as driving to the airport with an empty car seat and then returning home a few hours later with our baby.

While only one of us has to travel, Tom and I are both very excited about traveling to Vietnam to meet and collect our baby. No doubt it's going to be tough and arduous at times (I'm dreading the flights!), it's also going to be one of those moments forever etched in our hearts and memories. Plus, I hear the shopping is fantastic! Not the least bit surprsing, our Sagittarian passion for traveling and adventure has been rekindled. And of course, we plan to bring Max with us. With a May birthday, he should be four by then and hopefully will remember some of this incredible trip. Max has proven himself to be an excellent traveler over the years, better than Tom and I put together, and makes a fabulous addition to our peregrinating lifestyle. Also, Leslee said that Max witnessing his sibling's adoption will help him understand his own process a little better even though the circumstances are different. He's running around telling people that "we got approval" and are going to Vietnam. When we are in the grocery store, he insists on stopping in the baby aisle to pick up something for his "sister." I keep telling him he might get a brother but he presciently insists the baby is going to be a sister.

Sheryl said she will "try" to give us two weeks notice before we travel but those dates are susceptible to change. We're supposed to buy an open-ended ticket for the return b/c no firm date is set. They say it usually takes about 2 to 3 weeks for the adoption process to go through while in the country but Andrea and Scott were there for over four weeks (in part due to the Christmas holidays and the US Embassy being closed.) Unlike Russia or Eastern Europe, we only have to make one trip. On a practical note, this is making life somewhat challenging for us in refernce to logistics. Signing Max up for summer camps, planning our annual August pilgrimage to Fishers Island, booking photography assignments, among other things, are darned near impossible to do while we wait to wait.

From what I've heard and what I've read in the blogs that come before mine (thank you, thank you avalinh and lucmaisie!!), a lot of time is spent in the hotel rooms waiting for phone calls, interviews and appointments. The agency has families go in batches so when we travel, we will probably be with four or five other WC families from around the country doing the same thing we are. And, Andrea told me that in addition to the WC families adopting babies, it's easy to meet other famlies staying in the hotels who are also adopting but through different agencies. Sounds like quite a network. It also sounds like the adoption agency is on the ball about planning excursions around the area during that waiting time which excites us. We're keeping our fingers crossed that we might have time to go to nearby Cambodia to see Angkor Wat before we are supposed to be in Vietnam. We shall see what the universe has in store for us.

While I don't really know what to expect, based on my research and understanding, shortly after arrival in Vietnam - like a day or two or three - parents usually get their babies and the babies stay with them for the rest of the trip. There's an official Giving and Receiving Ceremony which is very important, applying for the baby's Vietnamese passport, medical check ups, and then two interviews and applying for a visa from the US Embassy before heading back home. Lots of bureaucracy and red tape, hopefully mixed in with a healthy immersion into Vietnamese culture, food, history and, of course, shopping.

Before I sign off on my virgin blog, which has run so much longer than I thought possible, I wanted to explain the name of our blog site. Who is Gopala? In short, Gopala is the baby name for the Hindu God Krishna. He is also the subject of a wonderful Sanskrit chant that we listen to frequently. It's a chant that Max has picked up and has fast become his favorite song. When Tom asked him a few weeks ago what he wanted to name his brother or sister, Max quickly answered Gopala. He has stuck with that name ever since. Now, we the parents have no idea what we are going to name our baby and, like we did with Max, will decide when we see her or him. (We've got a few ideas floating around but nothing final). But in the meantime, we call this lovely soul who is being born in our hearts "Gopala." And after you read the translation of the chant below, you might understand why.

The chant is very simple and goes like this "Gopala, Gopala, Devaki Nandana Gopala." Max's godfather, Sean Johnson, a yoga teacher who is quick becoming a renowned kirtan wallah, sings this as well as Krishna Das.

Robert Gass, who also has a fabulous version of this chant on his new CD, Kirtana, says this about Gopala: "Gopala is a name for the baby Krishna, Devika was his mother and Nanda his father. This chant praises and invokes love and unity represented by this divine family."

So, dear ones, please send your prayers, good energy and vibes our way and to our soon-to-be baby's way as we invoke the spirit of love and unity within our growing family.