News is out!

Well, our news is out! We had only told a few people about our plans to adopt... mostly just the few that are writing our reference letters for us. But, last night we called Dan's family to let them know, and my family as well, so that cat is out of the bag so to speak. My brother seems very excited at the prospect of being an uncle, and his financee is expecting, so it will be nice to have cousins close in age. Colleen, my sister is expecting twins in May, so there will be lots of little ones in the family soon.

We have still been at more paperwork, and my autobiography is written. Dan is still thinking of his, but has not had a good solid hour to sit down and put his thoughts on paper. (For our homestudy) At the advice of FOI we have started to do some of the paperwork that doesn't require assistance, and have started to put together our picture album for the Chinese government agency (China Center of Adoption Affairs). They like to see our home environement, our pets and family pictures. We have been told to make sure we have lots of ones with family at Christmas and various holidays etc.. and that preferably both Dan and I should be in the pictures, or atleast one of us in each frame. That is difficult, because I am always taking the pictures, and Dan and I live so far away from our families, so pictures of us with the kids are rare. If anyone has ones of us with their kids that they would be willing to send us, that would be great!!!

Not much else is happening at this point. More research and reading!

Hope to be in touch with everyone soon.

Starting our family dreams...

We are using this blog as a way to keep our family and friends in contact with what is currently happening in our lives. After much thinking, reading and researching, we have decided to adopt internationally. We are very excited and nervous about the process and we are anxious to start our family.

We have been together now for 6 years and have been married for 3 1/2. We wanted to start a family right away, but our efforts have been unsucessful. We suspected that infertility might be an issue with us, and as such discussed many other ideas about family. Adoption was something we discussed every once in a while, but was waiting for our lives to settle down and the practice to mature. We made the decision in December 2005 to adopt. We researched several countries but something about China kept pulling us back in, and it was Dan's country of choice all along.

We have started the paperwork involved with adopting, and will be starting our homestudy shortly with our Social Worker, Joan. We are looking forward to meeting other Canadian families that are going through or have gone through the process. We welcome any comments or questions and any advise from these families, and our own family and friends.

We decided on Family Outreach International as our agency and liason of choice, and have started collecting the necessary documents (birth certificates, passports, and marriage licence) required to get the ball rolling. There have been many late nights of reading books on the subject, and discussing our hopes and dreams about the upcoming 2 years.

We are so overjoyed at the thought of adopting a beautiful little one from the People's Republic of China. Let the pape