Another Addition to the Family!

Here she is! Our beautiful new adoptee has arrived & is just what I imagined her to be. We were able to pick her up Good Friday instead of Saturday, which is great as we have the whole day with her today to help her settle in before our big day out Easter Sunday with church & family dinner. We met at a halfway point in a parking lot, and she was pretty shaky, but showed her curious side as well (it was fun to meet two of her friends who came to send her off, both large male coonhounds). After I opened the side van door to sit & sign paperwork, she decided to climb in & lie down on the dog bed all on her own, so that was that. She was quiet on the ride home, and pretty timid in the house and yard at first, but interested in exploring all the same. Cats weren't an issue on first meeting, which is good, and later on...

...she quite happily climbed on the couch - actually, she did that as soon as she came into the living room, where she spent the rest of the evening with us. Hesperantha seems pretty interested in her, and is quite an easy-going dog, although she has decided to make sure that Happy (new name to be determined soon) knows Hesper gets first dibs on laps & so on.

This morning, Happy is showing very encouraging signs of increased comfort. She has explored the yard thoroughly, and after being a little nervous with Hesper's rather enthusiastic efforts to initiate play, she decided to join in, as you can see! Hesper is hilarious - she just streaks up past other dogs, dashes in front of them, tears in circles around them...I think she will definitely enjoy having another young dog around who likes to play as well.

We will have to work with Happy on coming downstairs again once she gets up, as we've had to carry her down twice now...but that will come. She slept soundly on the dog bed beside me last night, and will take bits of food & treats from me - although the other dogs are making her a bit too nervous to focus on a whole meal at the moment. Anyway, she's gorgeous, and feels like our dog already. We look forward to getting to know her!

Irresistable...

Announcing our current adoption in progress...of a beautiful one year-old Penn-Marydel Foxhound who was surrendered to the Canadian Hound Rescue at 5 months of age. The plan is to meet her this Friday & bring her home! Hoping she & Hesperantha enjoy each other, as Hesper would like a playmate. We think she's quite stunning!

(Name to be announced)

Celebrity Adoption

http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/04/03/madonna.reaction.adoption.malawi/index.html

With Madonna's latest adoption in the news, I wanted to post this link to an interview with an author and mom of internationally adopted children. She makes some important points about the need for children to be in families as early in life as possible, and that these needs are international - some parents are called to adopting from their home countries, and others from around the world. As well, she comments on the truth that international adoption is not the ultimate answer - it cannot reach most children in orphanages, and does not solve the social and economic issues leading to children being placed in orphanages, but it does meet the needs of those children who would otherwise not be growing up in families. She also comments on the negative press given to celebrities who choose to adopt internationally, and some of the assumptions made about the ethics and legality of these "celebrity adoptions" - and I agree so much - judging their choices only hurts the image of international adoption and perpetuates the belief that it is appropriate to comment on situations with which we have only a media-filtered awareness. Anyway, have a look at the interview, and see what you think!

I Dreamt...

I have had VERY few dreams about our adoption so far. I imagine those will start in full force once we have a referral. But at least twice over the past year I have dreamt that we had a referral. Last night, it was for a 20-month old boy and a 9-week old girl, who were lovely and from Africa, but not from Ghana. Funny how dreams have elements of reality, but that some key facts change at whim...

Paper Hits the Trail

Today, at last (on the day Geoff could have booked to see our regular doctor for medical form signing if we hadn't been trying to get them done quickly - ha ha), our medical forms are bundled up, along with the latest immigration paperwork we had to sign, and ready to head to our agency when I hit the post office after work. Not too much work, really, but just enough to keep the "to do" list active lately...now if I can only get our income tax packages in the mail, too (complete well over a week ago), I'll be caught up for a day or two in the business department.

Not a Mistake After All

Found out that as long as we both sign both medical forms, it doesn't matter who fills them in, so that's good. Now I can get those done & on their way, and I really think there's nothing more to do than wait...which is good :)

Nursery Progress & Our Super-Cute Dog & Fun New Specs

Very, very, painfully slowly, the nursery renovations are progressing. Geoff sanded the floors down, and, here you can see his partially finished stain job. Which looks fantastic all finished up! And, now there's even the first part of stained baseboard, door trim, and varnished window trim up...all hand-made, and looking great. Now I want the room to be my office. Hmm...

Ok, and just in case you need to be reminded how cute my dog is (and how fun my vintage frames are now that I've got lenses in them - thanks to Geoff's grandma ensuring they didn't go to the grave, and thanks to the optician with a good eye who knew just how to shape the lense):


And next, so Geoff doesn't feel left out, check out his new look - he's been wanting glasses for ages, and actually needed them this time:

My Fault: Prolonging Things Further

Ahhh! I am pretty out of it today, I guess. We finally got back our medical forms to add to our dossier - I started filling out an attached form so we could get them in the mail in the morning, and was filling out the one for Geoff (since I always write, and he always signs off) then realized he is supposed to fill it out himself. And we are not supposed to take the staple out of the package, so now Geoff's medical forms are attached to the form I was filling out, and my blank form, which could be filled out by Geoff, is attached to my medical forms. I hope I have not just created a major problem, but will hopefully find out tomorrow what should be done about this. And I am always so careful with instructions...or so I thought. Figures this is the time I mess it up.

Longer Than You'd Think

Thankfully the newest set of medical reports we need to add to our dossier (which is already in Ghana) doesn't mean putting our referral wait on hold...because Geoff met with our Dr.'s resident last week (as our Dr. couldn't book an appointment until late next week), but the forms had to stay at the clinic for our Dr. to sign & stamp. So Geoff consulted with the resident and administrative assistant, and left the unfilled forms at the clinic for later pick-up. We got the call they were ready at the end of last week, and Geoff then forgot them one day, the clinic closed early the next day, we were still in the city the next day & couldn't get them, and then we forgot the clinic closes early on Wednesdays as well...so hopefully today - which just reminded me that we may have to re-negotiate the grocery shopping plans to make that happen. Tomorrow we'll be in the city all evening, so it has to be tonight if we don't want to wait until next week...in which case, Geoff may as well have just booked with our Dr. when she's available next week. Oh well. Not a major stress or anything, just a bit of an unexpectedly slow process.

Just Can't Resist...

It's amazing how many times per day a person can feel compelled to check the adoption message boards to see if there are any new postings...it's been a quiet couple of days in the forums following the flurry of excitement last week over learning about folks getting referrals. I get disproportionately enthusiastic when I log in and see that there are new messages. And wow, it's really fantastic when there's a new database, photo, or family who has posted information about their adoption process and timelines! One would falsely think I had nothing more with which to occupy my mind & time...

Just Because...

Good afternoon everyone! I've just been taking a quick break to browse a few blogs, and check the Ghana forums for any more news...nothin' much going on today it seems. But I did realize how much I enjoy finding new posts on people's blogs, even when there's not much to say. So for any of you who are like me in that regard, here's a post just for you!

Since I'm here...we've learned of one other family given a referral through our agency in the past 2 weeks - another set of twin girls!!! And, we've been joined on the discussion forum by the first (or pretty close to it) Canadian couple who received a referral for Ghana, which was in early January. So, we're pretty encouraged with how things seem to be moving along with referrals, and all within the (gu)estimated timeframes of 8-12 weeks once folks' dossiers get to Ghana. Not sure I can really wrap my head around the POSSIBILITY that we could actually have a referral by late spring or early summer.

As always, we are busy, busy, busy. Maybe a little too much so, but we are enjoying our weekly social dance classes, and our first couple of dog training classes have been fun as well. We definitely need to re-claim Saturdays - our only full day off, and they've been booked pretty solid for a few weeks, which means we really aren't accomplishing a whole lot around the house, including cleaning, and that gets depressing after a while :(

However, Geoff has been squeezing in some reno work, and I must say the shiny floors AND shiny woodwork in the front room are BEAUTIFUL (which helps balance out the sadness of living in a dusty house). The nursery floor is done, too, and the walls were painted last night. Hopefully trimwork will be done sometime this weekend and we can actually set up the room for good!

Side note: look at me - once I start writing about nothing, I just keep going...

One little reminder - this adoption process takes a while! We've just accepted from the beginning that this will involve a LOT of time, and will be somewhat unpredictable, and that is ok (for now, at least, it still is). There will not be any specific news for us while we wait for a referral. That may take a couple of months, or a lot of months (as I've mentioned previously), and we will most certainly let people know as soon as there's news! (In the meantime, I will keep posting here about any general Ghana program news & updates that I can share). And...once we have a referral, we do not travel immediately. In fact, the time waiting for a referral is likely to be MUCH shorter than the time waiting to travel once we have a referral. Once we accept the referral, we wait for the court approval and we wait for immigration paperwork and visas before we can go meet our children. This will likely mean a number of months, again, in which there will also be very few updates. Sorry to keep you waiting - but be assured, we'll keep you posted, and no matter how much we are asked to talk about it & answer questions, things will not happen any faster! But feel free to kill some time in my gardens, or dusting my house - makes the time pass productively at least :)

Ok then, enough of my "just because" posting. Gotta get organized & on my way - it is dance night, after all!

Canadian Ghana Referrals Are Happening!

Good news today - one of the Canadian couples in an online forum in which we participate received their referral today - for twin girls!! They've been officially waiting for a referral for just under two months, so this is very exciting indeed. We know that other referrals have been given as well, although we have not had contact with any of those folks.

Our dossier should be arriving in Ghana almost any time now, so it's great to know the process is going well :)

Off It Goes!

We just received word that our dossier leaves for Ghana tomorrow (February 20)!

This means that the dossier arrived back at the agency almost exactly three weeks after it was sent to Ottawa for authentication - right on time! I was going to start being impatient if it hadn't arrived by the end of next week.

It will take about a week to get there and get settled in. From this point on, we simply wait...while keeping up with any news from other families about their referrals and timelines. Could be just a few short months, or many long ones, but we're essentially in the official "waiting for a referral stage"!!!

Doing it Ourselves

Well, here we are - renovating and restoring once again! After a long pause in the reno department, we're back at it with our first stab at floor refinishing. Starting with the nursery and front bedroom. We're really hoping to get the nursery totally finished soon - just keep working away at trim and the closet as soon as the floor is out of the way. Feels good to be getting one more thing checked off the "to do" list, although as usual a "quick" little job will be at least two weeks behind schedule, and ended up being more complicated than necessary. If the home repair tool rental guy ever tells you to use the less powerful sander because you don't have experience with the drum sander, get the drum sander anyway. Geoff ended up doing a lot of work AFTER returning the big push model sander - using a 6" hand sander. Painstaking...and time consuming...

But, the floors are looking great! He literally just came downstairs, after putting on the second coat of varnish (only 1 or 2 more coats after this). By the end of the week we plan to move everything back into the space, at which point we'll actually be able to walk through the upstairs without turning sideways to get past furniture. And we can clean the house again, which is not in the best shape after two weeks of neglect. No point yet, though.

It's going to be very fun putting together the nursery for real once it's all ready!

Remembering Phineas

I haven't been thinking of this at all, but just minutes ago some sad, sad news of a colleague put me in a reflective mood, and then I remembered that this Sunday (Family Day weekend) last year we realized that Phineas needed us to let him go the next day - his cancer had simply taken over his life throughout the preceding week and particularly over that weekend. So, that Sunday we cozied up in the living room with blankets and pillows and movies, and slept there through the night with our little guy. Such a mixture of sadness and peace and thankfulness, knowing that he had hung in there into the new year and hadn't felt sick for very long at all, and that the decision was clear - much easier in some ways than I had anticipated. So hard, though, waiting for the next day, knowing what it would bring. I like this picture of him, on his second-last walk, before Christmas and while showing no significant effects from the tumours. He was so camera-shy the last few years that getting this shot (by sneaking the camera out quickly while he walked) was a treat!