Come on Out Little Nova!!

Our new carpet is being installed as I am writing this. That's officially the last big thing we needed to do to be Baby Ready. Work has been kinda busy the last few nights. i was hoping being up and all over the hospital would get some contractions going, but not a thing. i'm getting all kinds of advice from the nurses, midwives, patients, and even janitors about how to get things moving, but still nothing.
2 more nights of night float, then a weekend off (whoo-hooo) and then i start my Oncology rotation on monday.
hopefully the next few days will bring a little more contraction action.

Come on out little Nova!

Our new carpet is being installed as I am writing this. That's officially the last big thing we needed to do to be Baby Ready. Work has been kinda busy the last few nights. i was hoping being up and all over the hospital would get some contractions going, but not a thing. i'm getting all kinds of advice from the nurses, midwives, patients, and even janitors about how to get things moving, but still nothing. i won't even go into the incident with my over-agressive use of my breast pump last week in an effort to get some contractions going...but it wasn't pretty.

I'm barely reading blogs right now. I'm overwhelmed with the adoption situation, and i have a mixture of sadness and anger surrounding the whole thing. I feel like the US Govt is on a Witch Hunt. and while I am in full support of stopping unethical behavior, the cost right now is so great to so many little ones and families. that's pretty much all i have to say about it.

2 more nights of night float, then a weekend off (whoo-hooo) and then i start my Oncology rotation on monday.

hopefully the next few days will have a little more contraction action.

another Friday

Thank goodness Friday is finally here! That means only one more week (5 more nights!) of my night float rotation. Cris and i have barely been crossing paths, as he often gets home around 5:00, and i usually leave at 5:30. it will be nice to be back on the same schedule.

Cris has been especially busy this week interviewing for a Faculty position at the University of Hawaii. It is UNBELIEVABLE that in only a few short months he will have his PhD! I can't believe how time has been flying by since we arrived in Hawaii! It would be really wonderful if he was hired for this position, but it will make leaving next year even harder!

I had my 37 week check-up today. Things seem to be going pretty well. For those of you not interested in the nitty-gritty pregnancy details please skip on to the next paragraph, but for those of you anxious on the progress this is for you. I've had irregular Braxton Hick's contractions. Nothing painful at all yet, just barely enough to notice. Today my cervix was only dilated a teeny tiny bit (not quite 1 cm), but is starting to thin out a little bit. For those technical OB types (Becky, Coral and Tesa) I am FT/25/-3/soft.

That's enough of the "too much information" section.

We were saddened to see a news article by the Associated Press addressing Vietnamese adoptions. We truly believe that our daughter is meant to be a part of our family. We have prayed for our specific little girl since before we even submitted our application to adopt. We believe that God has a plan for her and for our family. We are so devastated to see that there is so much corruption involved in Vietnam adoption right now. We can only pray that God has been watching over her since before she was born.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/04/24/ap/world/main4042363.shtml?source=search_story
we have no reason to believe that Juneau's adoption is anything other than completely ethical. We are working with an adoption agency that has the highest standards and we trust that they would never participate an any type of illegal or questionable activities.

please continue to pray for our daughter's future, and for the rapid approval of our case.

not sure what to say

I am devastated about the bulletins posted by the US Embassy today. Not only because this is just one more blockade in getting Juneau home, but because of the implications and uncertainty surrounding our sweet little girl's circumstances. we have absolutely no reason to believe that her situation isn't a completely straightforward case of abandonment, but after reading the bulletins i feel ill about the whole situation in general. how will we ever ever know for sure what the circumstances surrounding her arrival at the orphanage involved. it is especially unsettling since she is in one of the "blocked" provinces. what in the world is going on over there? i wish i had some idea about anything that is happening. This isn't what we set out to be a part of a year and a half ago.

i am feeling such incredible mixed emotions.
i want juneau home more than anything in the world, but i can't help but imagine that she has a birthmom out there grieving.
i am beyond excited about nova's arrival, but my happiness is so incredibly tainted by the feeling that our family is incomplete. i actually feel like i'm not sure if i can handle having only one of my girls here without knowing what is going to happen to our other baby girl. i know it seems totally selfish to be thinking this, especially considering there are families right now who are facing the prospect of not having any child at all at this point. but i still can't get over that feeling of total loss and emptiness.

Term!

we've arrived at 37 weeks! no signs of a nova-baby anytime soon though. We are definately making some progress on the housework/yardwork. It's slowly but surely starting to resemble a house you could actually bring a baby into.

i found out i have access to free Rosetta Stone for any language through my online army training links. I started the Vietnamese course just to see what it was like, and it is actually really fun to learn! I don't know if i will stick it out all the way, but i have completed 1 unit out of 8 (there are like 10 lessons/unit). The software is actually really cool. I don't know if anything is going to stick, but it's been a good way to pass the time when things are slow on Labor and Delivery. We ate at our little local Vietnamese restaurant the other day, and I was thinking of trying out my new skills, but i think people might have looked at me a little funny if i started saying things like "This is a Girl." "The girl has a ball." "The girl is jumping." or any of the other little phrases i know.

i can't believe how sparse adoption news and chatter has been. It seems no one really knows what to do, or what is going to happen. Our agency director has promised support soon from JCICS (Joint Comission on Immigration and Child Services), perhaps something like a "vietnam initiative" similar to the Guatemala initiative that happened last year when Guatemala was suddenly closed to American Adoption. JCICS was able to help thousands of families in limbo get their children home. Meanwhile, we are at 21 regular days or 15 business days in our I600 wait.

I am also counting down the # of night shifts i have left. As of now, only 8 shifts to go!

Term!

we've arrived at 37 weeks! no signs of a nova-baby anytime soon though. I'm religiously taking my evening primrose oil 3 x/day, but i'm not convinced it's really doing anything yet. We are definately making some progress on the housework/yardwork. It's slowly but surely starting to resemble a house you could actually bring a baby into.

i found out i have access to free Rosetta Stone for any language through my online army training links. I started the Vietnamese course just to see what it was like, and it is actually really fun to learn! I don't know if i will stick it out all the way, but i have completed 1 unit out of 8 (there are like 10 lessons/unit). The software is actually really cool. I don't know if anything is going to stick, but it's been a good way to pass the time when things are slow on Labor and Delivery. well, it's been a combination of doing Rosetta Stone Vietnamese, and watching Rock of Love 2 on VH1, but now that the Rock of Love season is over, perhaps i will dedicate a little more time to Vietnamese.
We ate at our little local Vietnamese restaurant the other day, and I was thinking of trying out my new skills, but i think people might have looked at me a little funny if i started saying things like "This is a Girl." "The girl has a ball." "The girl is jumping." or any of the other little phrases i know.

i can't believe how sparse adoption news and chatter has been. It seems no one really knows what to do, or what is going to happen. Our agency director was at the JCICS annual meeting a couple of weeks ago, and has promised support soon from JCICS, perhaps something like a "vietnam initiative" similar to the Guatemala initiative that happened last year. Meanwhile, we are at 21 regular days or 15 business days in our I600 wait.

36 weeks and 2 days

I can't believe the final countdown is on. It seems like we still have soooo much to do. i don't know how we will ever be ready for this little girl in the next few weeks. In 5 days i will officially be considered "term", which means i would be pretty happy to see her little face any time now. Still no sign that her arrival is anywhere close. Her super wake-up time is still between 1-2 a.m., so i'm hoping that she gets that kind of figured out quickly, as 1-2 a.m. is certainly not our usual super wake-up time.

i'm definately looking forward to 6 weeks at home with our little nova. Also, my sister Becky will be visiting for 2 weeks, which is going to be awesome and a huge help. Then in the end of may we will be in Indianapolis for a weekend trip (Cris is presenting at a conference) and we will get to see the Stickley/Matus Gang!

I can't wait for May to finally arrive!

just truckin' along

the days are flying by. we are overwhelmed with the amount of stuff we have to do, and it seems like before i know it a week has gone by, and the weekend is over, and it's time to start again.

We are basically in adoption crisis/survival mode. We are only on Day #14 of our I600 wait, but after recieving the official delay letter i am preparing for the worst. we are in a steady holding pattern for now, but ready for attack. I've already found a law firm that specializes in immigration and NOIDS and we are preparing for whatever fight we have ahead of us. Last night i even started looking into the whole idea of adopting her in vietnam, then living abroad for 2 years in order to get her an immediate relative immigrant visa rather than the normal I600 orphan visa. Hopefully it won't come down to any of this craziness, but time is getting short, as Sept 1st is only 4 1/2 months away. And in spite of the promises that all pending adoptions will continue to be processed after that date, I am hesitant to believe that USCIS will be true to their word in that respect. hopefully all of this planning will end up being totally unnecessary, and we will get approval one of these days, but after all of the terrible roadblocks we have faced so far, I am anticipating the worst.

As for questions I've gotten about travel, i'm not really making plans one way or the other at this point. I can't even fathom not being there the day Juneau joins our family, but due to Nova's impending arrival that may be the case after all. Now that it is evident that little sister Nova is going to be joining the fam before big sis gets here, the whole "how pregnant is too pregnant" to travel debate is no longer an issue. Now it comes down to "how little is too little" with respect to Nova, and the possibility of taking her to Vietnam vs. leaving her here with family while i go to Vietnam vs. Cris going to Vietnam while Nova and I wait in Hawaii. we're kinda playing it by ear right now. but it is a hotly debated topic in our family, as I think Nova could pretty much travel any time after she's about a month old, but cris thinks absolutely not. so it continues to be a hot debate.

And as for those who have inquired about posting J-bugs pictures, as much as it is driving me insane, I'm not posting any pics publicly, and I don't reallly have the energy to move the whole blog over to wordpress so i can password protect, so for now her cuteness remains a private secret. But no worries, as this blog is gonna be completely crammed full of Juneau pictures once we officially have our girl.

In Nova News things are going well. today marks the 36th week, and I'd be pretty ok with it if she decided to make any sort of indication that a delivery would be approaching in the next couple of weeks. I haven't really felt any contractions. No signs of anything at all yet. I'd kind of like to wait for her delivery until i finish my night float rotation, as that would leave the night team really stranded. I'll be about 38 1/2 weeks when i'm done with nights, so that would probably be a good time for delivery.

guess that's about it for now.
thanks for keeping us and Juneau and the whole mess of vietnam adoptions in your thoughts and prayers!

Ecclesiastes 3:1

"There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven."

These words from Ecclesiastes (and from the 1965 hit song by The Byrds) seem especially important right now for us in our adoption journey.

Without going into too much detail, let me just say that right now, the adoption scene in Vietnam is in total chaos.

The suggestion of some worries of child trafficking combined with some overly zealous officials in the U.S. Immigration office in Ho Chi Minh city have created some serious threats toward the completion of adoptions that are currently in process...that means ours.

As some of you may recall, the USCIS had implemented a change in the adoption process around November last year and we asked for help in contacting senators, representatives, etc. and we were thrilled with the responses we got on our behalf from family and friends.

While that change seemed like it would be the best thing in the long run, the implementation of this policy has been a bit of a catastrophe, especially in certain provinces of Vietnam, one of which if Quang Nam where our little Juneau is.

One particular high ranking official in the Ho Chi Minh USCIS (OUR OWN GOVERNMENT) office (who is responsible for processing approval for U.S. citizenship for all adoptions) has made it known that she intends to close Vietnam to adoptions by U.S. citizens and as a result there appears to be a pattern of acting outside of U.S. Department of State policies by USCIS in regards to Vietnamese adoptions. It seems that USCIS is trying to "make a point" to the government of Vietnam but those who paying the price are our children waiting in orphanages and U.S. citizens.

The result is that right now, no one is sure what is going to happen and a group of U.S. adoption agency directors (including ours) are working to find a way through this mess. Our director, Christine (you can see her holding Juneau in the original pictures we posted) is in Washington D.C. right now in meetings attempting to get some answers. We are awaiting her return.

A TIME TO PRAY and WAIT:

Now is NOT a time for action. There are people like Christine working to solve the problems at hand and make sure Juneau gets home. Now is NOT the time to rile up an already explosive situation and we do not want our case to be specifically raised to USCIS. This is why we have not solicited our congressmen for help in our specific case. In essence, we want to stay off of anyone's radar unless it becomes necessary. Action at this point could only serve to make enemies that we do not need.

We have decided, in consultation with Christine, to allow the current efforts to play out.

We know there are many prayer warriors out there from whom we would like to request help in praying for the following:

1. Christine and other agency directors efforts in resolving the current conflicts.
2. The officials at USCIS who are blocking legitimate progress for so many families
3. U.S. Congressmen and VP Cheney: The offices of VP Cheney and a few Congressmen are actively involved in this process and are attempting to help resolve the issues.
3. The many children in orphanages in Vietnam who are waiting for their families in the U.S. to come get them, obviously including our little Juneau.
4. The families who are waiting and longing to go rescue their sons and daughters from an orphanage. We obviously we need your prayers in this respect. The waiting is hard.
5. Prayer for what might lie ahead...

A TIME for ACTION?

The end of verse 7 in Ecclesiastes 1 says there is..."a time to be silent and a time to speak."

Now is the time to be silent and pray but a time to speak may be ahead.

In the adoption community, there is already talk that a time for action may lie ahead. If this time comes, Emilie and I have already decided that we will be at the head of the charge to prevent our daughter from being stuck in an orphanage forever. If that time comes, we will be looking at bombarding Senators, Representatives, even the President for help on behalf of all families of Vietnam adoptions. As are many in the adoption community, we are ready to pursue legal action as well on Juneau's behalf.

We know that many of you are "doers" and if that time does come, we will call on you for help.

If you would like more specific information, you can visit: http://www.bringourchildrenhome/ for more information.

Also, if you want to DO something now, there is a petition on that sight that you can sign. It is a general petition in show of support for uniting children in orphanages in Vietnam with their families in the U.S.

Again though, for now, we ask for your prayers.

Beautiful Baby Girl

This morning when i got home from work I was hoping that there would be some new Juneau pictures in my email when i woke up. We have been waiting for updated pictures all last week, but hadn't gotten anything. And when i woke up, i did find the pictures waiting for us! She is super cute. It looks like her hair is starting to grow back a little bit, and she still has her eyebrows raised with that inquisitive look.

We think she is amazing and beautiful.

As you can see from the bottom ticker, we are on day 5/60 (or 5/90 working days) of waiting for the government to review our paperwork. It's slow progress, but every day is one day closer.

On the Nova front, you can see from the above ticker we are only 36 days from the due date! I've only felt like a couple of contractions total in the last few weeks, so no signs yet of an early appearance. Although i am finally officially starting to get a tiny little bit of the "pregnancy aches". Guess that means i'm getting close!

growing girl

Today when i woke up from my nap i was DELIGHTED to find pictures of our little june-bug. She is growing like a little weed. We haven't seen her for about 3 months, and it is amazing how fast she is growing and changing. It looks like her hair is finally starting to grow out a little (it was shaved in our first pictures), but it is still very very short. She has the same inquisitive look, with both eyebrows raised.
She weighs 16 pounds! (about 25%).
She is, of course, amazing and beautiful.

It's kinda funny (you know, in a weird, twisted, skewed perspective, PAP type of way) because in our acknowledgement receipt it says our case will be processed in 60 working days, but in our Delay letter (recieved <24 hours later) it says we will hear something in 60 days. So i am actually currently looking at our delay letter as an expedite letter. so there.

delay letter

well, i knew we would get it, but i figured it would take a little more than 22 hours for uscis to determine that our case would require an investigation, and to also determine somehow in that short period of time that the VN officials would not cooperate with the investigataion.

we are officially delayed.

Ladies and Gentleman, Mark Your Calendars....

Our I-600 is officially acknowledged and logged in. According to the US/Vietnam agreement, the US government has 60 days (well, recently that has changed to 60 business days) to approve our case. See the new ticker at the bottom of the page for the countdown!

There have been some recent attempts by a very bitter but powerful american adoption official in Vietnam to sabotage adoptions to the U.S. No one knows why, but she is doing her best to make life difficult for many families trying to bring home their children. We are praying hard that she will look favorably on our case and we will sail through the approval process.

In the mean time, here are some pictures from our awesome weekend getaway to Kauai.

in spite of the warning signs, we never found Coral.

Mark your Calendars!

We are acknowledged! We received our letter of acknowledgment from the USCIS office for our I600 today. It took 9 days. not too bad. I know we will be getting the Delay Letter due to J-bug's location in Quang Nam, but somehow I am holding out hope that the will just approve us.

Anyway, whatever happens in the next 60 days, or 60 working days, or whatever, we are prepared for it. We are getting that baby girl home, and miss tough-stuff USCIS bully (she who must not be named) doesn't have a chance at stopping us, new DNA requirement or not.

anyway, i'm tired, so i'm gonna go to bed, but here are a couple pics from our lovely weekend in Kauai.