ADJUSTING AND BEING PATIENT

It's October 15th!  The air is chilly, the leaves are carpeting the ground, and I'm blessed to be typing this post on the cozy pellet stove side of a most beautiful pink and purple sunrise.  In my last post I told you our dossier was on it's way to being China authenticated... or so I thought.

We initially were told that state certification takes approximately one week and was to be finished on September 19th (hence the blog post on the 20th) and that Chinese authentification would start immediately after that.  And that would have been true... had we not been a New York state resident.  We later found out that the certification process for those living in NY state takes four weeks, not one.

I must admit it's hard not to have an "of cooourse it takes four weeks instead of one for NY state" sarcastic attitude upon hearing that news.  New York state is known for red tape so while I was certainly bummed, I wasn't surprised.  But I adore where we live and I do mean adore.  Saranac Lake is the sweetest little, most beautiful, Adirondack town I could ever dream of and Brad and I have learned to see the crazy high taxes and red tape as worth it to be able to live in such a wonderful place.

This week, we're anxiously awaiting the news that our dossier has been state certified.  Supposedly it should have been completed by last Friday, the 12th, but you can understand my hesitation to assume again 😊

In the meantime, I'm still reading through the three books that need to be finished before travel.  I'm currently in the home stretch of finishing book #2: In Their Own Voices: Transracial Adoptees Tell Their Stories by Rita Simon and Rhonda Roorda.  It's a collection of two dozen verbatim interviews of now-adult transracial adoptees discussing what it was like growing up in a home with parents of a different race and I am so glad I'm reading it.  It's an older book - the interviews were all conducted in the late 1990's and the book was published in 2000 - but I feel as though the content is just as relevant now and I'm learning a lot.

I'm also over the moon to say that we're only $3,500 away from being fully funded!  I can't even believe it!  Your generosity to us during this process has been overwhelming.  Thank you, thank you, thank you!  Click here to see the complete breakdown of where we're at or click here to go straight to our GoFundMe page 💛

You guys are the best.  Thank you for everyone's questions and check-ins about where we're at in the process.  It means a lot that you would be thinking about and praying for our little family.

Hoping to give you an updated progress report soon!
Brooke