A Fun Evening

We had a great dinner this evening with our good friends, the Presnells (Danny & Dee Ann, their son Preston and his girlfriend).

We first met them the summer of 1996. Preston had just recently been diagnosed with cancer (very similar to the kind I had when I was 18), and Zack would keep him company during the day while Danny & Dee Ann were working. That summer gave Zack a better understanding of what I had gone through (we met towards the end of my treatments) and also gave us the opportunity to get to know an amazing family.

Two years later, we were honored to have Preston serve as the ring bearer in our wedding. Since then we get together with them – though not nearly enough – for dinner, etc. Danny & Dee Ann have always been incredibly supportive of us, and Dee Ann has been one of our biggest readers and supporters during the adoption.

Preston has grown into an incredible young man. He graduated from Georgia Southern this summer, and just got his first “real world” job! He is also the founder & executive director of an awesome website for cancer survivors: The Life Linkage Network. It is super cool – if someone you know has cancer or is a cancer survivor, they need to check out this site. He's created an environment where cancer patients & survivors can connect and support each other - we are excited to watch it continue to grow!

Thanks to the Presnells for a fun evening and for dinner. We appreciate your support, and can’t wait for our son to have the opportunity to get to know all of you!

38 Days!

Nostalgia

When I was 3 years old, Santa brought me a beautiful pink tricycle. It had the prettiest pink & white flowered seat, and a white basket decorated with brightly colored plastic flowers. Oh, I loved that trike!

I don’t have many things left from my childhood, but somehow the tricycle managed to stick around all these years. When we started the adoption, Zack said we should get it out and clean it up. The problem is, we didn’t particularly want our son riding a pink trike. Don’t get me wrong – I know real men wear pink, and Zack sports a pink polo shirt from time to time (which I really like, but I digress). But a pink cycle is a different story!
So Zack came up with the idea of taking it to a body shop to get it fixed up. It was a long shot because the rust had really done some damage. But after weeks of taking different parts to different shops, and doing a little work ourselves, I have to say that the result is nothing short of awesome!

One shop powder-coated the body electric blue and the handle bars, silver. Another shop did an awesome job on the wheels. I re-covered the seat with foam and black vinyl. Zack found black handle grips and pedals and got them in place, and reassembled the whole thing.

It wound up costing a lot more than a new tricycle would cost (actually, Zack says more than 3 trikes) – but I love that I have something to pass down to our son! I can’t wait to take a picture of Little Guy riding it – then I can do a side-by-side of me when it was pink, and him now that it’s blue.


I’m also including a picture of the cool birthday cake that Zack’s mom got for us last week. It was Zack's birthday, but we celebrated both of our birthdays since we’ll be in Ukraine for mine. She went to get the cake at Wal-Mart, and through a strange conversation found out that the lady working there is from Ukraine – so she wrote on it in Ukrainian. We’re guessing that is says Happy Birthday, but Nataliya can probably tell us for sure. Anyway, thanks to Ben & Barbara for the neat cake and for our gift!

41 Days!

Little Guy Fundraising Update

The thing that probably scared us the most at the beginning of this journey – other than the fact that we’ll actually be responsible for raising a child! – was the cost of adopting. But we knew that if this was God’s plan for us, then He’d provide a way to make it happen. And we’ve made great progress so far.

We want to send out a big thank you to these folks for helping us get this far:
Lee Biddy
Jeremy, Kathy & Madeline Lee Bullington
Charles & Lori Chase
Jeff, Deanna, Jeffrey & Georgia Davis
Tommy & Kathy Davis
Ben & Barbara Dove
Emmie Dove
Josh Dove
Harold & Betty Edge
Danny & Dee Ann Presnell
Randy Smith
Bob & Betty Jo Wright

We’re saving like crazy, and learning to be frugal in so many ways…

• For the past 7 months I’ve been serving as Zack’s barber
• We’re eating at home almost every night
• Our spare change jar is starting to fill up
• I don’t go out for lunch at work very much anymore
• And I think Macy’s & Old Navy are concerned about the inactivity on my accounts!
• We even went through the house last night & did an e*bay round-up. We listed books, DVDs, and other odds & ends. (I probably should have mentioned that all proceeds are going to our adoption!)

We are definitely getting close, but still have a little ways left to go. So if you feel you are able to contribute financially, you can email us at dovefamily@bellsouth.net.

Thanks for supporting us with your prayers, love, emails, finances, and general well-wishes! We praise God for providing for us this far in our journey, and we continue to put our trust in Him as we get closer to the final leg of our adventure.

46 Days!

Happy Birthday Zack!

To simply say that God blessed me with a great husband would be doing a disservice to God, to His blessing, and to the man who has been the best thing in my life for the past 12 years. To say I’m fortunate is yet another understatement. I sometimes wonder what I did right to end up with someone so great - someone who will put up with me and all my craziness. But I know without a doubt that I married the man that God chose for me.

Happy Birthday to my husband, my best friend, my happy ending. I thank God for you every day. I know that you are going to make an amazing father, and I look forward to this next exciting chapter of our lives together. I love you.

Enjoy Your Special Day!

48 Days!

Dinner with our Friends (& Fellow Adopters)

Some of you may remember us mentioning another couple using our same coordinator that was just a little bit ahead of us in the process. Well, our friends Kelly & Amanda leave in less that 2 weeks to complete the final chapter in their journey to bring home a daughter.

We met them for dinner Thursday night and had a great time just hanging out & comparing notes. We talked about the journey so far; we discussed things like packing and language; and we shared our hopes & fears about what lies ahead. It was great to spend some time with them before they leave - the next time we see each other, life for all of us will probably be A LOT different!

They are such a great couple - and their son Zachary (adopted from Russia in '04) is so precious. We can't wait to see what God has in store for them over the next couple of months. Please be in prayer for the Taylors as they depart on September 28. Pray for safe travels and for God's hand to be on the entire adoption process. Also, please pray for them as they leave 3-year old Zachary with his grandparents for this time. And pray for Zachary - that he will cope well with this big change, both while they're gone and when they return with a new sibling for him!

I will do my best to give progress reports as I receive them!

51 Days!

Our Paper Pregnancy

“Anonymous” left a comment on our Good News post that brought to light something neither of us had noticed...

When we got our appointment date, Zack & I talked about the fact that it would be about 9 months from beginning to referral, but we had not looked back at our timeline lately. So here is what “Anonymous” noticed – we made the decision to adopt on February 7. Our SDA appointment is on November 7.

EXACTLY 9 MONTHS LATER!

As my friend Sherri would say, “That’s so God!”



Many of you have read about the times when I've gotten frustrated when we had some small delays, and how my Dad always likes to remind me that it takes 9 months to have a baby. So it’s pretty interesting that we’ll be meeting with Ukraine’s adoption authorities exactly 9 months to the day after we began our journey!



Thanks, “Anonymous”, for pointing this out. Now, will you please reveal your identity? You neglected to sign your name to your comment!!!

54 Days!

One step closer – plane tickets!

Our tickets are being booked this morning! We leave on Monday November 5 around 4:30 PM. Our first stop is Frankfurt, arriving at 7:30 AM local time on November 6. We’ll have a 2+ hour layover, and then we’re off again, landing in Ukraine around 1:00 PM local time.

For other adoptive families who might be wondering, we bought one-way adoption fare tix for this leg of the trip. In the long run it should end up about the same or even cheaper than roundtrip. With RT we would most likely have to change our return date, resulting in change fees and fare change fees that can negate the cost savings of a RT ticket. And when you get RT, you're locking into an airline. So when it comes time to come home, you have to pick a flight on their schedule (i.e. you’re ready to come home on Tuesday but the airline doesn’t have another flight until Friday). So we will have a little more flexibility and will be able to look for an airline with a flight that fits our schedule better.

I know that was probably too much information for many of you reading this, but hopefully it’s helpful to all our bloggy friends out there who are in the middle of their own adoption adventures.

56 Days!

An SDA Appointment - what does that mean?

Several people have asked what it means when we say we received an appointment date with the SDA, so here goes…

The SDA
SDA is Ukraine’s State Department of Adoption. They manage the entire country’s adoption program.

Recap
Our Ukrainian facilitator submitted our dossier (adoption application) to the SDA on July 16. On August 30, we found out that our dossier was approved. We were given an appointment on November 7. So we’ll fly out on November 5, arriving in Ukraine on November 6.

What happens at the appointment?
We’ll meet with a couple of people at the SDA, including a psychologist and a translator. We’ll view profiles of children that are the closest matches to what we requested in our dossier. Each profile typically includes a photo, an evaluation of the child, and family information if available. The number of files we get to look at will depend on how many children are available when we get there. From those files, we'll decide which child we’d like to meet… that’s called accepting a referral.

After we accept a referral…
Next, there’s paperwork (we should be experts at that by now!), and within a day or two we will be on our way to the region where the child is located. What usually happens next is a meeting with the orphanage director and possibly the physician, and then the child. We will decide if we want to adopt this child.

Then the REAL paperwork fun begins...
From there, it’s a lot of running around, tracking down paperwork, filling out lots more paperwork, bonding with the child, court, a 10 day appeal period, passports, visas, doctor’s visit, U.S. embassy appointment, etc, etc, etc. We can explain more of that as it happens…


So that’s a little of what’s coming over the next several months. For now, we’re getting started on all the details of getting ready to go. We’ll be buying plane tickets next week.

We leave 60 days from today –

the countdown is on!