Bulgaria Trip 1

After accepting our daughter’s referral on April 6, we were pleased to be able to travel to Bulgaria very quickly. Throughout the coming days, I will elaborate in more detailed posts on some of the things we experienced while there, but for now here’s a brief overview of the week we spent in Bulgaria:

April 16: Depart Cincinnati.

April 17: Arrive in Paris, connect to Sofia. Overnight stay at an apartment in Sofia.

April 18: Fly to our daughter’s hometown. First and second visits with our daughter. Meeting up with my mom who joined us for the week from Germany.

April 19: Third and fourth visits with our daughter. Delivery of orphanage donations. Explore our daughter’s hometown on foot.

April 20: Fifth and sixth visits with our daughter. Travel by taxi to the Black Sea Coast at a town called Balchik. Explore Balchik Palace and Botanical Gardens as well as the Black Sea shore.

April 21: Last visit with our daughter. Fly back to Sofia. Sign paperwork to proceed with her adoption. Explore Sofia on foot. Overnight stay at an apartment in the capital.

April 22: Depart Sofia, connect in Paris, arrive in Cincinnati.

And a few odds and ends that I don’t think deserve a separate entry later:

1) Our flights from Cincinnati to Sofia were extremely smooth. We had no delays and did not even encounter any wait lines for check-ins and security inspections. It was the most pleasant international travel experience we have had in years. On the way back, things also went well, but we had various long lines in Paris and in Cincinnati as well as a long time waiting for take-off in CDG.

2) Everything we ate in Bulgaria was delicious. We had meals at restaurants, a breakfast buffet at the hotel, and also meals we bought at the grocery store. I can assure you that there is plenty of variety for a vegetarian like me. Craig enjoyed his meat dishes, too.

3) Our apartment in Sofia was located in a six story building built in 1964 or 1968 (I can’t remember). The apartment was completely remodeled with a small kitchen, small eating nook and living room combination, a bathroom and a bedroom. Our hotel in our daughter’s hometown was very, very nice with a beautiful, quiet location on the edge of a large park, modern amenities, friendly staff, and a good restaurant.

4) Our translator was great and with us whenever we needed/wanted her. We also appreciated that she made the arrangements for us to visit the Black Sea at Balchik after I expressed my desire to see the coast on the first day.

More details to come soon, so please stay tuned.

IAC 176 Results

The following referrals were issued in IAC Session 176 which was held on 03/11/11:

1)Swiss dossier from 2007 referred a child aged 2 years and 7 months, female

2) French dossier from 2008 referred a child aged 3 years and 10 months, female, deficit with NAP

3) U.S. dossier from 2008 referred a child aged 3 years and 11 months, male, with congenital visual anomaly

4) Italian dossier from 2009 referred a child aged 6 years and 6 months, female in a healthy status - vision problems

5) Italian dossier from 2009 referred a child aged 7 years and 7 months, male

6) French dossier from 2010 referred a child aged 5 years and 7 months, male, with data on family history, chronic disease and vision problems

7) Italian dossier from 2010 referred a child aged 8 years and 3 months, male

8) Italian dossier from 2010 referred a child aged 10 years and 10 months, female

9) Italian dossier from 2010 referred a child aged 10 years and 8 months, male

10) Italian dossier from 2011 referred two male children - biological brothers, aged: 10 years and 2 months & 8 years and 3 months, one of which has a deficit in the NDP and speech problem

Orphanage Donations Part 2

As Craig and I prepare to meet our daughter in Bulgaria, we have been purchasing donations for her orphanage with some of the money we have raised over the last year. In the spirit of accountability, especially to those who have contributed, I wanted to let all of you know how the funds have been spent, so here’s what we bought for our daughter’s orphanage:

12 new diaper covers $1.20

13 bottles of children’s vitamins $55.51

3 board books $3.00

Baby Einstein Lullabies CD $4.00

20 pairs of socks $9.50

10 tubes of children’s toothpaste $10.00

2 boxes of Q-tips (500 ct) $3.40

3 tubes of Neosporin $11.58

6 tubes of diaper ointment $13.44

2 boxes of Band Aids $4.40

192 Crayons $7.92

Sand toys $1.50 (not pictured)

20 pieces of clothing $14.50 (not pictured)

All of these donations are packed, along with half of the children’s clothes that were collected by our friends last fall.

In total, we have raised $560 thus far. $150.86 was spent on our son’s orphanage, $139.97 on our daughter’s. An additional $150 will be used to buy diapers in Bulgaria. This leaves $119.17 for our son’s orphanage when we return to pick him up.

We are going to have one last orphanage fundraiser in May, so please stay tuned.

Happy 50th Birthday, Pampers!

As some of you may know, Craig works for Procter & Gamble in their Baby Care Division and today he and I got to be a part of Pampers' 50th birthday celebration and Little Miracles campaign kick-off. We were able to share the story of our son's adoption in progress with an audience of co-workers and their families as well as local media. If we make the news, I will post a link later.

Pampers is asking all parents to talk about their own little miracles on their Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/#!/pampers. Please go there and let everyone know about your miraculous international adoptions and share what you have seen and heard while visiting your children's orphanages. Most importantly, ask Pampers to get involved in helping orphans worldwide. What a difference P&G could make to the health and comfort of these beautiful little ones with diaper donations to orphanages everywhere. Please, please, please, spread the word about the Little Miracles campaign and use it as an opportunity to encourage Pampers to get involved with orphan care worldwide!

It's A Girl

A few hours after I posted this entry to our blog, I received an email from our agency to give them a call. I didn’t exactly expect it, but figured that the call would have something to do with the request we had made during the preceding weekend for a waiting child we’d seen on the MOJ site. I was right… sort of… as we got word that MOJ could not grant our request because we had just been matched with another little girl through the main procedure. In other words, we got a huge Valentine’s Day surprise by receiving news of a referral from Bulgaria. And yes, it came exactly two years to the day after we’d mailed our initial adoption application.

After a long month of anticipation and some other adoption craziness that I don’t care to share, we finally were sent the file of our little girl. I cannot reveal too much about her yet, but I can tell you that when we initially read her report, the prognosis for her health and development seemed grim and we were not sure we could proceed with her adoption. It took another three weeks to get clarification on her medical history (which, by the way, included many inaccuracies) and the results of some medical testing she’d undergone. We are so glad we requested updated photos, videos, additional testing as well as asked a lot of questions and consulted with a local IA doctor because without this information we might have missed out on our child.

Our daughter is lovely, very small for her age with orphanage delays and a medical condition that will need to be monitored and maybe treated/corrected in the future. She’s a toddler just as we requested and we are so excited to meet her later this month.

And now we’ll have to get ready for virtual twin toddlers from two different Eastern European countries to join our family before this year is over.

Dollars For Diapers Bake Sale Success

Today’s fundraiser bake sale was a great success. In four hours, we sold most of our baked goods and at the end of the day, a gentleman came up and bought everything that was still left on the table for his church. We raised nearly $212, half of which will go to the Martini Coalition for Muscular Dystrophy Research and Development and the other half of which Craig and I will use to purchase diapers and supplies for our children’s orphanages. I also got a $20 donation, so today we raised $126. I couldn’t be more pleased.

Here’s a picture of my baking contributions (banana nut bread, chocolate chip cookies, blueberry-peach cobblers):

And here we are all set up at the start of the sale:

I had a wonderful time meeting the members of the Martini Coalition and their families. My sincerest thanks go out to them for allowing us to be a part of this event. I also want to express my gratitude to everyone who came and supported our fundraiser. You guys rock!

Dollars For Diapers Bake Sale

Tomorrow, April 9, 2011 from 1:00 - 5:00 pm, I will be participating in a fundraiser bakesale at Harrison Bowling Center. I am teaming up with the Martini Coalition for Muscular Dystrophy Research & Development. A number of children in the Martini family are affected by the disease. The proceeds of the bakesale will be split 50/50 between the Martini Coalition and my efforts to raise money for our children's orphanages.

Along with the bakesale, the Martini Coalition has also organized for many other vendors, such as Pampered Chef, to be there and sell their products. A percentage of vendor sales will also go to the Martini Coalition.

There will be no leagues on Saturday afternoon, so plenty of lanes should be open if you’d like to do some bowling as well.

If you’re local, please come and support this fundraiser (I promise the goodies will be yummy) and please spread the word about it via social media outlets and email. Any money Craig and I raise will be used to purchase supplies (primarily diapers) for our children’s orphanages.