Ok, We know what you all are thinking, Renee and Joe with kids???? Heck, our dogs don't even listen to us, how are we going to raise a kid. We distinctly remember Joe's mom begging us to never have kids. "You guys would probably place the baby on top of the car while loading groceries and then drive away without putting her into the car". Those were Kay's exact words! For the last ten years we always remembered that quote.

Well, for the last few years we have been discussing adoption...:"Top Secret Discussions" but never really pursued it. We bought a Two Dogs, a 20 foot Tahoe Q4 S/F Boat, a Chevy Trailblazer, a Ford Ranger, a Ford Mustang, and convertible Mazda Miata instead. So, during the first week of January 2006, our great friends Tony and Annamarie came to Sacramento to visit us. They have adopted two beautiful children from Guatemala. We were just blown away by their kids. We had some discussions with them in the past, but again never pushed the issue with each other. Renee is used to be the "Spoiled Queen", Joe, he just wants to watch sports. So, after spending the day at the zoo, we kept probing Tony and Annamarie about the whole process. We talked about it all the way home and for the next few days. Finally, Joe made a command decision, he said "Hey we need to shit or get off the pot, we are getting old". So we dove in head first.

Over the next couple of days, we researched every country that interested us. We talked about the pros and cons of each and finally settled on China. The tie breaker was we want a little girl and China seemed to have the most stable and honest system. Next, find an agency. Renee did some serious research and we finally settled on Children's Hope International (CHI). Renee went as far as emailing and doing phone interviews...she was focused on using the best agency possible. CHI has been nothing but wonderful to us. They are Top notch and awesome!!!

So, we get our application. Holy Crap, I thought I was going to have an aneurysm with all the requirements. Suddenly, Joe gets appointed as paperwork boy but doesn't remember voting on this topic?!
Renee appoints herself as shopping girl and head cheerleader (the things she does best). So, off we go. Meanwhile, Joe figures out that FedEx makes a lot of money off folks trying to adopt.

Well, all this work is aimed at completing our dossier, which is basically your application to the country you are adopting from. You would think it was easy...Yeah right! Here is how the game works, you need a letter requesting a child from the country of choice, it must be notarized ($$$), then the Secretary of State from your state must notarize that the notary is in fact a notary ($$$), then some documents must be notarized by the USA Secretary of State notarizing that the Secretary of your state can in fact notarize the notary's document ($$$). Are you following us so far??? (HeeHee) But you are not done yet, then the Chinese Embassy or Consulate, depending on the document, must authenticate that all the above listed folks are correct and have the authority to notarize ($$$). This must be done for each document.

So, Joe is now paper pregnant. Immediately Renee starts butting into my process and saying Joe is being too anal. As Joe puts it, anal is fine but us military men call it persistence! We are informed the dossier process takes about 4-8 months, yeah right. The first thing to do is formally request to adopt from China, done in 1 day. Next is the Home Study, most agencies are tell us it will take 2-3 months to complete. Yeah right, Joe strikes a deal with a super awesome agency to complete the process in 3 weeks...Persistence. We also need medical clearances, police background checks, passports, proof of finances, liabilities, complete family histories, work histories, marriage certificate, birth certificates, letters of reference and a bunch of pictures. All of these documents must go through the above mentioned process. Oh, yeah, ya know the birth certificate and marriage certificates issued at the time of the event, they are no good... they must be issued less then 1 year from date applying to adopt. So you have to order them ($$$). Makes it lots of fun if you were born overseas. Also, strangely enough, you must be electronically finger printed called LiveScan 3 different times. Now all of these finger prints go to the exact same FBI office for validation. You would think all the agencies would use the same database, yeah you would think that, but nope. Every time it cost $70 per person to have the same agency tell all the other agencies the same thing. Meanwhile, we have a CHI caseworker assigned to help us through the process. So, persistent Joe is on the phone with him at least 3 times a week. We completed the process in less than 45 days, 4-8 months my butt. I'm not sure if our caseworker was impressed or thankful I will not be bugging him again for a couple of more months.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that before you can complete your dossier, you have to apply for permission to bring the child into the US (Lots of $$$$$$). So, we get everything done and file for the form called a I-600A. Again, it is supposed to take 4-6 weeks to get the form back approved (this leaves you in a holding pattern because it is the final piece of the dossier puzzle). Yes, it must also go through the process from hell. We got ours in 6 DAYS...anal, persistence or luck??? So we were able to complete the whole process in 60 days.

So, off we go to San Fancisco to have the Chinese Consulate authenticate the documents. As of right now we are what is known as Documents To China (DTC). On 22 March, Joe gave birth to a crap load of documents.

Next came deciding on a name. After much discussion and Joe lobbying for the name Gilbert Perreault Jr, we settled on the name Madison or Maddy. (Those wondering, Gil Perreault was Joe's childhood hero....hey its a hockey thing)

So, what was Renee doing through all this??? S-H-O-P-P-I-N-G for a kid we don't even have yet. In case you were concerned that the child might not have all the necessary stuff, please see the pictures. Keep in mind we are 10 months out!

Well it is now September 2, 2006 China has slowed down the process so all we can do is wait...

NOW WE WAIT, CURRENTLY 8-10 MONTHS. Wait time has now changed 14-18 months.
We will reach 12 months on 10 April 2007...so we will continue to wait (and to fill time for Renee well she gets to do more shopping)!!!