Remember this "Life With Ella" post I wrote when we had been home just 6 months?!?!?! Six months! Oh my goodness, that seems like yesterday and an eternity ago all at the same time. We’re approaching our first Family Day, and three weeks from then will mark the day that Ella first came home. I’ll be able to post a “Home for a Year” post! That is just incredible.

The three of us have been through so much since we all met in a little baby center in Bac Giang. The joys and frustrations of parenting and family life were new to all of us. Now that so much time has passed, we’ve all relaxed a bit as we’ve... more

Wading through the murky waters of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) can be confusing. With your agency’s help and the support of other parents who have been there and done that, it will seem much less overwhelming and panic inducing. Although the forms have names made up of letters and numbers that sound similar, most are pretty simplistic documents that are fairly easy to fill out. When we were in the process of adopting Ella, our agency walked us line by line through each USCIS document to be sure that they were filled out correctly the first time. If your agency hasn’t offered this assistance, be sure to ask for the help.

Here are definitions and descriptions... more

Knowing when it’s the right time to add another child to your family is a completely personal decision, and will vary from family to family. Now that I’ve spilled the proverbial beans about my family’s decision to adopt for a second time ;), I thought I would share some of the reasons why it felt right to us.

It was easy for my husband and me to come up with logical reasons why now is not the best time to adopt again. We are currently trying to sell our house, and will be moving sometime in the... more

Continued from here and here.

Although we made the official decision to adopt from Viet Nam again a few months ago, we’ve only recently begun diving into the paperwork required to adopt. We’re finding that it’s not much different (or easier) than the first time around. I honestly assumed that it would be less stressful, but as soon as our home study update packet arrived I realized that my assumptions couldn’t... more

Continued from here

Since I had convinced myself that it was too soon to even start thinking about adopting again, I put the notion of starting back up on the back burner. I went about my daily life and tried to forget about the opportunity that had been presented to us. I wasn’t too successful. About a month after that fateful email came, I sauntered into our living room and popped the question to my husband. I asked him “What if I just email ACS (Asian Children Services, our agency) and find out if there are any spots left for families on the list?” I tried to tell myself that we weren’t committing to anything... more

Get ready Viet Nam…we’re coming back!!! And we are so excited! We actually made our decision a few months ago, but I wanted to wait until the ball really got rolling until I shouted the news from the blog mountaintop. So here it is: We are adopting again!

Here’s how this all came to be…a few months after we returned home with Ella, we learned that our agency Asian Children Services was phasing out their adoption program to focus on their humanitarian work in Viet Nam. I was absolutely crushed. Granted, we had only just gotten home, were not anywhere... more

While digging around online, I came across a few events this month that I thought would be of interest to those of us with Vietnamese kids (or those in the process of adopting.) The art exhibits are on the west coast, but we can all tune in our radio to learn more about Operation Babylift. If you know of any events that would interest readers, please don’t hesitate to share :)

Operation Babylift Radio Program – Lana Noone will be interviewed on October 24th at 11:00 am about Viet Nam’s Operation Babylift. Operation Babylift took place in 1975 when over 2000 children were evacuated out of war torn Viet Nam to be adopted by families world wide. Her interview will be... more

Massive Floods in Viet Nam - There was severe, horrific flooding in Viet Nam last week. Lives were lost and homes were destroyed as a result of Typhoon Lekima in Northern and Central Viet Nam. The provinces of Thanh Hoa, Nghe An and Ninh Binh seem to have seen the worst of the damage from the storm. Current reports are stating that there are fourteen people missing and the death toll is in the high sixties. Approximately six thousand Vietnamese homes are reported to be completely destroyed and over fifty thousand are severely damaged. Irrigation systems, roads and dykes... more

I am continuing to answer a reader's email questions directly in my blog so I can share with everyone. The other questions that I've answered this week were: Food and Eating in Viet Nam, Wait Times and Expectations, Air Travel and Time in Viet Nam and Our... more

I am continuing to answer a reader's email questions directly in my blog so I can share with everyone. The other questions that I've answered this week were: Food and Eating in Viet Nam, Wait Times and Expectations, Air Travel and Time in Viet Nam and Our... more