Viet Nam Adoptive Family Interviews : An Introduction

How did you get through the wait to receive your referral? Was it easier or more difficult than the wait to travel after you saw photos of your child?

The Engelbrecht Family - I bought a lot of stuff (not the best idea). I think it was harder after we had her pic and then travel kept being postponed and that was really hard.

Christina - The wait for referral was hard, but not nearly as hard as the wait for travel. Mostly we were waiting for our agency to be licensed and once that was imminent, we received our referral. But because the process was just starting up when we got our referral, we had additional delays waiting for our agency to be licensed in our son’s province (it took about a month longer than they anticipated) and then the wait for provincial approval was much longer than we expected which was very hard for us.

The Mynes Family - Both waits are very difficult but for us the wait for our referral was more difficult. We just wanted to be parents and see the picture of our baby so bad. To pass the time we did a lot of different things. We totally redid our baby’s room. We stripped the room down to the studs and re-sheetrocked, spackled, painted, and put up new doors and windows. (We love doing home improvements) Since we both work full time jobs every spare minute we had we were working on our child’s new room. I had 2 baby showers and got to wash and fold all of the new baby clothes and organize the new toys in the room. I bought a bunch of books about Viet Nam at Boarders and read them. (Here are the books I bought: Understanding Viet Nam, Fodor’s 3rd Edition: Viet Nam The Guide For All Budgets, Globetrotter Viet Nam; this has a wonderful fold out map and Insight Pocket Travel Dictionary; my goal was to learn as most of the language as possible but I found I didn’t have the time.) Chris went on a golf trip with some friends. I took my sisters to Lancaster for the weekend and we did some shopping at the outlets. Chris and I went to eat at our favorite restaurants and did things that were just the 2 of us. Because when we would bring Leland home it would never be just us ever again, it would be the 3 of us. (which is a great thing!) I went online and looked up adoption stories/blogs and pictures of Vietnamese children. I couldn’t get enough of seeing pics of other Vietnamese kids. I found info on Viet Nam and about Ha Tinh (Leland’s province).

The Micheline Family – After we signed with our second agency, VORF, we had a referral within days. This is very unusual, and was probably due to the fact that we were completely paper-ready and had our 171H all ready to go as a result from our experience with the earlier agency. However, we were with our other agency for several months, waiting for a referral, before we switched agencies, and that wait was truly grueling. Every day I woke up, praying for the phone to ring. Now I understand *why* we didn't get an earlier referral (I truly believe with all my heart you are matched with the child that you are meant to be with) and am so grateful no referral came before we got Gracie's information!
Waiting to travel was SO HARD. We got lots of photos and news in the four months we waited, but every day it was such a struggle.

Next..."Referral Day!"

Related Reading:
How to Prepare Your Child's Room
Ten(Not So Graceful) Ways to Survive the Wait
Russian Adoption: How to Wait Without Losing Your Sanity


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