Miller Plus One

Amber Joy's first court hearing was last night at 9:40 p.m. (central time), 10:40 a.m. Taiwan time.  I was up much later than that, just waiting to hear something from the missionary who is our power of attorney about how it went, or any decisions that may have been made.  I finally turned over and went to sleep around 1 a.m., having heard nothing.  It was excruciating.  We weren't even sure what we were waiting to hear, but to have no word whatsoever was much harder than I thought it would be.  I woke up again at 5:30 a.m., exhausted emotionally and physically.  Sleeping on our sofa seems comfortable at the time, but when you wake up after 4 unrestful hours, it is painfully obvious that it is NOT a bed.  After Justin left for work, I went to our bed and slept until 11:30 this morning.  I needed it.  When I woke up, I checked e-mail again and finally, there was news about court.  Court went well.  Amber Joy and her birthmom were t...

We got an update this morning from the missionary who is caring for our soon-to-be-adopted daughter Amber Joy! We are so excited about this news!!!: Amber Joy is at her well baby check up. She can be changed to regular formula and no longer needs her inhaler as her lungs have improved greatly! She is up to 11.4 lbs and 20.4" long! Amber Joy's first court date is tonight at 9:40 p.m. Central time. Court should only take about 10 minutes, but we would love for you to remember our family in your prayers if you think of it at that time! The judge will see Amber Joy's birth mom, assign a social worker to do a report on the birth mom, and let the missionary know if he needs more information or if he is satisfied with what he has. We hope to get an update from the missionary after court is over. After this court date, there are two more decrees, and we do not really know when those will happen. We also received our immigration approval this week, which is HUGE! The US g...

This post is mainly meant for other families adopting from Taiwan (independent private) who might glean some insight into the paperwork process.  We live in Tennessee and this is a chronicle of our journey so far: We contacted Adoption Assistance in Smyrna, TN regarding our need for a new homestudy.   The application fee was $50.   Lisa Mosley was wonderful.   She worked with us intently to get our homestudy completed in six weeks time.   We had to do some additional training that was specific to international adoption, but we were able to do that training online at minimal cost.   She charged us $500 to update our homestudy from domestic to international, plus what we had to pay for a South Carolina background check (any state you’ve lived in other than TN in the past 10 years) for me and the online training.   Lisa got us our approved new homestudy on June 27.    After I got it, I e-mailed it immediately the director of the progra...

This blog is little different than my others...it is personal musings about becoming a mom... This morning, I was walking around my house, getting things cleaned up and thinking "wow, we have a lot of stuff."  Sometime after my college years, I became more inclined to throw things away, rather than accumulate a lot of clutter.  I used to keep everything.  I remember a coloring project from elementary or junior high school that I spent hours doing and I just could never bring myself to part with it.  It was the cartoon character "Beetle Bailey."  I didn't have it on my wall in my room or in a frame, just in a box of things I wanted to keep.  There were countless other "to keep" boxes that I moved from one apartment to the next, I suppose because even though the trinkets in the boxes hardly ever saw the light of day, at least when I went through them every other year or so, it reminded me of simpler times.  There were birthday cards from year...

Our paperwork is in the Taiwan courts! It was submitted on Monday, August 1, so what do we do now? WAIT. Of course! The name of the game! The more I have considered waiting, the more I am convinced that our lives will NEVER be finished with waiting. Once Amber Joy gets home, we will be waiting for doctor's visits, test results, first photos to come back from the photographer, first words, first steps...and it never ends! So, for now, I've accepted the wait as part of parenting. I'm sure I will continue to struggle!  Right now, our projected travel time is October-November.  We will have a court date, probably in early September, then two decrees.  After the second decree, the judge declares that she is ours and we are told to book our plane tickets! In other news, I am addicted to my daughter's photos!  We have made collages at Walgreens, she's all over the house in frames, and yesterday, I cropped some of the pics so as just to focus on all of her featu...