Meeting with Becky, Todd & Micah

Today Dan and I met with one of his fellow PhD students, LtCol Todd Venema. Todd and his wife Becky adopted a baby boy, Micah, from China 5 months ago. They have 3 natural children ages 10-6 and wanted to add to their family through adoption. It was a really nice meeting over lunch talking about their experience in China, the process of adoption, paperwork involved and how the military can help. We really learned alot about the process today! They got Micah 5 months ago and their start to finish time for paperwork and waiting took about 17 months, the normal is 24 months but Micah was a special needs baby so they got him a little sooner. He had a deformity of his right ear (very hard to even notice and the left works just fine) where the middle ear doesn't connect the outer ear to the inner ear. It was fun to meet Micah, like most little 20 month old babies he was crawling/walking around the floor and enjoyed eating cheerios and baby food. I think as we move forward through this process Todd and Becky will be great resources for local agencies and how to get through the military side of things with all the paperwork that the Air Force likes to have.

It was really nice to talk with them and hear that if they could do it again with China they would. They said the system in place there is really good and that compared to most other countries China was one of the best. They also said Vietnam & Ukraine were the other countries they had it narrowed down to. So I think I will do a little research on them as well.

One place they recommended using that sticked out to me as a nurse was the IAC in Cincinnati.
Its in connection with the children's hospital in Cincinnati who focuses entirely on adopted children and their special adaptation and development needs from being in foster care or an orphanage. They were really impressed with the team of therapists who evaluated Micah's health paperwork prior to adoption and after he was brought home. They work with the kids for months afterward and Micah has made tremendous strides in just 5months getting into the normal range in 4/5 categories they focus on.

Well thats all from today. Over the next month or so I will be researching as much as I can and filling out a ton of paperwork for the Homestudy process.