New Adoption Fundraiser

We are excited to share an opportunity with you that will help us to fundraise for our adoption as well as benefit those who make a thoughtful contribution in our support. As you all know, we are working hard to bring home a second son from Bulgaria. Our dossier is complete and we should receive our official referral and travel dates soon. We hope to travel in June or July. International adoption is very expensive, so we are fundraising for our travel expenses. We'll need to travel to Bulgaria twice this year and will spend approximately one week in country each time.

In order to alleviate a portion of the cost, we have partnered with Coupaide to jumpstart a fundraising campaign that will give us the chance to reach out to family, friends, friends of friends, and so on. Coupaide offers $50 Restaurant.com certificates for only $20! Half of each sale will go towards our adoption, which has the potential to make a great difference in regard to the overall cost.
Restaurant.com offers certificates for thousands of restaurants in cities all across the United States. These certificates make great gifts (Mother's Day is coming up!), never expire, and can be used immediately upon your donation.

There are two ways you can support our fundraising campaign:
1.) Purchase a Restaurant.com certificate on our personalized Coupaide website.
2.) Forward this e-mail on to friends, family, co-workers, and neighbors – help us to share our story and bring our little boy home!

We thank you for your support and we invite you to check out our campaign!

www.coupaide.com/vanroekel-adoption-fundraiser

We also have around 350 puzzle pieces available in our puzzle fundraiser. The pieces cost $1 each, and each $1 donation gets you an entry into our drawing for a $50 Amazon Gift Card. Donations can be made through the PayPal link to your right. Thanks!!

Puzzle Fundraiser and Orthopedic Update

We're a little over halfway finished with our puzzle, but we still have 461 puzzle pieces available to be purchased.  We originally set April 30th as our goal date to complete this fundraiser.  With your help, we can still meet our goal!  Pieces cost $1 each, and your name is written on the back of each piece that you purchase.  Once all 1000 pieces have been purchased, we will use a random number generator to draw for a $50 Amazon Gift Card.  This puzzle will be framed and hung in the boys' playroom.  If you've thought about helping us out, now is a great time!!  Donations can be made by using the PayPal link to your right.  If you don't use PayPal, you may also send a check.  We are very grateful to everyone who has supported us on our journey to our son.  It's comforting to know that so many of you care about us and our handsome little boy.  

Nikolas had a great appointment at Riley with his orthopedist this week.  She is very happy with the way his feet have responded to the treatment, and he no longer needs to wear his braces at night.  We are so excited to have this part of process behind us.  We are scheduled to meet with her again in six months to make sure his feet are still doing okay.  We will continue with weekly PT sessions to work on his muscle tone, range of motion and gross motor skills. 

It's hard to believe that Nikolas will be turning four in a little over a week.  He's growing up quickly and is doing great.  We're so lucky that we were chosen to be the parents of such an amazing little boy!!       

A Finished Dossier

Our dossier is complete and should be delivered to our agency sometime today.  We received our 797C form (Immigration Approval) last Saturday and Nikolas and I made a trip downtown this week to have our remaining dossier documents apostilled.

This is a huge step in our adoption process.  Once our dossier is reviewed by our caseworker, she will send it to Bulgaria to be translated.  Once translated, it will be submitted to the MOJ and we will receive our official referral for the handsome little guy we requested late last year.  We will then be given travel dates to go to Bulgaria to meet him for the first time.  We're so excited to go back to Bulgaria.  It's a beautiful country and we love it there.  We'll be in a different city this time, and we can't wait to do some sightseeing in between visits.  There are some very cool monuments in this city that we can't wait to see.  The photographer in me can't wait to take some amazing photos.  Of course the most important part will be meeting our little boy for the first time and spending time getting to know each other.

Our trip will be expensive, especially since we're going to be travelling later than we had originally hoped for.  We had thought it might be May, but because of several delays, we'll be going over the summer when airfare increases by several hundred dollars per ticket.  We still have 626 puzzle pieces available for purchase in our Puzzle Fundraiser.  You can purchase pieces for $1 each by using the Paypal link to the right.  For each piece you purchase, you name will be entered in a drawing for a $50 Amazon Gift Card.  We're trusting God to help us raise enough money through fundraising to cover the travel expenses for our first trip.  Any help is greatly appreciated!!
 

This and That

I have several updates, so instead of a few small blogs, I'll just write one long one!

Our puzzle fundraiser is off to a good start.  We've sold 234 pieces of our 1000 piece puzzle, so that means 766 pieces are still available.  The pieces cost $1 each and your name will be written on the back of the pieces that you purchase.  Your name will also be entered into a drawing for a $50 Amazon gift card for each piece purchased (20 pieces = 20 entries).  We will draw for the card once all 1000 pieces have been taken.  To donate to this fundraiser, please use the Paypal link to the right of this post.  If you do not use Paypal, you may also mail a check to our home address.  All proceeds from this fundraiser will go towards our first trip to Bulgaria, which should be coming up in a few months.

We've had some delays, but our adoption plans seem to moving in the right direction now.  We were able to successfully transition to our new agency without too much extra work.  We were fingerprinted for our USCIS approval in late February.  We had filed our I-800a form on a Saturday and received word that our agency was going out of business on Monday, so we had to send our officer an updated home study reflecting the agency change once we had been fingerprinted.  We got pink slipped because our officer didn't like the way one sentence of the approval section of our home study was phrased, so after a quick fix by our social worker, an addendum was notarized and sent to back to him.  We anticipate receiving our approval this week.

I took all of our other Indiana dossier documents to the Secretary of State's office this past week to be apostilled.  Since my birth certificate was issued by the county and not the state, they wouldn't accept it.  I ordered a new one online through the state and hope that it comes quickly.  The website says 4-6 weeks, but the lady at the Secretary of State's office said it typically takes about 10 days.  If' that's the case, it should arrive by the end of the week.  So for those of you in Indiana, be sure to order a birth certificate through the state and not through the county where you were born!  We also had to redo our medical letters due to a notary error, but we already have the new ones in our hands. 

Once our I-800a approval and my birth certificate arrive, I'll head downtown again to have the last four documents apostilled.  Then our completed dossier will be off to Bulgaria after a quick stop at our agency in Washington.  Once in Bulgaria it will be translated and registered, and then we'll wait for the official referral of the the little guy we requested back in November followed by travel dates to go meet him for the first time.

We've been working to get things ready for our new arrival.  His new dresser has already been assembled.  Jason and Nikolas put together little brother's bed this afternoon.  We're hoping that adding a second bed to his room will help Nikolas understand that he's about to have a roommate.  We know his English comprehension is great, but the concept of a little brother might be hard to grasp.  In his most recent receptive language evaluation, Nikolas scored only three points below average for a child his age.  That might not even be entirely accurate since several of things things he refused to do were things he knows and just didn't want to do.  His verbal speech is continuing to develop but is still very delayed for his age.  He now has over 50 words that he uses regularly and adds words daily.  He is also starting to put together two-word phrases. He talks more at home than he does out in public, but we're hoping that will change soon.

His gross motor skills have also been improving nicely.  He met all of his PT goals for the year at school and did an amazing job on his most recent PT skills test.  In the past three months, he has gone from a 21-month level to a 37-month level in one area and from a 25-month level to a 31-month level in another area.  Nikolas loves his physical therapist and works well with her most of the time.  We will repeat the test again in three more months so we can monitor his progress.  His fine motor skills also continue to improve just as quickly.

He's starting to enjoy playing games (like Memory) and likes to color and do art projects.  He likes to play with his cars and toy kitchen, and he loves to read books.  He's very smart and his memory is incredible.  He doesn't seem to forget anything, except for the fact that he's not allowed in my office!!  He is beginning to count and can sometimes name the colors.  Once we master colors and numbers we'll start working on letters.  We see him starting to do more age-appropriate activities all the time.  He's fully potty-trained during the day and is excited to wear big boy underwear.  He normally stays dry all night, but we're not completely there yet.

He's starting to get a little too bossy these days and doesn't like to be told what to do.  We're working hard to control his negative behavior and teaching him to be respectful.  We're going through a phase when he thinks he's in control of every situation, so that's been a little challenging.

Overall he is doing well and continues to grow and learn new things all of the time!



 

Puzzle Fundraiser

Our dossier is one document away from being completed, and we anticipate receiving that document very soon (hopefully this week!!).  After a quick trip downtown to have everything apostilled, our dossier will be ready to go to Bulgaria.  The dossier will be translated and presented to the MOJ, and then we will wait for the official referral of the little boy to whom we committed back in November. 

 

When we submit our dossier, we also have a pretty big payment due.  In order to raise some of that money, we have purchased a cute 1000 piece puzzle that we will frame and hang in the boys' playroom.  We are selling the pieces for $1 each.  Your name will be written on the back of each puzzle piece that you purchase.  It will be framed with glass covering the back so the names will all be exposed when the puzzle is turned over showing everyone who helped bring him home.

Each $1 donation also gets you an entry in our drawing for a $50 Amazon gift card.  We will draw for the gift card once all 1000 pieces have been purchased.

Donations can be made through Paypal by using the link below.  Please choose Personal and Gift so that no fees are taken out from your payment.  If you don't use Paypal, you may also send us a personal check.  Contact me if you need the mailing address.  Thank you so much for helping us bring our handsome little boy home!!