Big Brother-To-Be!

Rob and I have officially started the process to adopt a second child! We expect the entire process to take around 18 months this time (12-month wait for a referral + 6-month court process), so we decided to get started now. We will be adopting from Taiwan again, through the same agency and program that we adopted Ryan through. We received notice yesterday of our "preapproval" (from Taiwan) to begin the process, which means we've been added to the waiting list for a referral. During the wait for a referral, we'll have to update/redo our home study, have our fingerprints redone (since they're SO likely to have changed...), get a new I-171H, etc. So, let the paperwork begin (again)!

We've requested a baby 12 months or younger, of either gender. Families who are open to either gender are more likely to receive a boy, but sometimes receive a girl, so there will be some element of surprise involved. We anticipate that the wait will be much easier this time since we already have Ryan -- and since we'd prefer a 2-3 year gap between children, we don't want things to move too quickly this time around. So while our first adoption process was about the same length as a human gestation, we hope the second will be closer to the gestation period of an elephant.

Ryan seems to be pretty happy about the news!