This is a primer on blogs for those who may not be real familiar with blogs and how to use them. Hopefully it will help everyone find the info that they are looking for and also allow them to easily follow us on our journey to get Alyssa. If you are already familiar with blogs and don’t want to read the rest of this, click this link Alyssa’s Adoption Blog to go directly to the blog.
Basically, a blog is just a way to post information on the web quickly and easily in a form that anyone can read. Blogs also allow those who read it to comment on the information, if the blog administrator grants permission. For this blog, if you want to comment, feel free to do so, but because the purpose of the blog is primarily to provide info and not solicit comments, I’m going to moderate the comments. My goal is not to limit comments, but rather, to only include comments from people (family & friends) who we know. NOTE: I’ve been experiencing some problems with comments. Sometimes when you submit a comment, you’ll get an error message. If you do, please email me at TW Hayes and I’ll post the comment.
First a little bit about blogs, in general. When you look at a blog, you normally see a screen with text - posts listed in chronological order - and links on the side. For this blog, those links are on the right. You can see they are called: 1) categories; 2) archives; 3) Blogroll and 4) related sites. The first two allow you to view posts in a specific way, either by category or date. The last couple provide some links that may be useful as you read the blog.
Now a brief description about the post format. The title of the post is actually a link to the full post. If you click on it, you’ll be taken to a new page that allows you to post a comment. Notice also that under the title of the post next to the date are the words “filed under.” The link (which is the category under which this post is filed) will take you to all of the post in that category.
There is also a search function on the right side of the screen at the top. It will search all of the posts, in case you’re looking for a specific term.
Generally, unless you’re looking for some specific info, you’ll probaly just want to look at the latest posts. I’ve also created a category called Status that I’ll use to post the latest info on the adoption so you may want to jump to that category, too.
That’s about all there is to blogs. It’s really quite simple. When you’re ready to read all about Alyssa’s adoption, click on the link below.
Click here to go to Alyssa’s Adoption Blog
We’re going to use this blog to catalog and preserve in writing our adventure of adopting a baby sister for Jessica. We’ve already started the adoption process and are about ready to have our dossier submitted to Vietnam so we’re not really starting this blog at the absolute beginning of the process. But, our goal is to write down what is happening from this time forward. Also, as time permits, we’ll fill in some the history of this adoption and, perhaps, at the same time, tell the story of how we adopted our oldest daughter, Jessica. Please read on and provide your thoughts and comments. We’d love to hear from you!
New to blogs? Want to find out more about using this blog? Click here [Using This Blog]
We’re in the final stages of getting all of our paperwork ready for our Vietnam dossier. If you look in the background section, you’ll see that we have already prepared a dossier for this adoption, but that was in case we were going to have to adopt from China. So, it wasn’t too hard to get all of the paper put together for this dossier. We had already gotten all of the ‘hard’ documents (birth certificates, marriage certificate, etc) and really only had to update some of the other documents that were unique to Vietnam. We also had to have our home study updated because we had moved since we had received our preliminary approval from the Citizens and Immigration Service (CIS) - an agency of the Department of Homeland Security. Everyone who does an international adoption gets to know CIS and its procedures very well!
The other slightly complicating factor was getting many of the documents notarized. Because we’re now living in Ankara, Turkey, it’s not as easy as if we were in the US. But, of course, we got great service from the Consular Section at the US Embassy.
Another interesting twist was updating police background checks. Of course, these have to be done by the local police and be in a language that the Vietnamese authorities will understand. Again, the embassy provided super service. This time the Regional Security Office was able to coordinate with the Turkish National Police to confirm that neither Nancy nor I had any record of criminal activities in Ankara, Turkey.
So, after all of the that was done and we took pictures of our new house to be included in the dossier, we fedexed everything back to our adoption agency. The final dossier should be on it way to Vietnam soon. Will keep you updated.