Brand New Family

Check out Tori, the newest cutie pie to be adopted by a CHI family! Her ecstatic and soon-to-be sleep-deprived new parents are blogging from Vietnam.

Movin' On Up

We're now #225. CHI received two referrals this week - a 13 month old girl and an 8 year old boy. Yay for the kiddos and their new families!

We went to see the movie 21 tonight. It was rather - eh. Kind of boring. It takes skill to make a movie about Vegas that dull. Ah, well, we had fun anyway. Our next movie venture will be to the snazzy new Warren Theatre that just opened a few miles from us. Balcony with wait service? I'm in!

OK, you blogaholics - I suppose I'm behind the times as I just discovered how to set up Google Reader to keep up with all the adoption blogs. Why has no one clued me in to this beautiful, beautiful invention until now? The lightbulb is on and my Blackjack is now tethered to my hand.

The List

So I finally asked for our number. :) I'm going to try to ask no more often than every couple months, though I know that will probably change to monthly.

I was enjoying the anticipation of not knowing exactly how many spots we'd moved up the list, and trying to guess from the news on other PAPs' blogs. Turns out we were right on target. After last week's referrals, Hubby and I are now #227 on the list. We've moved up 21 spots since we joined the list around Valentine's Day. That's certainly more than the average; we've moved up several spots due to PAPs leaving the program due to the impending suspension and whatnot.

Referrals!

Yippee for two CHI families! Two referrals for baby boys were received this week. I hope their new families blog so we can see the cuties.

Vietnam to Require DNA Testing?

The adoption groups are abuzz tonight. A memo describing new DNA testing requirements was posted on Bring Our Children Home. This site is legit, but they haven't shared their source yet, so I'm incredibly curious to see what comes of this.

If accurate (and legitimate - it is April Fools' Day, after all), the memo mandates that orphans and their birth families will have to undergo DNA testing - possibly twice - to confirm actual familial relations before an adoption can proceed. The memo itself is odd; it needs a lot of clarification and another proofread. For instance, it states that this testing will be required for abandoned children. I'm assuming they mean relinquished children, since abandoned children were, by definition, um... you know, abandoned. As in, left without contact information for their birth families. Makes giving them a blood test a bit tricky. The memo also refers to PAPs represented by attorneys instead of agencies, which is not currently an option for adopting from VN.

I don't know what all the potential ramifications are for PAPs (assuming VN adoption is allowed to continue). Obviously it would be yet another hurdle. I can't wait to hear my agency's take on this one.

I suppose it's possible that CIS is modeling this requirement after the DNA testing system in Guatemala adoption. I don't know a lot about those details, but I do know that the DNA testing causes major time delays in a lot of Guatemala adoptions. The Vietnam memo projects a one-month turnaround; I don't know that I fall for that, especially given the recent I-600 debacles.

Anyway. I'm off to watch The Biggest Loser. This is the first season we've watched it, and we're hooked. We were going to work out tonight, but Hubby's too sore from a kickboxing DVD we did last night (and he never trusted me that those were great workouts...). We're going to eat taco soup instead... and yes, I'm aware how contradictory those activities are. :)