Out of hiding

I swore that I would never post here again, but I had to. Over the last year I found out so many things about how we lost Jack. Pretty amazing stuff. But the real reason I am writing here today is because I want everyone to know what Carolina Adoption Services did to me and my family. They took our money (a lot of it too) and lied to us. I am pretty sure that Jack was never going to come home and CAS knew that all a long. Our son Jack was taken out of the orphanage by his birth mother on May 12 2008(we didn't even know she was still in the picture). We were not told until May 30 2008. I sent a huge check on May 12th, CAS got it on May 13th and cashed it May 14th. They were informed on May 13th that Jack was no longer available. See where I am going with this?!? I have been fighting with them for over a year now. We got some money back but they kept about $7000.00. I was told for services rendered. BULLSHIT service is what I say. The director of CAS told me "well, we need to keep our programs running so others can adopt children". Screw you lady, I am not paying for some other families adoption. I have my own adoptions to pay for. They kept ME from adopting a child. I will say to til the day I die, that they are thieves, liars, and cheats. BEWARE of CAROLINA ADOPTION SERVICES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No Longer Posting Here

I will no longer post to this blog. I will not delete it as Jack was very real to us and we will always think of him as our son.

To all the wonderful people that have left comments here and to my personal email, we thank you.

Your kindness has helped us so much in our time of need. We will be forever grateful to you all. You can still leave comments here and I will post them.

Please pray for our sweet Jack Anthony!!

It is with great sadness

That I write this post. We are no longer able to adopt our sweet boy Jack. We just recently found out that Jack's birth mom went to visit him at the orphanage and decided to take him home. Yes, you read it right, Jack's mom took him home after a year in the orphanage.

This is what we know...

Jack's birth mom and grandmother went to visit. Jack has been in the orphanage for a little over a year now. I did not know that they were visiting him at all. I guess they were told that he would be adopted and was coming to America. I think the birth mother was happy about that as Jack was finally going to get a Father and siblings. It was the grandmother who was not happy. She insisted on taking him home. The birth mother and the nannies tried to convince her that it was the wrong thing to do, but she didn't want to hear it. I guess his family did not think he would be adopted because of his age. The grandmother probably wanted him to work the farm.

Whatever the reason was that he was taken back, it has devastated our world. I will never forget Joseph's face when we told him that Jack would not be coming home. It was heartbreaking for me to see that. He has waited so long for Jack to come home and all he talked about was the things they would do together as brothers. It's a nightmare. Don't get me wrong, it is wonderful that he could be with his birth family again and I hope to God that he is happy and being loved and taken care of, but I am mourning the loss of my son very hard. There isn't a minute of my day that goes by that I don't think of him. I have had some really upsetting comments said to me about this and it flips me out how insensitive people can be. No, I never met Jack in person and I never held him or kissed him or any of that, but come on people, this is my son. We have looked at his pictures for about 9 months now and I have talked with so many people that have met him. All of our plans for the future had Jack in them. So, no, I will never get over the loss of MY SON. None of us will.

We do not know what our future holds at this time. We are taking time to mourn our loss and we will see what the future holds for us.

I600 has been sent

That's right folks, our I600 has been sent to HCMC on May 20th. We are on our way.

It's suppose to take 60 working days or business days or whatever kind of days they feel like posting, so if that is true we are looking at the 2nd week of August to get our I600 approval. That would be perfect because then Joseph won't miss that much school. I am really excited that Luon's family's I600 was sent with ours. I really want to travel with them so that Jack and Gavyn (Luon) can have that time together outside of the orphanage and we get to hang out with a great family. When we went to China to bring LilyRose home, we were alone the whole time and I hated it. I think it will be a blast to share our time in Vietnam with other families.

So now we are asking for prayers that everything goes smoothly and we don't hit any road blocks and time flies by so that we can bring our new son home.

Here's JACK!!!!!!

Jack in red, Cap on the left was just adopted, Luon in yellow, we hope to travel with his family




Jack in yellow




Love him








Isn't he the cutest



Jack loves Soccer, Joseph can't wait to play



Jack on the right




Our first picture of Jack

We are officially matched with our new son Jack Anthony!!!!!

I would have posted sooner but we are still hosting Ayanna. This sweet little baby girl who just turned 1 month old yesterday. We have had her since she was 4 days old. She will be going home to her birth mother this Friday.

We sent our official paperwork back to our agency yesterday and they will be sending our I600 in hopefully this week. Now another wait begins, but I am now able to post photos of Jack. So without wasting another minute, here is Jack...

Our Dossier is in Vietnam

The I171H is in Vietnam which make our dossier complete. I am waiting to hear if we have a log in date. I can finally breath normal again, although our wait is is a long one, it is much better knowing that as least we are there. There are a few families in Vietnam now and I was hoping to get updated pictures of Quy Hung, but I haven't received any as of yet. One of Quy Hung's good friend will be leaving Tuyan Quang on May 7th I believe. Cap is his name and he is in lots of pictures with Quy Hung. I am super happy for Cap and his family. I just hope that Hung knows his time is coming and that soon he will have a new family. I hope he knows that he has a big brother and baby sister waiting for him.

We just got the call that the boys new bedroom furniture will be delivered at the end of next week. My husband better get his butt moving and fix up the room. We ordered a 3 to 4 sleeper bunk bed. This is the coolest bed ever. It is L shaped with 2 beds on top and of course the bottom bunk. This model did not come with the extra drawers for the bottom bunk, so we ordered the trundle bed with dividers for extra drawer space but if we want, we can but another mattress and have 4 beds. Hmmm, do I see another little boy or maybe 2 in our future? My husband rolls his eyes and mumbles that he will be working until he is 130 years old if I don't stop adopting.

Now for more news not related to our adoption. We are a Host Family and we have a 12 day old baby girl living with us for a while. We are working with Spence-Chapin and it is a wonderful program. To read more about it, go to my daughters blog. http://www.journey2lilyrose.blogspot.com/

My brother has ended his mission in Iraq and will be returning home this Saturday for good. We are so very happy that he made this decision and can not wait for him to come home. This is a happy time for us and my nieces are overjoyed that their dad will be home.

I would like to congratulate all the families that got their I600 approvals. I wish for speedy travel for your journey of a lifetime.

I171H To Embassy

Ok, we got the official I171H in the mail on Friday. I had it notarized on Sunday and then on Monday went to the clerk's office to have the notary's signature authenticated and Anthony took it to the State Dept. on Tuesday. I will overnight it to DC today and hopefully it will go to the Embassy by Friday. I am hoping to get it back by Wednesday of next week and then off to CAS to be forwarded to Vietnam. I thought it was going to be smoother sailing for us from this point on, but no, that's not how it works for us. The Us Govt. wants DNA testing done on all relinquished children. So who knows how long this step will add onto our wait. The good news is that once we get the official referral from Vietnam, I can post pictures of Jack.

There has been a discussion on one of the Vietnam groups I am on about name change. Because we are adopting an older child the question came up about changing his name. Now, that decision was easy when we adopted LilyRose. I don't know why but it was. Maybe because she was 17 months old when we brought her home. Jack is 8 years old. His name is Hung. I am concerned with the teasing that he will most likely endure here with his name. So, Anthony and I decided to name him Jack Anthony. After reading what others thought on this subject that are also adopting an older child, I think we jumped the gun here a little. Maybe we should ask Hung what he would like to be called. Maybe he will hear a name that he likes better, or maybe he will just want to stay Hung. I have lots of time to figure this out though, since we most likely will not be traveling to bring him home anytime soon.