 Wait, I'm gonna scratch my nose. Hi guys, welcome back to my channel. Today I have a very special guest here, my mom. Hi everyone! And she is going to be sharing the process she went through when she adopted me. Some of you want to adopt, some of you have heard our story kind of through the micastopher situation and I thought it would be fun to share Sherry's process actually on how she acquired me. Do you want to add anything? I'll just start from the beginning and talk about how and when I decided to adopt and we'll just go from there. But before we get started with the story, I want to thank Moonglow for sponsoring this video. Moonglow is so awesome and I'm going to unbox the beautiful package I cannot wait. It is called Moonglow Jewelry. Ooh, we get a little card here. Ooh, the box is like that smooth texture, Sherry. Nice packaging. I know, right? This is what the box looks like and there's this little hole here so you can kind of like pull it out. Oh, it's like a drawer. It's a little drawer. Oh my gosh, it's so cute! Oh, that is cute. Oh my gosh, it's a bracelet. Oh, it comes on this little pad. Okay, so this is what the bracelet looks like. Very, very cool. It comes on this like fuzzy pad. Oh my gosh. Okay, so the whole concept behind Moonglow is it is a custom bracelet that you pick a specific date in your life that you want to commemorate and remember. And I chose September 15th of 1997 because that is when my mom, Sherry, came to get me from the orphanage. Oh yeah, I didn't know that. Gotcha day? Yeah, I didn't know that. Wait, you know what? That you picked that date. Really? No, I didn't know. Oh, you just thought I was randomly asking you? Yeah, I mean I didn't know why you need to know that date. So this was my gotcha day moon. This is what the moon looked like on that night. I'm going all beauty guru, but this is what the bracelet looks like. This is the moon of September 15th, 1997. Okay, so I just put on the bracelet. It's so cute. I love how dainty it is. The metals are really strong. It's heavy. It's not like a cheap thing that you would probably see at Claire's, no offense to Claire's, but it definitely has weight to it. The chain is really strong too. Like I don't see it like coming off. I also noticed that this chain here, it's adjustable so it will fit any sort of size. Okay, and I also want to include this little piece of paper that comes in with the bracelet. It has your dates on it. This is like the back of the slip and it just says 0, 9, 15, 97 and then 7A. Here it is. This is the little part. Okay, that makes a lot more sense. So the waxing gibbous is the last phase before the moon reaches maximum illumination. So that's the reason why it's like, if there's just a little bit covered. Okay, so this is like a guide to help you distinguish what moon is on your bracelet and give you meaning about it, which is so special. So I could see myself getting this. Like when I get engaged someday or like have my kids, like this is a really good day to commemorate specific days in your life that you want to remember. Very cool. I love it. And the bracelet I chose was the Palin bracelet. I love the design. It's really clean and simple and you can find all sorts of different products on moonglow.com such as rings and bracelets, necklaces and earrings. So anyway, let's just get on to the story. You want to take it over, Sherry? Sure. Okay, so that date was September 15, 1997. That was the culmination of almost two years of work in preparing for the adoption process. I grew up the oldest of five kids and I never really wanted to have kids of my own. I spent an awful lot of time babysitting and I really wasn't into doing all that when I got older. So I just wanted to have a career and not be bothered with children. The one thing I always wanted though was I wanted to adopt. I did think that I wanted to adopt at least one child when I saw a show and I don't remember when this was exactly, but I saw a show on 60 minutes. So you can blame 60 minutes or thank 60 minutes, whichever for being here. But I saw a show on 60 minutes and it was about China and India. And this was back in the 90s and it was about how, you know, there was a one child policy in China and in India. They were overcrowded and they were abandoning their daughters or having abortions that they knew they were pregnant with daughters. Being the huge feminist that I was and still am, I thought that is just crazy that just because you are a girl, something terrible is going to happen to you. So I thought and thought about it after I saw that show and thought, you know, I have a pretty nice life and I could share that with a child. So not wanting to jump into anything right away. I kind of took some time looked around reviewed my life and said, what are the things that I normally do which I wouldn't have to change, which of course, I didn't realize a baby totally changes your life, but I thought it wouldn't change my life at all. So after a while, I started looking around for adoption and for some reason I knew about the Holt international adoption agents. I don't remember if I saw a brochure or something, but I knew about Holt. So I went online and looked at information. I filled out forms to Holt and I was contacted and they said, you know, unfortunately, we don't work in your state, but we can work through a social service agency in your state. So you can apply with us and we'll work with another social service entity in order to do home studies and things like that. So I filled out a lot of paperwork. I was contacted by the social service agency in Ohio and we started the process. I had to do a lot of paperwork on my own. There were things like I had to go to the local county sheriff's office and get a sworn statement that I was not on the sex offender list. I had to have new birth certificates done. I had to get all this paperwork finished. The adoption agency in Ohio had to do a complete home study. So I had this person coming to my house all the time, looking at the house. Is it going to be kid ready? You know, how did you grow up? What are your feelings about all kinds of things? Child rearing, they brought me books to read, all kinds of stuff. So I went through this very long process with them, but the things that I could do on my own being very proactive, I started and I got everything done I needed to do and in order to get it sent to China, you had to put all this together in this notebook called the dossier. And before I could put it together, I had to have every single piece of paper had to be notarized. I had a very good friend. Shout out to Kelly. I had a very good friend who notarized everything for me. Then it had to be authenticated by the secretary of state of the state of Ohio. And then it had to go to the secretary of state in Washington DC, secretary of state of the United States. So all of that paperwork had to be done. Well, being right on top of everything, I got all my paperwork done, sent it out, everything was done, signed back, the homestudy got done finally. They were having some issues, so I ended up with a couple different social workers. But the last person I got was the person I referred to before is almost like my sister because she knew me so well by the time this process was over. So we got everything put together, sent it off to Holt with the dossier. They looked through everything. I had everything there and they shipped it off to China. So we think everything is all fine and dandy, going about my merry way, just looking at the clock, waiting for that call to say that they had matched me with a baby. Well, unbeknownst to all of us evidently, any paperwork that was more than six months old had to, they would not accept it in China. So the things that I had done and hurried up and got all the paperwork done all had to be redone. I didn't know that. Yes. So I had to go back to all those people that I talked to before. I had to rewrite things. I had to write about growing up, my family, all kinds of stuff. So I had to redo all of that paperwork, have it notarized, go to the state of Ohio, go to Washington DC. I did learn in Washington DC you can hire a courier to take your paperwork around and have it signed by the right people. So I hired a courier. They took all the paperwork to Warren Christopher's office and they signed it, stamped it, whatever had to be done. So it kind of put the process behind a little bit, but I'm sure that having it put behind was part of the reason that I ended up with Alex because I would have probably gotten a different baby if the first batch had gone through. That all went off to China again. The agency in Beijing that collected all of the adoption information and matched dossiers with children, they decided to reorganize that during this time after I had sent my paperwork. So because of that, there was about a six month time period where they weren't doing any matches. So we got a call from our local agency and they told me that don't worry, it's not that anything has been rejected, but they're going on a little hiatus. They're reorganizing so they can be a little more efficient and we'll get back to you when we know something. So that was kind of in the fall, in the spring. I got a call and said, hey, they're up and cranking again. So they're going to start matching people. So just be on the alert at any moment. You may have to jump in a plane and fly to China. So I waited, waited, waited. This is going to make me cry again. I haven't told this part of the story in a very long time. So on July 3rd, I got a call. On July 3rd I got a call from the social service agency and they said, we have the information for you from China. We've got a picture of your baby come down and pick it up. So I went down to pick it up and I took it to Red, White and Boom, which in Columbus, Ohio was the big 4th of July celebration. So I took it with me because I was meeting up with a bunch of friends and we were going to have a little picnic and watch the fireworks. So I had a lot of people there who were all looking through this information about this baby that they had presented to me. So what they told me was take this information, look at it over the holiday, get back with us, you know, in a couple of days and let us know yes or no. So what they told me was if you say no, you will never adopt a baby from China because you will have just insulted every single person in China and you will never adopt, they will put you on the bottom of the list. So I did have to call them and give them an official yes that, you know, that was the baby that I would accept and they said, okay, we will send your approval back to China. Again, prepare to make your trip. So start getting your information together, get your flights, you know, find a travel agency to work with. Sometimes they're a little sketchy in China. So sometimes they change the dates, just be prepared. Start getting the room ready. You are going to be going to China and you will need to be there on September 8th. Okay, well, that's the date that it says on this paperwork that that's the day that Alex was born. It'll be her first birthday. That will be so cool. We'll be so happy. I got the flights, I was prepared to go. And I think it was two weeks before I was supposed to leave. I got a phone call and they said, oh, sorry, we're not going to China yet. You won't be able to go because it is going to be over something called the Moon Festival when you're supposed to be there. And the government is taking over all the hotels. I eventually got rescheduled. It was just for a week later. So it was on that September 15th date that I was able to go to the orphanage. So flew to Hong Kong to get a little used to the area. And we had the day before there was a meeting with all the families who were adopting through the same agency. And they told us what to expect when we were going into China and a little bit about the babies and what to expect and what not to expect. They did tell us in that meeting that don't be concerned if your child is afraid of you at first because they probably have never seen a Caucasian face before. They may not have seen anyone with eyeglasses or may not have seen anyone with a beard. So there were things that they would not be used to. They also told us that when you pick the baby up from the orphanage and go back to your hotel, you should keep the lights on all night because they're probably used to being in a very sterile environment in an orphanage where they keep the lights on 24-7 and there's no air conditioning. So we were sort of compliant in our group about that. But it was really hot. So sorry, Alex. We had to have the air conditioning on. Everybody that I knew kept their lights on all night so that it didn't disturb them. So after we had that meeting with the representative from the agency, we went to dinner, all of the nine families who were all traveling to the same orphanage together, which Alex has referred to I think several times on videos as her Shaman sisters and the Shaman families. So we went to dinner with them and we put together a list of questions. So we were going to ask all these questions we got to the orphanage. What do they like to eat? What's their play time? When do they like to nap? We had like a zillion questions that we had put together while we were at dinner. So the next morning everybody got together. We took pictures you know last day as you know free single people. Then we all got on a bus and traveled to the orphanage. Everybody's got their either stroller or a little backpack or diaper bags with bottles and it was like a little ceremony. It was very nice. We were in a very nice room. They sort of teed everyone. We had to fill out some more paperwork because they're big on paperwork and then they brought the babies out one at a time. And this is going to make me cry again but they brought the babies out one at a time and they announced their Chinese name when the parents would stand up and they'd present the babies. It was very very cool. Many of them had the same little matching dresses which was kind of cute and we got Alex in a dress with a diaper on and a bottle and that's what we got at the orphanage. And just to let you know all of those questions that we spent that time at dinner the night before putting together no one asked any of those questions. At least I did not. Everybody was too in the moment you know getting their babies looking at everybody else's baby and just being joyful and those questions went right out the window. But it was very it was interesting. It was very cool. It was like it was like being in a maternity ward where nine people were all giving birth at exactly the same time which was just a very cool experience. And because of that shared experience we are very close to all of those families. At the time that we adopted the requirements to adopt were pretty strict. I understand they are a little easier now but there was a very small window of opportunity. So if you were I think it's between the ages of maybe 40 and 55 maybe. Really. You had to be between that age group. So you couldn't be really young. You couldn't be really old to adopt. You of course had to be healthy. You had to submit all of your financial information. So they wanted financially stable people. I believe they had a if you were married they actually preferred single moms which was good for me. But they had some kind of restriction. You couldn't have any other children and you could not have been married I think more than one other time or something if you were married. So they had some pretty strict requirements. So because of those requirements all the people in our shaman family all the parents are about the same age. So I think of the 17 people who traveled to China nine or 10 of us are all exactly the same age which was great because we all grew up with the same music. We got the same jokes. I guess one question I have for you how long was this process. So it was almost two years. About 18 months from the time I got the idea until I got the information that I had been matched with the baby. And a lot of that was because I talked about that shutting down for six months and they weren't doing any matching of anybody during that time period. At least that's what I was told. All nine families were in China for almost three weeks during this adoption process and then we had to fly from one city to another to go to the US embassy. What was it like bringing me back to the United States? Like what did you have to go through? We had to get a visa for you to come into the United States. So we had to go through all that paperwork. You had to have your like visa picture taken and everything. I think there was like a stamp on my foot somewhere or something. Probably. I don't know. There was like a process to bring me back to. There was a physical when we got to Guangzhou. We had you had to go see a doctor and we had to go through a physical. Was that when I got stabbed in the leg? No. You were stabbed in the leg in Shaman. Apparently I was sick. Yes. So Alex was sick when we got her. She wasn't like bad sick. Just like a cough and cold a little bit. All the hotels that we stayed in had a doctor on staff. The person who was helping us from the adoption agency. He was our guide and he said there's the doctor in the hospital. She speaks Chinese. I will go with you. So we took Alex to the doctor and there was this older Chinese woman there. He explained her symptoms. She looked at Alex, looked down her throat and everything and she came out from like behind the curtain. Came out from the other room in this hotel room and had a needle that to me looked like it was like that long. It was this huge needle and she didn't even like say anything. She just like comes out with this needle grabs Alex's leg and goes bam and stabs her with this and puts whatever it was into her body and Alex screamed. She screamed and screamed and screamed and that made me cry then because I'm thinking oh my gosh we just got this wonderful little child from an orphanage and she thinks we're torturing her. Not only do we not look like her. She's in a weird place. The lights are off. The air conditioning's on and now we're stabbing her. It made me cry a lot when that happened. They gave us some additional little medicine that we could give her if the shot didn't work and it was snake bile. They gave us these little tubes of snake bile that we could put in her formula. It worked. Whatever was in that big shot worked immediately. It was it was amazing. What was like the hardest part of the whole process? Well the hardest part of the entire process was just the waiting. Did you have to take any classes? I didn't have to take any classes. I know some of the families had to take classes. I mean they had to have post adoption checkups. I think maybe the social worker came by to visit but I think she came by more as a friend than she didn't really have to do any reports or anything. I don't recall having to do anything afterwards. The only thing we had to do afterwards was to apply for you to be a citizen. In order to make you a US citizen I had to apply on your behalf with immigration for you to become a citizen. So I had to again more paperwork. I had to fill out more paperwork and then I had to go to downtown to meet with customs and immigration and I took you with me because it said you know you had to come well obviously you were like less than a year old or you were a year and a half old so I couldn't actually just send you by yourself so I had to go down there and get a birth certificate. I had to get a US birth certificate and then you got a nice little certificate of citizenship. Now I don't think you have to but you did have to back then because you weren't automatically a citizen. So I didn't have to take any tests as a baby. You did not. They did not give you a quiz on who all the US presidents were just because you were being adopted so babies were okay. Okay so I think that is about it for this video. I hope you guys enjoyed it. I know it was a long one so I hope you had a good coffee or snack. Give this video a thumbs up if you enjoyed my content. Don't forget to check out Moonglow. All of the information and their information will be down below. If you guys have any other questions leave them in the comments and I guess I will see you guys in my next video. Bye. Bye.