What's new with the Kubizna's!
It has been a long time coming, but the blog is back up and running! Time continues to fly by and so much has happened since the last post. God continues to lead our family into areas we could not have planned.
Schooling: Cecelia is entering her 2nd year of homeschooling and Elie will begin her 1st year. The homeschool "world" is so much bigger than we could have imagined. It has led us into new friendships, relationships and down multiple paths we could not have planned. Again, GOD working! While Cecelia and Elie are working with their tutors at Classical Conversations, Jodi will be tutoring (leading) the masters class (9-12 y/o) in their studies. In addition to Classical Conversations, Jodi has partnered with friends to start Lingual Learners. This is a Spanish immersion/content-based instruction cooperative that focuses on bringing the goals of gaining fluency of Spanish combined with what is being taught in homeschool studies. There is a Facebook group/page with a more detailed description of Lingual Learners. This Fall's class is already full with a waiting list!
Trey continues to work as a Home Health Consultant and serves as a Deacon for our church and community. He is also entering his 9th year as a adjunct instructor for Grand Rapids Community College teaching anatomy and physiology. In his spare time, Trey still loves to take on wood projects.
The latest door that God has opened for our family is that of adoption. We have discussed adoption several times over the years, and recently it has weighed heavy on our hearts. After many prayers and considerations we have decided to trust in God and move forward with adopting from China.
Answers to some of the most common adoption questions we have had:
Are you crazy!! Okay so this may not be asked but we see the the look when we tell people we are adopting. Yes, we are crazy, but most of you thought that before we decided to adopt!
Why China? We asked ourselves the same question. Through conversations with our friends who have adopted from a variety of countries, our own research, and our own comfort level, China appears to be the best fit for our family.
Have you always wanted to adopt? We discussed adoption before Jed was born when we were having difficulty getting pregnant again. It wasn't really brought up again until after Fran was born. We knew that Fran would be our last pregnancy. It really wasn't a good idea to get pregnant again since our pregnancies weren't always the greatest. Still when people asked if we were done having children we would respond that we were done but we would welcome another child should one be given to us. That thought process coupled with Cecelia saying one day in the car, "I know we said no more kids in the family but I really think Jed needs a brother" started the discuss again of adoption.
What do the kids think about adopting a brother? Cecelia is super excited and talks about it all the time and to everyone. The rest of the kids don't really understand.
Isn't adoption, especially internationally, really expensive? Well that can be answered in a number of ways depending on what you think expensive means. Does buying a new car seem expensive or getting a college degree. How about family vacations each year. What is the price you put on changing the course of a child's life. So yes it can look expensive when you just look at the overall expenses but put it in terms of a child's life, and well...
Are you going to be doing any fundraisers? We will probably do a few fun things, more as ways to get the kids involved in the process. We will apply for grants to help and there is a tax incentive available after your adoption is completed that you can write off. Of course we won't turn down any financial help (which is tax deductible:) but the funds will not stand in our way of completing the adoption.
What is a home study? This is the first step and the one we are finishing up right now. A home study is a review of you, your family and your home environment. It assists U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), as well as a foreign country's adoption authority, in determining whether you and your home environment would be suitable for a child. For more specifics check out this link.
Do you have a child matched already? No. We are looking to adopt a boy younger then Francesca. Most likely he will be 15-18 months when we go get him so he will be about 6 months younger then Fran. There are two ways to be matched with a child, special focus and LID. Children on the special focus list can be matched before your documents are approved in China. LID children can only be matched with parents that are LID (logged in date or China approved). We are headed down the LID route mostly because the timeframe is the same either way. We would prefer to be matched with a younger child and most of them are on the LID list. This isn't to say that things won't change.
How long will it take? We have been told by our agency that the process to adopt a boy from China is between 10-14 months from the start of the home study to gotcha day! We began our home study process on August 24th. So we hope to travel sometime between next June and the fall. We have a timeline to China on the right side of the blog so you can follow our process. As you see there are a lot of steps involved and a lot of paperwork. As we go through the process we will try to explain each step as best as we can.
Who is going to China? We will both go along with Cecelia and hopefully Eloise. We will have to wait until we get closer to our travel date to make a determination with Eloise. With her periodic fever syndrome she is on enbrel which lowers her immune system. We need to make sure there is nothing that will compromise her health in the areas we will be traveling.
How long will you be there? As soon as we arrive in China and meet him, he remains with us throughout the rest of our visit to China. While in China, the final Chinese adoption paperwork is completed while we are in the child's province. Once this paperwork is complete, the Chinese Government officially recognizes an adoption as a valid, completed adoption. Once we have completed all of the paperwork for the Chinese government in the child's province, we travel to the US Consulate in Guangzhou where we complete the final steps necessary to finalize the adoption for the United States Government and obtain his visa for travel to the United States. The process in both the child's province and at the US Consulate is usually completed in approximately 10-15 days. Once we have completed these steps, and obtained a U.S. visa for our child, we can leave China and return home to the U.S.
We would love for you to follow us on this process. You can sign up to receive email notifications when we make posts on our blog. Please note that not all of our blog posts will be on the adoption. This is our family blog and we still post about what our family is doing:) If you have any questions that we didn't answer already we would love to answer them. We would like to be as transparent as possible as we go through this. We are learning as we go and would love for you to learn right along with us!
Schooling: Cecelia is entering her 2nd year of homeschooling and Elie will begin her 1st year. The homeschool "world" is so much bigger than we could have imagined. It has led us into new friendships, relationships and down multiple paths we could not have planned. Again, GOD working! While Cecelia and Elie are working with their tutors at Classical Conversations, Jodi will be tutoring (leading) the masters class (9-12 y/o) in their studies. In addition to Classical Conversations, Jodi has partnered with friends to start Lingual Learners. This is a Spanish immersion/content-based instruction cooperative that focuses on bringing the goals of gaining fluency of Spanish combined with what is being taught in homeschool studies. There is a Facebook group/page with a more detailed description of Lingual Learners. This Fall's class is already full with a waiting list!
Trey continues to work as a Home Health Consultant and serves as a Deacon for our church and community. He is also entering his 9th year as a adjunct instructor for Grand Rapids Community College teaching anatomy and physiology. In his spare time, Trey still loves to take on wood projects.
The latest door that God has opened for our family is that of adoption. We have discussed adoption several times over the years, and recently it has weighed heavy on our hearts. After many prayers and considerations we have decided to trust in God and move forward with adopting from China.
Answers to some of the most common adoption questions we have had:
Are you crazy!! Okay so this may not be asked but we see the the look when we tell people we are adopting. Yes, we are crazy, but most of you thought that before we decided to adopt!
Why China? We asked ourselves the same question. Through conversations with our friends who have adopted from a variety of countries, our own research, and our own comfort level, China appears to be the best fit for our family.
Have you always wanted to adopt? We discussed adoption before Jed was born when we were having difficulty getting pregnant again. It wasn't really brought up again until after Fran was born. We knew that Fran would be our last pregnancy. It really wasn't a good idea to get pregnant again since our pregnancies weren't always the greatest. Still when people asked if we were done having children we would respond that we were done but we would welcome another child should one be given to us. That thought process coupled with Cecelia saying one day in the car, "I know we said no more kids in the family but I really think Jed needs a brother" started the discuss again of adoption.
What do the kids think about adopting a brother? Cecelia is super excited and talks about it all the time and to everyone. The rest of the kids don't really understand.
Isn't adoption, especially internationally, really expensive? Well that can be answered in a number of ways depending on what you think expensive means. Does buying a new car seem expensive or getting a college degree. How about family vacations each year. What is the price you put on changing the course of a child's life. So yes it can look expensive when you just look at the overall expenses but put it in terms of a child's life, and well...
Are you going to be doing any fundraisers? We will probably do a few fun things, more as ways to get the kids involved in the process. We will apply for grants to help and there is a tax incentive available after your adoption is completed that you can write off. Of course we won't turn down any financial help (which is tax deductible:) but the funds will not stand in our way of completing the adoption.
What is a home study? This is the first step and the one we are finishing up right now. A home study is a review of you, your family and your home environment. It assists U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), as well as a foreign country's adoption authority, in determining whether you and your home environment would be suitable for a child. For more specifics check out this link.
Do you have a child matched already? No. We are looking to adopt a boy younger then Francesca. Most likely he will be 15-18 months when we go get him so he will be about 6 months younger then Fran. There are two ways to be matched with a child, special focus and LID. Children on the special focus list can be matched before your documents are approved in China. LID children can only be matched with parents that are LID (logged in date or China approved). We are headed down the LID route mostly because the timeframe is the same either way. We would prefer to be matched with a younger child and most of them are on the LID list. This isn't to say that things won't change.
How long will it take? We have been told by our agency that the process to adopt a boy from China is between 10-14 months from the start of the home study to gotcha day! We began our home study process on August 24th. So we hope to travel sometime between next June and the fall. We have a timeline to China on the right side of the blog so you can follow our process. As you see there are a lot of steps involved and a lot of paperwork. As we go through the process we will try to explain each step as best as we can.
Who is going to China? We will both go along with Cecelia and hopefully Eloise. We will have to wait until we get closer to our travel date to make a determination with Eloise. With her periodic fever syndrome she is on enbrel which lowers her immune system. We need to make sure there is nothing that will compromise her health in the areas we will be traveling.
How long will you be there? As soon as we arrive in China and meet him, he remains with us throughout the rest of our visit to China. While in China, the final Chinese adoption paperwork is completed while we are in the child's province. Once this paperwork is complete, the Chinese Government officially recognizes an adoption as a valid, completed adoption. Once we have completed all of the paperwork for the Chinese government in the child's province, we travel to the US Consulate in Guangzhou where we complete the final steps necessary to finalize the adoption for the United States Government and obtain his visa for travel to the United States. The process in both the child's province and at the US Consulate is usually completed in approximately 10-15 days. Once we have completed these steps, and obtained a U.S. visa for our child, we can leave China and return home to the U.S.
We would love for you to follow us on this process. You can sign up to receive email notifications when we make posts on our blog. Please note that not all of our blog posts will be on the adoption. This is our family blog and we still post about what our family is doing:) If you have any questions that we didn't answer already we would love to answer them. We would like to be as transparent as possible as we go through this. We are learning as we go and would love for you to learn right along with us!
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