Sunday, June 12, 2005

FAQ's

Thank you for visiting Little Monkey Brown, the official website for our adoption. Here you’ll find the latest news, photos, links (see the fancy links on the side where you can check out Mark’s website, our Registry, etc). We’ll be adding news, pictures and links (pictures of our daughter, a link to our new cafepress.com store, etc.) so make sure you check in often.

The purpose of this site is to keep all our friends and families updated on our adoption journey. Since we began telling people that we’re adopting from China, we’ve been asked many, many questions, and almost always the same ones, so we thought it would be most informative – and efficient – to start with the answers to those.

As we learn more, we’ll post updates, and we’ll try to keep you up-to-the-minute when we go to China with regular entries and photos as we meet our daughter and get to know her. If you have a question we haven’t answered, please email us at nmgenovese@aol.com or markbrown@dslextreme.com.

We’ll begin with the most popular question, and follow with the rest of the questions in no particular order.

WHEN ARE WE GOING TO CHINA?
We don’t know. We think we’ll be leaving in mid-to-late August of this year, but it’s a crap shoot, really. The agency we’re using, U.S. Asian Affairs, assigns numbers to each group that will travel; we are in Group 105. USAA averages a trip a month. Group 103 is going over June 24 and Group 104 has already gotten their second call. So we think we’ll go in August. It’s like we’re in a huge Chinese Deli. Number 104 is ordering and we’re clinging to our little number 105 piece of paper, anxiously waiting for “Number 105. Number 105.”

HOW MUCH ADVANCE NOTICE DO THEY GIVE US?
About two months.
Some organizations give parents two weeks notice. Two weeks!? Not for the faint of heart.
One of the reasons we chose USAA is that it has a three-step (Two month) notification process:

1st Call – About two months before we travel - We’ve been matched with a baby, begin application for Entry Visa to China.

2nd Call – About two weeks later – We’ll get the referral, which includes the baby’s name, the birth date on her official documents, the location of the orphanage, a medical check-up report AND PHOTOS!

3rd Call – About four weeks later, two weeks until we travel – finalize travel itinerary and panic.

Having said that, our friends Chris and Mary Frances, who are in Group 103, got their 1st call in the morning and their 2nd call came the afternoon of the SAME day! So again, we just don’t really know!

DO WE KNOW WHERE WE’RE GOING?
Not a clue! And it’s an awfully big country. We have to spend two weeks in China. The second week will be spent in Guangzhou, because the US Consulate there is the only one in all of China that processes adoptions. We expect that it will be unbelievably hot and sticky, because July and August are the hottest, most humid months of the year in Guangzhou (the hottest and most humid city in China).

We are also considering a “pre-trip” of 3-5 days to Beijing to get acclimated to the time zone and to see a few sites. If we’re going to travel half-way around the world, the least we should do is see the Great Wall and the Forbidden City!...Mmmm…forbidden. (And it will be our last vacation for just the two of us for a very long time).

WITH ALL THE BABIES IN THE U.S., WHY DID WE GO TO CHINA?
The American adoption system has a huge “take back” factor. The system favors the biological family so, depending on the state, a biological mother may have anywhere from 72 hours to six months to change her mind after delivering the baby. And/or biological mothers can change their minds before delivery. And that’s after you’ve shelled out a ton of money for the birth mother’s insurance, rent, food, travel to visit the birth mother and to deliver the baby. What makes it even better is the prospective adoptive parents have no recourse. You can’t sue. You’re out a ton of money and completely heartbroken. Sounds fun, huh? Sometimes this system works out very well, but sadly, we have heard of only two couples who experienced successful private adoptions the first time they tried (one couple in NJ, on in CA).

We seriously considered foster-to-adopt, and last year became certified with a very reputable third party agency in LA County. However the take back with foster/adoption can be equally heart-breaking. The point of foster care is to reunify the child with its birth parents, so the authorities will do everything they can to find a birth family member to take the child and keep it in the family. The idea of caring for a baby we hoped to adopt, only to have it removed and given to some long-lost relative was just too much for us, so we withdrew from the program. Plus chances were good we were going to have to deal with cons, ex-cons, alcoholics, and /or drug addicts. We get enough of that in the theatre.

China has a one-child-per-family policy, and for centuries Chinese parents have preferred to keep their sons because men earn more money and live better than women. Many Chinese couples who already have a son, or who are waiting for a son abandon their baby girls in municipal parks, shopping malls, gas stations, anywhere they think the baby will be found and taken to an orphanage quickly. We want a daughter, we’re not concerned about racial backgrounds, and we certainly don’t want any birth parents or lawyers showing up in few years to take her back. And being a Communist country, China has very specific – and organized – adoption process, which we liked, and we knew at the end we will have our very own little girl.

Plus, the largest mall in the world is in Bejing. We hear the Panda Express there is incredible!

HOW MUCH DOES IT COST?
A lot. Let’s just say it came down to a baby or a Honda CRV. A fully-loaded Honda CRV.

HAS OUR BABY BEEN BORN YET?
Oh yes! The babies range in age from 9 to 14 months old on “Gotcha Day” – (Seriously, that’s what it’s called) - the day parents get their children from the orphanages. We’re assuming that when we get her, our baby will probably be close to a year old. She was probably born before February 9, 2005, which means our daughter was born in the Chinese Zodiac Year of the Monkey (Nicki is a Dragon, and Mark is a Rabbit, for those of you scoring at home).

HAVE WE DECIDED ON AN ENGLISH NAME?
Yes.

ARE WE GOING TO TELL ANYONE WHAT IT IS?
No. Because everybody has an opinion, and everybody grew up with a kid that has the same name and had really questionable hygiene or was really bad in school or was incarcerated. So no, we’re not telling anyone until we get her. We will say that her last name will be Brown, and her first and middle names honour family members on both sides, and we have not chosen anything to do with Springsteen, or any streets in NYC (like Madison, Park, or Flatbush Avenue).

For now we call the idea of our daughter “Boba,” after the “bubble tea” drink, which is sweetened iced tea with milk and large tapioca balls in the bottom of the cup. (The Tapioca balls sort of have the consistency of large snot balls) Bubble tea was started in Taiwan in 1983, and is also known as boba drink, pearl tea drink, boba ice tea, boba, boba nai cha, zhen zhou nai cha, pearl milk tea, pearl ice tea, black pearl tea, tapioca ball drink, BBT, PT, pearl shake, and QQ (which means chewy in Chinese). The first time we had bubble tea was in Chinatown in NYC and we enjoy it so much that we visit the Boba Bar in Studio City almost weekly. We recommend that you try a bubble tea sometime (forget we mentioned anything about the snot ball consistency).

“Boba” seemed a fitting nickname for our daughter because like the beverage, she’s Asian, she’s sweet, and we love her…(And she’ll have a lot of snot)

ARE WE KEEPING HER CHINESE NAME TOO?
Maybe; it depends on how the Chinese name sounds with her English first and middle names. We’ve been told that some Chinese orphans are given last names after the city where they were found or born, which is kind of fun, and would maintain a part of her heritage. Thankfully we are not aware of a “Hackensack” in any Chinese province.

HAVE WE DECORATED THE NURSERY YET?
No. Mostly because Boba doesn’t have a nursery. We have a one-bedroom apartment and we’re going to put her crib in the corner of our room. We’ve converted a closet for her clothes, and we’re having a shelving unit custom-built for her toys and books (see the link to our registry). If we were to move to a two-bedroom apartment now, we’d have to pay for another home study (about $1500) plus we’d have to go through the stress of moving in the middle of the present stress of waiting for our daughter. Having probably lived in a ward with many other babies, we think she’ll be okay with sharing a room for a while. The social worker who did our home studies recommended that we can stay in this apartment until Boba is up and walking around. After that, one of us will have to move out.

ARE YOU REGISTERED ANYWHERE?
Yes. http://www.felicite.com/. Under the name Boba Brown.

ARE ANY OF OUR FRIENDS PLANNING TO THROW A SHOWER BEFORE WE GO TO CHINA?
We have asked our friends to wait until after we return, so that we can have a “Welcome Home” party for the family instead of a shower. This is in keeping with Jewish tradition (and shtetl superstition) that throwing a shower and bringing baby stuff into one’s home before the baby is here is the same as casting the Evil Eye on the baby. And we don’t want that. A Lazy Eye, maybe. But an Evil Eye, no way, so we’re waiting.

Some friends have generously given us an almost-new crib and a high chair, and we’ve been given some really cute clothes. Anything we get before we leave we're going to put in storage until we are close to leaving for China.

ARE WE GOING TO LEARN CHINESE?
We’re planning to learn some Chinese words for our trip (“She’s beautiful,” “Thank you,” “Could you direct us to the nearest Starbucks?”), and to attempt to soothe our baby in a (sort of) familiar language. (Hopefully we won’t mistakenly be ordering the Hot and Spicy Soup when we’re trying to soothe her).

We are also considering learning Baby Signs to bridge the gap between Chinese and English. Baby Signs are a form of modified American Sign Language, which utilizes gestures to help pre-verbal children communicate. Basically it’s like Koko the sign-language speaking gorilla. We figure if an 800 lb primate can ask for bananas and discriminate between television shows, we can teach our kid to ask for milk. We have friends who have been very successful with Baby Signs, and it was also featured in the movie “Meet the Fockers,” where we got a lot of good parenting ideas (along with “Nanny 911”, “Super Nanny”, and “Mommy Dearest”).

HOW DO WE KNOW WHAT TO TAKE WITH US TO CHINA?
Did we mention it’s going to be unbearably hot and humid there? Hello microfiber clothes. USAA will also provide us with a checklist of items to take. We’re hoping to limit ourselves to two carry-on bags, plus a laptop/camera bag and a backpack diaper bag. Once we get to China we’ll buy a suitcase to bring back souvenirs, plus the baby clothes, shoes and accessories that are made in China, (okay, it’s all made in China) and much cheaper than buying them here.

IS US ASIAN AFFAIRS A GOVERNMENT AGENCY?
US Asian Affairs is about as official as American Tire or “American Idol,” however from what we’ve heard from past USAA families, and families that have used other agencies, it may be the best in California, if not the whole country. The executive director, Norman Niu began in the import/export business. Seriously. Then China opened its doors to international adoptions in the early 1990s, and Norman was approached to facilitate an adoption for a couple, since he had connections with Chinese government officials. One couple led to many more, until now, that’s all Norman does. He spends about three weeks a month in China, working with the Chinese to coordinate the groups’ trips. Norman has an office in the Monterey Park neighbourhood of LA, and has set up “China teams” who handle everything for us while we’re there, from booking trips and helping find doctors as needed, to recommending restaurants and shopping districts. And what’s truly amazing is that Norman doesn’t advertise. All of his business comes from word of mouth.

WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO ABOUT OUR DOG?
Ebbets is a very important member of our family. Over the years she has gotten used to children, and has a very strong "maternal" instinct around puppies and smaller dogs. She is also incredibly sensitive to moods and emotions (Just try yelling for the Yankees in our place. She immediately wants to console), and we know she’ll know that Boba is a permanent part of the "pack." While Ebbets has absolutely no idea how much her life is about to change, we know she’s going to love food mysterious falling from the highchair.
We have also begun showing Ebbets "Peter Pan," with the hope that she'll learn from Nan and babysit Boba as needed.

SO TO SUM THINGS UP
We don’t know when we’re going, where we’re going, or what our daughter looks like.

But we do know we can’t wait to hold her in our arms.