In the Meantime...

Adoption Update: Not much going on. Will and I attended an information seminar last night in Raleigh, NC for CAS. Allie is the coordinator who does all the Haiti adoptions through CAS. There were three other couples there. Will and I were the only couple that knew we wanted to adopt from Haiti. All the other couples were not sure and just there to hear about the agency.

After the seminar, we still feel really good about going through CAS:) They are an accredited agency and have a really good reputation. The next week or two I will try and contact some of their families that they have used as references.  The one thing that scares me with the Haiti adoption, is that we have no choice in the child that we bring home. We can specify age, gender, and any special needs, but thats all. Everything else will won't know until we receive the child's information.

In the meantime, I have found a fun hobby of making my fur baby homemade doggie treats!! One night a few weeks ago, I found myself on a pet forum and I saw a thread about not feeding you dogs chicken jerky treats.  Low and behold I had some chicken jerky treats downstairs in my pantry for Rocco. Seeing this made me click and read. Apparently 95% of all dog jerky treats and many others are made in China. In the process of making these treats there is a chemical that had caused renal failure and death in several thousand dogs across the US. The FDA has done extensive research on this but has refused to take any of these products off the shelves in stores. After reading this, it scared the crap out of me. I immediately took those jerky treats and threw them away!  The next day I was in the grocery store and just started reading some of the ingredients on several of the most popular dog treats: Puperoni, Beggin' Strips, Milkbone, Etc. Surprisingly Puperoni has a chemical that is also found in antifreeze!!  I have been feeding my dog those treats for years. He is pretty healthy, but I have nooo idea what the long term affects could be. I decided to take his treats into my own hands, lol. At least I know what I'm feeding him!!

I went to a few websites that posted recipes for homeade dog treats and came across this one:

CESAR'S WAY

http://www.cesarsway.com/dogcare/nutrition/Recipe-Ideas-for-Quick-and-Healthy-Homemade-Dog-Treats

I decided to make the healthy pumpkin balls. I did tweak the recipe a little by adding peanut butter and a little honey. My dog LOVED them. Below are the pics I took. If you have a dog, you must try these!!

Canned pumpkin, molasses, peanut butter, water

Added whole wheat flour and cinnamon

Added honey

Rolled into balls then pressed with a fork

Rocco ready to eat!

Finished product 

Trying to Narrow it Down

We've decided to create a spreadsheet to help us organize all this adoption information. There are 19 different accredited Hatian adoption agencies and all of them have completely different information about their process. Will made an excel spreadsheet to help us organize it all!

Last Tuesday we attended an information session for families interested in foster care/adoption through the department of social services.  I have known for a while that I do not want to go this route to adopt. Adopting through social services is a whole other ball of wax.  Adoption in the US is much different that international adoption as well.  Will and I want a healthy child between the age of 1-2 years old and that is almost impossible in the US. Since there are so many orphans in other countries, it's much easier to get a young child. 95% of all children under the age of 5yr in the US are fostered with family members and it's rare for an outside party to adopt them. 

But we decided to attend the session anyway, just to hear what they had to say. Conveniently the session was held right down the street from my job, so I knew exactly where to go. Surprisingly there were a lot of families there, as you can see below. About half were there just to be foster parents and the other half were interested in adoption only. 

Foster/Adoption Information Session - Social Services

The good thing about adoption through social services is that you can adopt for cheap. But after attending this session, even Will knew that going this way is not for us.

After that, we continued to contact the rest of the agencies on the list and request information packets.  In the meantime, Carolina Adoption services, hosted a webinar on Haiti adoption last night. I literally raced home in time to make this webinar. I had a meeting with my lab director at 2pm, a hair appointment at 4:30, and needed to be home by 6pm for this webinar. Will was stuck at work, so he called in from the office. Allie from CAS hosted the webinar, and we were able to type in any questions we had. So far CAS seems to be the best fit for us. They have their own orphanage in Haiti where the children are between newborn and five years old. They are located here in North Carolina so we would easily be able to establish a relationship with them.  We will attend one of their information session in Raleigh in two weeks. 

In other news, I've been crazy busy at work. Had my first laboratory inspection last week and in the process of implementing a lab information system for my department. And on top of all that I'm in meetings everyday. 

Soooo ready for a vacation.  Me, Will, and Rocco have a trip planned to the outer banks in May. We rented a oceanfront condo in Kill Devil Hills. I love the outer banks, it's so peaceful. I also will be going back to Essence Music Festival in New Orleans during July 4th weekend with my sister and friends from college. That trip will deserve a blog of it's own :)