04/18/12
I am sitting here, in my office typing this update 6 months after finalizing our adoption of Elis Rey. We have been home about 6 months. We have been a complete family for 6 months. It is more than I could have ever imagined. More what you ask? Well, more everything. More joy at the beauty of our daughter. More sorrow as I see what she missed her first year or more of life. More effort as I balance the needs of all 4 kids. More joy as I reap what I did not even sow. More tears as I rejoice and hurt with more children and their successes and failures. So yeah, more everything. And I love it. I love it all. I think often of myself, 2 years ago, as we started the paper chase and contemplated adoption. I don’t even remember those days sometimes. The same way I don’t remember the days of sleeping in when I had NO kids. I mean, I know it was there. And yet the memory is sketchy at best because what has replaced it is so very complete. And that is where we are now. Complete.
For now. :)
10/22/11
We are now in Guangzhou with our new little monkey in tow. This will be my let adoption update!! We have her and she is officially ours in the eyes of China. In a few more days we will be traveling back to the US to introduce Elis Rey to our country, our home, our friends, and most importantly, HER family. Continue to pray for her and for us. And should you be interested, please, send me a note. An email. Contact me. Adoption is an amazing journey. Is it for the faint of heart? Is it for the weary or the whiny? Is it for those who only travel along the sorest path? No. But it is wonderful. So please…there is pretty much no question I will not answer. Talk to me. Or someone else. But talk about it. See if there is room in your heart or home for an orphan…domestic or foreign. They are all children. And they are all worthy of love and hugs and homes.
10/16/11
We have landed in Beijing. We have adjusted beautifully to the time changes, and Ken has gotten my computer set up. We feel great, although we desperately miss the kids we left at home. Most importantly however, we meet our beautiful daughter tomorrow. In about 2 hours we fly from here to Zhengzhou where we will check into our hotel, go to a bank and convert a bunch of cash, go to Walmart and buy a stroller and formula, and meet the other 3 families also adopting from our province and traveling while we do. Should be an amazing ride the rest of the way…
10/7/11
We are leaving in 6 days. Yup. 6 days. It is hard to process in some ways which is odd because we have been working for 1 year and 9 months to get to this point. I liken it to childbirth. You spend 10 months pregnant (don’t you DARE take that last month away from me!!!). You have a party, shop, get the room ready. Purchase clothes, read the books, and go to child birthing classes. You know what pain will be there; you know the changes you are about to discover. And yet, when the contractions start, let’s be honest and say that all h-e-double hockey sticks breaks loose. No matter your level of preparedness, it is all still a shock.
So I am in a similar situation now. We have prepared. We have prayed. We have readied our home and our hearts to welcome this beautiful child. And now, as the days whittle down into the low single digits, we are amazed and overwhelmed but in a good way. Hope you are following along with us.
9/7/11
Woot woot!!! Article 5 picked up!!! This is it. We are in the home stretch. Granted, the home stretch can take a couple weeks, but still…this is it – we are winding down. What now you may ask? Well, right now our final bit of paperwork is on its way to Beijing and the Chinese Consulate. They will review our paperwork one last time, make sure everything is in order, verify that we are not wanted fugitives, and then they will issue us our TA – travel approval. Once this is issued we have mere days to book airline tickets, hotel stays, and various other transportation, travel, etc etc etc. This can’t happen soon enough. I have posted in a few different forums about how to fill this thumb twiddling time before travel…and here were the suggestions…Please feel free to message me and add some ideas.
Redecorate a room. Learn some Chinese. Journal. Shop. Blog. Get a tattoo. (Ken would leave me. I am not allowed to have more than the two I already do.) Reorganize my pantry. (a great idea for those of you who know me personally know…) Shop. Refinish my wood floors. Learn Portuguese. (??) Write letters to my kids for each day we are gone. Redecorate another room. Shop. And of course, pray lots and lots for speedy 800A approval and Travel Approval. And did I mention shop???
8/31/11
After emailing with Betsy, one of our trusted agency personnel, we are hoping to get our Article 5 completed early next week. This sounds like gibberish, right? Well, to bring Elis Rey home from China we still have a few more steps. First, we are waiting for the Consulate to issue the Article 5. It is a document. It does…something. All I know is that, when it gets issued it goes to Beijing and to the CCAI (our adoption agency) office there. Once they have it we will be issued a Travel Approval, or TA, in 2-4 weeks. And THAT means we head to China a couple weeks after we get our TA. In total, we are narrowing down our timeframe. It looks safe to say that, God-willing (since we are still waiting on our fingerprint appointment), we will be in China some time in October. Man…I can’t wait. I am dying to see the precious face of my daughter. Want to see her picture? Go to the new blog post today and there it will be. (Can’t post a pic in this section. Or maybe more accurately, I can but I have no idea how!!!)
8/19/11
A lot of people have asked me lately why, since we already have three kids, are we adopting?? Here are some literal comments I have heard. Some are annoying, some are funny, and some are plain stupid. Then I will give you a very simple answer.
“You already have 3 kids. Isn’t that enough?” I hear that one a lot. “The world is overpopulated. Don’t you think this is irresponsible?” Captain Brilliant with that one. Duh. “Wow. You guys are just like Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt.” Nope. Don’t think so. I don’t like weird long facial hair on my man and my man likes me to weigh more than 14 pounds. “You are just doing this for attention.” Um, maybe a nose job would warrant that comment. Or even new boobs. But getting a kid for attention? “Why?’ This actually always makes me laugh. Sometimes I answer with a real answer and sometimes I say, “Well, last night while I was meditating nude in the Publix parking lot I saw a certain star alignment in the sky that led us to start adopting girls from China.” “4 kids are a lot. Do you think you can even handle that?” Well, by the grace of God we have kept 3 alive so far so why not gamble with a 4th?”
The real answer? I love children. We are blessed with the space in our hearts and our home and our bank account to take in a child without a home. It is really that simple. Will it be a lot of work and time and money? Yup. And I can’t wait.
8/16/11
We received our I800 Provisional Approval yesterday. Hallelujah! This is a big step, although we still have some potential delays. People have asked me recently why the delays and I will try to explain here. The I800 is the paper that gives you provisional (conditional) approval to adopt a SPECIFIC child from China. Prior to getting the I800 approved, there is the I800A that must be approved. The I800A is a document that the government issues stating that you, as a family, are approved to adopt a child at all from a specific country. So, last year when we went through the process of filing for an adoption from China, we filled out and applied for an I800A. We were approved, and that meant the US government found us suitable to adopt 1-2 children under 3 years of age from the country of China.
Once we were matched with Dang, Hong Yu (who we have renamed Elis Rey Yu), we filed with the government to adopt this SPECIFIC child. Makes sense right? Well, the problem is the I800A expires after 15 months. And you must have a current I800A before you travel. So…our I800A expires on 9/28/11…right around the time we were supposed to be traveling. So our agency decided to have us reapply for the I800A which takes a lot of time, effort, and paperwork. This set us back timeframe wise a bit. But now that we have an approved I800 for Elis Rey, we can move forward with other paperwork while we wait for our new I800A. Phew. I am exhausted explaining all of that. Now we wait on the US for a letter from the NVC, then our Article 5, then our travel approval, then we go to China. Yeah!! Will let you know when the next step happens!
