cute item of the month

Well it is almost Christmas and I have the perfect item for this month. These things came from Grandma Charlotte, and as always she has great taste. She sent them with a note that said that she put me in things like this when I was a little girl, so she thought my little girl needed the same.

HOW ADORABLE! Black patten leather shoes, pink ruffle socks and ruffle panties! I can see her now on Christmas Eve going to church! Thanks Mom!

cute item of the month

I know I know, it's not the 13th. And hey, what happened to October's item? I could go into the lengthy explanation, but that would bore you. Instead, I will introduce you to two items.

The cute pink t-shirt was supposed to be the October item. When my parents were in twon we went looking for something to put on the blog. We happened across this cute t-shirt. We thought it was so funny, first of all it is perfect for our situation. The funniest part to us was that the size was 18mo. Who, besides a child adopted from another country, would need to wear a "Hi, I'm new here" t-shirt at 18 mos? It was PERFECT! Thanks Mom!

The book in the picture represents November's item. Aunt Stephanie is still at it. She sent me this cute book called "Panda Bear, Panda Bear, What Do you See?" All I know is that this little girl better like Pandas! :)

Now that I have fulfilled my cute items of the month I will update you on our process. We are just waiting. The fall is the busiest time of year for me, so it flew by, but the idea of the wait seems to weigh pretty heavy on me when I think about it. I am excited, because I know there is a child at the end of this journey, but the wait is so long. Our agency is not even guessing how long our wait could be, there is just no way to know.

My plan is to do a few more cute items of the month, probably until we have been waiting for a year,a nd then it will go on hold until we get a little closer. The truth is, it is hard to buy things a few years in advance and try to act excited. When the wait was going to be about 18 months to 2 years I thought that finding one item a month would be fun. With the wait reaching 3 years and maybe longer, it seems more like a chore. Please continue to pray for our daughter and also the people in China who will ultimately choose her to be a part of our family.

a little late

I know it's a little late, but I'll post the Cute Item of the Month later this evening.

One year later

I just realized that today is an anniversary of sorts. On September 27, 2006 we had a meeting with Hope International. This was a purely informative meeting. Dawn told us all about Chinese adoptions and gave us an overview of the whole process, and as we left with our heads spinning, we knew we had a big decision ahead of us. We went out to a really nice restaurant to talk about all that we had just heard and by the end of dinner we had decided that it was time.

Today is the one year anniversary of the day we signed a contract with Hope, the "official" beginning of our adoption. In some ways this year has flown by, then reality hits, this was only one year of the many we will wait. We are so grateful to have chosen Hope to guide us through this process. They have been nothing but helpful and encouraging. Dawn always has all the answers, Eliza is one of those people you feel like you have known forever, and Holly is so encouraging and an interested listener. We love our agency!

Thank you for your continued prayers. We know that we have an army of people praying for us and our daughter.

cute item of the month

Did you think I forgot? I wouldn't do such a thing. It's been a busy day, but I definitely didn't forget.

I know, more Pandas, but this is the first outfit ever purchased just for her! My mom bought it from Gymboree and you can see why. Charlotte is always looking for a bargain, and these were on sale and they were perfect.

Can't you just see her in this cute sweater and shirt? I can hardly wait!!!

cute item of the month

So, I'll take a break from the pandas for a month. I did not take my own picture of this item, I borrowed it from Target.com

These are her curtains! Aren't they adorable? I thought they were very feminine, but not too frilly. We had some wallpaper growing up that was black and white flowers, it reminds me of that. However, that wallpaper was shiny and much guadier (if that's even a word).

I feel like we have reached a mini-milestone, we've been waiting 6 months! Now, I hope the next 6 months goes by just as fast.

great news

So, all of a sudden last week I realized that our LID fell two days after the Chinese New Year. Well, all government offices in China are closed for a week after the Chinese New Year. My first thought was "Oh no, they meant March 20. That means I have waited 4 months, not 5." So I contacted my agency and she just emailed me, our LID is February 13! I was pleasantly surprised. In reality what is one week when we will probably wait 3 years, but it was something to get excited about!

So, be checking this blog on the 13th of every month!

cute item of the month

I'm going to continue with our theme of pandas, next month I venture out and show you something else. This Panda is extremely special. For Christmas my mom gave this to me. It is to be given to our daughter when she gets here, but it sits in my room until then. It is my prayer bear! Many of you know about the places that you can make your own stuffed animal, well this is one of those. Of any of you have made your own stuffed animal you know that they ask you to make a wish and then you place the heart inside the bear. Well, my bear has a heart that was prayed over by 6 very special women. My mom has the dearest friends in the world, they have prayed for me in every phase of my life. Caryl, Pat, Terri, Shelly, Rita and my mom are prayer warriors, and they did not stop short when it came to our decision to adopt. They have each prayed for our daughter and sent some special prayers for us as well.

Not only do I think of our daughter when I see this bear, but I think of my mom and her amazing friends! Thanks mom! When our daughter arrives she will know that from the moment we knew she was going to be a part of our family she was prayed for!

cute item of the month

This month the cute item is a book. It was given to me on my birthday from Stephanie. As you will see it is not really for me, but I'm sure I will read it to my daughter once or twice.

As you can see it is called "That's not my bear..." by Fiona Watt. It is a "touchy-feely book," I did not make that up, it says it on the back. Each page has a certain texture on a different type of bear. The bear on the cover has a rough nose. The other textures are soft, fuzzy, scratchy and shiny. The whole reason this book was purchased for our baby is the last page...

The panda theme continues!

i can't say it enough...

we are in for a LONG wait. I don't know how else to say it. People are constantly asking me how long until we get our baby, the truth is I don't know. I do know that it isn't looking good. I think we are in the only line that actually gets longer as we wait in it. I'm not kidding! I've said this before, but in October when we started this process we were told we may wait about 15 months from our LID (2/20/07). Then by the time we got our LID we knew we would be waiting at least 18 months. Then (just to be on the safe side) we are predicting 24 months from our LID, but the truth is it could be as long as 36 months. The reality is we may not have a child until 2010. Again, I'm not kidding! I am trying to stay positive. We are in this for the long haul, as we feel it is not our decision, but a choice that God has made for us. Kevin is, of course, just fine with whatever happens. I, on the other hand, do a lot of questioning and wondering if we should look into other programs. I can't imagine that our child is anywhere but China, I just never guessed it would take so long to get her.

The reason I am posting this now is because we just had a get-together with some of the other China families from our agency. There was one couple who had a 2 1/2 year old waiting for a referral for #2, one family had been home for 2 months with their little girl and another couple just received their referral last week. So we got to talk to people from all different phases of the wait. I couldn't help but get a little sad when people would ask us where we are in the wait and I would say "Oh, we just got logged in in February." Their reactions were all the same "Oh, then you really have a long wait."

I'm not trying to get sympathy or make you feel sorry for us having to wait. It's all in God's perfect timing. He has shown me that too many times at this point in my life for me not to trust Him. I just want everyone (or at least those who read this) to know that it will be years before we meet our child and bring her home. So, until then we will talk about her, pray for her and just go on living like we have been. When the day comes that she is finally with us all of this waiting will seem like ancient history. I may not be a mother for a few more years, but I have been an Auntie for 17, and I just LOVE it! There is a baby at the end of this journey, I know that for sure.

I have clung to this verse in times when I needed some encouragment. It was given to me when I graduated high school, but I didn't realize it's significance until after college.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight." Proverbs 3:5,6

small victories

OK, so this doesn't mean a whole lot to anyone but us (or those in the IA community), but I wanted to share. We had to file an I-600A with the USCIS to get approved to adopt a child from another country. Originally when we filed this in November it cost us $685 for the form and two sets of fingerprints. Well, it expires after 18 months (well, the fingerprints expire after 15 months...who knew fingerprints would expire!), which means we will have to update our I-600A at least once before we go to China. Well, the USCIS just upped the fees to $830 to file and have two sets of fingerprints. But, much to our surprise, and due to the complaints of many potential adoptive parents, the USCIS is giving each family one FREE update! WOW, the government is giving us something free! So, we essentially just saved $830. We don't have to renew ours until April 2008, but when we do it will be free!!!

Cute Item of the Month

Wow, there are some anxious people waiting for this cute item. Just to clarify, I will post it on the 20th of every month. Today we have officially been waiting for three months!

This was her very first gift given to her by her Aunt Stephanie. Of course, we all know about the Giant Pandas in China, so this is where the collection begins. As you can imagine this is a common theme among people adopting from China, and our baby is already on her way to a large collection (as you will see this theme continue!).

A little more information regarding the panda. Stephanie is the most creative in our family (second to my mother) and she gives each one of us a bird themed 30th birthday. What I mean is, on Jill's 30th she got 30 flamingo items in the mail, I got 30 chicken items, Kevin got 30 penguin items. For each birthday after that we get our "bird." So, Steph wanted to give our daughter an animal, and so she got a panda. As soon as we made our announcement that we were adopting Stephanie was quick to find a theme! Thanks Steph, you are always so thoughtful.

inspiration

I have come up with an idea. It is not original, but I will definitely give credit where it is due. Today we have been "officially" waiting 2 months for our child! I'm still not sure of too many people read this, there's never much to comment on so I don't expect ya'll to say anything, but for those of you who do read it I wanted to give you something to look forward to. The 20th of every month I will feature a "Cute Item of the Month." My inspiration: Aaron and Christa Wiens. Some of you know them so you know about the Ugly Item of the Week, but for those of you who don't here is what it is. Aaron and Christa lived in beautiful (hahaha) Florida for what seemed like an eternity to them. They lived in a tiny little, fully furnished place. Well, the furnishings were hideous, so they began a weekly blog showing some of the wonderful items they got to look at and use every day. It was one of the ways that they tried to smile at a not so pleasant experience, sort of like a count down until they could leave. So, with that in mind I am going to try and have fun while I wait to bring my child home.

Like I said before, the 2oth of every month, which will act as a countdown (or up really, but that sounds funny) until we receive our referral. You will also get a glimpse of things purchased for her or her room. So here is the very first Cute Item of the Month:

This was the very first item purchsed for her room. I saw these lamps and had to have them. I bought two of them and will decorate her room around them. I guess you could call the motif retro, but not over the top retro.

hm...

So, our agency does not send us too many emails. They do, however, send us important information. So after a conference that the two directors attended they had some important things to say to those of us adopting from China. First, our wait will be longer than 18 months. This is something we already knew, but it kind of hurts to hear someone "in charge" say it. Also, they explained that the reason for the long wait is due to the high number of dossiers in China. The process to get a baby ready for adoption takes a ton of paperwork. This paperwork is actually what makes China's such a stable program. So, they just cannot keep up with the number of requests. There are still many children in need of homes, but the paperwork required to get them ready just takes a long time.

Just thought I'd share everything I know.

we have a date

A log in date that is. I just received an email from our agency that we were logged in on February 20th! It happened really fast. Our dossier was sent to China on February 9th, so it only took 11 days to get us logged in. From some email groups I am a part of people have been saying it took about one month to get logged in. We feel so blessed!

So we have officially begun our wait and are already 7 weeks into it. Nevermind that over the last two weeks the wait went from 17 months to 18 months, I just know that we are offically waiting. As weird as this sounds, we are so happy!

LID 2/20/07

seminar

Kevin and I got the privilege of attending an adoption education seminar hosted by our agency. We agreed to attend at least one of these (they are offered every 6 months) before our child arrives. We chose to attend this one, even though we could have waited.

It was incredible. We learned so much. We got to hear from the social workers, who are our coordinators, about the "normal" things you would expect from infants and toddlers and how that might differ in our child. Then a psychologist spoke to us regarding attachment and bonding, amazing! Then a pediatrician who has an international adoption clinic (who knew?) spoke to us regarding health issues unique to internationally adopted children. We also had in informal panel of adoptive parents. One couple had a little girl from Kazakhstan and little boy from China, and there was a single mother with a little boy from Ukraine and a little girl from Guatemala. Their stories were incredible and very encouraging to those of us who are still waiting. It was an all day thing, 9am-5pm jam packed with info.

I know I have never raised a child, but I have been a close observer of my friends and family. I can tell you this, everything I thought I knew about young children was pretty much flushed down the toilet in regards to our child. Due to the fact that she will have been in a orphanage or a foster home, the way things are done are very different. I know we have only reached the tip of the iceberg with international adoption. Hearing about all the needs of these children just made it so much clearer (as if it wasn't clear enough already) that we are doing the right thing. God has been equipping us for this journey for so long, and we didn't even know it. He is AMAZING!

random post

There is no new news to report. I feel like I need to post something at least once a month on this blog, because I know there are a few people who look at it.

Our close friends, that we talk to regularly, have already stopped asking questions because they know that if something happens we will tell them. Our families, due to the distance between us, ask tons of questions and just want to make sure they don't miss out on anything. What makes me feel bad is that I have nothing to say. We've done all we can do, now we wait...for a LONG time. I wish I could update people on the latest, but nothing has changed. It does make me smile when people ask questions because I know w are being thought about, and more importantly that people are excited about the arrival of our child!

I had planned on decorating the baby's room this summer. It seems premature, but with the current wait being 16 months we could have a referral in July 2008, then traveling in September. With my school schedule I have no time to decorate a room during the school year; being optimistic I thought that maybe the wait time would shorten over the next year (probably not), so that means I only have one summer before we travel to China. Honestly, I think I talked myself into it because I love the thought of decorating a room! Truth is, I will probaby have plenty of time in the summer of 2008, so I may have to rethink my plans.

I think Kevin is already tired of me talking about names. For those of you wondering we do not have one picked out. I always ask Kevin, "What do you think about _____?" He always responds, "I don't know." Someday he'll have to agree or disagree, but until then we will have many conversations like this! We throw around a bunch of stuff, but nothing really serious. It's hard to name a child, I think it will cause me a lot of stress the closer it gets. Kevin wants to wait until we see her face. We get the luxury of seeing our child months before we have to give her a name, so we may take advantage of that.

Well, there was the random adoption post. Nothing exciting, just something to read. Hopefully good news is on the way!

DTC

Well, I have no official word, but our dossier should be in China. Yippee! In the next four to six weeks we should get a log in date (LID) and a packet of information from the Embassy in China. Not much, but one more step in the right direction

**UPDATE 2/14/07**
As of last Friday our dossier was on it's way to China. We could be getting our LID sooner than expected, instead of four weeks it could be two! We could have a February LID instead of March...that's GREAT news!

explanation

I feel like I should explain a little better about the wait time for our referral. I know I have said it can change, but I would like to give an example. The people who are receiving their referrals right now (actually 2/1/07) were LID in between 9/28/05-10/13/05. When they began the process they were told that their wait time would be 6-9 months...it ended up being 16 months. I say that so you can understand that NOTHING is guaranteed. We can only guess based on what we see right now. A lot of people think the wait time will get longer and longer, maybe up to 24 months. However, there are some new restrictions that the CCAA has put out that will take effect 5/1/07. This will reduce the number of applicants significantly, but that will not decrease the number of applicants who have already been logged in. I don't know if I made this more confusing or cleared things up. I guess I say this so everyone knows that my estimate on when we will get a referral is just a best guess. Over the course of the next 16 months this could change 20 times, so just be ready.

good news!

This is the email I got from Dawn today:

Hi Allison, your dossier is now complete and on it’s way to our coordinator for translation. Yeah! I would expect it to be in China in a week or two, then logged in about a month later. So you may have a log in date sometime in March.
Let me know if you have any questions.
Now the long wait begins. We will stay in touch and keep you informed of any changes.

Do you know what that means? We are one step closer! I am so excited. I feel like we have finally accomplished something. All of our documents have been given the stamp of approval from the US government. June will translate them into Chinese and then send them to her mother Shulan (not sure of the spelling) who lives in China. Shulan will then hand deliver them to the CCAA. Once the CCAA "receives" them they will give us a log in date (LID) and then the wait begins...16 months right now. So, if we have an LID sometime in March that means we can expect to see our sweet baby girl's face in July 2008...and bring her home in September. WOW!

I think I have said this before, but this coming Spring and Summer there may be a decrease in the wait time. We are praying that is the case. The only way we can find out is by the families who are currently waiting and close to receiving their referral. The families who received their referral two weeks ago waited 16 months, so that is how we are given our wait time.

The next things we will be told is our LID, I will be sure to let you know as soon as I do so we can all start the countdown!

It's here!

The very last paper in the paperchase portion has arrived! We have been approved by the USCIS to adopt a child from China. Tomorrow I will go sign the final paperwork before it is sent off to be authenticated. I am going to repeat myself, but authentication takes about 4 weeks and translation takes about 2 weeks. So, we are hoping to get our dossier to China (DTC) in the last week of February. Please pray that everything continues to go smoothly.

CNN

Tonight on CNN with Paula Zahn (8pm EST) there is a segment about Chinese adoption. This segement is in response to another segment that ran last Friday where a panel of "experts" reported that people who adopt from China are simply looking for an intelligent child.

Here is an exerpt from the transcript. It is in response to the question "What's the big deal with Chinese children? What's the infatuation?"

MARTIN: Maybe they think they can adopt a smart kid that is going to grow up to be a doctor? I don't know. They need to realize that's called training, not just inherent, it will happen when they're born. Angel, help me out.
MALDONADO: Absolutely. This is something I've been looking into for a long time. Americans have this love affair with girls from China. There is this belief, this perception, irrational as it might be that if you adopt a little girl from China, she's going to be intelligent, she's going to be more lovable.
MARTIN: Like the porcelain doll.

Well, needless to say the International Adoption Community went nuts. Thousands of people sent emails and letters so CNN decided to have another discussion tonight. This time the panel will have adoptive parents and representatives from adoption agencies. This will probably not interest most of you, but since we are all involved with international adoption from this point forward I thought you might want to know what some people say about it.

baby steps (no pun intended)

So I got word from Dawn today that our USCIS form is being approved. We should get the clearance we have been waiting for sometime next week. That means it will have only taken 5 weeks! We were told it would take 7 weeks, praise the Lord.

blessing or curse?

I'm talking about the internet. Isn't it nice to have access to SO much information? I mean without the internet I could not see pictures of my friends halfway across the country on a daily basis and you could not see what is happening in my life. However, in terms of the international adoption world sometimes ignorance is bliss, so the internet can be a curse. There are TONS of websites, blogs and email groups related to international adoption, China specifically. I can go online at any time of day or night and find out new information. It is a very slow time at work right now, so my internet use is up. Lately the "rumor" is that wait times are up...again! When we applied, just last September, the wait had recently gone up from 12 months to 15 months, now it is looking more like 16 or 17 months. Friends, this is from the time our dossier gets to China, that doesn't count the 3 months we have spent gathering papers and the 3 months we will wait to get everything authenticated and translated. I guess I am saying this myself (and the rest of my family who wants my daughter here as much as I do!) when I say...NO MATTER HOW LONG THIS TAKES THERE WILL BE A CHILD AT THE END OF THIS JOURNEY!

I guess this would be a great time to share an old Chinese Proverb with you. It is one used very frequently by people adopting from China, and I think it is very fitting.

An invisible red thread connects those who are destined to meet,

regardless of time, place, or circumstance.

The thread may stretch or tangle, but will never break.