Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to everyone. We have had a wonderful morning and are about to set out to visit friends and family. As Jeremiah and sat waiting for the children to wake up to open presents, I realized that I had three of my four children with me on Christmas morning. I became overwhelmed with emotion as I realized that I am without my fourth baby and even if she isn't born yet, I yearn to have her with me. I know that one day I will but until that day I anxiously await her arrival and pray for her and her health and safety. It's an amazing feeling to love someone that you don't even know yet, but would do anything to be with. I love her and maybe in the next two Christmas' we will have her here.

Time for an Update

For those of you that follow this blog occasionally, I do think it is time I owe you an update. In the beautiful world of adoption, not much has changed. Referrals are coming at about the same pace and number. So we are still looking at a 14 - 16 month wait. In the meantime we have something else to get our minds occupied, the new little baby we are expecting this July. Yes, I am pregnant and we had our first ultrasound on Monday and everything looks good. We are very excited but I am having a hard time wrapping my head around four children. I always wanted four but now it is very much a reality. So we are actually expecting two children, one through pregnancy and one through adoption. We are going to love both the same and are equally excited about both! It may end up that they babies are only a couple of months apart in age, which will be great for having a playmate, but might make for some crazy months while they are young. Our girls are also doing great, they really enjoy playing together. We will begin really focusing on homeschooling Gracie once the holidays are over. We are very involved in a co-op group here in town and they both enjoy going. Jeremiah is still working hard with the bank and really seems to enjoy it. I am just taking it easy, as this first trimester has kept me eating and sleeping quite a bit. I don't have a lot of energy to expend these days. If I don't get a chance to update before Christmas I want to wish you all a Merry Christmas. We will be thinking of our two children yet to join our family and anticipate what this next year may bring.

Referral Day!

Each month when the new batch of referrals come out, it is my favorite time of the month! This month is particularly special because a dear friend of mine is getting her referral. She has waited fourteen months to see Sarah Joy's face! We are so excited for them! If you would like to read about their journey you can view their website at www.myadoptionwebsite.com/sarahjoy/index/htm

We Are LID!

I am writing with some very good news. An email from our agency confirmed that we are officially Logged In with China. Our log in date (LID) is 10/27/06. This LID is very important and you will hear me refer to it many times. As China matches families with babies they do this systematically according to your log in date (LID). So far they have matched families with babies that have a log in date before August 9, 2005. If the wait stays the same we will have 14 months between now and our match with our baby. However, in the internationl adoption world, nothing is stable and this wait can increase even more or actually decrease (which is what we are praying for). So we will patiently watch the adoption boards to see where China is in their placement of families. In the Bible Isaiah reminds us "But those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint." Isaiah 40:31 Our hope will be in the LORD and we will be pressing on each day as we anticipate the arrival of our precious forever daughter.

Congratulations

"Congratulations! Your dossier has been delivered to the CCAA." That is what the email said from our agency Monday evening. Such exciting news to know that our dossier has reached it's final destination. It seemed to take us a little longer than others to compile our dossier, not to mention the incredible slowdown from the USCIS. But all the work and waiting has paid off to know our dossier has finally arrived to it's home. Our agency will notify us sometime in the next four weeks of our offical log in date. That will be the date the CCAA goes by to match us with our child. Right now they have only matched dossiers with a log in date before August 9th of 2005, so obviously we have quite a ways to go before we will be matched with our third daughter!

Six months later...

Six months ago we oficially began our adoption process with acceptance of our application and orientation with our agency. Six months later our paperwork is complete and made it through a critical review with our agency. We passed with flying colors and according to someone at our agency, she hasn't seen to many dossiers that were done correctly. So maybe all those hours I poured over every little detail paid off! Our dossier is now in Colorado and is being translated by the Colorado office and officially mounted according to China's requirements. That will take between two and three weeks and then it is off to China. I will be notified of our DTC (dossier to china) and then hopefully shortly thereafter we will have an LID (Log In Date) with China Center for Adoption Affairs! Yeah, we will be celebrating that day with some Chinese food! After that, we will settle in for what is to be expected as a very long wait. Currently the wait is fourteen months from your LID to getting your referral. It is expected to go up to eighteen months and honestly, could even go higher. But will will wait because we only want everything to happen in God's timing, not ours.

Faith

Before we began this process I often wondered how it feels to be in the midst of an adoption process. In many ways it is very similar to being pregnant; the worries of the health and safety of your baby, the range of emotions and the worry about finances are among the similarities. Just like a pregnancy, an adoption, an international one at that, is a journey of faith. Your child, your money, your paperwork are in the hands of a foreign government that controls who they allow to take their babies and how many babies to give over to international adoption. Currently things have slowed down so much in the China Adoption process that they are referring babies at a snail's pace. The referrals haven't stopped, they have just dramatically slowed down! A huge rumor floating around the international adoption world is that China is getting ready to implement some new regulations on people adopting from their country to try and decrease the number of dossiers coming into their country. We have finished all of our paperwork and the documents are back from Houston. Everything is official now and they next step is to send our dossier to our agency. Along with our agency we have to pay our second agency fee and our first China Center for Adoption Affairs fee. This is a pretty large sum of money and we currently do not have all of it. So we are faced with a decision. We can hold onto our dossier until we have saved up the money. With this decision we run the risk of China changing some of their regulations and requirements that may or may not affect us. Or we can send the dossier to our agency with the need to temporarily put some of the cost on credit so that we can possibly have a log in date before the new regulations are in place. Please pray for us we seek God for an answer and that we can be at peace with whatever direction we choose. This truly is a journey of faith!

Documents complete

A sweet lady who understands the adoption process works at the post office and saw my documents arrive today from Houston. She gave us a call to let us know they were there if we wanted to pick them up and of course I did! They are complete, Praise the Lord! More later...