One Step Closer!

This afternoon (2:53pm!) I opened my email account to check email. I figured there would be several messages on the "yahoo groups" , and there were. BUT, right in the middle of all those emails I saw:

From: (our adoption agency Family Coordinator)
Subject: Pre-Approval!

YEAAAAAAHHHH!!!! 

The CCAA has pre-approved our application for "the Child".

Now we continue to wait for Referral Acceptance, which will be the official word that this little one is approved to be OURS! According to our family coordinator this could be anytime in the next 2-3 months. She thinks ours could be sooner rather than later since our dossier has already been approved for adoption from China. They just need to match up the paperwork and the child. I'm sssoooooo excited!!!

OK, time to go study Chinese. We don't have an official quiz tomorrow, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were some sort of a popquiz. Wo yao qu Zhongguo kan women haizi. Ta tai shuai! (I 'really' want to go to China to see our child. He's so handsome!) OK, so I want to do more than SEE him... I want to bring him home!! I just don't know how to say that in Chinese yet!! ;)

Happy pre-approval day. We're one step closer to our little guy!

It's a girl!

No, not us!  The neighbors had a baby girl yesterday.  She was born with part of her intestines outside of her little tummy, so they had to do surgery soon after she was born.  Before she was born they weren't sure if she would need multiple surgeries to tuck her innerds back in, but Praise God they were able to do it all in one surgery!!  It sounds like she'll be in the hospital for anywhere from 1 - 6 weeks, depending on when her body starts to function properly.  Please pray for baby Raya Irene and for her mom & dad, Tara & Mike (and for Grandma Brenda and Grandpa Chris).  I'm excited to meet the newest neighbor!  She's been in the making ever since we moved here...guess it's been close to 9 months!! :)    Now we just need to get our little one home so they can be play buddies!! :)  Oh such fun!!

One month ago....

One month ago today we sent our "Letter of Intent" to adopt a "specific child" to our adoption agency, who then electronically sent that to the CCAA (China Center for Adoption Affairs).  What that means is: we have chosen a child and are now waiting for the CCAA to approve our application for THIS child.  At the time we were told that we couldn't post anything specific about our child on blogs because the CCAA has not yet approved this match.  As I understand it, the "pre-approval" generally comes about a month after the Electronic application (EA) is sent to CCAA.  Then there is "referral approval" (RA).  Once the RA is received, then we can post pictures and whatever information about OUR child that we want to.  And at that point we wait for Travel Approval (TA) and break the bank account and head to CHINA!  

We have three pictures of our little one and I'm sooooooooo anxious to post them.  I want to show everyone what a beautiful child we are getting.  One of the pictures is here by the computer, so Little One is here beside me as I write this blog.  SOON--very soon--I will post the pictures!  

This has been a long month of waiting.  With Chinese New Year and nothing being processed in China, the wait seems to have dragged on and on.  But, Chinese New Year celebrations end on Feb. 9 so hopefully they will get back to work quickly and get this show on the road.  

While waiting I have been reading other people's blogs about their wait and referrals and going to China to bring their children home.  It has been interesting, educational, and exciting to see families get their little ones and bring them home.  Some have posted details about the child they have sent "letter of intent" but not yet received any approvals.  Others are just starting blogs (like me) and others have pictures, movies, slideshows....

So, for now, I'll keep you in suspense.  But, like I said, we have petitioned to adopt a specific child... a very dear child!  Thank you for the prayers for speedy approvals.  Keep lifting them up!   Please pray for our child's health and well being, for the caregivers, for us as we continue to wait.  

Hopefully early next week I'll have GREAT news to post!  Until then.....

Well, let's try something new.  A new color of font, a new picture a new font size, maybe a different color, or this one,  or maybe this one.  

I decided that I should try to upload at least one picture.  This is a view from our sunroom in our house in Iowa.  We no longer own that house, but our house here in PA has a beautiful view out the back window also.  

Keep praying for Little One!!.  Thanks!!

I think I like the regular color best, don't you?

Chinese New Year

I know I need to be patient.  I know that God's timing is perfect.  I know that our little one will come home to us at the right time.  Meanwhile, I keep waiting.  

Monday starts the Chinese New Year celebration.  That means the CCAA (China Center for Adoption Affairs) will not be working for 2 weeks.  That means there won't be any referrals for 2 weeks.  That means there won't be any approvals for 2 weeks.  OH, it's gonna be a long 2 weeks!!  

If we don't get our "referral approval" by mid-February, we will have to have our fingerprints taken again for immigration purposes.  I don't know what the price is on that these days, but I'm thinking it will be approximately $850! (No, I didn't forget to put the decimal point in there!!)  So, we are praying that we can get approvals and be back before April 1 so we don't have to go through the fingerprinting process again and have to pay the fees.  I really don't understand why they have to take our fingerprints again... it's not like they have changed!  

Meanwhile, I'll keep studying Chinese and learning new vocabulary.  "Wo shi ni mama.  Ta shi ni baba.  Women ai ni.  Ni de shou hen da."  With good pronunciation, that would be "I'm your mom, He's your dad.  We love you.  You have very big hands."... If bad pronunciation... "I'm your horse.... and who knows what else!! hahaha  

I was thinking about playing "peek-a-boo".  In Chinese, "bu" (pronunciation = boo) means "no" or "don't".  Poor child!  Playing happily and someone comes around the corner and says "Don't!"  How confusing!!  Guess we'll have to come up with a new word, or just teach Little One that "boo" in English is a fun word.  

OK, I'll get back to housework now.  Please continue to pray for speedy approvals.  Thanks! 

Nesting...

Nesting.  I guess that's what they call the stage I'm in.  I'm collecting things that will be nice and good for our little Gonzo, things that can be used now, things that can be used later... just things.  I've worked on the room a little bit, trying to turn it into a baby/toddler's room instead of a storage room.   Yesterday I bought a crib sheet at the Salvation Army Thrift store, even though we don't have a crib matress yet. I did put the crib together and covered the springs with the "Noah's ark" comforter that we bought at Stratford's city wide garage sale a couple of years ago.  Someday we'll get a call that we can go get our little one, then we'll HAVE to buy that matress!!  

I see so many things that I'd love to buy for our little one, then I have to remind myself that there will be birthdays, Christmas, "I love you days", and necessity shopping that will come later.  There are so many toys and cute clothes out there just waiting for someone to buy them.  We still need to save a bit more money for adoption related expenses... another reason I can't buy too many things for Little G.  I guess I need to be content with what we already have.  

Please pray with us that China will accept our "petition to adopt" soon and that travel approval and visas will come soon after that.  Our dossier (all the paperwork) has been approved by China, so in my mind there is no reason that we shouldn't be able to go get our Little One very soon.  God knows that we need our little one and that Little G needs us.  But, they say patience is a virtue, right?  OK, so I'll continue to wait patiently...and keep NESTING!!!!

Check back again for more updates.  Hopefully soon we can post the most exciting news!!  Until then, keep praying!

Still waiting....

My first attempt at blogging begins with this post about our adoption journey.  Back in May of 2006 Guillermo and I began to seriously consider adopting a little one.  After looking into the financial aspects of it we decided we should probably wait.  Well, we both know that God's timing is perfect and He knows what's best for us.  The next day a dear friend called and said one of her friends had asked her if she knew anyone who was hoping to adopt and could use some financial assistance.  Wow, what a blessing.  God provided a means for us to get started on our journey.  So we started investigating several adoption agencies, went to a couple of informational meetings and on June 26 we picked up our "official adoption notebook" from the Gift of Love International Adoptions office in Des Moines.

The next couple of months were spent collecting documents, letters from employers, physical exams & report from the doctor, local police clearance, letters of reference from friends and family, birth certificates, marriage license, citizenship papers for Guillermo, passports, meetings with the social worker, getting fingerprinted, filing for our I-171H which is the US immigration office's clearance for us to adopt, taking pictures of the house, neighborhood, collecting pictures of family and friends, more documents.... I'm sure you get the picture!    Once we had all our paperwork together we had to have it all notarized, then sent to the state for their seal, then sent to the Chinese consulate for their seal.  Then we had to make 3 copies of everything, take that all into the adoption agency for them to send to China.  We got that all done and sent to China by October 20.  At 6:37p.m. our dossier was sent to China and was received in Beijing at 8:53a.m. October 23.  There were two other families from Gift of Love who are in our group of dossiers being sent to China, so we would all most likely travel together.  We met the single lady at the travel information meeting in November of 2006 and we met the other couple in February of 2008.  (We are sad that the couple has decided not to continue with their adoption.  We enjoyed their company and were looking forward to traveling with them.)  In April of 2007 we finally got the official confirmation that our paperwork was logged into the China Center for Adoption Affairs (CCAA) and that our official log-in-date (LID) is 11/15/2006. The official "waiting" has begun!

Now it's January 11, 2009.  We've moved to Pennsylvania, had our home study updated and all our official immigration paperwork has transfered to the Pittsburgh office.  Gift of Love has merged with America World Adoption Associates in Virginia.  China has changed their adoption laws, the US immigration office (USCIS) had people a little nervous as to whether or not they would extend our approval again.  If they hadn't approved this extension we would have had to fill out more paperwork and would have had a "change of status" in China which would move us to the back of the line and we would have to qualify under their new laws...which we wouldn't qualify, thus our adoption journey would have ended.  Thankfully the USCIS agreed to "grandfather" in those who were already in the process under the old policy.  

One of the programs that America World Adoptions has is a "waiting children program".  This has children who may have special needs, which special needs by Chinese standards is not the same as it is here in the US.  It may be a child who is healthy but older than 3 years old, a child who has a cleft lip/palate, scoliosis, a heart condition, etc.   When we heard of this program in November we began to pray about whether this would be something we would be open to.  The wait time for "healthy infants 0-18 months" has grown from an 18 month wait (when we signed up) to a 36 month wait and getting longer each month.   Some calculations have us getting our daughter around September of 2012.  Over the Christmas break we talked to family members about this option and they seemed to be very accepting of it.  So on December 30 I filled out the waiting children program application and sent it off to America World.  At the bottom of the form it mentioned that the agency would be in contact with us in 10 - 14 days.  

I guess this post is getting pretty long, so I'll stop for now, fill you in more as we learn more.  In the meantime we continue to pray for "our little one" and pray that God will bring our little one home to us very soon.