Sunday, December 13, 2009

Waiting.....gee that's different.

Our agency said they would not let us see files of children without having our immigration paperwork current. They told us about a month before our immigration paperwork was to expire that they would not match us with any children's profiles until our immigration extension was approved. When they told us that I was so....mad! I emailed them and asked them why and they never emailed or called me back. They match people up all the time that don't even have immigration approval yet. My personal opinion is this: They are letting us know that they aren't happy that we didn't take that severely handicapped child they presented to us. They wouldn't let us view any files a month before our immigration approval was set to expire. Sounds fishy to me. What do you think?

If I wasn't at their mercy I would tell them what I really think. But I'm going to save that until after this adoption is completed.

On another note, it took forever to get our paperwork ready to request an extension on our immigration paperwork. The forms were sent about 10 days ago and USCIS got them. But they haven't approved us yet. We still have to be refingerprinted. Yeah, you know, fingerprints never change, apparently only when one adopts does that possiblity exist. Our immigration approval expired 12.11.09. We won't have our extension approval until after we get fingerprinted so no Bailey additions for us this year.

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Waiting and waiting and waiting......

Actually we have contributed to our wait. We had been given the opportunity to adopt a baby girl in late October. However, her special needs are way more than we feel equipped to handle. It was very hard to say no. We are very saddened by this. Please pray for her that she will find her forever family.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

When? LOL (or cry)!

Here's the latest scoop. Someone posted that they had gotten their referral on a Yahoo waiting family group for our agency. Nothing unusual there. Except...they have a medical conditions checklist dated the day before ours and this person got her referral 9/23. That was over a month ago! A month is a long time between medical checklist that are only a day apart! I emailed our agency this weekend and they have not responded to my email. I'm going to call them today and see what the world is going on. Will update our blog when I find something out.

Friday, October 9, 2009

Just don't know...........

Well, here it is October. As of October 20th we will have been waiting a full long 19 months to get our referral. Will it ever come? Yes! But when? Only heaven knows.

Thursday, September 24, 2009

A little closer, a smidge....?

Maybe a little closer, but nothing yet. I was excited last time I posted. Now, not so much. What a roller coaster ride. Adoption is not for the faint of heart. So, I hang tough once again. Maybe it will happen next week. Yeah, right.

Matches haven't come this month for the traditional Chinese adoption program yet. Maybe the Chinese Gov't will send out matches and a new list for the special needs program before they take their Autumn moon festival vacation the first week of October. We can only hope. Of course a little prayer doesn't hurt if the desire to do so stirs in you. These children are waiting for their forever families and this long wait isn't helping anyone.

Maybe next week........

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Closer?

Yesterday I called our agency and spoke to Sarah. I had joined a Yahoo group for waiting families (thanks again, Tricia B.) and got some links to other peoples blogs. Reading those blogs made we want to ask our agency where we are in the virtual line of waiting families. So I asked. Sarah was excited to tell me that we are in the ballpark for a referral (FINALLY!!!!!).

GLORY HALLELUJAH! PRAISE THE LORD!

So, maybe I shouldn't be quite so excited. But, it feels somewhat like a relief that our referral will probably come this year! Hopefully not too much more waiting.

I ask myself through this long wait, "How do you already love someone you haven't even met yet?" But I love her already. She is in this world, waiting for her family. I just want to go get her! I guess it's sort of like being pregnant (forever, in our case). You haven't met that beautiful little person growing inside. But you know you love them. When you are expecting in adoption the child doesn't grow in your womb, the child grows in your heart. In the adoption world, they call it being "pregnant on paper".

Monday, August 24, 2009

The need to update paperwork and fingerprints...

Our agency has informed us that we need to apply to extend our immigration paperwork. This involves getting a homestudy update and getting refingerprinted. Since immigration is so slow they ask that we start the process now (our fingerprints don't expire until 12/11/09)so that we will not have any lapse in keeping our paperwork current. The good thing about this is immigration made changes and grants a one time extension for no cost. When we got Meigan we had to pay all the fees all over again to get our paperwork extended. So this change is a good thing. However, I continue to wonder why we have to get refingerprinted. Best I remember from biology class is that the fingerprints you are born with stay with you for life. So, why the need to redo them? They are going to be the same every time! What a waste of time. We have to drive over 2 hours to get to the immigration place to get our fingerprints redone on the day and time they tell us. How inconvenient can that be?



Well there is no fighting the system. If we want our daughter home from China we have jump through all of these hoops. So we are starting the jumping process again! Yippee!!!!

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Maybe on the horizon......

From what we hear, from a few sources, the wait is supposed to end at around 18 months to get our referral for our daughter. Well, officially we started month 18 in our wait as of August 20th. Should I get excited? Should I run to answer the phone whenever it rings on a weekday and is business hours for mountain standard time (our agency is in Colorado)? Well, I guess I'm just a glutton for punishment. The eternal optimist. That's a good thing right? The thought still crosses my mind when the phone rings. On the bright side, one day the phone is going to ring and its going to be our agency telling us they have a little girl waiting for us. OH I can't wait!

We already talk about our new daughter (sister) all the time. We have planned things around how it will be when she comes home. We have bought things for her. We have saved things for her. Meigan talks all the time about sharing with her (we see how that actually goes when it becomes the real world). Please come on referral!!!!!!!! (eight exclamation points to bring on good luck in Chinese, it's their lucky number. the lucky number 8 is why the Chinese started the olympics last year in China on 08/08/08).

Monday, May 4, 2009

And once again, nothing.......

For all of you who have asked if we have heard anything about our daughter yet, we say "Thank you for asking.". It means so much to us to have your support and care during this wait. We really thought we would have at least a picture of our daughter by now. It's hard to not think about it. Every time the phone rings the thought crosses my mind that it could be our agency. Here it is May and we just can't believe that it's been almost 14 months since we submitted our Medical Conditions Checklist that started this adoption rolling. Someone needs to get behind that slow rolling and give it a swift kick.

We will update this site when we get any news. In this case, no news it not good news.

Monday, March 30, 2009


Here is one our favorite pics of Josh & Meigan (May 08)


Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Just Nothing!

"Nothing from nothing leaves nothing, and you gotta have something". Feeling like nothing will "EVER" happen with all the dossier work we have done. Once the dossier is in China there is nothing to do but wait. Waiting is very hard. I found a blog yesterday that has left me feeling blue today. The lady who writes this blog has 4 bio kids and has been to China 4 times since 2005 and adopted children with special needs. She has just identified another child to adopt and is working on the paperwork to go get her too. If I was a betting person I would say she will get this next one before we even get a referral. Apparently, our agency is on the slow boat to China without a sail or oars. I am asking myself today why we went with our agency again. We could have been to China and back by now if we had used some other agency. Yes, I would like some cheese with my wine.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

No news

No news isn't always good news. We have not been contacted by our agency for a referral yet. After all the paperwork is done on the dossier and there is nothing left to do but wait, it is hard. I keep trying to tell myself that it will happen when it's supposed to happen. That doesn't make it any easier.

I got news yesterday that the two twin headboards I ordered for the girl's room will be delivered tomorrow. Sure hope I like them. I ordered them online. We will only put up one of them for now since we have no idea how old Meigan and Josh's new sister will be. We have the crib on stanby in case we need it for awhile.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

WE HAVE A LID!!!!!!!!!

Today I decided to check out our agency's web site to look at the milestones we have achieved in this adoption process. I went into our Parent Access and scrolled down. They had a date of January 22, 2009 listed as our LID. I was sure it was a mistake. Our dossier was delivered to the CCAA on January 21st. How could they possibly log our dossier in by the next day? So I emailed our agency and they confirmed that is our LID. They also said they had emailed us and told us but we never got that information. The most important thing about this is......

We have a LID!!!!!!!! 01/22/09!!!!!!!!

We are so excited to get a LID so soon! That means that we could get matched with our child at any time now!!!!! No, I'm sure the thought won't cross my mind every time the phone rings.

Monday, January 26, 2009

HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR!

Today starts the celebration of Chinese New Year! This is the year of the ox. The Chinese celebrate Chinese New Year starting today (Jan 26th) and the partying ends on February 10th. If our USA new year lasted that long it's interesting to think of the trouble some of us could get into.

Originally we thought we would get our LID by the end of this month but we forgot about the CCAA and China being basically closed until Feb 10th. I think we will get a LID by the end of February. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

Friday, January 23, 2009

Our dossier has been delivered!

Our dossier has been delivered to the CCAA (China Center of Adoption Affairs)! With Chinese New Year starting on January 26th we don't expect to receive our LID (Log In Date) until sometime in February after all the New Year celebrating is over. It feels good just knowing that it is there.

Friday, January 16, 2009

Our dossier has left for China!

Our agency has translated our dossier and has sent it to China today! We are so surprised. We thought it would take at least a few days to get this done. They told us yesterday that our dossier was approved and today it is China bound! We still won't know for awhile when they actually log it in to their system in China. But it feels great knowing it's on it's way!

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Dossier Review Complete!

Our agency emailed us today and told us that our dossier review is done and it is has been moved to translation. This means that they (our agency) have approved our dossier . It is complete and it will soon be sent to China! They will let us know when they mail it off to China! We are still hoping for a Log in Date (LID) by the end of January. For those of you who don't know what this is, this is the date the Chinese government gives us to let us know that they have officially received our dossier.

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Our dossier is done!

Finally we finished our dossier and sent it to our agency this past Tuesday, Jan 6th. It took us 9 months to get it done. It took Homeland Security 5 months to process our I800 application. The new system for Homeland Security that started on April 1, 2008 has made this whole international adoption process even more complicated. But the upside is that our dossier is finally being processed to go to China!

We have requested to adopt a special needs child. We haven't been matched with a child yet, but we hope to be matched fairly soon. We will update this blog as the exciting events unfold.