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........

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".

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!!!!

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).

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.

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

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.