Dang Qing Wen pics

We finally received our Pre-Approval to adopt Wennie (nickname for now - still grapling with her American name). Here are a few pics of her. We are on track to travel this spring (we hope).

Preapproval....maybe this week.

We sent in our Letter of Intent to adopt on 1/5/10. It takes on the average about 14 to 20 days to get this preapproval from China. This preapproval is what we need to say with complete certainty that our little girl has been put on hold for us at the CCAA (China Center for Adoption Affairs).

We have been working on an American name for our daughter. We have had a lot of fun trying to come up with a name. Her middle name will be Wen. The Chinese that speak Mandarin Chinese say that it is pronounced "won". We will pronounce it as it looks. "wen". Anyway, we will let you know when we get our preapproval and when we come up with her complete name. That's when we will post her picture! YAY!

We have been calling her "Wennie" at this point. Some of you will cringe at that one and some will say "that's so cute". Her legal name will not be Wennie.

Hope to have some good news soon!

A little birdie told us something important..........

As some of you know and most don't, we have gotten "THE CALL" from our agency! I think something happened, maybe someone intervened, that ended our wait, it wasn't our immigration paperwork, it's still out of date. We are scheduled to get refingerprinted next week. All I can say is that our little girl made her appearance to our agency and they referred her to us, in spite of what they had said. They finally matched us with a little girl that has the special need we indicated we were the most open to. I wish I could post some pictures at this point, but our agency has requested that until we receive the official word from the Chinese Center of Adoption Affairs that they have preapproved us we can't post any pictures of her. Sorry!

But I will tell you that she is 2 years old. She has a repaired cleft lip and repaired cleft palate. She is reported to be smart, extroverted, easy going and we think she is BEAUTIFUL!

When we are allowed to post pictures we will!

We are so happy and are looking forward to going to China to get our new daughter! (not the plane ride! ) We went to China in economy class last time. About 12 hours into the flight I told David that people in prison get more room than we do and get better service too.

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.

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.

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.

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.