Update!

We received an update from China.  Among other measurements, we learned that Claire is 43 inches tall and 35 pounds.  This means she is tiny for 8!  Luke grew quite a bit when he first came home so we hope Claire will as well.  A couple of days after we got the update, we got pictures.  She is soooo beautiful!  Big doe eyes(daddy is in trouble), porcelain skin and look at those dimples!!

Our Chinese friend Leigh told us that the characters on the whiteboard say "I love Daddy Mommy"  How sweet is that???  We recently sent a care package to her with a letter and some books.  We were able to ask some questions and are hoping we get a response back soon.  It means so much to get something . . . .pictures, information, anything.  We are so anxious to go get her!

We sent our I800(more immigration paperwork) off last week and just a few minutes ago we received a notice that it was received.  More waiting . . . .

LOA!!!!

The roller coaster of international adoption has been quite a ride the last two days.  We have been waiting to receive the Letter of Acceptance(LOA) from China.  This is the official matching of Claire to our family.  It is the document that we sign saying yes, we will adopt Claire.   We have been waiting on LOA since April 15, 2011 when all of our documents were sent to China.  The average wait time is about 50 days.  That is counted from the date the documents are logged in with China.  Our log in date(LID) was April 29, 2011 so as of yesterday we were at day 61.  There are several other families with our agency that are also waiting on LOA and we were all commiserating about how long it was taking.

Yesterday a post to our list serve stated that all documents had to cross one person's desk in China and that person was on vacation.  We were told this is why everything was moving so slowly.  You can imagine our frustration.  We are so anxious to get Claire home and sometimes this journey seems so arbitrary.  Sometimes it feels like the people who are making the decisions don't care that the slower they are, the longer a child waits for her family.  We had been anticipating that LOA would come this week, but after this list serve post we knew that wasn't happening.  Sara at Madison Adoption Associates(MAA), our agency, was so empathetic yesterday when I sent an email saying I had to vent a little bit.

This morning while I was at court, I saw a post come from Kerry at MAA saying one family had received their LOA.  As I walked back to the office I knew that it wasn't us because if it was, they surely would call us right???  And no one had called.  I sat down at my desk and started up the computer.  There, low and behold, sitting in my inbox was an email from Kerry that it was our LOA that had arrived!!!

I've been giddy all day!!  This means that we are so much closer to making our trip to China to get our daughter.  Now we will fill out paperwork to go to Immigration asking that we be allowed to bring her into the US and documents go to China to ask we be allowed to travel there to get her.

Everyone is so excited.  Luke's words were that he is super excited Claire is going to be his sister and is rightfully taking credit for the whole thing.  Luke is definitely the red thread that binds us all together.

Hold on Claire, we are coming!  We can't wait to see you, hold you and bring you to your new home.  Just a few short months to go!!  Now to press forward to TA!!

Still Waiting

This waiting business is so hard!!  We originally thought we'd be well on our way to China by now.  "We'll get her in June or July".  That's what we said.  We are now at nearly the end of June with no travel plans in sight.

We are still waiting on LOA.  Earlier this week I learned that a family whose LID date is the exact same day as ours got their LOA last Friday.  So it really should be any time.  It's not like we can check on it.  Or like we can call China and say "Hurry up!!  There is a family waiting to be united!!"  We must patiently wait and hope for good news the next day.

The waiting is hard on everyone.  Catherine had a dream yesterday that China called us and said come get Claire on June 30.  Luke keeps asking when are we going?  Every morning I scan my emails and check area codes on incoming calls hoping to hear something from our agency.  They are on the East Coast, so I know if I don't hear anything by about noon, that I have to wait at least one more day.

One of the things that has been really different from Luke's adoption, is the parent education we have to do.  We had to complete about 10 hours of on line education and are now reading 3 books on Adoption and Attachment.  We have to write reports about the books.  I knocked one out pretty quickly.  The book that I'm reading now is super informative.  I think it's going to be very helpful with Claire, Luke and, ironically, my work!  So, while reading these books are really hard on a variety of levels, I think in the long run the process will be really beneficial.

Today, I'm attaching a picture of Claire.  It's one we received after she got her birthday presents from us. She is standing with 2 her caregivers.  You can how petite she is.  Can't wait to get her home!

What to do while waiting???

Our documents were sent to China almost 2 months ago.  It took the Chinese Center for Adoption Affairs about 2 weeks to log them in to their system.  So we are currently at day 34 of waiting for a letter from them officially matching us with Claire.  On one of the list serves I watch, there is one family who is at day 75 and still counting.  So it seems we have a while to go before we even hit that step.

So the question is what to do during the wait??  Start packing is what I want to do but that seems a bit premature.  I could start gathering our donations for the orphanage, but we are trying to save every cent to get our family to China and a friend has said that she wants to throw a "shower" and we decided that we would have people bring stuff to donate.  Lord knows I don't need any gifts.  Claire is gift enough!!

So I wait, I look at paperwork, I scour the Net trying to get an idea of other's time lines to see if we are getting close.  But nothing seems to keep the longing away.  We are so ready to get our girl!  It seems sort of funny because at this time last year, having another child in our family wasn't even being considered.  When I think of that, I marvel at the miracles God works in our lives!  I know Claire will come home exactly when she is supposed to.  Until then, I continue this lesson in patience.

Log In Date (LID)

We just found out that we were LID(Log in Date) on April 29, 2011.  This is the date that the Chinese Center for Adoption Affairs logs in all of the documents that we have sent to them to adopt Claire.  This is very exciting as it feels like things are moving along even though its not as fast as we would hope.  Hopefully our Letter of Acceptance(LOA) will arrive within the next month.  Of course we hope for sooner, but trying to be realistic.

We are coming Claire!!  Hold on for just a little bit longer!! 

DTC!!!

As of April 15, 2011 we are DTC.  This means dossier to China.  All the documents we have been collecting over the last 5 months:  Financial, medical, immigration, home study, employment etc. have been put in the mail to China.  This seems like the biggest step.  Now we wait for word from China that they have approved us and issued travel arrangements.  Looking at other's timelines it looks like we will have Claire home sometime in September.

I feel like I want to start packing right now!!!

Disappointed!

My goal was to have our dossier(all the documents we've been accumulating over the last 4 months) sent to China yesterday.  Well, we weren't able to make that happen.  I should know by now that one should never set an actual date, because invariably something will go wrong.

For us it turned out to be a multitude of things.  I found out that two of our documents were not completed correctly.  One was a document outlining Kevin's income.  Found out that best practice is to have a CPA do it.  Fortunately our CPA was Peter on the spot and got that done for us very quickly.  The other was that our application letter didn't specifically name Claire.  I had used a sample and didn't realize that we were supposed to include her name.  Those two documents now have to go through the certification and authentication process.  That means they have to go to Olympia and San Francisco before we can send them to our agency.

In addition, it turns out that our social worker didn't complete a bunch of inter-agency paperwork that she was required to complete.  Our agency will not send our dossier to China without the paperwork in hand.  There was a late afternoon round of emails between me and the social worker's agency about what needs to be filled out and who needs to to fill it out.  I was frustrated and frankly, angry because I felt like they were telling me that they didn't normally fill this paperwork out and so it sounded like they wouldn't.  Fortunately, I misunderstood and the meaning was that the social worker has to fill it out, not the agency.  Now if only she would answer the emails!

Keep us in your prayers.  Hoping to get this all done in the next week or so!!