Still Waiting

It seems like things are just moving very slowly in the adoption world. I talked to Bethany this week and she's saying that we are still waiting for other families' dossiers to finish being authenticated before they send us all over in a group. There have been no new Consulate Appointments (CA's) granted for those who have already received pictures of the children they've been matched with. There have been no new referrals for those families who are next in line. So, we all ask for your prayers that the feelings of doubt and anxiety will disappear!

Isaiah (43:5) Do not be afraid, for I am with you;
I will bring your children from the east
and gather you from the west.


Micah (7:7) But as for me, I watch in hope for the LORD,
I wait for God my Savior;
my God will hear me.

Psalms (37:7) Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him;

Our Dossier is Finished

I got word from Bethany today that our dossier is complete and ready to go. However, not everyone else's who is in our group is ready and is moving a little slower than she expected. So, knowing that, we are probably looking at an early November DTC date. What's another week or two? But we were first done in our group! That means we won. We are ahead! I don't know, it makes me feel a little better.

DTC is Coming Soon

I had all the rest of the paperwork for our dossier to Dillon by 10am this morning. We do not have anymore paperwork to do until we get a referral. Bethany, our caseworker, said that we should be DTC by the end of the month! While we wait we have some parent education classes and books to read. Parenting an internationally, adopted child is not the same as parenting a biological child. Depending on her age and temperament we may have some pretty big hurdles.
Here's to praying that the wait shortens. Not just for our sake, but mostly for all the orphans' sake.

That PPP We Were Waiting For Came Yesterday!

After almost 6 weeks of waiting (the shortest wait is 8 days, the longest is 8 weeks) we finally received our I-171H from immigration! YEAH!! That is the last piece of the puzzle we were needing to finish our dossier. All we have to do now is get it to our adoption agency and then we wait to hear about a DTC date, then an LID date. The current wait is about 12 mos., but in April of '05 it was about 8 mos. So, the pendulum does swing back and forth.

PPP=Pesky Piece of Paper (while you are waiting for it) or Pretty Peace of Paper (after it comes)
DTC=Dossier to China (sent from our agency's office)
LID=Logged in to China (when it's logged in at the CCAA, the date the clock actually starts ticking)

One of My Favorite Pictures

I just had to post this one. It's from Candy Day last year. It was totally spontaneous, I didn't tell them to pose this way. I think it's just hilarious! 

Here are a few recent pictures of the kids and Jasmine. Ethan is getting so big and so ornery which is just the way I like him! That's Nicci with Hannah, then Conner with Jacob and Blaine at our annual "Blessing Party." Our three families get together for dinner, a "Back to School Relay," and we pray over our kids before they start school. As far as the adoption goes we are still waiting for what they call the PPP (pesky piece of paper) from USCIS. Once we get that in we take it to our agency's office and we are done with paperwork until we have our baby girl!


 

Chinese Lesson #1

There's a website called www.chinasprout.com and it has all kinds of information about China plus gifts, clothing, and jewelry. I was rummaging around the other day and found what Grandmother and Aunt were in Chinese. “Lao Lao” is for maternal grandmother. I believe it's pronounced kind of like "l-ow l-ow"and the ow is like wow and you don't pronounce it as two syllables. Does that make sense? Paternal grandmother is “Nai Nai,” pronounced like what a horse does, that's a little easier! I also found out that Ni Ni is for maternal aunt and Gu Gu for paternal aunt. So, Sue, Lyndal's mom is Nai Nai Sue, and my mom is Lao Lao Marcy. Angie, Amber, and Gaye are Ni Ni and Michelle, Lyndal's brother's wife, Cathy and Mary are Gu Gu. Alright, stay tuned who knows what I will come up with next!
The Chinese language is complicated because it has different tones and different tones can make a word mean different things. I think there are four tones. There are also different dialects of Chinese - Mandarin, Cantonese, and others.

One More Step Done

We drove to OKC this morning to get our fingerprints done. I was so worried we were going to have to wait forever and have to deal with a bunch of junk (I don't know what I was basing that on?!), but we got there about 11:05 and were out by 11:30 - YEAH! Now we just wait for them to send us a form, send that form to our agency, and we wait! I think after we get this form and send it to our agency we are done with our part of everything and we just get in line. YEAH! God is good!

A Name for the Baby Girl . . .

. . . According to Nicci!
Sweet Nicole is so creative and thoughtful. Does anyone remember when I was pregnant with Ethan and she was so sure it was twins and she wanted to name them Climber and Slider? Well, we got Climber a.k.a. Ethan - the kid climbs on everything! OK back to her ideas on what to name our little China Baby . . .

Pretty Star

Isn't that so beautiful? We told her we'd put it on the "list." What does everyone else think?

How Long Have We Been "Pregnant?"

We began the paperwork for our little China Baby in November of 2005. When Dillon received our Pre-Application they let us know that we would need to hold off until Ethan was a year old before we go any further. When March of 2006 rolled around we began working on Application II. So, we have been what in the adoption world is known as "Paper Pregnant" since November of 2005. Only about another year to go! I think that's longer than an elephant?

More Good News!

Our dossier has been authenticated and we are just waiting on the I-171H. We can't get the I-171H from Immigration until we do our fingerprints next Thursday. YEAH!!

We Got Something in the Mail!

We received our letter to go get fingerprinted yesterday! This means that immigration received our Home Study Report and we are just moving to the next step. We have to show up anytime on a Thursday in OKC and have them done. We plan to go next week to have them done, before Lyndal starts having to travel to San Antonio for a couple of months.
Yes, you heard me right, we are back being a family living in two cities again. He will be traveling Mon. - Thurs. for a couple of months. We've done it before, we'll do it again!

Bible Verses I Learned Yesterday

I am keeping a list of Bible Verses that we can stand on while we go through this. So far, they are mostly about orphans and patience. God is good and patience has not been a problem! We pray every night that this baby girl never knows the feeling of abandonment, being unsafe, or being unloved. We also pray that her birth mother and birth father will somehow know they don't have to worry and will strangely have a peace about them when they have to make this difficult decision.

Isaiah (49:23) Kings will be your foster fathers,
and their queens your nursing mothers.
They will bow down before you with their faces to the ground;
they will lick the dust at your feet.
Then you will know that I am the LORD;
those who hope in me will not be disappointed."


Habakkuk (2:3) For the revelation awaits an appointed time;
it speaks of the end
and will not prove false.
Though it linger, wait for it;
it° will certainly come and will not delay.


Micah (7:7) But as for me, I watch in hope for the LORD,
I wait for God my Savior;
my God will hear me.


Psalms (37:7) Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him;


James (1:27) Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

A Few More Pictures of Us

Ethan sneaking an apple, but not for long!
Conner at Scout camp.
Nicci at PaPa and GaGa's in Woodward.
One of the pictures we used for the adoption application. It's not easy getting all five of us to smile/face the camera/not drool (Ethan)! We took a lot of pictures of us! 

This is Us (minus me, the mom)!

This is from our trip to Disney World last November. We are Lyndal, Conner age 9, Nicole age 6, and Ethan now 14 mos. old (6 mos. at the time of this picture). Pretty soon, about another year, there will be a fourth child!