Happy Thanksgiving to us!!!

I hope you all had a blessed Thanksgiving this year! I know for us, we had one that we will NEVER forget, but before I move ahead with what made our day so special I need to back up the story some...(and ya'll know me with details so it's gonna be a long post ;-) !!

I haven't posted in a LONG time (again, just like last time...sorry), but in my last post I stated that we had our home study updated and in that we added that we are willing to take a special needs child from China. Since then, when someone has asked us about the status of our adoption we've been saying that we are still 'waiting' and that we are open to adopting a special needs child because the wait time is much shorter for those kids, so that is more than likely the route we will take! Just another update is that they are placing children with their 'forever families' with log in dates through the end of May 2006 and our log in date is March 5, 2009, so still a LONG, LONG way to go!!

Last month, I was out with some girls from my Sunday School class and one of the girls had just gotten back from China. Her and her husband had visited some family members who are missionaries there and told us stories of the orphanages and some of the sad things she had seen. Well, that next day Jaime and I were talking about that and had said 'We have got to get over there and get our baby girl and bring her home soon'. Well that SAME day, a lady from our adoption agency who works with the special needs department within our agency called us. Our adoption agency has never called us out of the blue in the 2 years we've been on this journey, so needless to say we were surprised. Anyway, she asked if we were still interested in adopting a child with special needs as it was stated in our updated homestudy (the one we updated in April, and again this was October...they never called til today) and we told her that we were. She then told us that once a month a shared list comes out for all the agencies to look through and if that agency picks a child from that list there is a 'lock' put on that child meaning no one has access to it except for the family that the agency chose it for. That family then has 72 hours to make a decision on whether or not they want to proceed to adopt that child. Hopefully that all makes sense...Anyway, the day Stephanie (lady from adoption agency) called that night was when the shared list was coming out and she told us if she found a good match for us, be expecting a call anytime that evening even up until midnight! So, we anxiously awaited for the phone to ring but it never did. She emailed the next day saying that there weren't that many kids as anticipated there would be on the list.

So, now to November...well the day the list was to come out for this month was this past Monday and again we waited but no call. We were fine with that and just accepted the fact that even with adopting a special needs child it may take awhile too.

Ok, so now to Thanksgiving Day...Jaime was on shift and I was at home and it was late, around 11:30 and Jaime calls and says he had a missed call and a voicemail but before he checked it, he checked his email and there was one from Stephanie with the subject; LITTLE GIRL LOCKED! She had found a girl and she was locked for only us to look at! Jaime then listened to his message and it was Stephanie, saying the same thing as her email. She sent us her medical records and even a few pictures of the little girl! All we can tell you is she is 16 months old and her 'special need' is that she has a cleft lip and palate.

After much prayer, discussing it, and having a doctor look over her medical records we have decided to proceed forward and adopt this precious little girl! If this is God's Will and everything goes according to plan this little girl will be our 3rd daughter!!!! We are beyond thrilled and wanted to share it with all of you! There still is so much to do so with that, they say the time frame we are looking at from now until we travel to China is 5 to 8 months so we should have her just before her 2nd birthday, which is July 25th! We told the girls today and they are so excited to be getting their little sister! It was just precious and so sweet with Abby, our oldest, that when we showed them her picture and they saw her cleft lip Abby said 'I'd love her with or without that lip'...ahhh, just made me want to cry!!

Please continue to pray for us during this journey as now there is an end in sight!! I will DEFINITELY be updating the blog much more often until we bring our baby girl home!!
Thank you!!
~Melissa

It's updating time...

Ok, wow, sorry as it's been a REALLY, REALLY long time for an update. I had no idea I hadn't updated our blog since August 2009, but that is the last time I did! Anyway, as the title says it's updating time; time to update the blog and time for us to update our paperwork. Every 15 months or so while we are still waiting we have to update some of our information like our homestudy so we met with Tiffany, our social worker, this past weekend. This week I went in to have another physical so that will be updated as well and have bloodwork done too, and Jaime goes in for that tomorrow! I'm pretty confident that all will go well, as we have been blessed with good health! We will also have to update our fingerprinting as well, and a few other things.

China has placed children with their 'forever families' through April 17th of 2006, and our log in date was last year, March 5, 2009. We have 'officially' been waiting just over a year and have many, many more to wait! Just to keep you in the loop, last year alone families with log in dates of the month of March 2006 were placed with their children. So, in one entire year, they went through just one month! So, even though we are three years from our log in date, it will take a lot longer than that to get to us...make sense?? A question from many of you is...'What if the wait is just too long, will you drop out and not adopt?' And our answer to that is ABSOLUTELY NOT!! We are the parents of 3 girls... period!! So, what's next?? When we started this process over 1 1/2 years ago we knew the wait could be as long as 3 to 4 years and we were prepared for that. We've only been waiting one year so we plan on waiting another year or so, and if the wait looks like it could be another 7 to 8 years (or something crazy like that), then our next option is to look into the special needs program with our agency. We've already submitted our application for that program but we would then just actively pursue a special needs daughter if and when the time is right and we feel like God is calling us to do that. We are still waiting but that is our next option if and when the wait becomes too long! Hope that makes sense and answers your question regarding if we'd ever pull out of the adoption.

A cute story about our youngest, Avery...you see she was only 2 when we started this journey and now that she is almost 4, she is really starting to understand what is going on. She prays for her 'little sister' from China almost every night and refers to herself as a big sister. One night when I was letting Abby stay up longer than Avery and we were going to play a game, Avery asked 'Mommy, when we get my little sister from China, and I'm a big sister, then can I stay up later than her and play a game?'....so cute! Our girls are so excited and can not wait either, just like us, to meet their little sister!

Thanks to everyone who continues to pray for us through this journey and I can not wait until the day comes for us to bring our daughter home from China!! What a day that will be!!!
Love,
Melissa

Still Waiting...

Just wanted to update the blog since it's been awhile...ok, 4 months to be exact! There really is not much new going on, just waiting which is something we will be doing for quite some time! They have placed children with their 'forever families' (just LOVE that name) from March 1st to March 24th, 2006 just in this year alone, so as you can see not much progress. It's almost the end of August so to recap, in 8 months they have ONLY done 24 log in days and our log in date is March 5, 2009, so still another 3 years to get through and that does not mean 3 years of waiting but much longer! We are at peace though and know that waiting is what we are meant to be doing right now. Someone said it perfectly in a message board for adoption and it was something like ' As parents we will do just about ANYTHING for our kids and right now, this daughter of ours in China needs us to wait for her, so that is what we will do'!! Just love that!!

It was a year ago today, that God really started speaking to us about adopting our daughter...it started at a bible study the evening of August 21st, 2008, and then again He spoke to me through a daily devotional that was emailed to me that Friday morning of August 22nd and here we are today a year later! We have a LID (log in date) and are waiting for our daughter! God is so good and we know He will bring us the perfect daughter in His time!!

Thanks to everyone for their continued prayers and support!
We love you all!
~Melissa and Jaime (Abby and Avery too-the big sisters)

We've got a Log In Date!!

Well, we sent our dossier to China back at the end of February and received word that it made it to China on Monday, March 2nd but we still hadn't heard when our exact LID (log in date) was. That was over 6 weeks ago and they said it may take anywhere from 4-6 weeks until we heard something....so, since we hadn't I decided to email the adoption agency and ask if they knew anything. Kim, who is the referral person we are working with now, emailed me back and apologized because she said she had actually sent that to us back on March 23rd! That's right, over 3 weeks ago we could have known our log in date but for some reason it never made it to our email so needless to say I'm so glad I emailed her....and our Log In Date is March 5, 2009!!

Again, just to give you an idea of the time frame of the wait we are looking at is that they are just now placing children with their 'Forever Families' that have Log In Dates of March '06. So we have 3 years to go to even get to ours and that's if they complete one year of log ins every year. So far they are in a back log and are only getting through a few months of LID's every year. Our prayer is for that process to pick up so we won't be waiting much longer than 3 years but we know ultimately God's timing will be perfect and are prepared to wait however long to have our 3rd daughter!

Thanks again to everyone for your continued support and prayers! We love ya'll!

Dossier to China

Well, it's offical...our dossier (all required adoption paperwork) is on it's way to China as I type this post! If you read our last post, we went to Austin last week on Tuesday, February 17th to have our I797-C form (US Government approval) certified by the State, then sent everything to Houston to the Chinese Consulate (on Wednesday the 18th) to have them authenticate everything. They received our papers on Thursday and sent them back to us on Friday, in which we got them from UPS on Monday of this past week. We put everything together (ok, really Jaime did) and sent it off to our adoption agency in Austin for them to look over it all. They called on Thursday and said everything looked 'perfect' and was in the China box and they sent it off yesterday, Friday. They said we will receive our 'Log in' Date sometime next week but may not hear back from them as to what the exact date is for another 4 to 6 weeks, but not to worry.

Anyway, this is such a good feeling to have this 'paper chase' part over with and now the real waiting begins! Please just continue praying for us during this process as this will be a long wait but we know in the end our daughter will be more than worth this wait!

I'll post again when we have our official 'log in' date!
Thanks again for all your support and prayers! Ya'll are the best!
~Melissa and Jaime

Day trip to Austin

On Tuesday, we took a road trip to Austin to get our I797-C (US adoption approval form) "certified" by the Texas Secretary of State. We saved ourselves about 7-10 days vs. FedEx-ing and them taking 7 business days to process. So now... all of our paperwork is with the Chinese Consulate in Houston getting "authenticated". We hope to have that back Monday or Tuesday, and then we'll overnight all of our dossier stuff to our agency (Great Wall) in Austin... and maybe... just maybe... our dossier will be headed to China Friday, Feb 27th!!!! Once our dossier is in China, our referral wait time begins... currently 38 months!!! As far as the wait... it will probably get a little longer as China processes the backlog and then hopefully it will speed up... So who knows for sure... It's in God's hands so we won't worry about that.

As far as the trip goes, Abby was in school. We took Avery with us and she was a "little trooper". We spent almost 10 hrs in the car! While we were in Austin we ate at Freebird's (I know there are several in DFW now). We also went to our adoption agency and met most of the staff including the director. It was nice to be able to put names with faces. Everyone was so nice. We'll post again when our dossier leaves for China... hopefully next week!

Moving right along...

Things are still moving slow in China (as far as referrals go). We can't do anything about that but it doesn't seem to be as bad as we indicated in our last post. Time will tell, and until then we'll just keep plugging along. On a brighter note, the US govt seems to be moving quicker on their end. Last summer it was taking 120 days or more for an I800-A approval. Now, the average has dropped to around 58 days! (they've had ours for about 30 days) This means, we should be able to get our dossier to China quicker!!! We went to the US immigration office last week for our fingerprinting and have sent some of our docs to the Texas Secretary of State for "certification". After certification, they go to the Chinese consulate for "authentication" and then into our dossier to be sent to China... Lot's of hoops to jump through but we're keeping busy and that's a good thing!
Thanks for checking in...