waiting, waiting and waiting

Once we received the referral, my waiting anxiety disappeared. For about a month or so.

I'm checking emails, checking the boards, wishing for our LOA. Maybe the magical refresh button will make the LOA appear. NOT!

There are no LOA's in sight anywhere. There seems to be a stall. I'm not sure we will be in the next batch or not. I was hoping to spend Christmas in China but I guess it might be January.

I think the problem is that Sept 2006 is in the Review Room. People are saying until Sept 2006 is out of review we won't get our LOA since we have Sept LID.

30 days....

As I sit here on a Sunday, I look back at the last month and ponder all the changes that have happened and all the changes that will happen.


It has been over 30 days since we knew of Ricky.

It has been over 30 days since we got his pictures.

It has been over 30 days since we have turn in our Letter of Intent to China for Ricky.

It has been over 30 days since I have now become a mommy to 2! Even though I don't have him yet, I have become emotionally attached to this little guy.

Part of me thinks time is flying by, while the other part is saying hey slow down you have too much stuff to do.


No more counting LID months.

No more worrying about how long this process is going to take.

No more stressing over the lack of referrals from CCAA.


I'm the type of person that needs that end date. That is what has made the wait so hard for me. Well my end date should be coming soon. We are thinking either late December or early Jan.

We are now waiting for our social worker to update our homestudy. It has been a week since we met with her. I was hoping to see the update this weekend. We need to have the update done in order to get refingerprinted for the USCIS. We didn't get the update.

There is a family from Peachtree City that is traveling to the orphanage this week to pick up there daughter. She has offered to try to get updated pictures of Ricky. I'm hoping that she is successful.

Pre-approval is here

Pre-approval letter came 2 weeks after our Letter of intent. It basically means that they have moved our file over to the waiting child pile.

hopefully in 60-90 days we will get a letter of acceptance. then comes Travel Approval then comes going to China!

Jen

boy how things change.....

I didn't even notice our 12 month wait went by. I guess we don't have to count anymore. Life has a funny way of throwing you curve balls.

To say that we are so not prepared for Ricky's arrival is an understatement. We thought we had 2 plus years of waiting. I know we signed up for the waiting child program but I really didn't think we would get a referral this quick and one that we would accept.

At this point we are so overwhelmed my head is spinning. It doesn't help that my work is very busy. I feel like we have so much to do and so little time.

The agency is saying we have anywhere between 3-5 months. I'm figuring on January 2008.

We are in the middle of our homestudy update. We had to add an addendum onto our homestudy because we were not originally approved for a waiting child. That is done and has been sent off to China. Our social worker is coming the first week of October to do the homestudy update. We have to update our homestudy because our approval from the US expires on Jan 24, 2008. We cannot take the chance of this expiring. We might have enough time, we might not.

Yesterday we went to Scottish Rite Craniofacial Center who will perform Ricky's cleft palate surgery. They were really nice. It was an informal let's get to know you type of meeting. It lasted 30 minutes. They told us what to expect for Ricky's first surgery and possible other surgery's as he gets older.

I think it put Bill's mind at ease that we can handle this. He is still worried about some other aspects such as Ricky being teased because he might have a speech impediment. No one wants their child teased especially for physical limitiations. I'm still hoping with lots of speech therapy and lots of love, he will do fine. Watch out mean kiddo's, I'm on the lookout for you!

Right now, we are awaiting China's pre-approval of our adoption of Ricky. This is sort of just of formality. We should be hearing soon -- typically take a couple of weeks to hear this.

After that the next step is Letter of Acceptance. China send this as their formal declaration that you have been approved. This letter can take anywhere from 60-90 days.

After that is Travel Approval - typically within a month of the letter of acceptance.

Here comes Ricky!!!

I emailed our agency today and asked if we could post pictures.

They said why not -- he is YOUR son!!!!

So here is Ricky at 8 months.

then at 1 year just taken last week! He is in pink! Boys love to wear Pink!

WE HAVE A SON!!!!

I guess there is no other way to put other than shout it from the rooftops but we have a baby boy. This week we got to review a file of a waiting child from the Fuling Orphanage in Chongqing. He is just turned 1 on Sept 2nd. Happy Birthday, baby! He has a repaired cleft lip and unrepaired cleft palatte. We consulted with a wonderful international adoption doctor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham - International Adoption Clinic - Dr. Chambers. She has adopted twin girls from China in Chongqing herself. After our consultation, we accepted the referral yesterday.

As soon as I have permission to post more on the blog, I will.

Here is a picture of China and I have circled where we will be going hopefully in January 2008.

11 month LID Anniversary

Today marks 11 months of officially waiting. China has referred up to Nov 21st 2005. I believe that is 293 more LID days to go. Problem is that they have only referred 7 LID days in the last couple of months

We started this process in March of 2006 so add another 5 months onto the process. When we started this and went to orientation, they told us 12-14 months. When we sent our paperwork in it was 14-16 month wait. So naively I thought we would be in China this year.....well that isn't happening. Based on current calculations, it is looking like June/July 2009. It is very hard to imagine where we will be in 2009 in our life. Emmy will be 9.

All I have to say this whole process just isn't what we signed up for and isn't very fair.

I have found several children on other agencies waiting child programs that I think we could of handled the need but we cannot petition for that child because China doesn't allow you to persue a child on another agency list. So we must wait on our list. Our agency waiting list is large.

Regarding the waiting child (special needs) program we signed up for in April that is the only sign of hope I have right now. I'm banking all my dreams on this and we will get matched with a child that will have some minor special medical need that we can handle. I have told Bill that I cannot see the picture when we get a this match as I will fall in love with the picture only and not read the medical. When could this match happen....well they are starting to match boys from Feb-April. Most people on this waiting child program are waiting for a girl. We said either so I'm pretty sure if we do get a match it will be a boy.

So there is a slight chance that we could get matched on their next list which is suppose to arrive soon. A match doesn't mean we can accept it. It all depends on the need. I am also not trying to bank everything on a match soon. I have been soooo disappointed in this whole process. I'm not sure how I will handle it if we can get a match but we cannot accept it.

I keep tell Bill it is a leap of faith. No matter if it is a bio child or an adopted child, it is a leap of faith. You just don't know what medical or emotional need will happen in the future. You just need to go with it.