We Did It!!

Tomorrow our Dossier will be on its way to China!!

Our (BIG) part is finally done.  Now we wait on China and the US to finish the process.  At this point we could still travel this year.  It is looking like end of November to beginning of December.  We would like to be able to leave by December 3rd so that we would be back the week before Christmas.  If that doesn't happen then we will probably be leaving December 31st (the week after Christmas).  We just can not miss Christmas with our kids at home.  But at least we are one step closer to meeting our precious baby girl.

Almost There

I just received word that my authentication papers are heading back to me today.  Woo Hoo!!!  That means that I will be sending my dossier to China this week.  It will leave my agency's office this Friday!!!!  One more step behind us.  One step closer to Makinley.  Hopefully we can still travel by end of this year.

Best Gift EVER!!!!

My friend, Heather, was at Makinley's orphanage last week and she was able to get some video of my Makinley!

Thank you, Heather, for taking the time to get this video for me. It is ABSOLUTELY PRICELESS!!!






She didn't want her picture taken.  What a mess my baby girl is!!

Timing is Everything

I was pondering our travel to China to get our precious baby girl.  I really want her home before the end of the year, not in January!  I know that there is a good chance that we might have to travel in January so I decided to find out when Chinese New Year was for 2012.  I really don't want travel to be around then because all offices shut down for weeks during the celebrations.  We ran into this problem when we were adopting Ashlyn.  We ran into Autumn Moon Festival instead of Chinese New Year with her adoption and we could not travel for a month after we were suppose to because of the celebrations.

Soooooo......Chinese New Year is on January 23rd.  Makinley's birthday.  Please, oh please, let me get to her before they shut down for the celebrations.  I will be devastated if I have to miss her third birthday.

Adoption is one of the hardest things I have ever had to do.

Status Update

Tomorrow I will be sending off all of my documents for my dossier to be Authenticated.  It is the last step in the process of getting my paperwork together.  After these documents are returned to me, I will be sending a great, big package to my agency and they will then send it off to China!!

It was taking about four months from the point that the package was sent until we would be able to travel.  We were thinking that we would be travelling some time in November.  Now the process has slowed down and the Letter Seeking Confirmation has gone from one month to three months!!  This now means that we probably will not be travelling until January.  YUCK!!

Only God knows the exact day that I will meet my sweet Makinley.  I trust in Him and I know that His timing is perfect...even if it doesn't feel like it.

Approval

I just received our approval for our I800A!!  It took 49 days for them to approve it.  On to the next step!!

Half Way There

Today is day 31 of waiting for my I800a.  The wait is running about 45-55 days right now.  That means that we are more than half way through the wait for approval.  On day 39 we go on vacation and don't get back until day 52.  Sooooo, what I am praying for is that when I return that my approval letter will be in my huge pile of mail waiting for me.  That would just make my day!!

The next step is getting my final papers certified and authenticated.  Then I will send my dossier to my agency and I am calculating that my dossier should be to China by the end of June.  That would be soooooo great!

Mother's Day

Mother's Day was very nice at our house this year.  It is one of my favorite days of the year and I always look forward to it.  My amazing husband knows how much it means to me so he always stretches it out for a whole weekend.  I love my man!

This year was a bit low key.  I like it that way.  Just having a weekend to relax and do nothing if that is what I feel like.  Unfortunately this year my kids were not feeling well, so that is the reason that things were so low key.  Sometimes God just allows our house to get sick so that we stop and just be still.  It was a blessing to have such a peaceful weekend.  And, yes, my kids are feeling better now.  It was our bout with the "summer" cold.

I had a lot of time to myself.  A lot of time to reflect.  A lot of time to really see the blessings that God has given to me in being a mother.  I also felt the sting that I felt two years ago.  The sting of knowing that you have a child that is half way around the world from you and not with you where she belongs.  It is very hard for moms to celebrate Mother's Day and to not have a child with you.  Especially a young child.  That does not even know that she has a Momma.  I felt very blessed and sad at the same time. 

Praying for all of the Mommas that are waiting for their children.  Praying that the wait will end soon.

Fingerprint Appointment Complete

Today we were able to walk in and get our fingerprints done.  Thanks so much to all of you who let me know about this.  I was bummed that our appointment wasn't until May 20th.  Now it is all taken care of.  Praying that our I800a is approved quickly.

Fingerprint Appointment

I just received notice today that our fingerprint appointment is scheduled for May 20th.  This is the next step in obtaining our I800a.  I would love to get it done sooner (ya know, to speed up the process).  Can any one fill me in on information about walk-ins?  I had never realized that you could do this until I saw it on Rum*r Queen.

Thanks guys!

Over the Moon!!

So we thought that the picture that we received yesterday was fabulous and then this morning I received this......

So happy that others are going to Makinley's orphanage to adopt their children.  Love that while they are there they think of me and get me these amazing gifts....glimpses of my baby girl.

I think that we have watched the video 100 times already.  I think that every time I try and will it to be a little longer.

Sleeping Angel

We have a sleeping angel sent straight from Heaven!

And she sucks her thumb!!

I was given this picture by a friend of mine who just travelled to the orphanage to meet her son.

I love our Z group!!

Here We Go...(Again!)

On Tuesday I resent both of my packages.  Funny how paranoid I was that I was missing or forgetting something!  I think I checked and rechecked the packages several times to make sure that everything was there and I had done everything right.

So now we just sit and wait.  The BIG part for me is done.  All I have to do now is get documents certified and authenticated.  After that I will send my dossier to my agency.  Hopefully this will be some time by the end of June.  I am really praying that our dossier gets to China by end of July. 

Now we just sit and wait...aaahhhhh....the fun part. (Tons of sarcasm in my voice).

My BIG Ooooooppppsssss!!

Saturday the mailman arrived with a package for me.  "Wow," I thought, "that was fast!"  I should have known better.  Anytime you get stuff back from the government fast it is probably NOT good news.  It wasn't.  The documents that I sent off to be certified were returned to me because they were missing my marriage certificate.  Uuuummmmm...no they weren't.  The certificate was the 4th page in the batch of documents.  Now this in no way holds us up, but it cost me a pretty penny to send them off and then I also paid for them to send them back!!  Now I am starting all over.  What a waste of money!!  That was entirely frustrating.

But wait, another package...this one from USCIS!!!  Wait, it is too thick to be a letter stating that they were processing my application.  UUuggghhhhhh.......everything was sent back!!!!!  I apparently, in my very organized speediness, forgot to SIGN the application...hubby too!!!!!!  Uuuuggghhhhh!!!!!!!!  Now this DOES hold us back.  This process is taking 60 days, and because of my mistake I cost us a week!!  THAT STINKS!!!!

So now that I have vented, I am going to start all over and send off my I800A application.  Please let it take less than 60 days!!!

My Precious Baby Girl

Today, my baby girl is two years and two months old.  She is waiting for us in an orphanage half a world away (literally).  My heart so longs to hold her.  I pray that this journey to her does not take too long.  But any time away from your child is just too long.

Today I received six pictures of my baby's birthday party.  We sent her a cake so that she could celebrate her belated second birthday.  She turned two right before we actually found her.  Four days before to be exact.  I am so looking forward to celebrating her third birthday at home with her next year.  At home...right where she belongs.

Yes, she does have dots of icing on her cute little face.
(Her nanny put them there.)

Yes, she is wearing a Santa hat the reads,
 "Merry Christmas" in English.

Yes, these pictures were just taken
 this week...in March.

I absolutely adore everything about these wonderful pictures of my beautiful, chunky-cheeked baby girl!



Homestudy Approved!

I was just notified that our agency has approved our Homestudy! 

After I get a copy in-hand this week, I will be mailing it off to USCIS with our I800A application.  It is taking them anywhere from 45-60 days to approve this.  Praying for 45 days or less!

At this point it is looking like we will be travelling around November of this year!

How It All Began

Back in January, my husband and I were having a conversation about our family's future and where we thought we were going.  We knew that God was leading us to add to our family again, but we were not exactly sure how He wanted to do that.  We had conflicting directions and for months we had gone back and forth on them trying to follow God's lead.  We were actually finally putting our finger on the direction that we felt we were suppose to move in when Donny told me that even though we were moving in this direction God was telling him we were suppose to adopt. 

To back it up a bit, we have always felt that we would adopt again.  We knew when we were adopting Ashlyn that this would not be the last time we would walk this road.  We actually were praying for our "other" little girl while we were in the process of adopting Ashlyn.  There were many times that I would feel so burdened for this child that I would just cry.  I told my husband on several occasions that I felt like we were leaving our daughter in China.  (In actuality, we were.  Makinley was born the year that we adopted Ashlyn).  I also wrote in my journal that I would never forget her.  I would go back for her.  I would fight for her.

So after our conversation, I was having a casual conversation with a dear friend of mine and was asking her about the process to adopt in China.  I run an adoption and orphan care ministry and I like to stay informed so that I can answer people's questions when they come to me.  Somewhere in the midst of our casual conversation I was scrolling through the Waiting Child list.  All of the sudden I saw the most beautiful face and I stopped on her information.  Her information read:  VSD, brain injury at birth, and high muscle tension in the right side.  Ok...any other moment in my life I would have said, "OH...ummm...this is not going to work for our family dynamics at this time."  And then I would have just moved on....but I didn't.  It did not scare me off.  That in itself is a miracle.  I could hear God whispering to me, "It's not what it seems."  Over and over for the next two weeks I would hear this.  It was always washing over me.  Knowing that sometimes these sweet kiddos are tagged wrong I asked for a little more information.  Then I talked to my husband.

That evening I presented all of the tiny bit of information that I had.  We both agreed that this could be God leading us to adopt her, but we were definitely not sure.  We would ask to review her file and see what happens.  Now in being truly honest, we were both thinking that something in this file was going to tell us "no" that she was not our daughter.  But we both knew that if we did not adopt this little girl, God was still trying to tell us something.

We received the file on a Monday and I poured over every little detail about this sweet baby girl.  There was a lot of it too.  Out of all of those medical reports, pictures and even a video (I know, a video, unreal isn't it?), I could find absolutely NOTHING wrong with this child.  Except for her description...HIE...lack of oxygen to the brain at birth.  Ok, I'm not gonna lie, we were scared to death!  We looked up all the information on HIE, and folks, it's not pretty.  Ninety percent of children in the world born with HIE have severe handicaps and severe mental retardation.  The brain just can not go without oxygen.  If this child's issues were minor like they seemed, she would be in the ten percentile in the world for not having severe issues from the HIE.  MIRACLE!!! 

We needed more information (since her file was from 6 months ago).  With it being smack dab in the middle of Chinese New Year, we were going to have to wait.  WAIT....not my favorite word.  We did a lot of praying.  We did a lot of crying.  Well, I did a lot of crying.  Then more praying and more crying.  How was this going to affect our happy little home?  How was this going to affect our children?  We still have two little ones at home...3 and 4 years old.  God, really?!?  But there was that whisper, "It's not what it seems."  I could not ignore it.  So after MUCH talking, we decided that if she could walk, we could do this.  We felt very good about that.  We kept saying over those two weeks (which by the way felt more like two months) that at this point God was going to have to show us why we should NOT adopt her.

We went to church on Sunday, right before Chinese New Year was going to end.  We were hoping that we would be hearing more information on her that week.  That day God met us at church.  He spoke so loud and clear I felt like He was about to shake me.  When I left church that day I had my answer.  We went home and I told my amazing, obedient to the Lord husband what God had spoken to me and he just smiled.  He said, there is our word that we were waiting for.  Want to know what He said to me?  Well in our class the message was on fear.  Hmmmmm....I have never been so fearful in all my life.  But more fearful of making the wrong decision and letting God down.  Fear is not from God.  God has shown me time and time again in my life that His ways are always better than mine and that He is not going to harm me or my family.  Yes, it may be extremely hard to walk the road He calls us to, but it is always worth it.  And it is always the best way.  He wants to give us blessings.  I knew in my heart that if this was where He wanted us to go, He was going to bless us with it.  I have faith in my God.  He loves me greatly.  He told me that morning that I needed no other information on this child.  I was to trust Him and follow where He wanted our family to go.

So that Monday we told our agency that we had to decided to adopt Makinley with no other information than what we had.  That same morning more information on our baby girl had arrived from China.  She was WALKING!!  She was TALKING!!!  WOW!!!!!  That is all I can say, WOW WOW WOW!!!  God just wanted us to follow in obedience before He showed us that she is indeed a MIRACLE child. 

We received all of her hospital papers from her birth.  All of the papers from the NICU hospital she stayed at for a month were included also.  We know her China mom was 40 weeks pregnant when they had to give her an emergency C-section to get the baby out because the baby was in distress.  Who gets this information????  There were many more details that God allowed us to know about our daughter.  I am in awe.  With what we see in her information she now falls into the 2 - 3 percentile for HIE of children that have very little affects from the lack of oxygen to the brain.

What I am hoping is that our story will give someone hope.  I pray that someone reading this will take a leap of faith and adopt a child that seems to be to hard for them.  In the end, we chose this route because God told us that this little girl needed a family.  And that our family needed this little girl.  I pray that this helps someone to trust God and follow in obedience.

Where is Makinley?

Makinley is in Zhongshan, Guangdong.

The province right to the left of hers
 is where Ashlyn was born.

Guangdong is where the American Consulate is located, so on this trip we will be spending two weeks in Guangzhou, Guangdong.

One week for province paperwork, and one week for American Consulate paperwork.

Please Pray

Today in Yunan, China a 5.8 magnitude earthquake hit. 

This province is in the southwestern part of China on the border of Myanmar.

So far 22 people have died and many other are wounded.  Hundreds of buildings have collapsed.

Please pray for these people.

Paper Work...How Quickly We Forget!

So I just spent a bit of time...can't remember how long....putting together my paper work for my I800A.  Everything is done and waiting for my Home Study to be finished and approved. 

Driving full steam ahead to get to my baby girl.  I refuse to be delayed by anything on my part.  On the other end, well, I can not control how fast everyone else goes.  Praying for a super fast adoption journey!