The Wait...and the Preparations...and our First Care Package!

Forgot to give you the statistics on our Little Man. He was born on September 4th, 2003 (wonder what we were doing that day?!). The updated medical info shows that, on April 16, 2007, he weighed 30.8 lbs and was 36.8 inches tall.

Interestingly, I just realized that the supplement attached to the medical info misstates his birthday as September 13th! Yikes!!

Carson has spent his life at the Hefei City Children's Welfare Institute (CWI) in Anhui Province. According to the update, however, since January 30th of this year he has been living in an "organized model two-parent foster home." That is GREAT news for Carson! He is getting more one-on-one attention and is also enjoying the "love of a father and mother and the friendship of brothers and sisters."

Normally, the orphanage director and caregivers aren't told about a child's adoption until travel approval is granted...about two weeks before we arrive. In order to let them know now that we are adopting Carson -- so that they can start preparing him for the changes to come -- we are sending a couple of care packages. We have been a little late getting this together (between life in general and my sister, Debbie, getting married in early June we have been SWAMPED!) but we finished shopping last night.

The loot (see picture above) all has to fit in two boxes the size of shoeboxes! It fits but, boy, is it tight!! Not all of the gifts are for Carson...we are giving the Dove chocolates to the orphanage director and the candy and some of the toys are for the foster family. We are going to fill the photo album (see it, on the right leg of the overalls?) with photos of our family, our house, and Carson's room. We will also put copies of the pictures we have of him in the album so he will see he is part of this family now, too. We have labels in Chinese writing to help the foster family explain to him who everybody is.

Meggie was initially a little hesitant about the trip to China but now that preparing for it includes SHOPPING...well, she is totally on board!! She thinks we should send a care package every 3 or 4 weeks until we travel.

Geez...she wants to spoil him rotten before we even meet him!!!

The Wait...and the Preparations...

When we accepted Carson's referral, I asked Deniece if we could get updated info on him. In the referral photos, he looked about 2 yrs old to me...and he's nearly four now! We really wanted to know what he weighs, how tall he is, if his health has changed at all...and we wanted more pictures!!

On June 23rd, we were doing some last minute cleaning in preparation for Meggie's 14th birthday party. The mail arrived at 2PM and there was an envelope from CCAI! I had no idea what was in it, but anything from CCAI is a big deal at our house. I opened it and there was a handwritten note from Pam: "Hi Kevin & Teresa, Here is an update and pictures of your adorable little boy!" I went literally weak in the knees!!! My shaking hands opened the small brown envelope with Chinese writing on it...is it possible that Carson got even CUTER since the last pictures??? Oh, yes, it is possible!! He also has lost some of the "baby" look and is starting to look like a little boy!

The original referral packet stated that, at two months, he would "stare at your face and sometimes smile" and that at four months, "he would not only smile but also laugh out loud." While those milestones are priceless information to me, I cannot possibly put into words my elation at the smile on his little face in these updated pictures!! So far, all of his pictures have been so serious that I was worried he couldn't -- or wouldn't -- smile. It brought tears to my eyes to see happiness in my baby's face!!

Meggie and I dropped what we were doing for the party -- probably dusting or something equally non-fun -- and ran to Walgreens with the pictures. We made 4x6s, 5x7s, and wallets of both poses. How PERFECT that the pictures arrived two hours before the birthday party, when everybody in the family was coming over! We were bursting with excitement as we handed out the updated pictures!!

I show the updates to...pretty much whoever will look at them!! Guess I'm on the road to becoming the most OBNOXIOUS mommy on the planet...

An Unexpected Twist, Part Two...

So, our dreams for Alyssa Nicole are put on hold...Carson David QiuFeng joins the family first! (Yes, we are planning on adopting again as soon as we can after Carson comes home!) Once we made it official, we told just about EVERYBODY!! It's so funny...we started this journey in October of 2005 and everyone kept saying how long it was taking. Now that we've accepted a referral, the standard response we're getting is, "That was QUICK!" Isn't that a hoot??

When I announced Carson's referral via e-mail, I got tons of e-mail responses from friends, family members, coworkers, and even my "family" on the Yahoo groups! I saved them all and will be incorporating the e-mails into a scrapbook...a scrapbook that is still in the formative stages in my mind. I just want Carson to know how much we already loved him and how excited everyone was to hear about him joining our family!

The nursery will sit, ready...the guest room is now Carson's room! We decided against a sports theme (Kevin's first choice) in case Carson's physical issues keep him from being able to participate in organized sports. We decided it would be too much pressure and we didn't want Carson to some day feel like he let us down. (Are we over-thinking things?) In the referral package, they stated that his favorite toy was a toy car...so we went with a transportation theme (trucks, trains, planes). I never realized how much FUN it would be to decorate for a boy!! The room looks awesome -- Kevin did a GREAT job!!

My sister (Debbie) and my girlfriends (Sarah, Nikki, and Wendy -- Tim's wife) are all insisting on throwing me "toddler showers." Heaven knows we need just about everything!! Meggie is a teenager now and we are basically starting over! Debbie came over and together we registered online...that was fun, too! We are so blessed with how supportive everyone is being with this adoption!!

My friend, Sarah, e-mailed our referral pictures to Walgreens and we were able to get prints! The quality wasn't great, but it's something to show off!! I was so distracted...it was quite similar to the walking-on-clouds feeling I got back in 1992 when I found out I was pregnant with Meggie!! Sarah incorporated one of the pictures into a framed announcement...she gave it to me at the softball fields and I sat and cried!! (I am not a crier, normally!)

I still can't believe I get to be this adorable little guy's mommy...

An Unexpected Twist...

Being LID felt good...for a while! After a couple of months...and a growing awareness that our wait to adopt was stretching into a potentially three year wait...I decided to talk to Kevin about possibly considering a special needs child (also called "waiting children" in adoption lingo). I have felt from the beginning that God put the burden on my heart to do this, but Kevin was SO afraid! I didn't want to force the issue, but I haunted CCAI's Waiting Child page trying to find my little girl's picture peeking back at me.

On Friday, May 11th, I was looking at the Waiting Child page at work, showing the adorable kids to my coworkers. When I got to the picture of the chubby-cheeked, serious little guy in a purple shirt -- a picture Meggie and I had looked at many times in the past month -- one of my coworkers (yes, Sherry, you get some credit here!) convinced me to go with my gut and ask for more info on him. His special need was stated as post-surgery clubbed feet and malformed wrists. That seemed so manageable!

I e-mailed the agency and received a reply within 20 minutes! (Deniece -- the Manager of CCAI's Waiting Child Program -- is one efficient lady!! ) She sent more pictures and close-ups of his surgical scars. She said the file was being translated and we would have to wait to see it until the following week. Talk about an excruciatingly long weekend! I e-mailed the pictures to Kevin at work and he immediately said, "Let's do it!" Meggie was ECSTATIC!! Her insistence that we get her a sister turned into total head-over-heels love of this Little Man (what we called him until we picked a name).

I called and told my parents that evening...they were initially hesitant when they heard "special needs" but melted immediately when they saw the e-mailed pictures. We hosted Kevin's family for Mother's Day that Sunday and told his parents at the end of the evening. They were immediately supportive and loved the pictures! We didn't tell anyone else because it really wasn't "official" yet and we hadn't seen his translated file.

The file was available by Tuesday of the next week and didn't contain any surprises. I had a bunch of doctors at work look at the photos and the medical info and we were pretty confident this Little Man was our son. It took a couple of days to work up the courage to contact CCAI and let them know we would accept his referral! (This was a HUGE leap of faith for us... remember, we were anticipating adopting a girl 0-12 months and this was a boy, 3 1/2 years old.)

I called Deniece on Thursday, May 17th, and told her we wanted to adopt this Little Man -- it became official!! She overnighted us documents that had to be notarized and returned within 48 hours. We did the paperwork and CCAI received it back on Monday, May 21st. The Letter of Intent (LOI) was sent to China on May 21st and we received Pre-Approval (PA) -- which was supposed to take 1-2 months -- on May 25th, four days later!! Yikes, this is moving very quickly!!

And the nursery is ready for a girl...

The Journey Begins...

After Meggie was born, we really wanted more children but that wasn't in God's plan for us. We attempted domestic adoption a couple of times (got really close twice), still no baby. Many of our friends and coworkers have completed international adoptions and convinced us we ought to look into that as an option.

In July of 2005, a representative from an international adoption agency -- Chinese Children Adoption International (CCAI) -- made a presentation at our Church. When Meggie heard about the presentation, she begged us to attend. She wrote the info on the kitchen calendar and pretty much hassled us until we agreed. Secretly, we had already decided to go...but it was fun to "torture" her for a while!

The meeting was eye-opening! The plight of the Chinese orphans really touched our hearts and we finally realized that THIS was God's plan for us and the way we would grow our family! We worried about the financial cost (they don't just GIVE these babies away!) and dragged our feet for a couple of months. On October 30, 2005, we submitted our application to CCAI and on November 4th, we received notice our application had been accepted!

Following acceptance, we were e-mailed an ENORMOUS packet of information to begin our dossier -- which are all of the documents required to complete an international adoption. Let me tell ya, that packet was quite intimidating! I decided to wait 'til after the holidays to get started. Then came January, 2006...February sounded like a good starting point. Oops, here we are in February...maybe I'll get brave in March. March rolled around and I got serious! The paperchase began!!

Some of the documents were easier to obtain than others. All of the documents had to be signed, notarized, certified by the County Clerk, then authenticated by the Secretary of State. Since we live in one County, I work in another, and Kevin works in yet another, I spent many hours and miles driving things to County Clerk offices! We were going to drive them to the Secretary of State (a roughly two-hour drive), but trusted Express Mail and everything worked out fine.

The biggest things in the paperchase were the home study and getting fingerprinted at the Office of Homeland Security. Our home study occurred in early May and was very nerve-wrecking! The social worker was very kind but we still sorta felt like we were on trial or something. Add to that the fact that Kevin says some crazy things when he's nervous -- we don't call him Captain Diarrhea Mouth for nothing -- and I'm surprised we got approved!! Actually, the home study went smoothly and we were approved to adopt a female, age 0-12 months.

We were fingerprinted on July 7, 2006 and that was also nerve-wrecking! Kevin -- in his infinite wisdom -- came to the appointment directly from work, wearing steel-toed boots! (There are security guards and metal detectors at the entrance to the Office of Homeland Security, by the way!) He had to be patted down and "wanded" to be sure he wasn't carrying a firearm. I was LITERALLY shaking by the time they took my fingerprints!

Fingerprints are supposed to clear within weeks, based on what we were told -- six to 10 weeks at the most -- and then generate the last, treasured document, the I-171H. Not for us!!! We found out in late August that we had to be refingerprinted!!! Are you KIDDING me?? Something about the fingerprints not being clear or something. Unfortunately, our refingerprinting appointment wasn't until September 28th...another wasted month!! Thankfully, those fingerprints cleared quickly and we were issued our I-171H on October 16th, 2006.

Since that was the last document, you would think we were finished. But, NO, some of the documents I had obtained early in the process had EXPIRED and had to be redone!! Then, add the holidays... Finally, our dossier arrived at CCAI on January 12, 2007. Did the delays stop there? Nope. One of our documents was stamped by the County Clerk's office but no one signed it! (Hard to believe I didn't catch that!) That document had to be Fed-Ex'd back to me, then I had to run to the County Clerk's office, give them a hard time (teasingly, of course), then Fed-Ex it back.

Finally on January 19th, our dossier went to China and we received our Log-In-Date (LID) on February 10th! We were finally officially "in line" to adopt a baby girl from China! The nursery was ready (bugs and flowers theme), the name picked out (Alyssa Nicole), and we were on cloud nine!