Next Up.....Travel Approval

This has been another exciting week! We received our travel visas (except for Dave....he works for a media company so China will not issue him a visa until our exact travel days are scheduled). But, everyone else has theirs, me, Kaori, Mom and Doug. We are excited! We also received our Article 5 this week! It was picked up from the US Consulate and sent to the CCCWA in Beijing. Now we wait for 2-4 weeks for the CCCWA to issue us our travel approval! Once we receive that we will travel in 10-21 days and finally we can count each day as a day and not only count business days! Hurray! So, things are moving along. We still have much to do before we go, a lot of shopping for gifts for officials and then needs for Cuyler. We are so excited and are enjoying these days day dreaming about what it is going to be like to meet him for the first time.

An Exciting Evening At The Harris House

On October 17, our agency requested an update on our son. Today, it came! It is awesome to see some new sweet pics of our precious baby! Awwwwww! This update will keep me going for days to come! It is wonderful to hear how he is doing and how big he is getting. We received two pictures and a short report on his personality and schedule. We also received his measurments. The most exciting news, besides the pictures of course is that he is WALKING and RUNNING! That makes us so happy to hear! He is able to play with the other kids! I was worried that he spent a lot of time alone because he could not keep up with the other kids his age because of his foot. So thankful I am wrong! We can still see where his foot is twisted a bit, but it does appear that the treatment he has been receiving has been helpful! Hallelujah! We love his haircut! Looks like he has a little mohawk and it is so cute! Finally, the other good news is that we know he has received our care packages! The sweatshirt he has on is from his Gmama and Pop! Yay!! We love to see him wearing it and it warms our hearts to know that he has been getting our packages! We will send him at least one more before we travel. Enjoy these awesome pictures of our son, Culyer!

 

Love his hair!

Look at him standing!

 

 

Home Stretch

Last Monday we received the next piece to our big puzzle! We got our I800A Provisonal Approval from Homeland Security! Basically this form allows us to wait on another form. Haha! The other form called The NVC letter came today! Hurray! So, now all our paperwork in China will be taken to the US Consulate in China and then in about two weeks an agency rep will go to the Consulate and pick up a final form called an Article 5. Once they have that, they will forward it on to Beijing where the CCCWA is and within 2-4 weeks we will receive our travel approval! So, if things go smoothly we should receive our travel dates in 4-6 weeks! Yay! We are in the home stretch of this paperwork journey and we are VERY excited! Tomorrow I will send off our Travel Visa applications. Awesome!

I finished cleaning out Cuyler's closet today and I am taking a bunch of stuff to consign tomorrow. I counted up all of the gift cards that we have been given in honor of Cuyler and we have received $460 worth of gift cards! We are so blessed and very thankful. This will help us to buy items for him such as a carseat, whatever things he might need for physical therapy and of course diapers. Thank you to all of you who have given gifts to us. We really appreciate your generosity!

We still have a lot of fun things to look forward to before we can travel to meet our son, but I am still very ready to see him and hold him.

What's In A Name

I have been super, duper busy doing paperwork! Can I just tell you real quick:

• Signing LOA and making copies
• Filling out I800 forms
• Filling out DS230 (application for Xue's US passport)
• Filling out travel companion paperwork for Kaori, Mom and Doug
• Filling out our Travel Visa applications for all of us
• Filling out a waiver for Dave because he works for Time Inc. Gotta make sure he is not going to China to do some reporting. :)
• Filling out some big fat checks

Because we had to submit his application for a US passport, we had to decide on his name! After many attempts at discussing this topic, we finally sat down together on Sunday night and decided on our son's name. Now, there is a story behind his name. Dave and I met in Chicago. We both love Chicago and would love to live there again one day. Well, Chicago was the city we fell in love in! I lived on a picture perfect street in Wrigleyville, right next to Wrigley Field in apt. 32A. Anyway, it was during this time that we picked this name. We thought it could work well for a boy or a girl. When Kaori came along it was not the name for her. But, now our son is here and it is the perfect name for him! We have named our son......Cuyler Xue Harris! Cuyler was the name of that picture perfect street in our city of love. Our son is perfect for our family and we are his family of love!

Yay!
P.S. I painted his room today!

Wonderful Weekend

Last Thursday, I sat in my blue chair in the sunroom reading an email from our agency stating that we might have another 4-6 week wait on our LOA from China. My heart dropped. We had been waiting since July and I was feeling very ready for something to happen, either for our LOA to arrive or for an update on Xue from his orphanage. I called my Mom and just shared my heartache with her and she did her best to encourage me. Thanks Mom. I was looking forward to the weekend, because my family was gathering together for a baby shower for Xue and I wanted to be able to share something new with everyone.

Move forward to 2:00 pm Friday afternoon; Kaori and I are running errands and are on the way to gymnastics. My phone dings to let me know an email has just come in. I check it. The subject reads: "Your LOA has arrived"!!!!! Very quickly I pull over into a neighborhood and devour the email as fast as I could! I was sooooooo excited! I was cheering and praising and Kaori was stunned. She asked me what was going on and I told her we got some great news from China! She started cheering to and then said, "Mom, what is news"? I tried to explain to her that it just means we are that much close to bring her baby brother home. She knew what that meant and said, "yay, we get to see him today"! Haha! I wish! But, that is okay. I was thrilled with our news and I called Dave right away. He was working from home and quickly checked the email so that he could see too. He was excited as well. On Friday night, we went out to enjoy being together as a family and to celebrate the arrival of the LOA.

Saturday afternoon we were blessed by our families with fun times, prayer for Xue and gifts! We had a wonderful day celebrating him and being together. The weather was lovely and the company was perfect. We wish Dave's family lived closer, but we will enjoy being with them next month. We received gift cards, a ergo carrier and his bedding. It was really awesome to share the news of the LOA with everyone at the shower. I was able to surprise them with the news of its arrival and read the statement on it to everyone at one time. It was perfect!

With the arrival of the LOA, our estimated travel is within 10-14 weeks. So, that puts us in January. My prayer has been to have him home by his birthday in February and it looks like it will happen. :) I tackled our first round of paperwork Sunday night and I overnighted it this morning. So, CCAI will receive it tomorrow and we will send our second batch at the end of the week. Yay!

Enjoy these pics of the arrival of the LOA and our party for Xue. My mom and sisters planned the whole thing and it was perfect. I could not have had a better weekend!

This package came at 10:45 am on Saturday morning. Just in time for the shower!

Shower Decorations!

Our family, minus one!

Sweet Xue

(we have to email his English name ASAP, gotta decide)

We are very blessed.

Another Package for Xue

I was in Target the other day and saw this cute blue elephant. I did not buy it right away because sometimes I have hard time spending money. A few days passed and I just kept thinking of him. It was silly really. Well, after I dropped Kaori off at school that following Monday, I went and bought him. That afternoon I packed him up along with some other items for Xue. We sent a camera, some food and a gift for his nanny. This is our third package we have sent to Xue and I sure hope that he is getting them! He should have received it by now. Kaori had fun helping pack the box up for her brother although at first she was pretty bummed that the elephant was not for her. Here are two pics of the box for Xue!

Something to Think About

I came across this "letter" written by obviously an adoptive mom with kids who were born in China. Although I don't always feel like this, at times I do. Even if you are not an adoptive parent, I am sure you have had similar experiences as this lady describes. I have heard many stories from my friends where people say stupid stuff to them about motherhood, being pregnant, etc...Nevertheless, I agree that we can all recognize that moment when someone is staring at us or our kids and just waiting to pounce with their questions about whatever they feel like they just have to know. I always have a list of prepared answers to move things right along and give them as little information as possible. Timing people, timing. Also, use your brains. How do you think those questions make our kids feel? They make me want to punch you in the face and they make our children feel different. Normally, I can tell when mere curiousty trumps sincere interest. It is those times when I use my prepared answers. Anyway, as we wait for news from China about son, I continue to try and learn as much as I can so that I am best prepared for Xue and Kaori. If you have an interest in reading this article titled, "Dear random shopper in the Target checkout line..." click here. here

Wishing Time Would Stand Still in Xue's World

Today Xue turns 19 months old. He is getting so big and I am missing it. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. It feels terrible. I am ready to GO!

In the meantime, I am preparing another box to send his way, working on getting his room ready and praying without ceasing for him. Here is another picture of our baby boy. We received this one in July. I would love an update on him from China, but so far.....nothing.

P.S. he has a clubbed foot. 

Excitement

I am feeling very excited this week as we have made the decision to share the news of Xue with our friends, family and anyone else we can think of! We have been holding this news close for over two months now and my heart is feeling ready to share. Being that I have been dreaming of the day when I get to announce our news for over three years now, I have been spending probably way to much time thinking of exactly how I want to do it. I have bounced ideas off of my sister and come up with entirely too many different scenarios. But, I am excited and I want to do it right.....you know. I want to have my moment! I want Xue to have his moment. That moment when the excited parents announce that they are having a baby, well it is the same thing. I want Xue to be able to look back on this time in our lives and be able to feel the excitment through my words that I type and the pictures that I post.

This week I have been doing our online parent training that we have to do before we can travel to meet Xue. I have enjoyed it very much and have learned a lot. It is a lot of information to take in and process. But, I am happy to do it. The more I can learn about parenting my son and how to put myself in his little shoes, the better. For all of us.

I have also had fun hearing and dreaming about our baby shower that is finally scheduled! Again, these are dreams that I have not allowed my brain to even think about for so long and now I am allowing my heart the freedom to go there and it is so exciting! My Mom and sisters are great planners and are cooking up something special for my family and I next month. They are having to learn about Chinese culture in the process which is great! They are trying to include as much of it as possible in the shower and I think that is awesome.

We mailed Xue another box a few weeks back! It had lots and lots of food in it. I hope that he likes it! We also included a red book that hopefully the orphanage director will fill out for us. It includes about 80 questions about Xue for her/him to answer and then give back to us once we go to China. That would be incredible to have a book like this for him. My Mom also mailed him a box with food, toys, some gifts for the nannies and clothes. I hope that he is receiving our boxes, we have no way of knowing but I am trusting that he is.

We are still waiting on our LOA. Oh how I hope it comes VERY SOON!

Waiting on our LOA

We have submitted all of the required paperwork up until this point. We are waiting on our Letter of Acceptance from China before we can submit the next round of paperwork. The wait time we are currently in is 2-3 months. We are already one month in, so now we have 1-2 months left to wait. We have heard from other families who are adopting from China, that their LOA came pretty quickly, so we are hopeful that our will too. Like, one family received theirs in 53 days as opposed to 90-120 days! We are prayerful this is the same for us! Overall, we are 4-6 months away from traveling to China. I have been doing a lot of reading and researching in preparation for our trip. I am learning a lot about where Xue is living from what other families are experiencing. It is exciting! Kaori is sooooo excited and has enjoyed picking out little toys and foods to send to Xue. We have mailed him one package already and are hopeful that it will arrive very soon. I check the tracking everyday but there has been no update for quite some time. I plan to mail another package this week. In our first package we sent Xue two toys, a little car and a blue bouncy ball. Some food just for Xue and some food to share with friends. A disposable camera and gifts for his nannies. We also sent some clothes. When we went to the beach, the whole family worked together to pick some things out for him! I hope he gets it soon!

Last night, I had my first dream about Xue. I guess you could say that he is on my mind. It was not the best dream because in it I could hear him crying but I could not get to him. Then I woke up. I left me feeling worried about him. Even from thousands of miles away, that mother instinct is alive and well. We are praying for him everyday. Kaori prays for him every night and we just love him very much. We are trusting in the Lord's timing.

Pictures of his first package! 

Three Years Today

Today officially marks the three year wait time that we have been waiting for our second child. Three years ago today we began the process to adopt another child from Japan and as of today, we have been approved by China to adopt our son. God's plan is always different from mine, but I am learning to trust him and trust his timing. The journey of adoption is good at teaching you that! We are so thankful for our son and just cannot wait to be with him as a family of four!

Information Overload!

Well, my last post was on July 9th and today it is the 20th! We have had information coming at us sooooo quickly that I can hardly keep up, which is unusual for me because I am pretty on top of all this paperwork stuff. But, I'll just get right to it.....WE HAVE A PRECIOUS SON!!!!!!!! On Friday, July 13, 2012 we accepted Xue into our family. We were ready to do it on Monday, but felt we owed him the full process of studying his file and learning as much as possible about him as we could. We also ended our journey with Japan on Friday. It went smoothly and we are forever thankful to the people who work that program. We felt peaceful about that decision as well, which I am thankful for because eight months ago I was pretty scared.

In a matter of two weeks:
- our dossier was received in China (estimated wait time 11 days)
- we got our long awaited LID from China
- we received news of our son :)
- we met with doctors to discuss treatment options
- we accepted the referral :)
- we submitted our first round of paperwork to China including our Letter of Intent
(the estimated wait time to hear back from our letter of intent was one month)
- we received pre-approval from China! this means that they have accepted our letter of intent to adopt Xue and we are matched with him!
(estimated wait time on the pre-approval was one month)
- mailed in second round of paperwork to CCAI

So, what could have as long as two months or more, took just two weeks! What a blessing!


Okay, are you ready for it? A picture of our little boy? Take a deep breath because he is super cute!

Awwwwwwww! We love him and cannot wait to hold him!

Holy Cow, That Was Fast!

We got word today that our dossier has been logged with the CCCWA! It was logged today,  July 11, 2012! This process was supposed to take three weeks and it only took TWO DAYS for our dossier to be reviewed! God is good! He knows something we don't know! So, now that we have our LID, we feel more comfortable matching with a child. We have been praying for years for our second child and we feel the excitement brewing as things are moving along so quickly. We still have a long ways to go as our dossier must go through critical review at the CCCWA and each document must be translated into English. This process is estimated to take three months. But, you never know!

A Sweet Story

So, we want to tell you a sweet story. It begins with a colonoscopy. On Monday afternoon, I had a colonoscopy to make sure everything was fine considering my family history. Everything is fine. My Mom was with me and she watched Kaori while the procedure took place. Then she brought me home. I wanted to rest, but Kaori was needing her Mama, so I sat up with her and my Mom instead of taking a nap. Kaori just would not let me rest. Well, we were sitting on the futon in the sunroom and the house phone rang. We never answer that phone because no one calls it. When it rang, Kaori shouted, "stop ringing phone"! It made me laugh. My Mom got up to get it, but I told her not to worry about it. Well, she went anyway. The answering machine picked up, yes we still have an answering machine, and it was the Waiting Child Department at CCAI. Mom grabbed the phone and brought it to me. I answered and told her very quickly to call my Mom's cell, because this phone was going to die. I gave her the number and right away the phone battery died. She called Mom's cell phone. I was nervous and excited to answer. She began to tell me of a baby born on February 25, 2011. Instantly, that date jumped out at me! It was on February 25, 2008 that we got the phone call about Kaori and it is a date embedded in my brain. She continued to tell me information of this baby and I gave my Mom a thumbs up sign. My Mom was nervous and giddy as she sat there on the futon listening to my responses. We were both smiling. I agreed to have a look at this file. That was it. We hung up the phone and then told Mom that she was emailing the file right away. I was so excited! I called Dave at work and shocked him with this news! I wanted to tell him and see if he wanted me to wait until he got home before I opened the file. I was hoping he would say it was okay if I went ahead and looked. How could I wait? He said to go right ahead! Mom and I went downstairs and took some deep breaths and then checked the email. My inbox had one email in it and it was THE FILE! We opened it. As soon as I saw him, I felt it. That feeling you are supposed to feel when you see your child for the first time. He was the one. He is the baby that we have been praying for for over three years. There was no hesitation, no question, I felt in my soul that he is my child. We looked through all the documents and discovered his name is Dang He Xue. (Dong Who Shoo) Kaori was here the whole time, but she was pretty oblivious to the action. We devoured all the information that was included in his file. His birthdate, his height, weight, how he spends his days, what he is eating and some basic health information. Well, he was easy to fall in love with and I did...right away. It still does not feel real. When Dave got home from work, he looked at his pictures first thing. We both smiled and agreed on how cute he is! Later that night, we looked through the file again and just felt so positive and peaceful. Then came Tuesday!

Dossier is on Its Way To China!

We received an email today letting us know that our dossier has passed inspection in the Colorado office and has been mailed to China! It was supposed to take 11 days to complete the process in Colorado, but it only took 4, as it just arrived on Tuesday, July 3rd! So, as of today, July 6 our dossier is going to China! We are getting excited! Once it arrives in China, it has to go through an initial review before it is logged. Once it is logged, we will get an email saying that our dossier has officially been logged with the CCCWA and we have our LID (log in date) which is the coveted number that everyone works towards! The estimated time frame for this process is three weeks, so we hope to hear something by August.

Things are Moving Right Along

Once I completed our dossier, I took it to our agency in Atlanta on Monday, June 25th to submit it! Ryan and Henry joined us, which was very cool to have someone there with me to experience the moment. I sat at the table with the worker and she went over all of our documents and photos that accompanied the dossier. Everything looked perfect! All I needed to do was switch out some photos that were not acceptable. She said that she would go ahead and review the dossier so that she could send it to Colorado for another review and a partial translation, despite the incomplete photo set. I went home and gathered the photos that were needed and drove them back on Wednesday. It was a good feeling to send that dossier on its way! A few days later, I got word that our financial statement needed some adjusting. We had to create a new statement and have it notarized at the city level only. That was a big relief! I was so thankful that I did not have to have it notarized at county, state and then authenticated. That would have really slowed things down! I took care of this right away and then overnighted it to Colorado so that it could join our dossier.

China Update

I have been working diligently for 8 months on compiling our dossier for China. It is a huge undertaking with 12 documents that must be created, notarized, notarized again, sealed by the State of Georgia and authenticated by the Chinese Consulate. We also had to make two sets of copies of every single page of the dossier. I am so happy to announce that our dossier has been submitted in full to our agency and we should have a log in date with China by the first of August! It is very exciting!

Here I am posing with our dossier the night before we submitted it. While we continue to wait to match with our child, I am taking things in stride. Trying to stay calm and patient. Our journey to our child has taken over three years and God is teaching me patience above all else. It is very true that things never go as planned. I have to include that Kaori has consistently prayed for God to bring her brother and a sister. She fully believes that this will happen. Who am I to say it will not.

Feeling pretty excited! We are currently still waiting with Japan, although we have not heard anything from them in many, many months. When we match with our child from China, we will have to close the door to Japan as we cannot afford to adopt from both countries. Our future lays with the Lord and we are trusting in His perfect plan.

Happy New Year

We are expecting great things to happen in our family in 2012. We are working hard to compile our dossier for China and still remaining hopeful with Japan. We are trying to keep our options open and allow God to work through either path. We are trusting that we will meet our baby this year. The dossier for China is so intense. It is a lot of paperwork that must remain organized. We are well on our way though and I am proud to say that things are running smoothly so far. Still, not much news to share. Just know sweet baby, we are so excited about your arrival!