Just my luck

Kristen was not able to see the boys. It sounds like they had some translation problems. She did find out that the other two boys being adopted through our agency were in the same room as her daughter, so they are hoping to have some pictures on the camera they sent with their care package. Nicholas is, unfortunately, in a different room. I'm sad, but resigned. I'm just going to have to wait until I get to China to see him for myself!

I think he's a little older, and that may be why he is in a different room. I hope he isn't sad. Kristen said the children are very well taken care of and go to preschool and music class.

Blog Spam

Why do people have to post ads in my blog comments? Do they have nothing better to do? Really - enough is enough on the spam. I love getting comments from people, but I get excited that I have a reply, then I open it and someone wants me to buy construction materials! Huh?!?

Kristen has not yet posted on her family website about her visit to the Wuxi SWI. I am trying to stay very busy at work (although not too busy to stop and post). I will keep you all updated as soon as I hear from Kristen!

Today is special...

I don't know how I will make it until tonght!!!

One of our fellow GWCA Wuxi family was finally untied with her daughter yesterday. Today, they travel back to the SWI to see where their daughter has been raised. They have been told they will not be allowed to visit the children's area. However, they were told if there were specific children they wanted to see, those children would be brought out to meet them and pictures could be taken!!!!

She has requested to see the 3 boys that are being adopted by others in our group, including NICHOLAS!!!! I would be so excited to get new pictures, and a "westerners" evaluation of his size and health, you know, one mom to another!!!

She posted her last update at 9pm last night, so I am hoping for another posting tonight. One of her posts was at 1am....and I cannot stay up that late, but I may not be able to sleep with anticipation, either!!!

We have been making some plans for our own journey to China. We are going to drive to my parent's house and leave our van with them. We will take the airport shuttle to the airport in San Francisco, and leave from there. When we are finished in China, instead of returning through Bejing, I think we will head to Shanghai to visit friends there and return home from Shanghai. Then mom & dad can pick us up at the airport, with the children if they don't come along with us....and we will be able to rest a couple of days in California before heading home.

Planning makes this seem like a little more of a reality. I have been the one from the beginning trying to encourage Justin to let his heart go and accept that Nicholas will join our family. He has always been waiting for the other shoe to drop and for someone to tell us we can't complete the adoption. Suddenly, he seems to be very sure that everything will be ok, which is good because now I'm starting to freak out!

I have Nicholas's suitcase packed already. How about I just show up in China? Do you think they'd let me take him home!?! LOL! I'm just too anxious to keep waiting!!!

Everyone say a prayer...

There is a new director at the CCAA ( the central adoption agency in China). It is not yet clear if this person is the overall director, or the director of the reveiwing room, but he is already impacting adoptions. Every time a new director moves in, the rules change a little. Several people this week have been told they are no longer approved to adopt for past medical history or age.

I think Nicholas was meant for us, and I cannot imagine any reason we would be denied at this point. But the denial are coming out of the reviewing room, where our file hopefully now sits.

I pray that this new director helps speed up the review process, and that he positively impacts our travel time to complete our adoption. But all settle for just keeping things on track.

Justin still has yet to let people at work know he is adopting. Other than his supervisor. He had to tell her because she will be out on maternity leave when we are estmated to be going to China! He did FINALLY submit through human resources for FMLA (family medical leave act) to take time off when the time does come.

On a happy side...Kristen and her husband left this morning for China to pick up their daughter, Brooke, who is also at the same SWI as Nicholas. She has been kind enough to take pictures of all of us still waiting and the children we have been matched with in the hopes that she will be allowed to take pictures of our children. I think we have more of a chance of getting pictures this way than through the CCAA!

Nicholas

I finally decided to try and post a picture of Nicholas. We don't have many...only 3, but we will make up for that later. And we plan on getting this little guy to smile, so stay tuned!

Care Package

My translated letter arrived today thanks to Adele Hall ( www.blessedkids.com ). She translated a rather lengthy letter for me explaining the contents of my package and asking the items be given to Nicholas. She has an excellent template to work from. She also translated a list of 17 questions for us about Nicholas's likes and dislikes. I am sending a box of chocolates to the staff of the SWI in the hopes that someone takes the time to answer at least some of the questions! I strongly recommend her services. Adele also translated a small card (about a 3 X 5) that I laminated and we plan to carry to China with us. It explains who we are and why we are in China, and also that we promise to educate Nicholas and teach him respect for his beautiful homeland.

We also are sending a disposable camera and asked that someone take pictures of Nicholas in his daily activities so that he may have a treasure from this time in his life. Someday, I think it will be important to him.

I also sent a security blanket, a small toy, and an outfit. We still really don't have much clue on sizes. Our report from June indicated he is almost 36 inches, 32 lbs. But that seems so small to us! American size would put him at a 2T. We originally thought that our report was from August of 2004, so we were anticipating a 3T or 4T by now. WRONG!!! I bought 3T stuff, mostly, so I'm hoping we are ok.

We just went through the children's closets to clear the clutter of too-small clothing. I usually post it on Craigslist or Freecycle to give away, but I boxed up all of Matthew's too-small stuff and put it up in the garage. I guess it will be some time before Nicholas needs size 6, but Matthew had several pairs of shoes that he only wore a couple of times before outgrowing!!! Matthew is tickled at the thought of Nicholas wearing his favorite outfits that he didn't want to part with. It made the closet cleaning a much easier experience than usual!

Big Brown Envelope

We got our envelope today from the US Consulate in China. It means we are officially ready to bring Nicholas into the US. Now, if China would just get with the program and process our dossier...we could get this show on the road! :-) By "averages" our file should be logged in today. It will still be quite some time before that date gets reported to our agency, if we find out our LID at all!!! Keeping fingers crossed...............

Not a match

Some of the information I was told about the little girl was inaccurate. It appears now just to be a bunch of coincidences. She was not from the same city, but a city about 30 km away. Everything else seems to be pretty accurate. I can't confirm the immunological disorder, but her lab profile does seem to fit. It's not a close enough coincidence for me to bug China about it at this point, but I am going to keep my eye on her. Rumor has it deaf children can be very hard to place...especially if they're older than two.

I know of two families considering adopting her...and I hope for her sake she finds a home quickly.

Back to waiting for Nicholas!!!

So I lied...

There is something new...I'm just not sure exactly what it is yet.

We got the word that there is a little girl on a waiting child list who was abandoned in the same spot as Nicholas exactly one year to the day later. She was also estimated to be 18 months and was given the same birthday, exactly one year later. So she is 2 yrs 7 months. She was also very underweight. She is also deaf. I've been told she has the same immunological disorder. I'm trying to confirm all the facts directly with her agency before I twist my head around the implications of this too much.

I did exchange e-mails with the parents that are considering adopting her last night. They were very curious about the similarities, but haven't really expressed an opinion yet. They want to compare the pictures.

I thought maybe I was crazy considering the possibility there may be a relationship, but everyone I've spoken to seems to think this can happen. I guess truth is stranger than fiction.

Nothing New

I've been transferred to the "Waiting TA" group. Which is great because I'm back in the hands of the WONDERFUL Beth at GWCA. I'm convinced Beth could move the moon if it was required of her. I'm thinking there's probably no way we'll travel in December. My morning update from Beth explained that for their purposes, DTC and Log In Date (LID) are the same, so they won't start counting our 65 days until they have that date to work from.

The only good news is that LID's are coming quickly right now...an average of 18 days. That only adds less than 3 weeks to our process. I can't remember why I've obsessed about completing this adoption this year...maybe it was just the children's school break. But I really think I'll keep my sanity as long as we have Nicholas home in February for his birthday. I really can't see any reason why we wouldn't travel in January at the very latest. I can still hope for December, though!

DTC

It finally officially gone....now we just wait for a log-in date! :-)