Happy Day we have travel dates!

So we got our confirmation yesterday for our travel dates. We will be leaving on May 3rd and returning on the 23rd. Happy Day!!!! We are going to Beijing early to do the touristy stuff again (Great wall, temple of heaven, tiannamen square,etc) and then we extended our trip by 2 days to stay in Hong Kong and go to Ocean Park. I may regret this one...but oh well. We were thinking since we have to fly out of Hong Kong anyway why not do a special treat for Jaili bird and take her there?
We have our tickets purchased and are getting ready to go!!! We will fly in to Nanchang on the 9th at 2:00pm, check into our hotel and then get June by 4:00! Happy Mother's Day to me!
 I've been praying alot for June and her grieving process. I anticipate a very sad baby and my heart breaks for her already. Her little world is going to be turned upside down. Even though she can't comprehend it at this age I'm praying that God gives her peace and knowledge that we love her so much and are her parents. I'm definately stressed about how it's all going to go.  I'm so excited to be getting her and having our family together FINALLY! But  I  also feel so conflicted because she doesn't know that we are her forever parents. All she knows is that she is being taken away from her foster parents, the only people that she knows and loves. I pray that this does not stay with her, a fear of abandonment ,of being removed, for the rest of her life. I feel so grateful for this older couple that have been like grandparents to her. They have loved her and taken care of her but I also feel a loss. Loss and jealousy, that we haven't been the ones to love her since day one, that some one else has had that opportunity. I felt similarly with Jaili, of course we want to be with our children from the moment they were created, the foster family just adds a different dimension to it. Again, I'm  so thankful for them, it's just...different.
On a different note, I did have a dream about June last night. We were in the hotel and she was wearing the cutest little skirt and playing in the hotel room. She was laughing and so very happy and beautiful! I woke up feeling very warm and fuzzy after that dream.
I know in time we will all adjust and everything will be how it's supposed to be. I just pray that Shane and I are able to give June (and Jaili) everything that we can. To help them to feel confident and complete. I just always want both of them to know how much they mean to us. Nothing compares to the love that you have for your children. As I told Shane when we first got Jaili. Shane has my heart, but Jaili ( and now June) are my heart. It does help me to understand the love that Christ has for us. I still cannot fathom it but at least I have a glimpse now.

I also have a funny Jailiism. We were at church on easter and when Jaili came out of Jesus school, as she call it, she asks us "Why did God's skin fall off?" Shane and I  look at her completely confused and ask "What?" Jaili then says " Yea, today in Jesus school we learned that God died on a cross and then his skin fell off." Neither one of us had any idea what she was talking about at first. Then I started thinking of the wording in the crucifiction and resurrection and remembered it being described that Jesus left the flesh. So I asked her if that is what she meant. " She said "yea, his skin fell off." Both Shane and I started laughing and then tried explaining to her what it meant. That is a very hard concept to explain to a 4 year old. I'm shortning this story quite a bit, the entire conversation lasted probably about 15 min. Most of it consisting of Jaili insisting that God's skin fell off and Shane and I just looking really confused. Anywho, it cracked me up. I have never thought of the wording that way...Oh to have the mind of a very curious and very literal and smart 4 year old.

WE HAVE TA!!!!

We were on the early end of something! I was happily surprised to get an email from Holt yesterday that said we have our travel approval! I was working all day yesterday and I kept checking my phone about every 30 min to see if we had an email. I knew travel approvals were coming in because between clients I was also stalking the rumor queen forum and I was REALLY hoping that ours would be in the bunch of travel approvals. At about 3:30 I gave up and decided that ours was probably not going to come this time around. I put my phone down and ignored it. At about 5:00 I noticed that my phone was blinking that I had a message and THERE IT WAS!!! We are beyond excited and now am realizing how many things I still need to do. We are hoping to get our travel dates by the end of this week and then we can buy the plane tickets. I'm still in amazement that we are actually getting our mama Junebug Jones. WOW!!!! The whole family cannot wait to meet our little one. By the time we get her it will be 8 months of staring at her picture and now she will be ours! I'll keep everyone posted as soon as we get travel dates.

Late in posting but we got our Article 5

So I'm late in posting this( I have a love/hate relationship with my computer)but we got our article 5 on 3/18/10!! So that means, per Holt, that we should be getting travel approval in 3-4 weeks from the 18th. So hopefully either this week or next!! Although I'm going to try and not get to excited about that, considering we've been on the long end of almost every step of the process. I'm praying that we are able to travel the first week of May to get our girl. I haven't scheduled any clients after that until June 21st (I figured that is when I'd go back to work, 2 days a week)SO if we don't go then EEKKK, no clients, no money and BORED!!!

I'm FINALLY feeling the connection with our June. I have been concerned because June's adoption journey has been so different than Jaili's. I KNEW Jaili before we even got her referral. I knew after she was born (told my husband 3 days after Jaili was born, we were laying in bed and I looked over at him and said "Our daughter's been born, I can feel her"), I knew what her SN was going to be before we got her referral, I had dreams about her, I knew what she looked like...I was deeply connected to her. The only way I can explain it is that God allowed me to know her before she was actually ours. June's hasn't been the same way and that has worried me. Maybe I wasn't a good enough mother for her because I haven't "felt" her the same way. There have been little things along the way with her. I was certain that our next daughter was going to have albinism. I had a very strong urge in August, 2 weeks after we sent in our SN list, to research albinism and add it immediatly to our list. I asked my husband how he felt and he said "I already thought it was on our list". I get feelings about her personality and the closer we get the more and more connected I feel to her. My heart crys for our missing daughter now, I'm ready for her and I just want her home.

When I told my husband how I was feeling about not being "connected" he was wonderful. He just looked at my and said " I never had any of those things with Jaili before we got her that you did and am I any less connected to her now than you?" Which , of course, he isn't! Jaili adores her daddy, as he does her. Jaili is truly the light of Shane (and my ) life. Then Shane told me, "The same things that you felt with Jaili, I feel with June, I've dreamed about her, I know which name is going to fit her (Shane did pick June's name, I picked Jaili's), I feel like God has let me know June". I'm truly in awe of how God works. It wasn't up to me nor was it about me to know our daughter. God has picked Shane and I to be the parent's of this beautiful child, just like he did with Jaili. I'm truly humbled by the fact that God has allowed Shane and I to share in these 2 lives, to watch them grow, to guide them along the way and to love them with all of our heart, body and soul. I can't wait to get our daughter home, where she belongs, to finally be able to hold and love her and give her the father, mother and sister that has been waiting for her.

HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE!!!
Seriously, I would like to throw the computer out the window at the moment. Stinkin text background keeps going to white, not matter what I do with it. GRRRRRR. It's been about 2 hours to update this thing. Frustration does not even begin to explain it!!! Going to bed, I give up. I had no problems with the old blogger. I updated it and am ready to pull my hair out everytime I use it (hence the slow updating by me) Anywho, had to vent about my lack of computer/blogger skill.

NVC Letter is Here

 We got our National Visa Center letter on the mail on Saturday. I know it doesn't seem like much but NOW we can email the letter and our I-800 approval to Holt and they can send it to China to get started on our article 5 and then our Travel Approval. So YIPPEE, it came. I think I can officially be done stalking the mail man for awhile. We have our visa's, our letters, our I-800. Nothing else needs to be mailed now, at least I don't think so.Holt will get our info off to China on the 26th and then 2 weeks, abou,t after that for article 5 and then about another 3-4 weeks for travel approval. The count down is ON!

Oh on a side note,  I swear Jaili gets funnier every day. She told me I was "rockin the hizouse" the other day, so I looked at her and said "fo shizzel". Yea, we're totally street now....again hear my sarcasm on that one. She also informed me that "giganotosaurus's are quite the bird watchers even though they are carnivorous" I just started laughing and said "good to know, you should probably go tell daddy that also" She is LOVIN' the dinosaurs right now. Dinosaur train on PBS kids is a HUGE hit in our house. I'm not sure when our 4 year old turned 14 but most days it's pretty funny...other days a little bit of drama complete with the huge sighs and the eye rolls (love that) Thankfully that is not often. She's not a fan of standing on the no no wall.

That kid kicks butt, I'm excited to see the relationship that her and June will have. Although I'm sure there will be a bit of an adjustment period for awhile at first.  Anywho, post more when I have more info.

Take  Care,

Angel : )

Another step closer

So not much news to report but our I-800 was approved on 2/5/10! Now we are just waiting for the National Visa Center to cable it to Guangzhou( they received the our paperwork yesterday) then we need our letter from NVC. At that point Holt can send it overnight to China to wait for our Article 5 which will take around 2-3 weeks and after that we can get travel approval which should be another 2-4 weeks after Article 5 and FINALLY off to China. We are still estimating going the first part of May.
Jaili and I have had fun lately buying some clothes for baby sister. I've been getting lots of 12-18 months. I'm hoping that these will fit her (if not I have alot of things to take back..eeekkk!) She should be about 20 lbs when we get her. She is 18.74 lbs and 28" at this point so I plotted it on the growth chart and around 20 lbs is what it said. I'm going alittle on the smaller side just because when we got Jaili bird  she was MUCH smaller than we thought. We had to buy 3-6 months clothes for her @ 11 months old. She didn't get into 12 month clothes until she was about 19 months old. Watch June will suprise us though and be a chunky monkey and will surpass her sister in no time. : ) Anywho, that's the news of the day for us. I'll post more when I have new updates.

WE HAVE LOA!!!

So I spoke to soon with my last post. We are happy to annouce that we received our letter of approval for our beautiful June Skye on January 25th, 2010. It looks like China signed it on the 21st of Jan and we got the call on Monday @ about 2pm. We are so ridiculously excited!!! That means in about 3 months we will have our second daughter! Next steps are filling out the I-800 paperwork for immigration (which I already did and overnighted to Texas on 1/26) then we wait for our approval, then it's cabled to Guangzhou National Visa Center, then we get a letter from NVC, Next we wait for out article 5 to be picked up and then we wait for our travel approval and consulate appointments and FINALLY it's off to China. This usually takes an average of 60-70 days but can vary widely (just like LOA wait).
The reality hit Shane and I Monday night that we are actually going to have 2 daughters. EEEKKK!! It's all REAL now and although very exciting I have to admit a bit scary also. There are just the unknowns that I sit and dwell on while we wait...like attachment, lack of sleep for us for awhile, will she like us, will she allow us to comfort her during her grieving process, how will Jaili react, will Jaili feel left out, how do we fit 2 kids in our queen size bed : )  , how's June's eyesight and her strabismus (lazy eye), when do we schedule her eye doctor appointment (which reminds me I need to call our insurance about referral to Casey Eye Institute in Portland), how are we going to get together $3000 more for travel in 3 months, anywho the list goes on and on.I was awake several times last night thinking about it all. I know it's all going to work out great but like I said I have 3 months to obsess about it right now. I just need to remember that this is God's plan and through him all things are possible.
 On a side note we are so grateful to Jaili and June's Auntie Shannon. She will be traveling to Oregon from Texas and then off to China with us to help with everything. That is a big relief and will help us out so much. Huge blessing for us and she is REALLY excited to go also.
We are also trying to decide if we should go to Beijing again or just to Nanchang and then Guangzhou. It is going to be less expensive to go to just Nanchang and Guangzhou but on the other hand Jaili and Shannon (ok and Shane and I) are excited to see the great wall and all the sites of Beijing. Jaili girl talks about it alot and it would be nice to have a few days to relax and cruise around before we got Miss June. Anywho, we cannot wait to meet our newest addition.
We also received 6 new pictures of June on the 25th. I will try and post all of them, I keep having issues getting the pictures on blogger right now. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. They keep wanting to end up all over the page or not post at all. So in the pictures she is wearing about 7 layers of clothes and has some sweet boogers in her nose (I did try to retouch them out). Our Holt director Beth (who is absolutely awesome BTW) said it was very cold where June is (Jiangxi) right now and the houses are concrete with no heat, so hence the 5 bazillion layer, the red cheeks and green boogers.

Hope you enjoy the new photos of June. I think they are all on there, even though it's not set up very well

Updates of June

 So here we are at 125 days waiting for our LOA (letter of approval) and still nothing yet. We hope to get in any day now. Holt let us know that we have been in the review department since Dec 24th and it usually takes anywhere from 1-2 months from then for LOA. We are praying we will get it soon to bring our little one home. Holt has been fantastic with everything and were able to get updates for us. We got one new picture of June and a little more information on her. It looks like she has strabismus (lazy eye) with one of her eyes so we will see what we need to do to help her with it when she comes home. Besides that it looks like she is doing well. She is currently 18.3 lbs and 28 inches tall. Similar in size to Jaili girl at the same age. It also says that she is able to walk while holding on to furniture now and can say ma ma and baba. I'm so happy to know that she is doing well but it also breaks my heart to know that she is having all these firsts and we are not there to share it with her. With the current time frame it looks like we will not be getting her until June or July. It makes me very sad that the whole thing is taking so much longer than we were wanting/thinking.
Jaili is so precious, she really can't wait until we bring home baby sister. She has her picture under her pillow and gives it a kiss at bedtime and tells it "I already love you so much baby sister".
 The holidays were wonderful this year, although it felt like we had a hole in our family because we were missing June. Jaili was so much fun. She was so excited for everything that it brought a whole new sense of awe to the holidays that I haven't had in many years. I can't wait to see both of the girls this next year.

Well, I'm hoping the next update will be one that I'm announcing that we've received our LOA!

Day 85 and we continue to wait!!!

So we are at day 85 for LOA (letter of approval) wait and it sucks!!! We still arn't sure when we should be seeing the LOA and then the TA but hopefully soon. We want to bring our June home! Her birthday was Friday December 11th so HAPPY BIRTHDAY JUNE!!! We got pie (not huge cake fans) and sang happy birthday for her. We also got the girls' room and the play rrom finished. White bunkbeds with a beach theme, as Jaili said " It's TOTALLY AWESOME!!"
Anywho, not much to update. Here are  few cute pictures though of Jaili girl and her baby sister. Oh and I was able to fix the red eye on June's photo. Check out her beautiful blue eyes.
Merry Christmas everyone!!!!

New photo's and updates

Today we received new updates and photo's of our daughter. She is not in the orphanage like her paperwork said but is actually in foster care with an elderly couple. Her foster mother is 65 years old (in the photo) and has been caring for her from the beginning. The update says that she is tall and thin. She is crawling and standing up with help. She has to hold things very close to her to be able to see them well, as for toys and such. She enjoys playing in the water, and it sounds like she eats quite well but has an upset stomach often. They also let us know that she won't drink water unless her foster mother puts sugar in it, YIKES, and that she sleeps with her foster mother every night. SOOO, I'm guessing she is going to not be very happy with us when we first get her. I'm not sure what to expect but am so happy that she is being taken care of so well. I'm assuming from the paperwork and her pictures that her vision is going to be pretty poor. As you can tell from the photo's she is very light. Her eyes ,I'm assuming, are going to be very light sensitive. They are actually blue (you can't tell in the photo's though) but the whites of her eyes are somewhat pink (at least that is what her update paperwork said) due to the lack of pigment. I'm beginning the process of trying to figure out what steps we should take to have her eyesight checked among other things. I'm nervous and excited about bringing her home. It's completely different than Jaili's adoption process. I know majority of it is me overanalyzing things like normal. I just figure there are going to be alot of things I can't prepare for so I'll get a head start on the things I can.

 I also worry about people teasing and staring at her, comparing her and Jaili and just in general raising her to be a strong, independent, intelligent woman. When you have to wait several months and just stare at your child's picture before you get to hold her you tend to obsess alot about things. I tend to think worst case scenario with everything. I know once we are home and in our routine it won't be a big deal. The important thing that I don't lose sight of is that God has meant for her to be our daughter. We love her already and it doesn't matter what worries or fears I have. It's not about me or any of us. It's about her and I know Shane, Jaili and I cannot wait to bring her home. 
Just as a side note: I wrote all of this late last night and was crazy tired and apparently in MAY DAY mode. I know you parents of children with albinism are reading this and laughing ( I totally appreciate that : )  )  So now that I'm awake and thinking right...I need to add that We are so excited for our beautiful baby girl. I'm not wigged out about the sight thing anymore. Just can't wait to get to hold and play with and love on our new daughter
And off the topic, the name may be changing yet again...We arn't sure if she's an Eliana.

Prayers

 This is totally off of the subject of our blog but we are needing prayers. My mom has Crohn's disease and has been in the hospital now for  4 days and still no improvement. They are continuing to run tests, I believe it's a small bowel follow through today to figure out exactly where all the pain is coming from. She has a narrowing of her small bowel, which with Crohn's is not uncommon, but she is not able to tolerate any food except drinks of water and a little tea. She is on high doses of steroids and pain med's plus a litany of other things. We know that she is having a pretty bad flare, but they are also trying to figure out if it's ulcers also and if the amount of scar tissue in her small bowel is causing the pain. Her doctor is confused at the moment as to why the pain is not better yet. Anywho, if you could be sending prayers her way that would be awesome. For more info on Crohn's disease you can visit http://www.ccfa.org/info/about/crohns .
UPDATE:
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ALL YOUR PRAYERS!! My mom is out of the hospital. She has a long road ahead of her but she is doing so much better.

Thank you!

Shane and I would like to thank everyone for attending our fundraiser on Saturday. It was fantastic and thanks to all of your support. We are one step closer to bringing baby home. We made about $3000.00 profit from the fundraiser, so yea! It still leaves about $11,000 left to pay for her adoption and travel expenses but Shane and I know that this is God's path and He will provide. Everytime I start to worry about the money, I just look at her face and know that She is the daughter God has planned for us. Today I read an amazing blog about how God provides when you are walking his path. I realized that there are very few people that truly can afford adoption. Not many have all the money in the bank, yet so many orphans are adopted and that's because God hears the orphans cry. This weekend as I was thinking about how we are getting it all together, God just laid a peace on my heart that it's not about me or Shane or Jaili, it's about Eliana (yes, we changed her name). It's not about us getting a daughter or a sister, it's about Eliana getting a loving family, finally having a mother, father and sister that will love her with all that they have. In faith Shane and I are following His path and I know that in that faith He will provide. Through Him all things are possible, I can't say that there isn't a small amount of worry still there but it doesn't drive me everyday. Anywho, just wanted to say again THANK YOU so much to everyone that continues to support our adoption prayerfully and financially. It amazes me to see how people will step out to help eachother. I can't find the words adequate enough to say how thankful we truly are to all of you. We are eternally grateful.
Oh and on another note we changed her name. I just wasn't bonding with the name June. We wanted a name that reflects sunshine and happiness becuase that's what I feel when I think of her so we have picked Eliana Tian (Eliana means daughter of the sun, or God has answered in hebrew) and it's a portuguese name for Shane's side of the family and Tian means sky or heaven in Chinese.
I don't have any fundraiser pictures on the computer yet, but will post when I get them. Thought I'd put up a photo of our jailibird for now. : )

Benefit for June!!

Just wanted to remind everyone about our fundraiser we are having to bring June home.
It is SATURDAY OCT 10th @ 7pm. (This saturday : ) )
Dancing, wine, silent auction and raffle
Held at the Salem Center 50+ on Portland Rd.
$10pp (Open invitation)
I'm super excited and nervous about it. It is a big thing that we've put together, now we just need to people to show up!
Thank you to all who have helped us with this. To everyone who has donated time, services and things for the auction. Huge thank you to Deb Seeck (Mz.Jitterbug) and Bodhichitta Winery! You all are awesome!!

Jaili girl and baby sister

Everything has been coming along great, although I found out that Shane and I have to do a supplement to our I-800 form (the form that the you have to fill out for the US government to give approval for the adoption and bringing her home) anywho, since on our original approval it doesn't specifically state albinism as a special need we are approved for, we have to send in an addendum and pay $340.00 so they can add the word albinism on it. GRRRR, I was so irritated about this. We wrote on our approval...special needs including, but not limited to, and then we named a bunch of special needs, but crazy enough leaving off albinism. I just thought that since we were open to so many different types of needs we didn't need to list every single one of them, the phrase including, but not limited to, would cover that. I was wrong. So , that's my rant for the day. But whatcha gonna do?? If it's another $340 to bring June home than so be it. On another note, Jaili girl is pretty excited about baby sister, I get asked almost everyday "when we are going to go get her?" but I can also see that it is going to be a bit of an adjustment when she comes home. Jaili bird already has told Shane and I that she is feeling frustrated because we talk about baby sister too much. Then today at Shane's work, she saw that he had June's referral picture up and said "Daddy, why do you have her picture up here?" which Shane said because she's part of our family and I have yours and mommy's picture up to. So needless to say we are going to have to remember to make a HUGE effort to help Jaili girl feel included on everything for baby sister. I am excited to watch their bond grow though after we are all home as a family. I feel enormously blessed to have such a wonderful family and I have to wonder sometime what Shane and I did do deserve 2 beautiful daughters. Jaili girl is just the light of our lives and I can't wait to bring our next little light home to love her and give her HER family. I do honestly worry sometimes about her eyesight when we get home, if she is legally blind, the changes we will make, raising her to be an independent woman, all that stuff that goes with it. I worry about sibling rivalry with bird and June bug as they get older ( Jaili being able to get tan, June not so much, etc...) but then I realize it's not about me or Shane, it's about our daughters and that God has blessed Shane and I with the opportunity to love and guide such wonderful pieces of heaven. I have to rest in knowing through him there is peace.

Thought I'd post one more picture

We had one more picture that I thought I'd post of June. Yes, she completely looks like a boy in this one and WOW gotta love the 5 layers of clothes... Even with that thought she is still BEAUTIFUL! Just like her sister : )

Announcing our newest daughter!!!

I spoke too soon with my last post. We are proud to announce the referral of our next daughter Fu Yan Yang soon to be June Skye. She is currently in Fuzhou city in the Fuzhou SWI. Her birthday is December 11th which happens to be the anniversary of the day we got our Jaili girl. She is 9 months old and is beautiful. She has blonde hair and blue (we think, not positive though) eyes, no I'm not kidding she has albinism. Shane, Jaili and I are so excited. We were not expecting her referral so it was a bit of a shock. I actually saw a post about her on another forum that someone from another agency posted. I was on a forum that I don't usually check and on a Saturday am which I never check on sites on the weekends. The post said that on the shared list that just came out there was a 9 month old baby girl with albinism that had not been matched to a family and that her agency had all of her info and her picture (along with 10 other kids off of the shared list)I immediatly emailed Holt on Sat am to ask about her file. They were fantastic and looked on the shared list right away for us.They let me know that another agency had locked her file but they would keep checking to see if her file became available on Sunday night when the lock would go off from the other agency. I thought there was no way her file was going to become unlocked so we put it out of our brains and went about our weekend. Fast forward to Monday morning and I had an email from Holt from Sunday night that said her file was unlocked and they locked it for us. We were emailed her info today and 10:30am and sent Holt our LOI (letter of intent) this evening. Crazy round about way to find out about our daughter but when God has her meant for us, she will get to us. Shane and I knew immediatly that this is the second daughter God has intended for us. We are so excited and all of us can't wait to bring her home.I'll post more news as we get it and also information about albinism so everyone can understand it better. I know we will be getting alot of questions. There is actually a wonderful site www.albinism.org to learn more about it. Take Care everyone.

No match this month

Just thought I'd update and let everyone know that we weren't matched this time around. The CCAA (Chinese center for adoption affairs) sent out a smaller list with mostly older children and children with severe special needs on it and they didn't release one with alot of minor special needs or younger children on it. Hopefully next month will be our month to finally see our next baby girl. Who knows, it's all in God's timing. It's unnerving to know that she is born and out there yet we have no idea who or where in China she is. I get anxious about her referral. I just want to see her little face : ) I know all you other adoptive mom's reading this know EXACTLY what I mean. It can be a difficult process because there are not alot of definites, you just go with the flow...but isn't that the way with many things in life? Anywho, God's timing is perfect and we are excited for the time when our next one will join our family. Our faith keeps growing and we have more time to save money so there are some positives about waiting. Have a great day everyone and keep praying for all the kiddos to find their forever families.

Everything is going awesome

No significant news to update as of yet. We are getting everything ready for our fundraiser and it's been going fantastic. I sent out invitations today to everyone I have addresses for. It is open invitation though so you don't need one to attend. Just as an update it will be a Dancing, silent auction and wine tasting event held at the 50+ Center on Portland Rd. $10 min donation per person.
So as for a referral we are still anxiously awaiting it. The shared list is rumored to come out this week sometime so maybe we will see the face of our little June Bug soon. Yea!!! I'm slightly obsessed about it right now. I check all the different forums and sites that I know to see if any one else has received a referral from the shared list so that way I know it has at least come out and we weren't matched as of yet. With Jaili girl is was completely different. They didn't do the shared list at that time so when Shane and I got her referral it was a total surprise. I have to say in my opinion this way is more nerve wracking. I have the phone with me at all times just waiting for "the call".Consequently every time the phone rings my immediate response is RUN to go get it, it might be for our next baby. Shane is awesome about keeping me calm and grounded though, I might be a complete basket case if it wasn't for him. He is just chill about the whole thing.
Anywho, just thought I'd keep everyone updated.
Oh yea if this post doesn't make an enormous amount of sense today...sorry..I'm sick and my brain is not exactly functioning on all cylinders today.

Few pictures of birdy

Bird and her daddy. I was wanting to get one of all three of us for the DTC post but I haven't taken one in the last 30 days...so I just put up three seperate ones.

Our Sweet Pea

Check out the pink hair...sweet! You can't see it very well, but her bangs are pink and she has 2 blue streaks on the underneath on the sides...the benefits of mom being a hairstylist. Bird and I have the same color. She picked it out for us : )

We are DTC!!!

As of 8.28.09 we are DTC (Dossier to China)!!! This means not only are we done with the 6 months worth of paperwork that we have been working on but we are also "officially" awaiting the referral of our next baby girl. Huge sigh of relief on one hand and also a EEKK on the other. Shane, Jaili bird and I are so excited to finally get a referral and see the face of our next daughter/sister, reality has set in a little more of "Oh awesome, now we are going to need to come up with lots of $$$". (The sky is falling, the sky is falling : ) )I'm freaked and calm at the same time...I don't know how it's all going to happen but I do know that this is God's plan and He already has our daughter for us so He will make it all come together. It is a good feeling to have that peace, that He will see us through. Sometimes it would be nice if we could have a little more detail on how.
As for when we will get a referral, it all just depends. We could get a referral as soon as 2 weeks or it could be 6 months from now. We've had a few questions on how our daughter will come to us. We don't pick her out. Since we are doing the COP (child of Promise) route China releases a list of children once a month with various special needs and different ages. Our agency Holt then compares the parameters of the different parents to the age, special need, etc of the children that need families. When they have a child that meets what the parents have put on the application and special need form they "lock" the child's file. They then send all of this information to the potential parents. At this time the parents review the information and decide if this is their child. You can have a doctor review all of the medical information also. If you decide to accept the referral you then send a letter of Intent (LOI) to China saying that yes this is the child that you are wanting to adopt (basically..there is other stuff that goes along with it to). If you decide to not accept the referral the child' file is "unlocked" and the file then is available for another agency to "lock". Nothing changes with the potential parents, you just stay waiting for the next referral. There are various reasons that files are not accepted (special need to severe, child is older). It is heartbreaking to deny a referral but you know the child that God has planned for you and what you can handle special needs wise. I believe that there can be a family for every child and God will guide you to your child and your child to you.
After you accept you send your LOI (letter of Intent) you then wait several months to get your LOA (letter of Approval) this is the letter that China sends to let you know that yes, you are approved to be the parents of this child. You then wait for TA (travel approval) time frames vary to receive this but I believe that it is usually around 10 weeks after you receive LOA. After you receive your TA you are set to go get your child. You will usually leave 3-4 weeks after you receive TA. The whole process from referral until actually getting to hold your child for the first time is about 6-7 months. With Jaili girl it took about 5 months, time frames have lengthened since then though (due to different paperwork and approvals...Hague convention). Shane and I have put several special needs that we are open to so we should get a referral relatively soon. Some of the special needs we have included are deaf, partial hearing loss, ear atresia, congenital heart defect, Hep B, missing or partial arm, leg, fingers, toes, webbed fingers, toes, albinism and few others. Both Shane and I are very open to various questions about different special needs because it is nothing to be ashamed of. So if anyone is curious about special needs adoption please feel free to email me any questions. The special needs can be very minor and correctable to more severe. It is also possible that like Jaili girl, we received her referral under the COP program, and after we got home found that she had seroconverted from Hep B and is healthy in every way (she has an amazing immune system, that kid is never sick...it's awesome)Anywho, this is about the time frame we are looking at. We are hoping for a referral before December and then travel by June or so. It's all God's timing though, so who knows.
On the subject of June, Jaili bird is pretty convinced that we are naming her June. Everytime I tell her " I don't know yet honey, we are going to wait and see" she tells me adamantly that "No Mommy, baby sister's name is June. I know that her name is June, I'm naming her that" (It's sad the way she is so shy about sharing her opinions :) ) So we may be getting a picture of our little June bug in a few months. We will see.