Haven't had any news to post in the past 2 weeks but am waiting for a nice woman on the China Team from our agency to call me today. I'm hoping she can tell me SOMETHING or even just make me feel better - which works, too!
If you haven't visited lately, check out the links to our friends over on the right. Erik, Emily and Sadie are home! Kari and Dave, and Tracy are in China right now uniting with their daughters Lily and Muriel - the photos are awesome.
Beautiful families!
Hope ya'll are well. More soon... :)
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
One Small Step, One Giant Leap
Banner day yesterday! I called our agency's China Update Hotline (really, that's what it's called) to listen to the new message for this week. I almost couldn't believe my ears. The kind voice of AH-C, one of our program coordinators, announced that November is THROUGH REVIEW and has moved to the MATCHING DEPARTMENT!
WOO HOO!
To refresh, this means the good folks at the CCAA have looked over our paperwork (background checks, financial report, physical exams, homestudy report, reference letters, photos, etc), have decided all our papers are in order, we pass muster and approve of us to adopt a child. Given that some of you were in a few of the photos we sent them, we can all feel proud that Stew and I moved to the next step inspite of everything! :)
I was at home yesterday when I heard the news and quickly called Stew at work to tell him. Phew - what a relief to move from REVIEW (scary) to MATCHING (much better)! We both felt the rush that comes only from concrete progress. Because celebration means food, we had a nice dinner out to toast our banner day.
YAY YAY!
All that said...the reality of the situation is that even though we're finally in matching, which really does sound like a pix could arrive in the mail any day, folks who claim to be in the know continue to speculate that we may not see anything by way of a referral for up to NINE more months with the absolute worse case scenario being November of 2007. Granted, this is the time of month when all the really bad rumors come out to play but Stew and I have to prepare ourselves for the worst while always hoping for the best. Problem is, it's difficult sometimes to figure out what's the best but realistic thing we can hope for. This particular road has been 20 months long already. Add that to the previous 3 1/2 years of wanting a family and I gotta say - Stew and I look at each other every day and ahhh...along with the rest of you...we're not getting any younger. I said to Missy this weekend, "I can't believe our Chelsea is 16 and graduates in 2 years! Do you realize that I'll be about 56 when my daughter is 16 and pushing 60 when she graduates! Holy #$%@!"
Not the first time I've considered this, not by a long shot. Just that I do a fair job of putting it out of my mind most days. Missy, very reassuringly, big-sisterly, and thankfully, pointed out that most of our friends' kids are 2 years old or younger so we're not going to be the only ones taking our teens to the movies and qualifying for the senior discount. I don't mind getting older, I really don't. I just feel sort of badly for her, our daughter. Us adopting in our 40's was not what we hoped, not what we wanted for her, not what we planned but it's what happened so... All we can do is hope that she'll keep us young, that she won't notice the gray hairs poking through my dye job when she meets us for the first time, that maybe we'll be better parents then we would have been 15 or even 10 years ago.
WOO HOO!
To refresh, this means the good folks at the CCAA have looked over our paperwork (background checks, financial report, physical exams, homestudy report, reference letters, photos, etc), have decided all our papers are in order, we pass muster and approve of us to adopt a child. Given that some of you were in a few of the photos we sent them, we can all feel proud that Stew and I moved to the next step inspite of everything! :)
I was at home yesterday when I heard the news and quickly called Stew at work to tell him. Phew - what a relief to move from REVIEW (scary) to MATCHING (much better)! We both felt the rush that comes only from concrete progress. Because celebration means food, we had a nice dinner out to toast our banner day.
YAY YAY!
All that said...the reality of the situation is that even though we're finally in matching, which really does sound like a pix could arrive in the mail any day, folks who claim to be in the know continue to speculate that we may not see anything by way of a referral for up to NINE more months with the absolute worse case scenario being November of 2007. Granted, this is the time of month when all the really bad rumors come out to play but Stew and I have to prepare ourselves for the worst while always hoping for the best. Problem is, it's difficult sometimes to figure out what's the best but realistic thing we can hope for. This particular road has been 20 months long already. Add that to the previous 3 1/2 years of wanting a family and I gotta say - Stew and I look at each other every day and ahhh...along with the rest of you...we're not getting any younger. I said to Missy this weekend, "I can't believe our Chelsea is 16 and graduates in 2 years! Do you realize that I'll be about 56 when my daughter is 16 and pushing 60 when she graduates! Holy #$%@!"
Not the first time I've considered this, not by a long shot. Just that I do a fair job of putting it out of my mind most days. Missy, very reassuringly, big-sisterly, and thankfully, pointed out that most of our friends' kids are 2 years old or younger so we're not going to be the only ones taking our teens to the movies and qualifying for the senior discount. I don't mind getting older, I really don't. I just feel sort of badly for her, our daughter. Us adopting in our 40's was not what we hoped, not what we wanted for her, not what we planned but it's what happened so... All we can do is hope that she'll keep us young, that she won't notice the gray hairs poking through my dye job when she meets us for the first time, that maybe we'll be better parents then we would have been 15 or even 10 years ago.
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
Recent Happenings
I had a request for some photos to jazz things up around here and Cher, I swear, I'm working on it! I'm not so swift at doing that kind of thing yet so it will have to be a joint Stewart/Heather effort. Busy, busy the past few weeks. Our nephew, Jacob, enlisted in the Air Force and left for Basic on August 1 so we were in Iowa for his going away party. Had a great time but we were sad to see him off. Last weekend, Stew's sister, Mary, and her family visited - Valley Fair (amusement park), the circus (animal rts folks, please know there were no animals present), extraordinarily hot weather and a trip to Convention Grill for burgers and malts - for a fun weekend. Today, Stew's other sister, Barb, her husband, daughter and their dad came up for a Twins game and an overnight. Next weekend, my sister and niece, Melissa and Chelsea, visit. Melissa and I finally feel ready to sort through and divide things from 516 Larchwood Dr. The boxes have been sitting in our basement for a few years and now is the time - making way for kidstuff storage. Phew! We have to cram in the fun while we can still step outside without having to brace ourselves against the cold. Why do we live here again...?
On the adoption front:
Still no update on whether or not we're through review and into matching yet.
However, referrals have arrived for people whose paperwork was (were?) logged-in in China June 29 through July 13, 2005, bringing them two whole weeks closer to our paperwork.
Check out some of the beautiful children: http://junejitterbugs2005.homestead.com/
(Babies are dressed VERY warmly in China. Can you tell that a lot of the babies in these photos are wearing 8-9 layers of clothes? They're not really as plump as they appear.)
For a long time, we'd been hearing that the CCAA was going to be moving to a new building and that process might be a piece of the slow-down in referrals puzzle. At the end of June, the CCAA finally moved to it's new location and so we can't help but hope things will speed up once they're settled in. Perhaps we'll know a little more when we see how many log-in days are covered in the next batch of referrals we expect to see near the end of August. (Referrals are generally sent out 1 x per month about 3-4 weeks apart.) The current online speculation is that we can expect to see the first picture of our daughter anywhere between November of this year and May of 2007. (That window is so large, let's call it what it is - a barn door!)
Family and Friends, we need your help! Keep fingers, toes and eyes tightly crossed for November-January of this year!
On the adoption front:
Still no update on whether or not we're through review and into matching yet.
However, referrals have arrived for people whose paperwork was (were?) logged-in in China June 29 through July 13, 2005, bringing them two whole weeks closer to our paperwork.
Check out some of the beautiful children: http://junejitterbugs2005.homestead.com/
(Babies are dressed VERY warmly in China. Can you tell that a lot of the babies in these photos are wearing 8-9 layers of clothes? They're not really as plump as they appear.)
For a long time, we'd been hearing that the CCAA was going to be moving to a new building and that process might be a piece of the slow-down in referrals puzzle. At the end of June, the CCAA finally moved to it's new location and so we can't help but hope things will speed up once they're settled in. Perhaps we'll know a little more when we see how many log-in days are covered in the next batch of referrals we expect to see near the end of August. (Referrals are generally sent out 1 x per month about 3-4 weeks apart.) The current online speculation is that we can expect to see the first picture of our daughter anywhere between November of this year and May of 2007. (That window is so large, let's call it what it is - a barn door!)
Family and Friends, we need your help! Keep fingers, toes and eyes tightly crossed for November-January of this year!
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