Could it be?????????

The website has changed!!!!!!!! Does this mean we have been matched??
Our documents were registered (logged in) on June 13, 2005. I am trying not to get too excited seeing referrals don't always seem to match what the CCAA website states. The families that got their referrals the beginning of May should have received their the beginning of April according to the website ........ but then other groups in the past got them right on time. I am besides myself. I am so excited but trying to be realistic. The CCAA should be starting to mail out referrals at the end of the week. This may mean we will learn about Sophia at the beginning of June.

I can't even think straight right now. Please pray that we will get our referral soon.

Travel Meeting!!

We finally had our travel meeting on May 12th. It was great to see Heather and Todd, the couple we will be traveling with and a few other couples who may join us in China. Sandy explained the whole process from referral to bringing Sophie home. She told us that she hopes that we will have our referral in the beginning of June, maybe June 5th or 12th. She will call letting us know that referrals have arrived. We will go to the office the next day after the documents have been translated. We will get three pictures of the baby and her medical information. Hard to believe that this is going to happen.

We then will wait about 4-6 weeks for travel approval. Once we get our travel approval we have to be ready to go seeing once we get our Consulate appointment we will travel. We might have two weeks from our travel approval to departure. She thinks we will be traveling at the end of July. Seeing Katie will be with us during the summer she will be traveling with us to China. Flights are very expensive during the summer so Steve and I are trying to work a little extra to come up with the extra money. We are going to be checking into adoption fares with the major airlines soon.

We were told what we would be doing in China and what to expect in terms of transitioning with the baby. We will be in Beijing for three days, travel to the place where Sophie is and then end up in Guangdong. We were told it will be very HOT in China. Many places will not have air conditioning. Thank goodness all our hotel rooms will have AC. We were told about bonding and that sometimes the baby will bond with one parent (the chosen one) and cry anytime the other parent comes near. Sandy said this is normal but doesn't last long. I certainly hope I am not the unchosen one.

We will need to have our homestudy updated and our fingerprints re-done seeing both have expired. This whole process is overwhelming but we are getting closer. Keep your fingers crossed for us. I am really hoping to be included in the next referral batch that goes out the end of this month. If not, I am not sure what I am going to do.

Even the animals are waiting for Sophie to come home

Gir (on left) and Kaegogi (on right) are not unlike us. They are both longing for the day that Sophie comes home. They are in the window, on the look out. Should be soon, right?

Mother's Day

When this all started I had hoped we would have Sophia home by Mother's Day. I guess nothing goes as planned once children are involved! Katie gave me the beautiful flowers. Steve gave me a great Mother's Day card (with a note from Sophia) and T-shirt for Sophia to wear once we get her. It was a beautiful Mother's Day.

Travel Meeting Scheduled

On April 10th we received an email from our agency saying it was time to schedule our travel meeting. The travel meeting will address what to expect during the trip, how to facilitate bonding, what will happen each day while in China , how to make travel arrangements for our trip, discuss paperwork to bring/do ahead, shots, packing tips, etc. The agency suggested several days and asked all the families which one was best. May 12th was selected which unfortunately is one of the worst days of the year to take off with the board of trustee's meeting and graduation. Thankfully, my boss was supportive when I told her I would need off that day.

I am looking forward to this meeting because it will answer lots of questions but also mean we are one step closer to Sophia. The agency expects that we will get our referral late May or early to mid June. Pray for the end of May date. This waiting is incredibly hard.

Anne

Referrals for part of June group

The news came today for the families with log in dates up to June 6th.

It is so nice to see the excitement on the June yahoo listserv. While it is not us getting referrals, people I have been on-line with for almost a year are getting theirs. It just makes it all the more real. We hope that our referral will be in the next batch which will come towards the end of May. I will be following the rumor mill very closely next time. I don't know where the people get their information from but they predicted the June 6th cut off as early as 4/20, almost a week before the official word was out.

Hanging in there.... if only by a thread

I can not believe we are still waiting for our referral. It is hard not knowing when it might come. When we first got started we expected to have Sophia home by now and here we are without any information about our chosen daughter and when we will meet her.

Group 27, who logged in one month before us, is still waiting for their referrals. They have been expecting them "any day now" for about a month. They were given today, April 10th, as a date they should have them in hand. Time will tell.

We are very curious to see what happens with group 27 because we are group 28. Group 29 is logged in just four days after us. After our agency gets the referrals for group 27 they will schedule a travel meeting for our group and group 29. The travel meetings are typically scheduled 2-4 weeks before the referral is expected. It will talk about travel, what to pack, ways to encourage attachment, expectations, etc. Another small step in the long journey.

I wish I could write with better news but right now there is nothing in the pipeline. To look at the bright side no news is better than bad news.

Anne

Another batch of referrals closer

Yesterday the yahoo groups were busy with people posting referral news. The CCAA website officially changed to read, " The CCAA has finished the placement of children for the families whose adoption application documents were registered with our office before May 25, 2005." On one hand this is good news seeing we are one batch closer on the other hand it is disappointing to see they only referred out 12 days of Log in Dates.

When our paperwork got to China on June 13th the wait from Log In Date (LID) to referral was about 6 or 7 months. We were hoping to get our referral around December or January. Unfortunately everything slowed down in November and it started to look like this:

On October 3 families with LID of Feb 28-March 17 recieved their referrals
On November 11 families with LID of March 18-March 31 recieved their referrals
On December 9 families with LID of April 1-15 received their referrals
On January 3 families with LID of April 15-25 received their referrals
On January 25 families with LID of April 26-May 13 received their referrals
And on February 27 families with LID of May 14- 25 received their referrals

We are still 18 days away from our LID. I am not hopeful that our referral will be in the next batch sent out late March. Our agency being smaller also seems to get them a little later than the larger agencies. If we do not get our referral until April we will not travel until June. I am not sure I can even wrap my mind around traveling any later than June. I trust that CCAA is doing their best to get these referrals out. I hear they do 1500 referrals a month. However, the amount of families looking to adopt from China is growing and things are slowing down. Pray that they get caught up and by some miracle they send out a full month of LID in the next batch.

I am keeping busy teaching two courses this semester. I am not sure if the teaching is making the time go faster or I am too tired to notice how slow things are moving but either way it seems to be doing the trick. Steve, while still frustrated with the wait, is seemingly handling it better.

We finally attended the Asia Adoption Seminar. This is a mandatory class offered by my agency. We originally signed up for a date in November. The class was rescheduled to a date I was presenting at a conference and could not attend. We registered again for January but that date was cancelled. We tried again for Feb 11 but that was cancelled because of a prediction of snow. Yes, here in Maryland they cancel when there is just a prediction of snow. We did get about 13 inches of snow but it did not start to accumulate until well after the class would have been over. So the class was rescheduled once again. We finally did attend on 2/26. It was a good class. A friend of mine who adopted a girl from China two years ago led the class. We discussed attachment and bonding, expectations, the trip in China, nurturing the self esteem of our daughters, becoming a multi-racial family, creating an adoption story, positive adoption language, etc. It was very informative. We even left with a notebook of articles to read to gain even a deeper understanding of the process. So with this under our belts we are yet another step closer.

Keep us in your prayers as the days pass. We pray that we get our referral soon. It is so hard not knowing anything. Once we get our referral we will know if Sophie spent time in an orphanage or with a foster family, her age, her birth date, her size and weight, her health status and we will have a face to attach our dreams on.

Anne

Thank goodness it was only a dream

I had a dream the other night that we were in China and handed our beautiful daughter. I was holding her and realized that she was very heavy. I put her down and realized that although the referral said she was 14 months old she was now 14 years old. I spoke to someone who was in charge and told them that there must be some type of mistake but they said that she was our daughter. They explained that the referral process and travel approval took a little longer than expected so she had aged a bit..... 13 years!!!!! Thank goodness this was only a dream.
Anne

Another day closer

Sometimes it feels like this adoption process will never be complete but I have to trust in the fact that each day brings us that much closer to bringing Sophie home. On January 19th the China Center for Adoption Affairs posted the following update on their website.
"The CCAA has finished the review of the adoption application documents registered with our office in June 2005." This means our application/dossier has been reviewed and next we will go into the matching room.

Yesterday, January 23, the website was updated with even more exciting news, "the CCAA has finished the placement of children for the families whose adoption application documents were registered with our office before May 13, 2005."

Our log in date is June 13th. So there are 30 days of dossiers before us to be matched. What this all means, I have no idea. The offices at CCAA will be shut down for a week or two starting on Saturday for Chinese New Year. It seems that there might not be another batch of referrals mailed out until March. If they continue with the two week at a time rate we have March and April to go before our referral. BUT it even gets worse... June 13th what if the cut off is June 12th. All this is speculation at this point. There is one group in our agency that has a LID of April 18th that should have, according to this CCAA status website, have their referral the end of December but are still waiting.

All this speculation is making me crazy. It is hard to know our daughter is in China waiting for her forever family. And it is hard for me to know that we might not be going to bring her home until June or July. I was hoping to have some time home alone with Sophie before Steve was off in the summer. We decided it doesn't make sense for us both to be home at the same time. It is best to extend the leave so we can be sure she has time to adjust to the home environment before making the transition to daycare.

Keep sending good thoughts and prayers our way. Our patience is wearing thin.

Anne

2006

While there is not much that has changed it feels good that it is now 2006 and this is the year we will travel to China to bring home Sophia. CCAA has matched babies to parents who had log in dates until 4/25. We have all of May and half of June to go before it is our time. There is rumor that another batch of referrals will be out sometime next week but that is only a rumor thus far. CCAA did send an additional batch of referrals from the log in dates of April 15-April 25 out last week. People are just getting their referral news from this latest batch. I just pray these referrals keep on coming and pray that we won't miss any cut off dates being logged in on June 13th. They seem to cut them off anywhere between the 12th and 15th so I am a bit nervous. I am expecting a March referral, missing that by one day will just kill me!!!!! Anne

Just waiting.... and waiting... and waiting

It seems like the closer we get to the anticipated referral date the slower things are going. Unfortunately, it is not only our imagination seeing we have the hard facts as well. CCAA has been only referring out half months. This means rather than all the dossiers that went to China in March being referred out in October, they split the month. Dossiers recieved before March 13 were referred out in October and dossiers received March 14- March 30 were referred out in November. I was hoping they would catch up but the people that got referrals in December were people with dossiers logged in from April 1- 14. So if referrals stay on that track they will refer out the second half of April in January, half of May in February and March and we will get our referral in April or May. This means we will not travel to get our daughter until June or July. We started our homestudy one year ago. This process seems like it will go on forever.

The reason for the slow down is because the CCAA are getting more dossiers and adoptive families than ever. They can only refer about 1500 children a month. The number of adoptive families that they are getting paperwork for each month exceeds that number. There is hope that if May is a smaller group the wait time will lessen but the trend does not seem in our favor.

One step forward, ten steps back

Steve and I painted the baby's room last weekend. It looks great. It is a celery green color. We have to buy the furniture to complete it but we are making progress. However, that is the only progress we seem to be making. There has been a tremendous slow down in the referrals from China. This month they are referring babies to those who had logged in dates (LID) in March. Evidently there were more than 1500 referrals for March LIDs. A typical month is about 800 referrals. With this many dossiers, the referrals are taking longer to be issued. Also the Consulate is going to get very backed up. We were excepting to get our referral in January and travel in March. Now it looks like we will get our referral in March and travel in May. This is really hard to swallow. I am praying that the slow down is temporary and that things will be picking up soon.

Another yard sale

Steve was gone this weekend. I got up early to take the dog for a walk on Sunday. As we were walking by the school I noticed people setting up for a yard sale. We browsed through the tables and found some really great stuff. I rushed home, got money and went back to pick up all the things I asked people to hold for me. I got tons of great stuff. I picked up a playschool doll house, a ride on scooter, a Lil Peoples farm and school bus, another farm set, a cause and effect toy, a shape sorter, a train set and some books. All for $25.

With yard sales and friends and family with older kids we are well on our way to having everything we need. Now if only I can find one more car seat and a crib at a yard sale we will be ready to go.

It has been a while

It has been a while since we last posted. Two months have gone by without much to say. There aren't any updates seeing we are just in the waiting stage now. Each month I hear of another batch of referrals leaving China and think that is one month closer to when we get ours.

Steve and I are preparing the room for the baby. We are going to be painting it soon. We will also be getting a new bed for Nick (a twin rather than the full he has now to save space) and a crib for the baby. It is amazing how many friends have given us such great things.

Phyllis and her family of girls gave us a playhouse and picnic table for the back yard. Carolyn has given us a high chair and car set. Beth will be giving us a running stroller. Not to mention all the clothes we are getting from Linda. My mother has been having fun shopping for the baby. Sophie will be the best dressed and equipped baby!!!

Keep watching this site for updates. I think we review our paperwork in November, take a class in November, and have a travel meeting in December.

Anne

Time passes slowly

Well it has been just about six weeks from when we logged in. Time really passes slowly. We have been having a good summer with Katie. Steve enjoys lots of fun days with Katie seeing he is home during the summer. We have tried to do some fun stuff on the weekends so I can join them. We have seen a few movies, went to the zoo, and have gone swimming at Grandma Bev's house several times. We attended another waiting family meeting. Katie enjoyed playing with the two children on the floor. The meetings are getting harder for Steve because it seems so far off until we are home with our daughter. I still enjoy seeing the families and hearing the stories.

I have started buying stuff for the nursery. I have decided I want to use panda bears. It is impossible to find a crib set with pandas. I have shopped eBay and found some stuff that I am going to pull together. I hope it will work. I think I am going to paint the room a light green.

I had a dream that a baby was handed to me by a Chinese man with a long beard. The dream occurred on July 23rd. I am not sure if the date will prove to be significant but decided it would be worth noting.

Paperwork in China!!

We made it past another hurdle. Our paperwork is finally in China! We had been waiting for the agency to send us an email letting us know that our dossier was sent to China.(DTC- dossier to China)

We were told that they were waiting for several other families' documents to be translated and we would be sent over in a group of five. When we did not get the email notifying us that they were on the way to China I sent the agency an email. They reported that the coordinator of the program decided not to wait and sent the two families that were done! We are in group number 28 with one other family.

The next day we got the official email from the agency stating that our log in date (LID) was June 13th, 2005. The email went on to further explain that the estimated time table is as follows: we will review paperwork for updating in November, attend a travel meeting in December, get our referral in January, and travel to pick up Sophie in March. We will also be starting our travel vaccinations soon, as well as, take one parenting adopted children course through the agency.

The waiting is horrible. Chinese New Year is the end of January. Everything shuts done for two weeks which can further slow this process. We are hoping that the craziness of the holidays will make the time pass quicker but that is yet to be seen.

We are very excited about being one step closer. We will keep you posted as the journey continues.

Update from Steve

The last few weeks have gotten us even closer to Sophie coming home to us in Maryland. Both Anne and I drove all over the Baltimore-DC metro area to get paperwork stamped and prepared for China. Just as we had finished up with those papers, our INS approval came in the mail. The folks at ATI tell us we have been very lucky, our papers only took five weeks and other folks are still waiting after twelve! We are looking forward to the summer and being able to get Sophie's room ready and baby proof the house.

It's very different becoming a parent through adoption. There are no "signs" of the baby's arrival, like an expanding waistline, so when Anne picked up some baby clothes at a yard sale last week, it made every thing seem a little more real.

Soon we'll be starting to look at flights to China and I'll begin my attempt to convince Anne that we'll be in real bad shape if we fly all that way in coach. Please send any horror stories you may have to her and help me in my cause.
Anne just told me that she's not mentioned that Sophie will be named Sophie. We had originally thought about Allison, but one day I came home after seeing a large sign near our houses which says Tai Sofia, and declared the baby's name to be Sophie. It's just stuck, and beats CTB (ask Anne).

Making progress

Time seems to be going by very slowly. It feels as if we will never meet our daughter. We are making progress, however slowly. The dossier is almost complete. We are still waiting for the INS approval. That was mailed to them 5 weeks ago so we are hoping to have that soon. The rest of our documents have been notarized, county and state certified. That process was not at all difficult. Steve brought the dossier, along with two copies to the agency on Friday, May 20th. They said they would start the translation process while we wait for the approval. Once the approval arrives and we get that notarized, county and state certified the documents will be ready to be send to China. At that time we will be assigned a travel group from our agency. The travel group will be the families we will travel with to China. I hear that once you are assigned a group it feels more real. We will see.

What did make it feel more real was shopping at a yard sale at work. They had so many cute outfits for girls for 25 cents. Who could pass that up? I am not sure if the things will even fit but it was fun buying them. I got about 20 different pieces of clothing for $5. Most of them are 18-24 months and really cute.

A note from Katie

I can't wait for my baby sister!!! I am so excited!! I always wanted to be a big sister, anyway. And Nick doesn't play with me so Sophia will be a lot of fun. I just hope she gets along with the dog. You think she will? Yeah, but everyone gets along with cats. Except Chloe, the scaredy cat of the family. Well let's hope the dog calms down before she comes. I just can't believe I have to wait a year.

Well, on Monday we went to a meeting at ATI, I met a girl about my age and two cute babies from China. They weren't that different from me. They just looked different. But who cares what they look like, anyway. I can't wait for my baby sister, again. Now I am done. Signed- Katie