The Watch Pot finally Bolied!!!

Yay!!! Just as I was having a pretty discouraging day, thinking that our Social Worker had been dragging her feet to make the last minute revisions needed to finally get our Homestudy approved...I received the email, even BETTER than the email that I had been checking for allday! She had actually already sent the revisions to our Agency last Friday, and our Agency issued final approval today!! This may not seem like HUGE news, in the scope of hoops we still have ahead of us to jump through, but trust me, it is BIG for us! Anytime anyone signs, stamps, holds, heck...even LOOKS at our paperwork, we are one step closer to the end result- a 747 plane ride to China!! So, our Social Worker will receive the approval letter from our Adoption Agency (CCAI), so that it can be sent to DSS (hopefully by week's end). Next week, our Agency will begin sending out our official documents for sealing! They are time-sensitive at this point, as The Chinese Embassy in DC will not seal any documents that are over 6 months old (ours have already aged 2 months, waiting for our Homestudy to be completed!)So it's a time-crunch. Once they are certified by the NC & SC Secretary of States (by mail), they will be driven by a courier, who will walk them into the US Dept. Of State and The Chinese Embassy. Well,the intention of this blog entry was just to share our good news for the day, and instead turned into a crash course in Adoption paperwork.....you will be quizzed later;-) Don't worry..there is still more to do! We have to get approval from DSS and then approval from Customs and Immigration...

A watch pot never boils...(Apparently the same is true for checking one's email thirty times a day in hopes of seeing that your Social Worker has made the neccessary revisions so that your Homestudy can travel to DSS for approval.)Grrrr....today is a "no patience, venting kind of day.

"The flower that blooms in adversity is the rarest and most beautiful of all"~Walt Disney Company

"We witness a miracle every time a child enters into life. But those who make their journey home across time & miles,growing within the hearts of those who wait to love them,are carried on the wings of destiny and placed among us by God's very own hands."~Kristi Larson

My Sweet Blessings

Adoption Timeline

Late January 2012~ sent inital application to our agency
Early February 2012~application approved!!
                                  began homestudy process with Social Worker
March 2012  ~ applied for B.C, M.C,renewed passports, gathered letters of reference (thank you!!), began
                         preparing all final documents that will go in our Dossier (the BIG, IMPORTANT folder
                         that will be sent to China).

April 2012 ~completed Homestudy with Social worker
                    Mailed all official documents out for sealing! (they will go to NC Sec of State, SC Sec of
                     State, US Consulate (by Courrier) and then Chinese Embassy (DC) (also by Courrier)
                    We are now just waiting for our SW to make some last minute "wording revisions" to our HS,
                     so that it can travel to DSS for approval.

WHY ADOPT? and WHY CHINA? Boy did we know we were going to get lots of questions! we have 2 healthy, happy Boys, an easy life...why take on more? Last month, we slowly started letting our close friends and family in on our news, and to our delight, they were all so supportive. Around Christmas time of last year, the desire to add to our family really began weighing heavily on my heart. we talked about it and knew instantly that it was more than just the desire to have another child. In church, we would watch videos from the latest Missions trip, and I would sit in the pew and bawl my eyes out, looking at these sweet children, with no parents. We instantly knew the desire to add to our family was part of a bigger plan-to bring a child into our home who had no family of their own. Most of you know how desperately I have always wanted a daughter of our own; and so began the intense research of countries for adoption. After lots of reading and phone calls, we knew that China would be the country where we would find our Daughter. With China's "One Child Rule", parents are only able to keep one child. Boys are preferred because they are quickly put back into the work force. The future for girls is not so bright. While it is illegal to have a child and keep another, it is also illegeal to abandon a child. So what are these poor families left to do. These Chinese Mothers often get a bad rap for abandoning their children, but the exact opposite is true. They risk everything to make sure that their child is left in a safe, noticable place (often times a Hospital, school parking lot, Government building)ensuring that when they are found, they will be taken care of. The children are often placed in an orphanage or foster home. I won"t lie, the pictures of orphanage life are not so gleaming. It is sad, but the nannies who work there, take excellent care of these babies (LOTS of them!!) and give them the best care that they can. Already along our journey, we have learned so much about the Chinese culture and realize more than ever, that we were meant to bring one of these orphans HOME.

Why start blogging??? I have never thought of myself as a blogger, but most Facebook friends of mine know, I love my daily status updates! So after reading others' personal blogs and learning so much from them, I decided it was time. It"s also a great way to let our friends and family in our Big News!! In late January of this year we began the Adoption process through China!! We are so excited about this journey we are on to bring our Daughter HOME!!