The waiting gets harder

I can hardly believe the we have at least 4 or 5 more months of waiting!  This morning we got some updated photos of Joshua and Sarah Irene, and they are both growing up so much!  Especially Sarah.  It is very hard to wait now.  The updated measurements I received show that she has not gained much weight, however her length measurements indicate she has shrunk by three centimeters, so I'm not putting too much credibility on her measurements overall.  She is also still not walking, which does not surprise me too much.  I was given photos that show Joshua pushing her in a baby walker, and he seems to be doing well walking on his own.  I have one photo that shows her sitting up.  These are the first photos I have of the two of them together.  I still cannot share photos of their identities, since we do not have our formal referral approvals.  Hopefully we will get those in just a couple more weeks.

I know this is going to be a long summer as we wait for them to join our family, so we continue to pray for health, especially for Sarah.  It is very possible she could suffer bladder damage the longer we wait to get her seen by a specialist and start catheterizing her.  Please continue to pray that does not happen.  Thank you.

PA for Sarah Irene!

We had to wait until we were logged in to the CCAA's system (now called the CCCWA--China Center for Children's and Women's Affairs) before we could get our pre-approval to adopt Sarah Irene.  The policy for adopting two children now is that one of the children must be in a category called "special focus".  These are children who have been on the waiting list for over 60 days, or who have more difficult medical conditions that make them harder to match with families.  Neither of our children was listed as special focus, but our agency felt that Xiao Jie (Sarah Irene) was a very good match for us, so they went to bat to ask the CCCWA to change her status so we could adopt her.  Well, their computer system was not set up to automatically change a child's status, so our agency was told we would be verbally approved to adopt, but they could not produce the paperwork until after we had sent in our dossier.  So our dossier was logged in earlier in the month, and as promised, we received Sarah Irene's pre-approval last Friday, May 20th.

We are not waiting for our referral approvals (RAs), which are the approvals we receive after our dossier has been reviewed and the CCCWA confirms that we can officially adopt these two children.  After we get the RAs we must send in our I800 forms to start the process of making these children American Citizens upon their adoption and arrival in the U.S.  We also have to apply for Visas and start the travel approval paperwork.  It will be a whirlwind, but I'm ready for it!  I've already got the two I800s, the two DS230s, and copies of all our other paperwork ready to send in.  I am hoping and expecting that the RAs will arrive the week of June 6th.

Anyway, that's where we are now.  I'm so grateful for those friends who are still praying for our family as we wait and wait.  Thanks so much!

We have a Log In Date!

Small but significant news!  LID is April 29th.  The last Friday in April.  Seven years ago that was the day we received Merrilee's referral and saw our first child's face for the very first time.  Last Fridays in April will forever be special to me!