It is funny world

I have been amazed, through the whole adoption process, by the links and friendships that are formed seemingly just by chance, or maybe, by a greater design.

Jim got involved with a group several years ago that travels to other countries to perform various surgeries on children. It was before we had started or even seriously thought about adopting and even before the birth of our oldest daughter. For those of you who don't know, Jim is a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist. Through Children's Surgery International he has travelled many times to Mexico to participate in a two day cleft lip/palate repair mission. He has helped transform the lives of so many children and there families. I had always had a feeling since we started in the China adoption program that the daughter that we would be led to would be cleft affected. I can't explain it! It was just a feeling that I had even though we were open to many different needs. I just figured that there was a reason that Jim got involved with the surgery group. He also works with many of the surgeons and has travelled on these mission trips with them. These are the same surgeons who will do the palate repair on our daughter.

There is another group that does similar work in China but on a more permanent basis. Love Without Boundaries works in several orphanages and performs many different surgeries on the kids but also has set up healing homes to help the children both before and after surgery. They are one of the agencies at work in Sofie's orphanage along with Half The Sky. These two agencies are amazing and do fantastic work. LWB currently has volunteers in China now on their yearly cleft exchange where volunteer surgeons, nurses and anesthesiologists perform repairs on many kids. The following is a link to the blog post from today:

LWB

We will be unable to find out if LWB played any part in Sofie's lip repair until after we are home. We are not permitted to ask them any specific questions until the adoption is complete. As I read their blog post I was taken aback with the story at the end of the young mother who brought her infant daughter hoping that the doctors could fix her because in two days her family was taking her daughter away to be abandoned as they didn't want a cleft affected child living with them. My heart aches for all the Mother's who whether willingly or unwillingly had to make the extremely painful and difficult choice to abandon their child. Jing Jing's china mother loved her very much! I am certain of that because of where and how she was left for others to find. I cannot imagine the pain, heartache, anguish and wondering that Sofie's china mother will have to endure for the rest of her life and I will never be able to let her know that the daughter she loved so much is well, cared for, loved and cherished.

Tomorrow night is Children's Surgery International's annual benefit. I love going to the benefit because they raise a lot of money to help more kids and they really do a great job of showing people the work they do and how it impacts the children's lives. It is the last night before we travel to China that Jim and I will be able to get a babysitter and go out as a couple, just the two of us, for a while. I am worried that I will not be able to make it through the whole night without becoming a blubbering heap of tears!!! They do a video presentation which normally makes me tear up and that was before I had a daughter waiting for me half way around the world!! Seems like a appropriate last date before China! I need to stock up on Kleenex tomorrow :)

 

18 days and counting!!!

I am testing my new blogging app today before I go to China!!! I hope this works because I have no idea what I am doing!!!!!

 

Three weeks to go!!!!

We leave in three weeks!!! The airfare is booked, all the hotels are booked and we have a preliminary itinerary. I had to book one of the hotels myself and our agency did the rest. I ended up having to call the 1-800 number for the Holiday Inn to book it as the web site would not let me book four people in one room. It is a fire code there.....it is a way to make more $ there. I had to book two rooms and in all the confusion I forgot to downsize the suite when I added the second adjoining room to it. We now have a large suite with a separate bedroom and sitting area with a standard double room attached to it. Our hotel room in Guangzhou has been affectionately labelled the party room by my travel mates.

I am going to start blogging from my iPad from now on as I need to figure it out before we go. I am also having a hard time typing as I smacked my elbow, the funny bone not so funny, in the door jam at work on Friday and my wrist has been in pain since then. I think I really hit the ulnar nerve as my wrist joint and two fingers feel like bone is grinding on bone. I am now wearing a splint which helps the pain but not my typing. Of course it is my right wrist too.

I am slowly plowing my way through my "to do" lists but it seems like every time I knock a few things off the list I add about 10 more :)

Friday the 13th...pooohy!

Wow, what a day.
I finally got our tickets booked and we have a way to get to China, I am still working on where to stay :) Today was an amazing day. I will refer to the two aforementioned friends as CL and TV. The flights I booked are the same ones that CL has booked from the US to China. We will no longer meet in China, rather at LAX and then both of our families will travel to China together. We didn't plan it that way, it is just how the flights worked out! WOW!
More WOW!!  TV received her TA today and not Monday as we had feared would happen. Our agency has requested that her CA is on May 22, same as ours. Our family will be in China with our friends and their families. I cannot even begin to express to you how that makes me feel. I am overwhelmed with how this whole process has turned out. I would not have dared hoped two weeks ago that everything would turn out this way.....we are so very lucky, fortunate and blessed.........did I mention slightly poorer that we were this morning too :)

We have a CA

It is official....we have a CA (consulate appointment) date. It is May 22!!!! Here is our tentative schedule. We leave May 8, are in Beijing May 9-13, Hefei May 13-18 and Guangzhou May 18-24. I still have to book our air tickets to China and then the agency looks after everything else....that part scares me :) The day we meet Sofie and she becomes part of our family forever will either be on Mother's Day or the day after Mother's Day. A Mother's Day I won't soon forget :)
We were going to leave a week earlier but I called the agency and told them to postpone for a week. WHAT!!! you say. After all the whining and complaining I actually have the gall to postpone it for a week. Well, there is a story. Here is the story I wouldn't tell you last night for fear something would go wrong.

It started sometime before Christmas when a person that my husband works with and a member of an online chat group that I frequent contacted me for the password to Sofie's blog. The coworker is with the same agency as we are and we had a lot in common. We have become good friends. It is amazing to be able to share the ups and downs with someone else who just gets it. We will both be off this summer so I am looking forward to some fun times. The other woman, we found out after she logged into the blog that our daughters are in the same orphanage. She had no idea when she contacted me.
I had given up on being able to travel with either one of them until the twists and turns of waiting in international adoption kept bringing our time lines closer and closer together. We all waited too long for some stuff and got other stuff very quickly. I had started thinking that the "coworker, for lack of a better term, and I where very much on the same timeline but the RQ friend was planning on traveling in late May and I was leaving May 2 no matter what.......funny how things work out.

The RQ friend got her TA super fast and the "coworkers" TA got delayed and mine came in the middle. I could leave May 2 but it would be without either one of them. It was a difficult decision for me, not for Jim, he just said well we wait a week. So we decided to wait for a week in order to have the wonderful opportunity of traveling with two people whom I consider good friends and being able to share a once in a lifetime story with them. I am so lucky.

The RQ friend is bringing her daughter with her, she is just a little bit younger than Ainsley,  and her soon to be daughter is just slightly older than Sofie. It hasn't quite sunk in that we will all be there together...none of the last couple of days has totally sunk in yet. I feel like I am living a surreal dream. Now we all only need one more TA for all of this to work out :)

TA.....we are going to CHINA!!!!

At precisely 10:27 this morning, the phone rang. I had left messages for a couple of people to call me back so I didn't think anything of it. It was our agency and I honestly cannot remember what she said. Something about approval to travel and CA dates!!! I couldn't even speak properly. I was not expecting the call today at all. I had resigned myself to next week already and was already altering the dates we might go. From down to up again!!
Tomorrow I will find out for sure when our confirmed CA date is and I will post more then. I don't want to jinx anything tonight. I will only say that we are leaving a week later than expected and I will let you know why tomorrow :)

No TA

There were a lot of TA's issued today, ours was not one of them. I am so happy for all those who received their good news :) I am trying to stay positive.......trying! I just wish that there was some sense to the whole process. TA's are supposed to be processed in order that the paperwork was received in Beijing. It is just hard waiting when you are waiting longer than others.......it will happen when it happens! Nothing I do will change that. I think this may be one of those things that it is not for me to know why now...I will figure it out later :)

The rest of the UPDATE

I opened my email this morning as soon as Ainsley got on the bus and I just about fell off my chair!! We received the rest of the update on Sofie including one picture and updated measurements. She is growing and looks happy. The best part of the update, they have told her about us and she has seen the pictures of us. She is also playing with all the items that we sent her in a care package at Christmas. The doll that she is so lovingly staring at is the one that we sent her. I cannot even put into words how it makes me feel to see her with all of the things that we sent her.  The fact that she now knows about us and has seen pictures  of us fills my heart with joy. I am absolutely in love with this little girl, our daughter. It also makes me want to get on a plane right now :)

The following is the update for:  Lu JingJing born 8/14/2009 and is at the CWI of Hefei City. 

 1.       Did they receive a care package for the child?

   Yes.

2.       Has the child seen the photos of the family?

   Yes.

 3.       Is she in a foster care home? If yes how long has she been there?

   No, she is in the orphanage.

4.       Can she put 2 words together yet?

   Yes, she can.

5.       Has she had any illnesses?

   No.

 6.       Can we get a new height/weight?

   Her height is 81 cm, weight 10.5 kg, head circumference 47 cm, chest circumference 47 cm and foot length 12 cm. She has 16 teeth.

7.       Can we get any new photos?

   There is a photo in the attachment.