And she's 18 months old

It's so strange to think we have another child.  Another child who we didn't meet the moment she hit fresh air, and instead will greet her shortly before or after her second birthday.

At a party the other night I talked to a woman who, with her family of course, if I'm correct, is the only other family in our town who has adopted internationally.  I may have mentioned much earlier on that I had emailed with a woman who sounds similar... rightfully so, because it's her. It was like meeting a celebrity. I was star struck.  It was so great to meet her in person.  She put me at ease and made light of all the mumbojumbo we have to go through.  And more importantly, laughed off how weird it is to be handed a kid, whether it's 2 minutes, or 2 years, old.  They just brought their daughter home about a year ago.  Their transition has been pretty seamless.  I'm sure ours will totally be like theirs. I mean, we live in Moraga, our families are perfect, the setting is idyllic.  Pffffft.  I know ours won't be that easy.  They didn't get lucky. They're just better at this. They have done it before.  Their oldest son is bio, second is adopted, then the daughter is adopted too.  I loved just listening to her though.  I feel like as much as I try to personalize it, I get so caught up in all of this adoption talk/business that I feel like I'm talking more about a process than a person.  I know we just met our "person" a few weeks ago, but listening to her humanized it for me.  She shared lots of tips, cracked a lot of jokes and provided more moral support than she'll ever know.  Her daughter was about 3 when they brought her home. She never once mentioned anything about the past, only how great their time has been thus far.  I can't wait to be at that point.  Right now I'm still sort of stuck.

We've missed a lot of firsts in baby sister's 18 months.  First smile. First roll.  First tooth.  First giggle.  First step.  First word.  It's so strange to think we have a daughter who has experienced all of those things without us. Without us AND, quite possibly, without anyone else to smile back, cheer her on, or otherwise revel in her development. We are deep in the name discussion (we've made a decision.. more on that later.. ) and last night my girlfriend was over and she asked about what she's been called so far and if she'll be attached to her name.  I reminded her that it's not like she gets talked to individually much at all, and they may or may not use her name or make a big deal about it. I don't think I'll ever be able to fully comprehend the lifestyle of the institutionalized.

Rather than stay stuck on what cannot be undone,  I'll try to take a cue from my new friend and start focusing on the future.  Following are all of the firsts I can't wait to share with baby sister:

• Her smile... in person.
• The sound of her voice.
• Her reaction to meeting her brothers and her daddy (and the heart melting I will experience as a result)
• Our first hug.
• Her first taxi, train and/or plane ride!
• Her first trip to, my universal happy place, the beach.
• The cool, creamy indulgence that is... ICE CREAM!
• The first time she says I love you.. to any of us! ... hopefully not some random ... you never know with these kids!

It will be interesting to see in which order these play out.  I'm sure we'll hear her voice right away.   Maybe not quite in the words she uses, but in the screaming that is produced by plucking her away from her I know nothing different and was happy as a clam till you made me come here, kind of scream!  I think ice cream may speak a universal language so we may use that to bribe her. I've heard lollipops work great as well.  We won't have a choice, or an impact on many of the others.  We have to get to a different province to finalize the adoption, then yet another to fly home from.  Taxi to airport, plane to next place, taxi from airport to hotel, taxi to train station, taxi from train station to airport.  Hopefully while all of this is going on, we'll fit in some of the others.  A hug... a smile?  I can't wait.

Words for a birth mother

I have a whole new post just about ready to go but I just watched a clip that made me screech to a halt and start anew.  I'll put up the other, fun post, tomorrow.

I just watched a clip from the show Smash.  It's towards the end of an episode and Julia (Debra Messing) is reading a letter she wrote to her daughter's birth mother.  I don't know what the context of it was as I only watched this one tiny clip. But as good (and admittedly cheesy) TV proves, it was powerful.  And haunting.  I can't recall the words exactly but I'll try to give you a good feel for it...

She's reaching out in a letter to her daughter's birth mother.  She tells her that she will guard her like a lion. She will raise her with love.  She will protect her from the wounds of loneliness.  She will be a child of two lands and will wear that knowledge with pride.

There's a part of me, a big part of me, who can feel these words already.  But there's another part of me, the lioness, who cannot freaking imagine leaving a baby in a field to DIE!  We are unbelievably fortunate that our little girl did not die.  Who does that?  It's beyond me.  I don't know whether I want to hunt her down and shake a little sense in her K-town style, or simply ask her why would you, how could you, do that to a baby struggling to live. What forced you to do something so inhumane?  To a little girl. To our little girl. MY little girl?  What kind of mother does that? But I can't be too angry, right?  Because if she hadn't done that, if she couldn't have done that, then I wouldn't be given this chance.  Like many things along this path, this is hard to reconcile.  I should be happy, but there's a part of me that is angry for my little girl's sake.  Or maybe just pissed off that this world is so effed up that you can leave a kid in a field and it's somehow acceptable.  Where the heck are we?  It's two thousand freaking twelve people!  I don't care that you live in a communist country. There is no excuse for abandoning your child!

DEEP BREATH.... Sip of chardonnay .....

The other part of me somehow has to find the graciousness in it. The selflessness in such an act.  Did she do it to save her?  The slim chance that someone would find her "in the bush" and help her?  Or did she do it out of fear?  Or was she forced?  By family?  By a husband who desperately needs the help of healthy, strong, male hands?  Or did something go tragically wrong with her, forcing her into distress and an early delivery?  That would be my worst fear. As ticked off as I get when I think about it, I also hope my little girl's mother is happy and healthy and lives a good, long time.  But sadly, I will never know.  And even more disturbing is that baby sister will never know.  I have first-hand knowledge of what that feels like. The not knowing, the wondering. But what I do not have is any feeling of abandonment.  I was cared for in a hospital by nurses and doctors that surely were smitten with my toaster head, squinty eyes and creepy freakish 2 pound 9 oz body.  A few months later I was taken in by a very caring foster mom for a few months before I was handed off to a very loving forever mom and dad.  Now I know we can make up for most all of what she's been through by being in an orphanage, but when the questions bubble to the surface, as they're bound to, about her family, about her story, I don't know what I'll say.  Will I find peace with it?  Am I harsher in my thoughts and reactions because I was adopted?  Or is it because I'm a fiercely protective, obsessive mama bear who would never abandon her cub under any circumstances?  I don't know.  Thankfully I have some time to figure it out.  Even if it's just a few months after we bring her home and she starts asking things in English!

I have thought about what I would say to her. To the birth mother.  The words come easy, because they're much like the words I would say to my own birth mother, should she ever want or need to hear them.  I would want to put her at ease. To close the wounds and start, or finish, the healing.

To the woman who gave my little girl life,


Although we will never know each other, I am thankful for you.  I am thankful that you gave a home to my baby girl for as long as your body could keep her. I am thankful she survived an early trip to the outside world, and I hope you made it through safely as well.  While you couldn't keep her, for many reasons, I'm sure, we are happy to be able to welcome her into our lives and provide to her a family and a home.  We promise to afford her every opportunity and pleasure in life. We will protect her.  We will guide her. We will teach her.  And most of all, we will love her with everything that we are.


Please take comfort in knowing our little girl is strong.  She is a fighter. She is a survivor. She is a sister and a daughter.  She will have an amazing life.  Thank you for doing your part and allowing us the opportunity to do ours.  You never again have to wonder.  You never again have to worry.  Let go of any guilt you've carried since that difficult day.  Let your conscience be free and may your heart begin to heal.  She is alive. She is safe and she is loved..........

With deepest gratitude,


Jen

A little bit about baby sister

I jumped right to the end of the story but realized after lots and lots of questions over the last couple of days that I didn't fill in the missing pieces from the middle of the story!

So here goes. Baby sister was a preemie.  Just 1kg or 2.2 pounds upon intake.  They think she was less than a day old when she was found "in the bush."  Abandoned in the bush within hours after birth. Can you even comprehend that?  I can't.  And I won't let myself because now it's my little girl we're talking about!  The commentary on her report states this:

"The child was abandoned in the bush to the north of.... because of swollen soft tissue of the left tempus; widened brain fold of bilateral lobi frontalis with skull CT check and was sent to our institute upon picking.  On admission, the PE showed:  premature baby with 1kg in weight, obvious short and thin, poor elasticity of skin, not able to suck, cyanosis all over body, body temperature keeping in low level without warming up, closed eyes tightly, both ears were stick to head firmly.."

It goes on a little after that but thought those first few sentences are the most interesting.  It sounds dire, right?  But it's not really. The soft tissue swelling is, of course, the most concerning part of her report.  However, if she was born with it, it could be birth trauma (even preemies can make for difficult deliveries) or it could be benign fluid build up. It's actually good news that she had this upon intake, versus an acute event that may prove to be a traumatic brain injury. That still COULD be the case, however, so we aren't doing a happy dance just yet. Only time will tell.

As for the poor elasticity of skin, not being able to suck, closed eyes tightly and both ears were stick to head firmly - those are all just results of being born too darn early.

Cyanosis is explained by the info below. If blood is properly oxygenated, it is red and flesh is then pink. If it isn't, then the skin turns blue.

Respiratory Distress Syndrome 

Definition

Respiratory distress syndrome (RDS) of the newborn, also known as infant RDS, is an acute lung disease present at birth, which usually affects premature babies. Layers of tissue called hyaline membranes keep the oxygen that is breathed in from passing into the blood. The lungs are said to be "airless." Without treatment, the infant will die within a few days after birth, but if oxygen can be provided, and the infant receives modern treatment in a neonatal intensive care unit, complete recovery with no after-effects can be expected.

Another tidbit of positivity:  body temperature keeping in low level without warming up.  Sounds bad, but it's actually a good thing!  Why?  Well, because it's the body's way of protecting itself.  The brain requires less oxygen at lower body temperatures.

There's good and bad to be gleaned from all of this.  On the upside she may just keep growing and developing just fine. Or, if there is something funky going on in that brain of hers, that is a result of the cause of the swelling, then it could manifest itself in a learning disability as she starts school and hits the next big temporal lobe growth spurt.  If we are fortunate to make it through that one unscathed, we still aren't out of the woods!  Nope.  It could still come out in high school as she develops executive function around 16-18 years old. (Wikipedia says the following about it: Executive function is an umbrella term for cognitive processes such as planning, working memory, attention, problem solving, verbal reasoning, inhibition, mental flexibility, multi-tasking, initiation and monitoring of actions.)

So while she's doing amazingly well (our doctor's words!), it doesn't mean things will stay that way. She is special needs and just because she seems physically and mentally healthy now, it doesn't mean that her special need will go away or never again be apparent.  We're hoping for the best and healthy future for her.  But we're prepared to parent her should she develop a learning disability, impulse control problems, mood issues or at worst, mild to moderate mental retardation.  We will do everything we can to aide in her development.  We are going to assume she does have some sort of brain injury and do what we can to help stimulate her brain accordingly. The brain has an amazing ability to repair and compensate itself so rather than just hold our breath and wait to find out what's going on, we'll assume it's there and tackle it proactively!

Cheers to baby sister 3/20!

Now to the current status of our new family of 5.  We FINALLY told the boys. Yes, long after everyone else found out, but we had to make sure, sure, sure!  Parker had a work dinner on Monday  (PA day) so he didn't get home until after the boys had gone to bed.  Then on Tuesday he skated in just in the nick of time for me to make it to a workout class I just started.  After that we all met at our favorite Chinese restaurant (the one from CNY where they give you a bag of organic produce on your way out!).  By the time we got home we went right into the bedtime routine. Didn't even think about baby sister.  ack!  Then during the first story at story time, the big kid asks "I wonder how many days until we get to see baby sister?"  CRAP!  Parker and I looked at each other with our oh crap faces and I mouthed "go grab the pictures."  When  he got back with the photos I said to the boys that we are going to skip the other stories because we have a surprise.  As we showed them the pictures, their faces were absolutely, stunningly priceless. Biggest smiles, ever.  Big kid said how cute she is. Little guy said he would let her snuggle his beloved Nemo.  He also followed it up with "And I will give her all the toys I don't like anymore."   If you know him, I'm sure you're laughing right now.  He really is very sweet.  And sassy.  Big kid asked what her name is. I told him she has a Chinese name, and that we really need to figure out what in the world her name will be.  He then asked what her Chinese name is and I told him Feng Yuning.  "What?  That's so silly."  Yep, we think so too... Especially since we don't even know how to properly pronounce it.  So now we're deeply involved in the name game.  It's even more frustrating this time around because instead of dealing with just 1 (difficult and unreasonable when it comes to names) person, now I'm dealing with 3 total buggers (who are all way too opinionated)!  

Yay, yay for PA!

This just goes to show, you never really know when the process is going to surprise you. I spent the morning much like any other Monday morning. Dropped off the little guy, then the big guy. Hit the gym.  Ran some errands.  Picked up the little guy, had lunch and a promised trip to Starbucks.  We then hit a cute little shop in the creek for a much needed booster seat for the big kid. He may very well be the almost 6 year old still riding in a car seat.  Like, full-on, 5 point harness car seat.  I know, I know, but he's alive.  So there!  Why not stay as safe as possible for as long as possible.  But I caved after too many "Mom, my seatbelt's stuck."  "Mom, pull over, I can't get my straps on."  This morning was the straw that broke the camel's back.  On M/W/F mornings, I put our little guy in the big kid's seat because we do a drop off and he has to be on the side closest to the school.  The seatbelt in my piece of doo doo car ALWAYS, read ALWAYS! gets stuck.  So I opened the door to let him in and told him to wait for me to put the seatbelt on. Of course he didn't wait.  As I'm putting my stuff in the trunk I hear "Mommy, I need help, the seatbelt is stuck."  Long story short, I had to take the car seat OUT of the car in order to free the seatbelt. I'm done.  I'm over it and the car seat is lucky it's not floating down the creek right now!  After that I had had it and thought that's it, today is the day.  So with little guy in tow, we picked up one of the only booster seats available with the latch system.  Yep, two thumbs up for safety!  Mission complete, so we headed back to pick up the big kid. He does a super fun "critters and clay" class after school on Mondays. I haven't yet seen the fruits of his efforts but he's told us that so far he's made a moose, a turtle and a rhino. I can't wait to see them, especially since they're these mysterious creatures he creates in a class that I've yet to see anything come out of.  After we got home, I made the boys busy themselves with getting the mail and taking some of the packaging to the trash while I removed the car seat from the car.  Two seconds of installation later, and the new booster seat is in and ready to ride.  Take that seatbelt!

After we came inside, I sorted the mail and saw two letters from homeland security.  One for me and one for Parker.  Nervously I opened them.  I was hoping they were for fingerprint appointments but they could have been RFEs, which are requests for evidence (read:  delay).  Whew, fingerprint appointments.  Thankfully, we got the same appointment time on April 12th.  It's fine but I would have much preferred earlier, of course.  I sent Parker an email right away telling him to clear his calendar for that day because we cannot miss this appointment. If there's one thing he's not good at, it's getting out of work on-time for anything but .. more work! .. so I had to be stern.

Two seconds later, an email came in from our coordinator. The subject line was in Chinese, so it could have been anything.  But the body of it contained these magical words:  "Dear Jennifer:  I received your PA today.  Congratulations."  WHAT!! Yay, so we can (we are now pre-approved) adopt her and with that, here she is:

Waiting for PA

We finally got confirmation from our coordinator that our on-line application went in.  Now we wait for PA (pre-approval).  I have a feeling it will take a little longer than normal. Buzz on the blogs and forums is that the CCCWA has reorganized yet again. Some say they moved and disconnected all phones and computers. So even dossiers that went in 2-3 weeks ago have yet to be logged in. Our coordinator said she expects to get the PA in about a week.

So what to do in the meantime. Hmm.  Well, I just sent in yet another check.  This will be the best 80 bucks ever spent!  For $40 we can get an update on our little girl.  Size, weight, other measurements, physical, mental and motor skills development and in general what she likes to do, how she behaves, etc. It will be pretty interesting to see what a quick visit by an outsider garners.  The sample we read was pretty sad.  In the box of commentary for speech and language development, this is what it said:  Because there is no one-to-one talk in this institution, he is fairly behind in language. It's almost unfathomable to imagine these little babies in cribs all day without ANY adult interaction other than feeding and changing. No one-to-one talk. Think about that.  It's deeply disturbing.  Even more so when it's our little girl who has to endure it for 6 more months. Oh and for the additional $40 we will get 3 new photos.  Yay.  Hope to be able to share them with you soon.

You may notice I am calling her little girl now.. it feels a little early to grant her baby sister status, but I promise as soon as we have confirmation we're gonna get her, she will then forever be referred to as baby sister.

On Friday I sent out Parker's birth certificate to a courier in Chicago.  I just got it back from the state of Minnesota a few days prior. I had to have it state certified before this last, final step of authentication.  We should get it back in about a week and a half.

I also finally started our on-line class. You may recall we were advised a little late in the game that we were a couple of hours short in our pre-adopt training requirements.  So I started the on-line class Wednesday night.  I wouldn't say I'm learning a whole lot but just more of the same.  I already have a good idea of what goes on in the orphanages, how the kids develop (or don't) as a result, and the challenges we face in the early months, and the class pretty much just reaffirms all of this.

We have a few notarizations left to take care of and after that our dossier will be ready to go. Save for the I-800A approval.  Regarding that, early last week we received a letter from the Department of Homeland Security that our application and all fees have been received and the next step is that we'll be contacted from a local USCIS office regarding our fingerprint appointment.  Hoping we get our appointment very soon. I've read varying thoughts on this.  Some say to wait for your appointment because in doing so you will already have an officer assigned to you who will process your application start to finish. I've also heard that rather than wait for your appointment that you can just walk in.  This is where it gets controversial. Some say it speeds it up (since you just walk in say tomorrow rather than wait for your scheduled appointment, say, 2 weeks away).  Others say if you do that, you still won't get an officer assigned to you until the original fingerprint appointment date. I think we'll just go with the process as it is suggested.  We'll need the time to plan ahead as I am assuming Parker will need to leave work and I'll have to get a sitter for the boys.

From the get go, I have been trying to move the process along as swiftly as I could, or as was in my control, but now I have an increased sense of urgency.  I'm sure I'm going to go completely insane and back, maybe a few times, in the coming months.  It's so strange and unnatural to think we have a little girl who is just sitting there waiting, all the while barely getting her basic needs met.

We have started tossing around names. We had some great names already agreed upon from when we pregnant with our boys. But now that we've seen her little face, it's sort of a game changer. It's not just coming up with a name that we both, or rather, we all like and agree on.  It's different because we've seen her and now we are kind of caught up in the "well, she doesn't really look like a ..."  We watched a movie last night, as we do pretty much every Saturday, most Fridays too, and as the credits rolled, a name caught my eye.  A name I would never have considered but now we're toying with it.  I should also mention our big kid has pretty much vetoed all previous name considerations.  He even came up with a super cute name on his own when we threw it back at him. So I guess we have at least a couple of names we're tossing around.  A lot of people have asked us if we're keeping her Chinese name, and the answer is no, we don't plan to.  If her name had some significance to it, we would, of course.  But she was abandoned and left in a field and the orphanage just gave her a name.  I think she deserves a fresh, new start.

LOI, now what?

I'm finally feeling a little more normal. For almost 2 weeks I was totally off.  I was physically off, not just mentally!  I had horrible anxiety, couldn't sleep, couldn't focus, felt like my head was full of slushy liquid that would slosh from one side to the other with every move I made.  Even a little hungoverish, without the fun the night(s) before! Thankfully I'm back to normal. Almost.

Still waiting for confirmation from our agency that our on-line application got sent in.  After that, we wait for our pre-approval (PA) which may take a few days, or up to a couple of weeks. In the meantime, we've requested updated medical records since hers are 9 months old. We've also requested either a CT scan or an MRI.  I was crossing my fingers that we'd get one or the other until I got an interesting note from the international adoption doctor we're working with... I'll save that for a new post. Need to think through it first and talk about it with Parker.

Yesterday, I got the sweetest photos of the little girl in the mail.  Thankfully I remembered one of the blogs or yahoo group posts about ordering the prints from our agency's website immediately as they take them down as soon as you commit.  Whew!  Got in there in the nick of time.  Literally an hour after I placed my order, they were removed!

I've also been up to no good with my credit card.  I've made a few girly purchases this week. Buying girl stuff is kinda fun!  Coordinated outfits and shoes, oh my!  I bought 2 adorable pairs of shoes on clearance at Target.  This may sound absurd, but as much as I shop there, I've never even looked at kids shoes!  Crazy, right.  The main reason being this:  My boys wear sneakers and/or crocs.  Blah.  Boring.  AND they have high insteps so they have to have shoes that either come in wide, or have two velcro straps rather than 1.  I figured out early on which brands and styles work for the big kid and I've just stuck to them.  Mostly ordering 10 pairs at a time from zappos. I keep what fits now or will work in the coming months, and return the rest, free of charge.  But this girl business is much more interesting. So many styles and colors and patterns and when they're so cute and small, how can a girl resist?  The little kid even helped me shop and was bummed that I didn't buy more.  I also bought her a few outfits when I was shopping for myself on-line. I'm co-chairing this big community event and we have to wear khakis for the day of.. and, well, I don't own any so I went on-line to buy some that I may actually wear again someday.   I found some cute ones at the Gap.  I couldn't help but click over to baby gap to check out the sales. Got a few hot deals.  So she now has 2 pairs of shoes, 5 outfits, 2 pairs of jammies, 2 dolls, a couple of candy machine necklaces, some artwork from her brothers, a thousand board books and some hand me down singamajigs.  Yay!  Fun stuff.  Fun stuff that takes my mind off the big stuff.  Yay again.  Actually, cheers!

Lastly, tonight I tried out the world's fancy danciest rice cooker. Whiz banger how do you do!  It's so awesome!!  My girlfriend gave it to me for my birthday.  Way better than a vacuum cleaner, I'll tell you that right now!  She stopped by yesterday with her little boy. A nice, pleasant surprise as she lives 2 hours away.  I read through the instruction booklet and figured out that my rice was prewashed so I used the measuring cup for prewashed rice, added the right amount of water and hit the menu button.  To start, it played twinkle twinkle little star.  Then it did its thing and about an hour later, ended with another melody that I recognize but can't quite put my finger on.  I opened it up and it makes the best rice ever!  But I suppose that's kind of the point, right.  As soon as the boys sat down to eat, the big kid said "Mom, I think you must be a sushi chef now because this rice tastes so perfect."  Yes, thanks to my new fancy, shmancy rice cooker.  I've now got 6 months to figure out how to make congee/porridge, which is what our little girl pretty much lives off of.  The whole reason my girlfriend got this rice cooker for me is so that I can master congee without really having to master it!  She explains that it's sort of like oatmeal, but made with rice. If the boys hadn't asked me at bedtime tonight if I'd make pancakes in the morning, I so would have been all over making congee!  Maybe Saturday!  So our little girl may have a lot of transitions to make, but hopefully with some good, traditional congee, it'll be one little taste of home that will help her through.  Thanks, friend!

A..D..D..

I am a total mess now.  You'd think it would have gotten better now that we have made our decision but it's sort of a mish mash now.  What the heck do I do next?  I'm still all jittery.  A mix of sleep deprivation & mental/emotional depletion with a sprinkle of nerve ending reconnection by way of emotional decision completion makes for a little anxiety and much excitement.  A foggy headed emotional hangover is about where I'm at now.  I'm spent and excited but trying to keep it at a minimum just in case something falls through.  Just from reading this, it's apparent, I have a bad case of A.D.D.!

Since posting on Saturday night that we're moving forward with a little cutie, I've been busy.  Most importantly I've been busy getting our ducks in a row.  In order for our agency to submit our on-line application directly to the CCWAA, we had to provide the following:

- Passport photo jpg ME
- Passport photo jpg PARKER
- Family photo jpg
- Letter of Intent (LOI)
- Family Info Sheet
- Homestudy

I got to work first thing yesterday morning to get everything emailed to our coordinator.  Mission accomplished save for one edit to the LOI which Parker made late last night.  Whew!  I sent in the next check covering a couple of fees on the long a$$ fee schedule.  Once our coordinator receives the check, she'll have everything she requires in order to submit our application.  I'm hoping she'll be able to send it in either tomorrow or Wednesday.  I heard through the yahoo group, however, that she is busy sending out LOAs (letters of authorization) so if she has her hands full with those right now, it may not happen until Wed/Thurs.  Side note - Our coordinator is sort of a one man show in our agency.  She does it all, from translations, to matching, to communicating with the CCWAA.  As you can imagine, she has to work on the most important/urgent matters first, not just a first in/first out type of communication.  I totally get it and I'm sure when we're next in line to travel I'll be glad she answers me immediately and makes the poor suckers waiting for their match wait... until then, we're kind of those suckers.

After our application gets sent in, we wait for our PA, or pre-approval.  The next steps are as follows:

PA: Pre-Approval. After submitting your LOI, you receive pre-approval from the CCCWA to adopt a specific child. Typically, you will receive your PA anywhere from 1 – 10 days after your LOI is submitted.

DTC: Dossier to China. This is a celebration day! You have finally collected all of the required paperwork. This is the date that your dossier is mailed to China.

LOA: Letter of Acceptance. This is the official approval from China to adopt your child. This comes after LID.

I just may be holding my breath until we get PA. After that, we'll feel confident enough to share more about our little girl, show you some pictures and.. ee gads.. let the boys in on it!  

Concurrently, we're gathering everything for our Dossier so that once we are granted I-800A approval, we will be ready to send our DTC.  We still haven't been advised of our fingerprint appointment from USCIS for this step of the I-800A so I'm assuming we're at least a month away from approval.  After we get approval, we'll have our Dossier documents ready.  Our agency will courier everything to the embassy in San Francisco where everything will be authenticated, then they'll translate and send to China (DTC).  All in all, we're looking at about 1-1 1/2 months for I-800A approval, 2+ months from DTC to LOA (letter of authorization to adopt our specific child) then another 2 months to apply and be granted a visa for her from USCIS with TA (travel authorization) shortly thereafter.  I think.  I will confirm all of these boring details as we get closer.  So many hoops to jump through. Seems if there's a loving home ready and waiting, they would make a carpool lane for us to zoom through .. it would be better for all, especially the little girl who now has a family that she won't get to meet for another grueling 6 months.  That's sooooo freaking long in the life of a child.  I am killing myself with thoughts of all the things we could do and accomplish in that time.. and all of the things we will miss in her life!

On a fun note - we're hoping to work with a 3rd party to get updated medical info, growth values, etc., and some new pictures.  It should be easy as they're supposed to help you out if your files are 9 months old and our files are close to, so by the time the request goes in, we're hopeful we'll get what we're asking. For $40. Silly.  If only they knew what we'd be willing to pay.

I can't seem to tear myself away from all the discussion groups.. I found one that's dedicated to special needs adoption just for the province where this little girl is at ... how wild!  And sometimes you can hook up with a family who is traveling months before you and they'll snap a pic of your kid while they're there picking up their kid.  Strange little adoption world!  Strange yet helpful and fascinating at the same time.  

I'm all over the place people.. and I don't expect it to get any better anytime soon. Once we get PA, I'll breathe a sigh of relief but I won't be able to calm down and accept it all until we get LOA.. so hold onto your hats, it's gonna be a long-winded ride.