Just the Facts

Depart for China: May 8th, 6:06 am

Gotcha Day: May 14th

Come Home: May 25: 9:25 pm

These are the most important dates to know. I will post an itinerary when I have one. Nite nite.

TA “The Back Story”

Okay so we didn’t get out TA (travel approval) out of the blue today, we had a heads up on Monday that it might come this week. But let me back up to the weekend of pictures, videos and dreams come true. Going into last weekend my Mom and I had already set it up that Eden would stay with them at her house for a couple days after we left on Sunday. This was to give me some time to really focus on our pending trip. I wanted to crack down and get the packing sorted out and purchase all the “stuff” we would need. This was my Monday/Tuesday goal and then I would get Eden back on Wednesday.

So it is Monday night, 5 pm, and I’m in Walmart in the “nut” aisle (this is important and appropriate might I add)  buying things for the trip when Eric calls me. I answer not with, “Hello.” But I immediately launch into:

“Do you think Noah would like cinnamon covered pecans?”

Eric calmly interjects my name, “Angie.”

I ignore him and continue with my train of thought, “Or do you think he would prefer the maple sugar covered pecans?”

“ANGIE.”

“Cuz I really think he would prefer the maple covered, what do you…”

“ANGIE!!!!!!!”

“ What?!”

“Come home and pack your bags we are going to China in two weeks.”

“WHAT!!!!???? We got TA?!”

So I am standing in the middle of the aisle gasping, exclaiming, praising God etc. and I can see an older man out of the corner of my eye stop his shopping to focus his full attention on me. I hang up the phone and turn to him and explain that nothing is wrong but that I just found out I can go get my little girl I am adopting from China. We talk a bit and he at one point said, ”Babies are born all the time…it is something different and really special to choose to adopt one.” Then as we were parting ways he turned around and blessed me in the name of our Lord. It was a really neat thing.

The rest of the shopping trip was a blur, I arrived home and told Eric, I have no idea what is in all these bags but I just paid $238.00 for it all. I was tickled as I unloaded them…”Yogurt covered raisins? I never buy these.” (Any guesses where those items reside in the Walmart…yep, the nut aisle.) So then I threw myself in high gear for Tuesday. We had been sent an email asking us if a May12 arrival date would work for us because they thought we’d get TA this week. We said, “YES!!” So Tuesday I busted it both shopping, packing, calling everyone in creation…Lifesong, Lifeline, IAC, pharmacy…I could go on but I won’t. Made a lot of progress Tuesday. Eric got us in suitcases for the most part. We have some carry on issues we need to resolve but other than that we know what we need to pack…it is however, strewn all over our bedroom currently, it looks like a bomb went off in here. Today I did some more good ground work for details, got the IAC appointment for when we return, called the pediatrician to get Noah some “just in case” antibiotics and called our doc to get ours. Called the health department to make sure our Hep A and Tetanus had not expired. Talked to the cleft clinic finally, God love them, they had lost power all this week! I am going down there tomorrow to get some cleft bottles to take on the trip. I found out that my photographer will be out of town as I realized we are coming home on Memorial Day weekend. I wonder who will be in town to meet us at the airport? I cancelled work for the week before we leave and I went back and forth with my INCREDIBLE travel agent! (Who by the way was able to save us $1,000.00 today on airfare!) AND I was with my sweet Eden all this morning at the zoo…she fed a giraffe…I was so proud, her and I had a great day together. I’m currently avoiding doing any packing right now and my back hurts so I’m going to bed now.

Good Morning!!!!!

This is what I woke up to today…(from Karla, my social worker)

“Congratulations! I have confirmed that you have a US consulate appointment scheduled for Wednesday,05.23.2012 at the US Consulate in Guangzhou, China.

This means you need to be in your provincial city no later than Saturday, 05.12.2012.  Your “Gotcha Day” will most likely be 05.14.2012. You may depart from Guangzhou anytime after 7:00 pm on Thursday, 05.24.2012.”

WOOT! WOOT! We are going to China! Hope here we come! I have a good back story and will write more later! Rejoice for the Lord is good!!

Drowning in God’s Kindness

Today I received yet another unexpected precious blessing in my email. Jeff, who sent me the picture below sent me another picture of Hope today that was taken when she was 9 months old. She is in her crib at her previous orphanage. But to top that, sweet Jeff sent us video of her as well. I cannot begin to to express how I feel at the blessings God is pouring out on us with all these glimpses into Hope’s past. I feel like I am happily drowning in God’s love. I know I am not worthy of such things but I am ever so grateful. I am not posting these two things in order to save some of Hope’s past that is hers and hers alone to share. Please pray blessings down on Jeff.

A Week of Pictures

I can’t believe how many photos we have received of our little Hope this week! It started with her “finding ad”, then 10 current photos taken last week, and late last night I received a hi-res picture of home from a wonderful man who used to send supplies, clothing and lots of love to Hope’s last orphanage in Qianjiang. My friend Julie had found a photo of what we thought was Hope on his website last December. I snagged it off the blog but it was a very low-res copy of the photo. Just recently Julie sent me another photo of a group shot where we think both Ella and Hope are in it. It is also a snagged photo from the web. So I emailed him recently and last night he sent me the hi-res photo of the one I already have. It is undeniably Hope, you can zoom in on the lip and eyes and it is perfectly clear! It is her with her original nanny and it was taken when she was 11 months old! We have been so blessed this week it is hard to take it all in! Now we just need TA this week!!! Woot! Woot!

I .CAN. NOT. WAIT!

Even more HOPE…I can hardly stand it!!

Here are the videos and pictures that I received this morning from Dr. Chambers! In the last part of the video they are trying to get her to say Mama and she finally does, it is so quiet and cute! We are so blessed this day!

God’s Provision is Mind Blowing!

Dr. Jennifer Chambers was at my daughter’s orphanage last week and SHE FOUND HOPE!!!! God bless this special woman who arrived home from China less than 24 hours ago and already thought of our family and sent us pictures of our girl!!!!!! May God pour out his special favor on Jennifer!!! She sent a quick note to say…”She is gorgeous!  And very happy.  I tried to get her to let me hold her for a photo, but she cried for her nanny.” I am still in shock! If you read the post before this one then you know that the odds of this happening are like astronomical! Only God’s hand could have orchestrated this! My first reaction was, “She has teeth! Lots of them!” Then, “She looks so big!” Followed by, “I think that is actually a small double chin!” Punctuated with, “PRAISE THE LORD!!” So I am thinking that 12 month clothes are totally out! I really think she is almost as big (if not bigger than) Eden. I mean wait till you see her head! I both rejoice and brace myself when I read the words, “she cried for her nanny”…rejoicing that she is attached to her Nanny, bracing because….she is attached to her Nanny. An overall wonderful thing but as so many of you know so much better than I, it will be a very difficult thing to experience for both her and us. So without further ado...here is Hope at 21.5 months old…

My Coffee Group is Amazing

Okay so in my adoption coffee group I have learned many important, wonderful things and met even more important and wonderful people. I am so thankful to God for this group. I had found out through this group that the Bham Internat’l Adopt Clinic (IAC) and Lifeline (my adoption agency) were headed to China. I found out that one of the women in our group is married to one of the doctors for the IAC and was going on this trip. I was urged to contact them with Hope’s information on the off chance they may end up anywhere near Hope’s orphanage…what would be the odds though, really? When I contacted Leland she told me to contact. Dr. Chambers at the IAC as well, so I did. A few weeks later my agency posted that they were partnering with 3 new orphanages in China, one of which was in Chongqing. But I could never get an answer from them as to if it was Hope’s orphanage…again, what are the odds? And even if they went to the orphanage, what are the odds that they actually would get to see her? Here is an email I got from Leland this morning…

hey angie - robert gets back tonight and i have been able to talk with him some.  he said to tell you the place where your daughter is is a very, very nice orphanage and the children seemed to be very well cared for.  they did get to spend a few days there.  i did ask him if he was able to see your daughter and he said that he was seeing the older children, but that jennifer chambers knew all about her and was on the look out for her.  i'm not sure if she was able to see her or not - if you know her well enough to email her and ask her i would.  i will let you know if i find out anymore once he gets home.

leland

WHAT ARE THE ODDS!! Pretty freakin’ high I’d say!!! And praise be to God for Leland and Robert. If I know nothing else I know that Hope is safe and well cared for. Now I’m not saying that Dr. Chamber’s found her or anything, but come one people!!! If God could orchestrate for my adoption agency and my city’s IAC to travel to China to visit only 3 orphanages and they “happened”  to spend 3 days in my daughters orphanage…surely Jennifer found her! Right?! I mean, I don’t want to get my hopes up but I am tired of under-estimating my God too! Since the team gets back today, I am going to hold off on contacting Jennifer until next week and let her recover some, but it will be a sheer exercise of my will to wait that long!!! God give me the strength to NOT stalk her!!

Hope’s Finding Ad!

So today has been a pretty fun and exciting day in the killer wait for TA…we are still waiting, no one get your hopes up yet. But during this wait God has blessed us with Hope’s finding ad! China runs “finding ads” for, well…all children found. The ads are brief but what is important is that they have a photo of the child on them when they were found. So Hope is likely just a couple days old if not newborn in the photo!!!! I am having the ad translated but the translation has not arrived, I will update this post when the translation arrives. But here she is:

Unimportant Random Stuff

Okay so I finally got the girls names on their wall and I’m so psyched about it. I still have a touch of decorating to do but I’m pretty much done with painting….I think. I do have a large canvas idea but I’m trying to pretend that I’m not going to pursue it. I also finished my “stick person” book for our trip that I pray Hope will like and will bring her some comfort. I uploaded it to Blurb.com, my favorite photo book site and hopefully it will arrive next week. It’s a 7X7 paperback of like 40 pages! I can’t wait!!!! And lastly I printed out 48 pictures of “us” for 2 separate photo books that I also painted with ladybugs. I have pictures of Eric, Noah, Eden, Hope, Grandma, Grandpa and myself. It is heavy on the Eden, Gma, and Gpa. Maybe when Hope actually gets to meet them they will seem somewhat familiar. Since my parents will be staying with us a bit in the beginning to help us out with Eden and Noah, I want Hope to be familiar with them as much as possible with them half way around the world. I’ve done silly stuff like bought everyone going to China “new” underwear so we can bring our tattered old undies over and just throw them away as we go. Sad that it takes a trip around the world for me to replace everyone’s pathetic underwear! I feel that I might be touching a little to close to TMI on that one…sorry readers. So I have a small pharmacy in my basement with all the meds and toiletries you can think of, plus there is the newly begun  mini-grocery store area that I’ve just delineated. I also have a toy/plane activity section as well as a clothing section. How it is ever going to fit into our luggage is a mystery to me, but clearly it can be done as so many of my friends have and are doing it! All I do now is daydream of our trip and of getting our little girl who waits for us unknowingly in China…and of leaving my other little girl behind here in Alabama…so it’s sort of conflicted daydreaming I suppose; but mostly it is good stuff.  Speaking of stuff here are the girls names and canvas paintings I did. The flash off the semi-gloss wall sorta washes out the letters, but you get the idea.

Art 5 Pick-Up and just Art…

So I woke this morning to an email from the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou, China saying that they had processed our Article 5! I quickly emailed my social worker and asked if she knew if it was picked up and overnighted to Beijing. Seeing as she is currently in China, I don’t know why I thought I’d get a response but clearly the Holy Spirit knew, because she emailed me back to say that it indeed was picked up and sent. Now we are now in the 3-4 week wait for our Travel Approval (TA). I am praying we are one of the families that have the freakishly quick processing time…but since all of our waits have been at the end or just beyond the stated limits…I don’t see that changing for us. It is God’s hands and if wants us to wait for a month…then we will wait. If He wants to watch me freak out for His own humor it will come back in two weeks…who can know the mind of God. So I am strangely content and excited to wait, not chomping at the bit. I thought I would be, I guess just knowing we are in the last phase of the waiting game is a freeing thing. I mean there is the two week wait from TA to travel time…but that is just a different kind of wait in my mind. That wait is more of a pro-active waiting, a preparing for the trip waiting. Having the date of when we leave, when we get Hope and when we come home is comforting. Knowledge is a pacifier they say. So now…we wait.

On a totally unrelated note…I’m still nesting. The girls room is almost done. I have to do Hope’s 12X12 canvas but I have finally finished Eden’s name and her canvas. So here it is so far. Then I have to hang it all. Sigh…nesting is never done. Enjoy!

Nesting…I guess…

Okay so we are getting down to like 6 weeks until we travel and I am slowly turning my head in the direction of packing. I have the packing list of all packing lists. I compiled it from 4 really good lists I found on the web and from suggestions from friends who have already traveled. I have most of my pharmaceuticals in one place and I even figured out clothing today for Hope, Noah and myself! Eric is on his own currently. I am packing 12 and 18 months clothing. Since we aren’t likely get an update I have to just guess at her weight and height. But what I have really been consumed with since last Friday night is room décor… I mean isn’t that what really matters?! In January I found the girls’ bedding, as you see in the picture below. At the time I did not know that the ladybug is the “adoption” symbol of sorts. Last week, I bought Eden and Hope each their “name” in large white wooden letters. Then I took one of their pillow cases and proceeded to paint ladybugs and flowers on the white letters. I have finished Hope’s name and started the “E” on  Eden’s name. I am currently “D”-less, because Michael’s was out of the “D”. But Hope’s name is absolutely precious if I do say so myself. I mean it seriously looks store bought, just check it out sitting next to the store bought lamp! (Which I realize now I could have made myself for waaaaayyyy cheaper!) I’m gonna do two canvas paintings as well with the ladybugs and likely some cute matching picture frames!!! I’m sorta addicted, it’s good therapy. Anyhoo, I am hanging the the letters by ribbons over each girls bed. I can’t wait to get the room settled…see nesting…it’s what women do when they are about to have a baby! This two week Art 5 wait is like an eternity, the Lord only knows what other weird stuff I’ll post between now and next week!!!