Thursday, April 16, 2015

i can hear their footsteps



two days ago we sent luke's documents off to immigration--wahooooo!

percy the wonder cat is guarding the documents until we can get to ups.

he did a mighty fine job of guarding them and is seeing them off now
they were delivered at 9:30 the next morning--when you are in the final stages of brining your little home, hours mean EVERYTHING to you!

his package will sit in a "lock box" for 10 days while the check for $720 clears (the fees paid to the department of homeland security for the processing of immigration paperwork). after that, our immigration officer will review it and issue a provisional approval. once we receive that, we can fill out another form for his visa. once we do this and receive the confirmation email,  we send it to our agency who forwards it to their contact in china. shortly after this, we will receive travel approval (TA). 

our agency worker is sure we will be with our children on the 18th of May---the 18th of May!!!!!! that means we'd be leaving on the 15th. leaving on a jet plane. like rocket man: except not depressing. 
i'm pretty sure there is a way to work ALL of sir elton john's songs into these blog posts. :) 

right now, it seems surreal to me. we've been in the process to bring lucy-girl home for over a year now, and though we've only been in process to bring the dude (luke) home since december it still seems as if it's been forever. every week without them is a week our home is not complete, and a week two precious pieces of my heart are missing. i can hear their footsteps now. i can hear them running up the stairs and i can hear the ruckus of their playing on the floor above us. i can hear them giggle as they feed bird-catcher mcfuzzy paws (birdie) waaaaaay too many treats. i can hear them laugh as they watch gnarls roll onto his back to avoid having to go "home" (his crate) at night. it all is so vivid in my mind now. a very probably date will do that to you. <3

she won't complain though

he's mastered the pitiful "feel sorry for me" look  :)

once we arrive home, luke will require surgery to correct some physical issues. we and the doctors agree it will be best to do the two corrections at the same time to limit his exposure to anesthesia. please join us in prayer for this--that he will understand the pain of the procedures will only be temporary and it is for his best life we are doing this. they really are necessary, and are most certainly not merely "cosmetic-preferred".

lucy is fine as far as we know and will require no immediate medical intervention, aside from a visit to a pediatric cardiologist to check the condition of her repaired hear and then subsequent yearly follow up visits. :) 

when i first meet people and the adoption comes up, the initial reactions are usually "oh, how sweet! so precious, how old are they?" and when i explain they are 8 and 11, the following responses are often of bewilderment and forced excitement. quite a few strangers really don't know how to react to hearing of an older child adoption. however, there are some amazing friends and internet friends that share in the uncontainable joyous excitement we have. i love what a dearly sweet friend said: "rather 8 months and 11 months or 8 years and 11 years, it's worth celebrating!" we agree!  we've been asked by a few people if we've registered anywhere--we hadn't, but we do need plenty to prepare our home for them! we've put together this little registry, as we haven't had 8 and 11 years to build up their rooms, lives, possession and whatnots. :)  


lucy-girl and luke-dude would love anything you would like to send! 
(stores don't have adoption registries, so it is listed as a baby registry with due date of May 15th (when we expect to travel :)). 

thank you for sharing in this joy with us! we can't wait to have pictures of us all together to share!

Monday, April 6, 2015

progress and the light

:cue dancing clowns and other scary things that are supposed to be happy:


i know he's a legend, but, c'mon, mimes are just clowns who don't talk (because they're too busy plotting!)

the C3 (CCCWA) (governmental office in china that oversees the adoptions) *finally* was able to pair our luke-dude's file with our lucy-girl's. this means that we had a 23+ day "log in date" (lucy's was 2 days if that let's you know about the delay).  but, never fear! madison is here! our agency is amazing as i mentioned in a previous post and was there to ensure it was resolved. luke-dude's full file was loaded into the system on 3/25 (after being received on 3/2). that didn't bode well in my little heart for the timeline I wanted.  i wanted so badly to at least be on a plane on my way to them by mother's day. when reality hit and i knew that would not be possible, i had a slight meltdown. maybe i ate a few cookies and drank a soda or two.  but i most certainly did not spend an obscene amount of money on them buying tea collection clothes off zulily. nope. nope. we couldn't afford that. sure glad i didn't....

despite my fleshly emotions and hurt, i know He is sovereign and i know He has all their days--i can rest in that. not because of anything i can do or say or pray or proclaim, but because the fact that He is good and faithful.  when the storms rage, and i just want to tuck my little head between my knees and not look up until it's all over, i return to this:



right now we are are at the "matched" step in the system--which means they FLEW through his approval, and we should have the coveted LOA in hand by the end of this week.

once our agency receives the LOA certificate from china, they will scan it to us, and we can use that to fill out his i800 (needed for his immigration). once we fill that out and send in a sizable check, we will receive a provisional approval and with that we can file his DS260 (to get his visa).  then we can go get him and lucy!
--since lucy was already at the visa step once we added him on, her visa is ready to be dropped off in china. our agency is having this done on april 9th--and then within a few days of that, we will have travel approval FOR HER. once we get travel approval for her, and have him caught up in process, we can roll his travel into our approval for hers.

our agency still tells us to expect travel by the end of may. yay!

oh, but check out these precious pictures of him as an itty-bitty! oh, my heart just swoons! <3



and yay for travel during summer in china! i hear the weather is just lovely  :)

(and really, i'm kinda glad i didn't bring them home earlier into this horribly cold and icy winter we've had. now that, that would be traumatizing!)

if all else fails and disappointment abounds--when my head is tucked in between my knees and tears stream down my face, then i will lift my tearful eyes up because i know He is faithful, and there is nothing i'd rather gaze upon with tears in my eyes than Him.