the wait

i'd refer to this period we are in as the "contractions" period. except, it last a few weeks...ouch. also, i don't really need a spinal block. i do need a glass of wine though.

we were told a few weeks ago it would be very possible for us to have "family day" on the 18th of may, which would mean we would leave either the 14th or 15th. right now, it comes down to if we can have article 5 drop off by Monday or Tuesday in China which will determine if we will be with our children on the 18th or not. (we've already received travel approval for lucy, but since we added luke on later, we are working with our agency to catch him up, and the assure us they should be able to push his through faster since we can travel at any time for lucy-girl).

     ***article 5 drop off is when our facilitator in china has all of luke-dude's visa documents delivered to the C3 (CCCWA) (the governmental office in china that oversees adoptions).

if we do not get the last document we need from our government by the end of today, it is unlikely we will be able to be with our children on the 18th. BUT---we would most certainly be with them by the 25th.  either way, we'll be with our children at some point in may!!!! may!!!! THIS MONTH!!!!

i'm still quite devastated i will not be with them on mother's day.  i plan on taking my dog for a hike that day. i'm his mom too. :)

just kidding. he's actually really lazy. 

but a happy lazy. 

i can't really describe the emotions i have right now. i'm not nervous at all. i'm not anxious. i'm not scared.  i feel what i would assume is akin to a mother waiting to pick her kids up from a summer-long camp. they are already a part of me, and i am just waiting to bring them "back home". each day i think of new things we have to do to get the house ready for them. i think of new things i "need" for them. i think of recipe planning. i think of chore charts. i think of a daily schedule to keep the house somewhat clean. i think if i am going to be one of those 4 out of 5 women who don't/can't shower every day (because there are children to tend to). i can stink. that's okay because the hubs already married me!!!! :)

we've recently had a "small" financial set back. it's okay, we know He is faithful to provide. i mean, He's already provided over $13,000!!!! wow! i still can't even wrap my mind around it. if you look to the right you will see a handy-dandy thermometer which shows you how LITTLE we have left to go, even after this set back! yay!!! 

--all the uncertainties regarding finances, logistics, plans, waits, etc remind me of this verse: "you believe because you have seen (Me), but blessed are this who have not seen (Me...or miracles and signs) and still believe" --john 20:29. 

and that reminds me how silly it is for me to worry about anything. so silly. i believe. even when i cannot see, i believe. 

and....if you would like to welcome them home--celebrate them as becoming sons and daughters we have a fun little registry set up through target (it's a baby registry, with my "due date" being May 14th/15th because they don't have adoption registries), here's a link, and lucy and luke would be thrilled to receive anything from you adorers! <3

"adoption registry" for our lucy-girl and luke-dude :)

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's registry :) 

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!

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. 

we wait for you

We're still waiting on our LOA from China (when all our documents for Luke have been reviewed and they give us the big "thumbs up!").

We were hoping it would be super fast, which would be by the end of March (our dossier for Luke-dude was received in China on March 2nd). If this happens, we'll be able to likely travel at the end of May. Hooray!

We dream of what it will be like when we are there, finally together as a family. We look at TripAdvisor recommended activities and wee picture us, as a family of 4, touring the zoo together, having family dinners tougher and eating street dumplings together.  There was also a zoo recommended, but they have clowns, so--NO!

i wish that donkey would kick him really hard!

the only way i could be happy seeing these clowns like this is if they fell. 

I'm so desperate to embrace my children.

Please continue to pray with us for quick approval of Luke-dude's documents, and quick turnaround for his Immigration and visa approval. <3

Until then, here's a few cute picture of them as itty-bitties! :) 

where we are

i thought it'd be a good idea to let y'all know where we are in process.
no pictures of george michael or rabbits on trails.

when we were told about luke in november, we had two decisions to make:
1) did we want to proceed with lucy and just leave our contact information with the foster family for (if) when a family adopted luke
or
2) did we want to adopt luke too
the obvious choice was #2, since #1 wasn't not only a NOT a sure thing, but not even likely.

after we stated we wanted to adopt him too, we had another decision to make:
1) adopt lucy in the timeframe we were going and then "reuse" our dossier and immediately go back for him
or
2) delay lucy's process so we could bring them home at the same time

we wrestled with this because we wanted lucy home ASAP, but we also knew it would be best for both of them if we adopted them at the same time; and it would also be more financially feasible for us to adopt them at the same time.

we said whooooooa nelly! to lucy's paperwork moving right along so that we could start luke's and catch him up.

we had already received LOA for lucy when we found out about luke, and were realistically 2 months or so from traveling to pick her up. we knew adding luke would extend the process about 6 months out--even with his being prioritized. 

in december, we submitted lucy's i800 and received that approval (you do this after you receive LOA). with the i800 approval we submitted the ds260 for lucy (her visa). our agency is holding at this step while we catch luke up. 

luke's "mini-dossier" was sent to the chinese consulate last week (letter of intent, amended home study, and i800a supplement 3 approval), and since it's only 3 documents it should take only a week to get back. at that point, his 3 documents will be sent to china for review. 

the majority of the entire dossier has been reviewed and approved--this is good! this means they really only have to review these additional 3 documents to send us the LOA for luke. and, i described what happens after that: i800 then ds260. once we send in his ds260 application for his visa, our agency will send his and lucks to china for article 5 pick up, after that, travel approval will be issued. 

here's how we want you to join with us in prayer: 

pray the finger of God slides luke's documents through at lightening speed! 

i hate knowing that all of lucy's approvals are done and we are essentially paper ready to go get her, but that we are "sitting on" them. it's the only way, but, i still hate it nonetheless. 

we are in day 2 of our "a tisket, a tasket, a basket" fundraiser:

we have 19 theme "baskets" up for auction. we are so close to having all the financial needs met for this process. we only need to raise *about* $4,000 more! waaaaahoooooo! :)

you can see the "baskets" up for auction here: 

https://www.facebook.com/pages/One-Less-Orphan-Auction/231146860392485?fref=photo

CLICK ON THE ABLUM TITLED "A TISKET, A TASKET, A BASKET" and view the 19 theme baskets we have up for auction.  

we're coming sweet son and daughter! <3

oysters and george michael

like george michael once sang:
gotta have faith...
sure we're talking about two different things, but it you take those three words out of context they apply beautifully to our situation.

back in december we submitted what is called a supplement 3 to our i800a approval. this request a change in approval for number of children, age, gender, etc. 

we were told by our home study social worker there was no fee associated with this, so we mailed it in. 2 and half weeks passed and we received the dreaded pink paper in the mail known as an RFE (request for information). this is sent when more information, material, etc is needed to process the application. we were told there was a $360 fee due for a supp 3, and the approval could not be issued until that was received. and we could not pay it over the phone. 

i'm about to get raw. raw like this tray of oysters. 

i was livid. any virtue left me and i was in a state between crying myself into a puddle in the floor and  wanting to punch something. not really. but kind of. 

i felt like a horrible mother, i should have sent in a blank check just in case. i should have called ahead. i should have....

so much. 

the whole process just became delayed ANOTHER month, because once we sent in the check, it still would take 10 days for them to clear it and process our approval. two weeks ago, we overnighted it and paid $45 to guarantee it would be there by 10:30 a.m. the check cleared a few days ago, so now, we are just waiting....waiting...praying...praying for time

this is a screen shot of george singing praying for time. i call him only george because i believe we are on a first name basis.

once we receive the approval in the mail, the hubs can use his day off to run around town and get it, and a few other things notarized, certified, and authenticated. it's a crazy process: see this post

then, we pay for overnight delivery by 10:30 a.m. again and it is deliver by a man riding a unicorn, sliding down rainbow, playing the kazoo. (our adoption worker assured me this is how it was delivered last time we paid that much for an early next day delivery). 

i know our Father has no ill will upon our children. i know He loves them more. i know that everything that has happened, is happening, and will happen has passed by His Sovereign hands. i know He know the exact minute we will become a family and be together for the first time. 

even though i cannot necessarily trust in any person, organization, office, i can trust in Him. 

He's big enough to cover misinformation of fees due, and delays, and waiting; He's Holy and Loving enough to bring us together in perfect timing. 

the blessing of it all: they are in a loving environment. "one of the good ones".

january 18th was our sweet lucy-girl's 11th birthday. so, we threw her a party, from several 1,000 miles away. we also threw a party for our little dude letting him know he would be our son too. 

here's some pictures of the spectacular occasion:

right before i published this, my hubs texted me to let me know our USCIS officer notified him it was approved on the 26th and mailed out--we should have it by today or tomorrow. hope he's ready for another rat race! 

the greatest of news to be thankful for!

in the (slightly changed) words of freddie mercury:



"we are LOA, we are LOA, we are LOA my friends!
and we'll keep on stressing 'til the end
no time for thanksgiving
no time for christmas
because we are LOA during the holidays my friends!!!!!!!"

LOA, otherwise known as letter seeking confirmation (yeah, i know, the acronym doesn't match ups...LOA=letter of acceptance, but it's also referred to as letter seeking confirmation).

this means that china has reviewed the 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 documents we sent them with all the notarizations, certifications, authentications, consulate approvals, fingerprints of God things on them, and accepted them, and said that, "yes! ryan and carmen preciado, you can be her mommy! (and daddy...oops, i leave him out a lot).

now we fill out a few more complicated forms (but for our government) mainly that are for allowing her to immigrate here and become a u.s. citizen through adopt0ion.

the typical timeline from here is 9 weeks to TA (travel approval) and then 2 weeks to travel from the approval to do so.

our agency was in her province 2 weeks ago, and visited her orphanage. they took lots of new pictures of her and even a video of her saying "hi mommy! hi daddy!". but, they have 1,000s of pictures to go through, so, it'll be a bit before they can send them to us. once they do, you'll probably hear me sobbing happy tears wherever you are, and that'll be your cue to come back here and see them! :)

until then, here's pictures of her (almost) completed room. it's in desperate need of cutie-patootie items from landofnod.com, but, we're almost there!

a sweet lady we've never met made this blanket for lucy-girl. oh, the love others have shown her is beautiful! 

mommy and daddy on their wedding day. we knew event hen we'd adopt to begin our family

ever girl needs a cute headband and necklaces

a picture of mommy on her wedding day with all her friend-aunties. also, because we pray her room to be a place of healing, peace, and grace, worship music has been playing in her room non-stop for the last 3 months. it is a wonderful Spirit-filled room! 

if you would like to come along side of us, and help bring our daughter home the link at the top right of the page will take you to our tax-deducible fundraising account. we would be forever humbly grateful for any amount you would donate. thank you for caring about our daughter, and helping to make one less orphan. <3

china just got a huge stack of papers!

this. 

we conquered. 

we're still married (and in love).

i'm not completely gray (yet).

our dossier is in china!

***dossier is a fancy word for those eleventy-quadrillion sheets of papers, notarizations, certifications, and authentications you have to have.

now, they will meticulously look at all these (well, after they're translated) and it's a bunch more acronyms from here: 

OOT (out of translation)

LID (log in date)

LOA (letter of acceptance)

TA (travel approval)

it takes much longer than those acronyms would have you believe. 

we are just ready for our sweet lucy-girl to be home, with her forever family, the one she was born in the hearts of.  

i am always astounded at the resilient spirit of these children, their forgiving hearts, the trust and bravery they have to travel to the other side of the world with "parents" they have never met. everything about them is so much braver, stronger, and more loving than any of us! we are the blessed ones and we are the honored ones. 

we mustn't have any expectation, we mustn't believe that we are coming back to america sliding down rainbow, on a unicorn, and into a pile of pillows and soft puppies. (well, there's a puppy, but, he's not soft anymore). 

it's okay for it to be a 90/10, 95/5, or 98/2 give. she's the one with the trauma to overcome, the frustration of the language to learn, sites to familiarize with, etc. 

He is faithful, not only to us, but first and foremost, to her, our sweet daughter. our lucy-girl.

up next: 

fees due at LOA/TA time: approximately $8,000

fees we have to carry on us during travel: a lot, as in 5 digits/walking targets a lot.

we have $3,900 in our reece's rainbow account (that's a lot of love for our lucy-girl), and are counting on about $5,000 between the hubs' next bonus and a few paychecks (total of $8,800). but, God is not a God of half-provision: He can lower bills, motivate raises, bless with success on ebay and etsty, etc. there was also a story in the bible of someone being told to catch a fish and pull a coin from it's mouth. that sounds like a really cool way of His provision, i'm going fishing! :) 

i'm selling some vintage-y jewelry on my etsy shop: 

whimsical and vintage!

i'm also making doggie tutus and necklaces on this one:

barks brothers and doggie stuff

oh, and my ebay name is: carpre2, i have neat and pretty clothes i sell on it!

or, i can just bake you cookies, if you prefer that.  :) 

the marathon roller coaster

we've been waiting for our agency to receive one piece of paper back from the chinese consulate.

one piece.

then they can ship the 1,000,000,000 pieces of paper (otherwise known as the dossier) to china (this is called DTC: dossier to china), so we can eventually have our log in date (LID) and then our letter of acceptance (LOA) and then our prized travel approval (TA). and then of course, "gotcha day.

until then, honestly, there are days you feel like this:

everything at this point is pretty much out of our control. we're at the mercy of the work ethic, schedule, mood, motivation, official processes of whomever our packet of paper lands on the desk of.

it wears on your heart: the time, the money, the wait, the helplessness of knowing that you would walk on water to cross the ocean to get to them if you could, but you must wait, and this child, this daughter of ours, who has waited 10 years for a family, must continue to wait.

it's a hard wait. a heart wrenching one. if you know someone whom is adopting, and you ask them how the process is going (which is a very common question, and welcome (depending on the mood)), and they reply back they've been waiting "x" number of days for this, and they just want it to be over or to the next step; please, please, please do not respond "it's all in God's perfect timing".

to speak of God's perfect anything would first begin with His perfect will, and His perfect will is NEVER for a child to be orphaned. His perfect will is NEVER for the cultural climate of a country, a race, a people group, a religion to push a mother to abandon her child, abuse her child and them be taken away, etc. His perfect will is NEVER for a woman to be raped and become pregnant from that, or for a child to be born with such special needs the mother knows she can not care for them and thus abandons them or surrenders them to there country/region's child welfare system. all of this is the result of a fallen world where sin and brokenness reign.

His perfect will is for sin of man or scheme of man to be unable to break apart biological families.

we are given biblical mandates to care for the orphan, the oppressed, the widow, the needy, the sick and suffering because we are waiting on Him to restore us to the garden, we are waiting on Him to defeat the enemy once and for all.

the roller coaster of emotions you experience in this process is unmatched: you are always waiting for a exhilarating rush-fall, waiting nervously on the climb, or irritated by the basic chug-along (no one rides roller coaster for those short moments of steady chugging). right now, we are chugging...not even climbing up knowing that exhilarating rush-fall is ahead.

right now i'd settle for a wagon ride down hill. we're coming sweet girl. if i have to walk on water to get to you.

also, we have a new fundraiser page set up; it's humbling to do that. 

i now understand all those mothers who resort to less than desirable profession to provide for their child.  it's so easy to judge them "if they really loved their child(ren), how could they do that?!" "is that the influence they want to be on them?!" "it's their fault they are in that situation, gross."....etc 

trust me, there is no more desperate place that those women are in, who resort to dancing for men to feed their children, out of their love for their child.  (simmer down, i'm not doing that). those women don't want to do that to feed their children, buy them school supplies, pay their bills, etc. and we don't want to have to ask for help to bring our daughter home. but that's where we are at. i love her more than i love my pride. i love her more than any fame and honor in being able to say we did it ourself, because we can't do it ourself. 

i love her more than my fear of rejection, scolding, and helplessness, so i am sharing this here. 

listen to our story presented in this beautiful video, pray with us, pray for us. we have attached incentives/gifts with each donation as well.  

from our humbled hearts, thank you for loving our daughter with us, for the encouragement, for the support, and prayers. 

adoption story and video-a place called home (click link)

thank you for helping bring love and freedom to our lucy-girl

her precious face and resilient spirit

It's been two days since we've been able to share the only two pictures we have of our sweet girl with you all.  My heart has been wanting to share her sweet face and resilient spirit long before now, but there had been another decision on China's end we were waiting on. 

what's next. the question we've been asked like a eleventh-bilion times. here's a summary: 

* book reports!  yeah, we have to read three recommended books from a list of about 30, and write book reports on them-i need to find my old APA books...

* watch about 10 hours of online training videos and take a test on them afterward

* confirm that ryan is not a secret felon (i know I'm not, but how well do we ever know anyone) (i kid, i kid, he's harmless)

* have some people that have good things to say about us submit some recommendations

* file an uscis i-800a application and do some sort of special fingerprinting

* submit our dossier (dos-e-a) (a lot of paperwork, fancy word for a lot of paperwork) 

* wait. 

* wait

* wait

* wait some more

* travel

in between these is a lot money due (well, the most is due right before travel) ($15,000), at one point in submission of paperwork we have like $4,000 due, and at another point we have like $3,000 due, but the main "ohmygod, we have what due?!" is right before travel, which means i have about 7 months to exercise and eat right so that when $15,000 is due, i can stress eat all the hostess cupcakes and prince's hot chicken and still end up at my starting point. 

but none of that matters! look at the sweet, beautiful, happy, and resilient girl that is about to have a forever family!

there is so much to do! 

* learn mandarin (easy-peasy!)

* order this really cute bed set from landofnod.com 

* learn to cook sticky rice and steam fish

* really, really, really sleep in a few more times, like teenager lever 11 a.m. sleep in; because life is about to change---for the awesomely better! 

* i'm sure there's "few" more things i'm forgetting, but, we'll figure it out! 

ahhhhh!!!! i love being able to fully share our joy with you all now!