Two years ago ...

At 4:30 am on Oct. 21st, 2009, the phone rings, I sit straight up in bed and say, frantically "Greg, this is it"! It was the call we had been praying for ... our adoption coordinator says "sorry to wake you, but I have a file for you to review, I just emailed it to you". We rushed to our computer to open the email.

Her sweet little face was the first thing we saw, our hearts melted...

Now, here we are 2 years later and she is almost 3 years old and preparing to be a big sister. She talks about her baby brother all the time. This week she even started setting a place at the table for him as she sets our table for dinner each night. She always includes him in our prayer before dinner as well. And, every airplane she spots in the sky, she thinks is on its way to China to bring her baby brother home.

She even picked a pumpkin out for her brother earlier this month when we went to the pumpkin patch.

Son, Little Brother, Grandson, Nephew, Cousin ...

Meet Isaiah ...




We are thrilled to finally be able to introduce our son! On Sept. 29th at 9:44pm, our agency sent us an email saying they had a file for us to review. We opened it up to see the picture above! On Oct 1st we submitted our Letter of Intent (LOI) to adopt Isaiah Ning.

We had to wait until we had our Pre-Approval (PA) before publicly announcing ... hence the tease picture post several days ago! This morning we woke to find an email from our agency saying our PA had arrived!!

Here is a bit about our little NingNing (that is what his caregivers call him). He just turned 10 months old on Oct. 12 ... his birth date is 12/12/10 (Anna's is 12/14/08)!! He is in Hengyang City, Hunan and we were thrilled to learn that his orphanage is run by International China Concern (more to come about them later). He is described as active and lovely, likes to be cuddled, has a ready smile, quick in reaction, and if angry he cries loudly (just like his big sis!).

We were fortunate enough to get an update on him just this week and learned that he can crawl and say Ma Ma and Ba Ba. They also said that he doesn't want to sit on his own and will fall back on purpose - LOL!

We have several more steps in the process to complete before we will travel. Right now, it's looking like we'll be heading to China in March.

Here is an updated picture of him taken at the end of September during ICC's annual Walk the Wall fundraiser. Isn't he just precious!!


 

Then and Now

After I snapped a picture of Anna as she and Greg were heading out this morning, I remembered that I had taken a similar shot almost exactly a year ago. It's hard to believe how much she has changed in a year!!

A video by LWB about adopting a waiting child.

LID!

Our coordinator emailed us early this morning to let us know we are officially logged in! Our LID is 8/1/11 ... very quick turn around time from our DTC. Now all we do is wait and pray.

Here is a recent shot of the big-sister-to-be. She looks and talks like such a big girl these days. She's started beginning her sentences with the word "sometimes" and earlier this week I was getting ready to put her down for her nap and she ran back down the hallway to put a book away ... I thought she was stalling, so asked her to hurry back to her room where I was waiting and when she made her way back to me she simply said "Mama, Anna come back always". Too sweet!!

DTC!!!!

Our dossier is on its way to China today! This feel like such a huge relief after 4 months of paper chasing. We should find out our LID (log in date) in a couple of weeks. Hopefully we'll have it in time for the next shared list that will come out at the end of August ... that doesn't mean we will necessarily be matched off of that list, but we will at least be eligible!

Approved!!

I called the USCIS office yesterday to check on the status of our case and our officer had just approved our file!! Day 62 for those of you reading this that might be waiting on your approval too. She mailed it yesterday, so hopefully we'll have it tomorrow or Thursday.

Once here, I'll get it notarized, run downtown to the Sec. of State office and have it certified, then overnight it to the courier in Chicago to have it authenticated at the Chinese Consulate. Our courier will then overnight it to our Xiaoqing (our awesome agency coordinator). IF all of this can happen prior to next Friday, Xiaoqing said we could be DTC (documents to China) next Friday, if not we will for sure be DTC the following Friday.

After we're DTC we wait to hear what our LID (logged in date) is ... this is important because once we have a LID, we are eligible to be matched off of the shared list that comes out at the end of each month. This is the list that China posts each month of available children from the waiting child program (the same list we were matched with Anna). Our hope is that we have our LID by mid-August so that we're eligible for the August list. That doesn't mean we'll necessarily be matched, but we'll at least have a chance. When we were waiting to be matched with Anna (once we switched to the Waiting Child Program) it took about 5 months to find our sweet girl.

Speaking of our sweet girl ... Greg and I keep saying lately that she seems to be growing up so fast! Last night I was getting her pj's on after her bath and I said "You are mommy's favorite girl in the whole wide world" and Anna said "Anna growing up. Mommy and Daddy watch Anna grow up." Oh my! She brought tears to my eyes. This little girl of ours is really something special ... God blessed us so when He gave us Anna.

Summer Fun (in pictures)

Progress

We have finished compiling the rest of our dossier. Last week we had it certified by the Secretary of State and today I'm sending to the courier in Chicago to have it authenticated by the Chinese Consulate in Chicago. Once that is done (next week) she will forward it to our agency where it will sit and wait for that one last piece, our USCIS approval. We are on day 30 of our wait, so if the wait times hold, we're about 1/2 way there. We are heading up to St. Louis tomorrow morning to do our fingerprints.

Eleven Years!!

Today Greg and I celebrate our eleven year wedding anniversary! God has blessed us greatly over the last 11 years and I can't wait to see what He has planned for us for the next 11!

Choo-choo

Anna is on officially on the potty train! Last week Anna decided she wanted to start using the potty ... we had not been pushing it, so we were surprised when she asked to go all on her own last weekend. She knows when she goes, she gets a "special MM (M&M)" (as she says it), so that has been very motivating! Here is a conversation we have now had several times as she is sitting there:

Anna: "Works!"
Me: "What works?"
Anna: "Anna's baum-tum" (bottom)

I cracked up the first time she said it ... I'm sure someday she'll just be thrilled I posted this! She also will say "Anna more pee-pee, Anna more special MM" - didn't take long for her to figure that out!

Hope you all have a wonderful Memorial Day Weekend!

I800a

We mailed our I800a yesterday! In a few weeks we will get a letter letting us know we can head to St. Louis to get our fingerprints done. I'm guessing we will get to do that the 2nd or 3rd week of June. Right now I800a approvals are averaging about 50 days which is better that it was a few weeks ago. The sooner our approval comes, the sooner we'll be DTC (dossier to China)!

"Just Anna"

That is what Anna says if we call her anything besides Anna. If we call her Anna Banana or Cutie Pie or Silly Billy or anything other than Anna, she just laughs and says "no, Just Anna", then we say "oh, okay Just Anna" and she flashes us the biggest grin. It's pretty cute.

In adoption news, our home study is now completed and has been approved by our agency. We're just waiting for our social worker to get us the final notarized copy and then we can send our I800a along with our home study to USCIS - my goal is do be able to send it Monday!

Here are some recent pictures of "Just Anna" ...