HS addendum received and a VERY exciting UPDATE!!

Today, I received a very unexpected SURPRISE!!!! Fei wrote first of all to tell me she received the addendum and then she also sent some new PICTURES and weight/height update for ANNA!!! I sure wish I could post pictures! maybe once this blog becomes a private blog, I can post... but for now, I'll just say, she is SOOOOOOOOO cute!!!!

I noticed her chunky little face and how the pacifier was wrapped around her neck with a diaper... I was wondering as I put together the care package whether she uses a pacifier, so now i know and I will send her a pacifier holder!!!

Oh, Fei also told me that I can send her a care package and gave me the Chinese Address for Chung Yi. I am soooo excited!

Tuesday... a little problem...

Fei at ASIA called me today to tell me that there was a "slight" problem with the docs that got signed... apparently, the notary was supposed to write in the "I certify.... blah, blah, blah" statement but didn't do it on one of the docs.... ofcourse, we didn't know that is was supposed to be written, but thankfully, Fei was able to talk with Jana and get it straightened out. WHEW... And then, I realized that Juline, our social worker, was going to do a hs addendum to include our fingerprint clearance and she hadn't done that yet, so I had to call her and ask her to do that... there was a little tiny bit of "scare" that perhaps, our fingerprints had not cleared yet, but thankfully, it had so Juline should hopefully get that taken care of and sent off to ASIA tomorrow so they can get the docs certified and authenticated! Praying for God's GRACE and smooth EVERYTHING!!!!

Happy Birthday Sheri & Grandma Askew!

Today is my sister Sheri's 40th Birthday! I can't believe she is 40! Grandma Askew (Aaron's grandma) is also having a birthday today and I am not quite sure how old she is, but she looks WONDERFUL for her age!

This morning, I had a pretty busy day... After the boys got picked up for school, I drove to Fed-ex to pick up our pkg with our paperwork in it... I had a small window of opportunity to get Aaron to sign off on the docs and get it notarized, it was a challenge to try to get Jana to notarize the docs because she had a sick child, but we got it all taken care of by 2pm and had it sent off back to ASIA for tomorrow.

Sunday, Church Day

Today, we went to church and ended up volunteering in Xklaim and Zone... They were short-handed and needed some adults to help out, so Aaron went to Xklaim with Calvin and I went to Zone with Noah. We didn't really see many people at church to share the good news with ~ Aaron had alot of work to do (rounding on patients, etc.) so we came home and hung out. Tori & Matt had family in town so they couldn't meet with us for group but we had fun relaxing at home ~ still really hard to believe we have a daughter!!!!

Happy, happy friday

Today, the boys didn't have school ~ I invited the boys friends over for a little bit... JP, Logan S., and the Todd brothers (Tristan, Logan & Gavin). They all played outside and got nice and dirty...

I received an email from Fei saying that she sent out a fedex pkg to us with Power of attorney (this allows the orphanage director to present our case on our behalf for the court process), and the adoption agreement. We need to get it notarized and send off to ASIA so that they can begin the authentication process.... once it goes to the state and to TECO in San Francisco for authentications, then we are officially DTT (dossier to Taiwan) and the court process begins. Fei stated in her email that court process from DTT until travel is aprox 6-7 months. I am still praying for sooner and that we get the "fast judge". I have learned through the online Taiwan adoption community, that there is a "fast judge" and a "slow judge". Everyone prays to get the fast judge, for obvious reasons. We hope to have our dossier in Taiwan in a couple weeks.

Tonight, to celebrate Anna, we went out with Chris & Darcy, along with little Trenton, and Mike & Ann with their kiddos Michael & Jane. We went to El Caporal in downtown Bend. It was fun to celebrate this wonderful news with them and I was able to share with them pictures of Anna for the first time.

SHE IS OURS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok, I got the CALL!!!! Here's what happened!

I came home from dropping off the boys at about 8:45 AM and sat at the computer to check our email just in case ASIA had written about us being denied Li-Xuan…
I started typing away to Jessica Smith on ladybug group about her Taiwan adoption not working out and how frustrating that must have been, when the phone rang at 9:12 AM…. Michael was sitting on the couch right next to my chair and as I stood up to get the phone, knowing it was someone other than Aaron because Aaron’s calls have a distinctive ring, my heart started to beat a little faster because all week I had jumped everytime the phone rang…. Hoping that it would be good news from ASIA…. Well, as I peeked at the caller id on the phone… it said ASIA!!!! I started to shake and thought to myself “THIS COULD BE GOOD NEWS!”… but, as I answered the phone, a quick thought raced through my head… “But, it COULD be bad news…” When I said “hello”, I was greeted by Fei, who said “I have some good news for you!” Immediately, I was just jumping up and down inside.. and she said something about the birthmother choosing us and all I could come up with was “YAHOO!”… She proceeded to tell me a few things about the power of attorney and adoption agreement that was going to be fed-ex’d, but to be honest, I didn’t really hear anything… I was beaming and I wanted to get off the phone so I could celebrate and scream! So, as I prepared to hang up the phone, I said to Fei…”So, I don’t have to do anything today, right?... except to CELEBRATE?” to which she answered “yes.” I think I thanked her a million times and then hung up the phone… I jumped around the kitchen screaming and ran into the great room and started to cry as I told Michael “They picked us!!!” He knew right away what that meant and hugged me and jumped and and down with me!... I called Aaron right away and it went to voicemail… so then I called him again and he answered and I started to tell him “She chose us”… but it was so hard to say because I was crying… he said he was so excited and that he would call me right back because he was with a patient right then…So, I got off the phone and then paced back and forth around the house and called Anna…. I cried as I told her too and I am sure she could barely understand what I said, but she was so excited and somewhat shocked! I was too! I think I thanked God in between racing thoughts and actions…. After Anna, I got online and emailed her a picture of Li-Xuan and sent out a mass email to family that we got her with her picture… Up until this day, only Barbro and Tori & Matt had seen her picture so it was a first for everyone in our family. I made a bunch more calls to Tori, Ann, Gloria & Shannon but I ended up leaving voicemail for everyone except Shannon. They were all so excited for us when I finally did get to talk to each one. I took Michael to school at 12:05 and looked for Calvin & Noah at the playground to tell them about it and they were all so excited as well as the teachers! Then, I headed to Aaron's office and hugged and cried a little with Aaron ~ everyone at Desert Orthopaedics was so happy for us. We went out to lunch afterwards, signed on a new contract with UNICEL (I know, kinda random but our cell phone contract with Tmobile was expiring today)

After I picked up the boys from school, I received some flowers from Desert Othopaedics at the house... it was very sweet...then we all went out to dinner together at Anthony's to celebrate. What a Day! My head is still spinning and I am SOOOO very thankful. God, I give you all the credit for this.... Only You could've orchestrated this so perfectly.

Happy Friday and an EMAIL

Happy Friday ~ I received an email from Marci! YIPPEE! It isn't EXCITING news, but atleast it's NEWS... here's what she wrote me...

Thanks for checking in. I was just going to contact you because I checked in with Taiwan about that yesterday. They wrote back and said that they are presenting the files to the birthmother to make her decision shortly. It sounds like we should know soon, but they did not give me an exact time frame. We will let you know as soon as we have information. Please let me know if I can help you with anything else.

Sincerely,
Marci

So, there you have it... our files are being presented to the birhtmother... I kinda figured that is what was happening and had hoped the decision had been made already, but atleast now I know and I can REST... until... who knows WHEN... but I'll continue to exercise my "trusting in God" muscles :) Thank you, God for this news.
I pray YOU will direct the decision-making process! Go God! :)

Still ~ NO NEWS!

It is so hard to wait.... why are we so impatient? I have to think that I am more patient now than I was 4 years ago when we began this adoption journey... I don't know if I'll ever be so patient that waiting doesn't phase me... I guess that is not the goal in life... but that everytime we feel impatient, we can say "God, I am feeling impatient today, please help me see You in this"... So, that's what I am asking today....

I wrote Marci at ASIA tonight about status..... Since I didn't get a response from Fei yet, it's possible she is on vacation or something.... anyways, another weekend is coming and I want to know something.... if it means "wait some more" atleast I want to know THAT.

So, I wait... :) Praying I hear "something" tomorrow...

No news...

I decided to write Fei at ASIA today to ask about status... we'll see if she answers us today...

Also, I went on a field trip with Calvin's class to the Redmond Nursery. It was kinda fun to see all the flowers ~ can't wait 'till spring.

No news and Good news!

It's been a little over 3 weeks now since we turned in our LOI... I thought waiting 2 weeks was going to be LONG but now it's turning into 4 weeks very quickly...

I just want to know so I can move on if it's bad news for us. I prayed that God will make the decision and no matter what, His plan will prevail in the end.

We "officially" celebrate Calvin's birthday tonight with some party hats, great food, Cake, etc... Aaron almost couldn't make it to the party, but he's such a good dad and canceled his case!

On another happy note, I just found out today that Alisha, one of my friends from the Ladybug yahoo group (Christian women adopting from China group) that she received a call today for a referral!!! She has been on her agency's waiting child program and got a match today and verbally accepted her! I was so excited to hear this news since she has had her share of heart break with adoption. Congratulations, Alisha & Family!!

We are back and Happy Birthday, Calvin!

We are back from our trip to Bama and Calvin is 8 years old today!! I took him some cupcakes during lunch at school for his class to celebrate with him. He and Noah also started Karate today at Sortor Bushido Kai. I think they had fun but Noah doesn't seem too excited about it... they were both so cute in their uniforms!

Didn't find out anything today about Li-Xuan... I think I'll wait a couple days before I call ASIA.

I did find out while we were on vacation that it looked like the orphanage was going through all the homestudies and deciding which ones get to be submitted to the birthmother. There was atleast one family that I heard of on the yahoo group that was told their family didn't make it through that round. We haven't heard anything yet, so I am assuming this means good news???

We are going to celebrate Calvin's birthday (officially) tomorrow! Tonight, we had potstickers and just had some fun celebrating Calvin.

Heading out to Portland and some news....

Since we are headed to Portland tomorrow, I thought I'd write Fei at ASIA and email to make sure she knew our cell phone numbers just in case she had to get a hold of us while we were gone (i.e., in case she had great news and wanted to call us!). She replied back with this...

Got your packet…



The Foundation actually stopped accepting HS on Monday, March 31 because they received big number of homestudies. So far, you are the number two family. The Foundation will look at all the homestudies and determine qualified the families. If the number one family is qualify, they will be the first homestudy to present to the birth parents. Birth parents can say YES or NO. If the answer is YES, they will stop right there. And the first family will pursue this child. If the answer is NO, your homestudy will be the next. It may takes couple of weeks to come up the decision. So enjoy your vacation, I will have your number handy.



Fei

This actually made me feel hopeless... like we don't really have a chance because if the first family is qualified and the birthmom says yes, it's over... As I told Aaron about this email, I started crying and he reassured me that nothing has changed. I think I know that in my head... but my heart is beginning to feel sad and wondering "what if we're not picked?"

I started thinking I wish I would've made a stronger case on our LOI about how great we are, etc... but again, I am reminded.... MAN TRIES TO MAKE PLANS FOR HIMSELF, BUT IT IS GOD WHO HAS THE FINAL WORD. I really believe that. If she is not meant to be our daughter, we don't want her. We only want the one God has for us ~ we really mean that.

Alright, off to Portland and the wedding we go!