Travel dates

Our travel dates have been confirmed and our airplane tickets are purchased! These next couple of weeks are going to fly by, I'm sure! Here's roughly what our schedule will look like. We'll know more details in the next week or so.

June 2 - fly from Peoria to Chicago to Beijing

June 4 - agency orientation

June 5 - sight-seeing in Beijing

June 6 - fly to Wuhan

June 7 - AMELIA DAY!

June 10 - fly to Guangzhou

June 14 - consulate appointment

June 16 - fly home

We are so excited to go get our girl!

We have TRAVEL APPROVAL!

What a great Mother's Day gift! I checked my e-mail last night before bed, totally not expecting to find anything adoption-related, when I saw the message from Holt that said, "Travel approvals have arrived!" That is the last thing we were waiting for. Now we will have our consulate appointment confirmed, and then we can buy our plane tickets. We are hoping to fly to Beijing on June 1st. Time to start packing!

On Easter Sunday, our daughter was sitting in "big church" with us, and she heard the pastor say that if anyone had a prayer request they could write it on a care card and turn it in and the staff would pray for that request during the week. She right away found the card in her bulletin, and wrote as carefully as she could in her 6-year-old handwriting: "for our travel approval to come." What a blessing to be able to tell her today that the Lord had answered her prayer!

Updated pictures of our girl!

Several weeks ago we requested some new pictures and new measurements of Amelia. I had just about given up on getting any before we leave, but today in my inbox were FIVE new pictures! Here is what the update says about her:

1. What are her current measurements?

Height: 82cm, Weight: 11kg, Head: 45cm, Chest: 49cm, Teeth number: 16, Feet Length: 13cm

2. How are her eating and sleeping habits?

She goes to bed at 20:00 and wakes up at 7:00. She has nap at 12:00. She has three meals with dish and rice per day. She drinks milk. She eats fruit and snacks. She likes noodle that was cooked with fish soup, tomato and vegetables.

3. May we have a developmental update?

She is active, cute and lovely. She can walk alone. She can call Mom. She will babble or sing with “a, a…” or “Ma, ma” for joy when she is happy. She gets along very well with her peers. She likes playing together with her peers.

4. Has she had any recent illnesses? If so, how were they treated?

She is health all the time. She catches cold occasionally and she will turn well after taking medicine.

And here are some of the new pictures we received!

We can't wait to get there and meet our girl in person!

We have Article 5!

We got an e-mail from our agency this morning saying that our Article 5 was picked up this week from the embassy in Guangzhou and that we are now officially waiting for travel approval! This came a day earlier than we expected, so it was a nice surprise! Our agency says that they should have our travel approval in about three weeks, and then we can plan our exact travel dates. We are hoping to leave on June 1st, but we know that the Lord's timing will be perfect whether we go then or a week or two later.

The fact that we are actually going to be on a plane in just a few weeks is becoming more real all the time! Please pray for us as we prepare to leave. The packing for five of us for two weeks in a foreign country in four suitcases that weigh less than 44 pounds is slightly overwhelming if I think about it too much. So is the thought of removing Amelia from everything and everyone she knows. Please pray for her transition into our family, and that we will learn how to help her through her grief. Please pray also for our other children as they adjust to a new sibling who may or may not like us at first!

I think I have not allowed myself to think about Amelia very much up to this point. It just makes the waiting easier. But now the realization is sinking in that I am going to be meeting my DAUGHTER in just a few more weeks! I can't wait to begin to learn who she is, what she likes, what her voice sounds like , and so many other things. I asked our agency earlier this month if they could get updated pictures and measurements for us. I have been checking my e-mail multiple times a day, but we haven't gotten anything yet. Hopefully soon. . .

I-800 Approval

From what I had read on some adoption forums, I figured that we were close to having our I-800 approved. (This is the immigration approval from USCIS.) So yesterday afternoon I sent an e-mail inquiring about the status of our application, and first thing this morning I had this wonderful reply:

Good morning,

In an answer to your question, I processed the I-800 provisional approval this morning and the approval notices will go out in the mail today. Congratulations and please let me know if I can be of further assistance!

Thanks!

We are getting closer and closer! Now we wait for the National Visa Center to send us a letter which we will send on to our agency. Then all of our Hague documents will be sent to China. We are still on track to travel in June.

Please be praying for Amelia and for her transition into our family. She will be losing everything familiar to her, and we expect that she will grieve her losses. Children go through this in different ways, and we are praying that Amelia will allow us to comfort her and that she will attach to us quickly.

Signing the LOA

This is the official "Letter of Seeking Confirmation from Adopter" that we received from China this week. It basically means that they are offering Amelia to us and we are formally accepting her. We are so excited to make her our daughter!

LOA!!!

Praise the Lord! Our agency called this afternoon to tell us that they have our LOA. They are overnighting it to us and we will have the package tomorrow afternoon. Waiting for LOA to come is the part of the process that varies most as far as how long it takes. Our wait (46 days) was pretty average. We have been told that we can expect to travel in about three months, which would put us in China in June. So tomorrow we will be busy finishing our I-800 application and getting that sent off so that we can start waiting again. . .