He Knows he has a Family...for REAL!

WOW!  What a day.  I woke up to many new pictures of Reid from a traveling family, who not only got to meet him, but who got to hand deliver our first package to him with a treat, some pictures we made for him, and a photo album with many photos of our family and home.  He officially knows he has a family!!!  Maybe he knew before, maybe he didn't.  But it is official now. :)   Oh to have been a fly on the wall at that moment.  Can you even imagine being a 5, almost 6 year old boy and seeing so many of your friends being chosen and leaving with their families?  Can you imagine what that must feel like? I don't even want to think about it.  But I saw a boy in photos and video in spring of 2011 who was so happy, smiling...simply precious.  About a year ago or so, many of his friends started leaving with their families.  You could see that smile fade and his new face in pictures was heartbreaking.  It looked like his hope had totally been stolen from him. It looked as if he was thinking: Why is no one choosing me?  Will I ever have a family come for me?  How many more kids and friends will I have to watch leave?  Little did he know that we were watching him.  We were watching every agency he was listed with.  It just wasn't the right timing and we could not get approved to adopt two at once.  I think my face looked something like his in those later pictures when we drove by the exit for his orphanage on our way from Guangzhou to Hong Kong to head home with Lena.  Heartbroken....for him.  Fast forward 9 months and here we are!  He now knows he has a family!  Yes, one of his own.  He knows there is a family on the other side of the world who loves him.  He knows he has a lot of brothers and a sister.  He knows someone really does care, someone chose him.  He knows a family will be coming for him soon- soon he will be leaving and it will be his turn!  Yet, inside, I am sure he is scared too.  What will it be like leaving all you have ever known, every care taker who has cared for you since you were about 1 year old, every friend still there waiting for their families or waiting to be chosen?  What will it be like to go with a family to a new place totally different than where you are now- such different scenery, different smells, different food, and a totally different language?  These kids are my heroes.  They are amazing!

But for today, we'll focus on the face that says it all.  I hope you enjoy the pictures as much as I did.
And Randi, words cannot express enough gratitude for the feelings I have today thanks to you and your family taking that package to our son!

So happy to see the kids are loved while they wait.

 Group pictures

 HAVING FUN!

                                                    Getting ready to get his package from Randi!

The candy came out first- I heard he shared it with every kid in the room...sweet boy!

 Checking out the photo album and the pictures we made for him!

 Randi said: "He was so, so sweet. He just stared and stared and was all smiles. I could tell he knew that you were his family. The workers read the book to him twice in the little bit of time that we were there, and he just looked so happy about it. He really liked the drawing that the kids did for him too. When he came to the candy he generously opened it and passed them around to his friends that were in the room."


Another friend said that he will know every picture and name because the orphanage will go over the album may times to help prepare him.  :)

 Showing his photo album to Jennifer who is one of Randi's daughters.  It looks like they were friends! :)

That's a lot of people checking us out! ;)

  More photos of the kids together!

LOA!!

We found out in early April that we were out of translation...one step closer to getting our letter of approval (LOA) from China!   I was wondering if we would end up getting it on Evan's birthday, the same day we got Lena's last year.  Nope- not in the plans.   However, we did get the call on yesterday, Monday, April 22nd from our agency that our LOA had arrived!  YAY!  That was 33 days from being logged in, which is very good. However, LOAs have been coming very quickly lately. I saw one at day 10, 14, and 17 and MANY in the 20s and the 30s- all non medical expedites.  There have been some people having to wait 40-60 days and a few more really unlucky ones who had to wait in the 70-90 day range.  All of these are still so much better than last year's waits.  But I am now thinking we may have not been expedited at all.   Hoping we can at least expedite a few things towards the end of the process!  

Today our LOA came via Fed Ex, along with some other documents we need to file our I-800 with immigration here in the US.   We will send it out over night mail today so that they get it tomorrow.  That process will likely take 2-3 weeks and then our agency can submit our article 5 at the US consulate in Guangzhou, China.  Dropping off the article 5 to pick-up is 10 business days or 2 weeks.  This is a step we are hoping to expedite.   Once you have that, you wait for China to issue your Travel Approval (TA) and you can leave 1-3 weeks later, depending on the date of your Consulate Appointment (CA).  So I think we are looking at 6 weeks at the shortest-10 or 11 weeks at most until we are on a plane to China to go get our son!  WOW!   So much to do yet too...a couple more grants to apply for, a few books to read and write reports on for our agency, and of course just the every day stuff that consumes our time.  

There is a wonderful family in China now who met their two daughters yesterday, both from Reid's orphanage.  They took a photo album with pictures of our family and home (captioned in English and Chinese) to give to him.  He will get that on April 29th.  We are not sure if he already knows he has a family based on the people always wanting to get a picture or video of him, but he will for sure know soon if he doesn't already!   We are hoping the photo album helps him get to know our faces and the things we like to do to help prepare him even a little bit.  We are coming soon sweet boy!  We know so many of your friends have gone and that you have waited so long.  It will be your turn very soon little cutie!

Lastly, we got a nice surprise picture of Reid from October of 2011, about five months after I first saw his precious face and fell in love.  It is definitely one of my favorites! 

LID

Oftentimes, families end up logged in and don't even know it until after the fact.  Agencies don't find out their families have their paperwork logged in unless they ask.   Today we found out that our paperwork was logged in on March 20th...our official log-in date (LID).   The day you have your LID is the day you start counting for your letter of approval (LOA).   So that means we have 8 days of the LOA wait behind us.   YAY!   The LOA wait is the reason why we can't tell our family and friends when we'll be traveling.  It usually ranges from about 30 days to 150 days.  50s and 60s have been average this year, but a few weeks ago there were a ton that came back in the 20s and 30s.  That is unheard of, especially considering those were not for medical expedites.  I even had a friend who is adopting a child with the same special need as our son get hers in 9 days..yes NINE!   Amazing!   But, I am going to try not to get my hopes up because there are people waiting in the 70s, 80s, and more.  We are hoping for a medical expedite, but we will see.    Travel is usually 2-3 months from LOA, 2.5 months being average.   We're hoping to make it quicker than that with a bit of expediting.  We have 3 months and 3 days until little man's 6th birthday our goal has always been to get to him before his next birthday.  June is CRAZY for Rick.  God has a plan though and it will work out however it works out. 

More Pictures while we Wait

My friend Beth met her son recently, who happens to be from the same orphanage as our son.   She went to the orphanage visit and was able to meet our son, as well as three boys still waiting for a family to choose them.   She said: "It was very hectic there that day.  He smiled, but not for the camera. When he tipped the pig over, he laughed! The staff were all talking at once to him, so I think his look is more of confusion and being a bit overwhelmed. He liked the bracelet Bobby gave him. I noticed the buzz cut, but it looked like a lot of the boys had fresh haircuts." 

It is so nice to get little glimpses of his personality and his sweet face while waiting to go get him.  Pictures are definitely bittersweet.

Here are the pictures she got of him:

Bowling to Bring Home Reid Update

A huge thank you to all our family and friends who came out today to bowl to help us with our Brittany's Hope matching grant goal!   Thank you to those of you who supported our raffle as well and congratulations to those of you who won.  You all are a blessing to us.

Our kids took turns pulling out names, except for a friend who pulled out the name for the Easter basket that every kid in the place wanted and for Rick's brother Ron who pulled out the name for the cheese, since he made it. :)

Here is the list of winners!  Some of you lucky people won multiple items. :)

Admirals Hockey tickets: Justin Smith

Beloit Snappers Tickets- LaVonne

Butterfly framed art- Nelson family

Autographed Green Bay Packer football- Linse/Potter family

Roses framed art- Lambert Family

Usborne book and picture frame- Lambert Family

Photo bag- Nelson Family

Usborne book set- Lambert Family

Set of 6 glasses- Mabry Family

Dragonfly Hanging Art- Jonas Haywood

Avon set- LaVonne

Tupperware Lunchbox set- Ungaro family

Easter Basket- Landyn

Tupperware set of bowls- Justin Smith

Set of wine glasses- Mabry family

Zainey and Zoe collection- Mabry family

Cheese and home made cutting board- Lambert family

Authentication and Dossier to China (DTC)

Catching up a bit: On Saturday, March 2nd, I over night mailed our documents to Denise Hope, our courier, to take to the US consulate in Chicago.  She got them on Monday the 4th and delivered them to the consulate on Tuesday, the 5th.  We paid for 48 hour service since Denise doesn't pick-up on Wednesdays.   She picked them up on Thursday, March 7th and put them back into the mail to us.  We received them Friday, March 8th and I mailed our entire dossier out to our agency that afternoon via over night mail.  Our agency received our dossier on Saturday, March 9th at 12:16 (my birthday).  Monday I was able to confirm that they received it and today, Tuesday, March 12th, we are officially Dossier to China (DTC)! 

 It is such a huge step and a sigh of relief.  Now we just have to pray that it gets translated and logged in quickly.  Once we are logged in, we can start the count for our Letter of Acceptance (LOA) wait.  Once we have the LOA, we'll have a better idea of when we'll travel.  It is usually 2-3 months to travel once you have your LOA.  The wait for LOA is all over the place though.  I've seen as little as 20 days and as long as 150 days.   This year it seems 50s and 60s are average (it was 71 days for Lena's).   This week I saw LOA's ranging from 33 to 75 days, with many in the 30's and they were not even medical expedites.  We are trying to expedite for medical purposes so we are hoping we'll be on the quicker end, but their is no guarantee.   I have a fairly good feeling about it.  All we can do is pray!

I-800A Approval, Authentication, and NEW Pictures...

Oh my!

We were able to successfully walk-in early for fingerprints on Tuesday, Feb. 19th.  We walked in around 10 minutes to 1 o'clock and got right in and out.  Best experience with immigration so far!   We called our officer that day to let her know.  That Friday, I called to check in.  She said she had approved them the next day, Wednesday the 20th, but that the office was closed one day due to snow and not many were working the following day either so she wasn't sure what day they did or would be going out in the mail.  We finally got the approval in the mail, Thursday, February 28th. 

This morning, Lena, Jayce, and I drove up to Madison to walk our 3 dossier documents in to the Secretary of State.  They needed to certify the notary signature/stamp.   We had a set amount of time to get there after dropping the other kids off at school.  We had to be there by 10 a.m. for them to do it same day service.  We had no idea how long we'd have to hang out in Madison for until they were done.  We had some trouble finding the building and it was so windy and cold, but we eventually found it....in the nick of time too- 10-15 minutes to spare.  We went up to the 10th floor to an old office that was super quiet with three women working.  A lady came to the counter, we told her what we were there to do, and she said "let me do it right now."   In less than 10 minutes, she had it done and we were off!   A big thank you to my brother, Jeremiah, for picking Landyn up at school so we could do this today!

Tomorrow these same documents will get mailed to a courier out of Illinois.  She will take them into the consulate/China embassy in Chicago and they will get authenticated.  PLEASE PRAY they are ACCEPTED!  Many people have been getting them back rejected.  :(  We don't have time for that.   I am only a little nervous about one of them.  Dates are good.  Just worried about the wording a bit.   Praying it is fine.  Once we get those back- hopefully late next week or early the following week, we can submit everything to our agency and finally be Dossier to China (DTC).....oh how I can't wait for that! 

And on top of I-800A approval, after 4 months of waiting, we finally got updated pictures of our son thanks to a traveling family who adopted a darling little girl from Reid's orphanage.  They went back for an orphanage visit and were allowed to meet a handful of kids whose families were in process. THANK YOU, Tana and Curtis. We are so grateful! 

Pictures are so bittersweet during the wait- so great to have- a blessing.  They keep you going.  But, so hard too because it makes your heart hurt for them so much more.  It makes you see how much they've grown and you think of all the things you've missed out on.  It makes you wish you could just get on a plane and go get them NOW!   Too bad it isn't that easy.   So many things to do, so many hoops to jump through.  But you just do it and then one day, it's your turn and it's time to pack and get on that plane and then the magical day finally arrives....gotcha day.  The day there is one less orphan in the world.  It is not an easy journey, but it is an amazing one and it is ALWAYS worth it.

How I cannot wait to meet this precious boy and be his forever mama!

 

From a distance...

Closer.....this one reminds me of Evan.  A little nervous at first.

 Love this one...

 

 Slide Time!

 With his buddy who happens to be an adoption friend of mine's son to be! :) We hope we might travel at the same time!  How cool would that be!?!

 We heard they are both ALL boy.  He'll fit right in here. :)

 Haha....boys..gotta love them!