I'm Not Dreaming

All day, I looked at Gracie's photo every few minutes to reassure myself that I'm not dreaming and we are really in the last stage of this adoption process. The five plus years have in some ways kept our lives on hold because we knew that somewhere in China would be a little girl who God had planned to be a part of our family. There were of course, numerous moments of if, will, when questions, frustration and lack of patience! We have all prayed for her and loved her daily. I have felt the 'paper pregnant' feelings that are just like we go thru during pregnancy. The only difference is that this pregnancy lasted over five years.

My cup is running over! When I was a child I always wanted to have three children of my own one day. There were lots of times that I thought that wouldn't be possible and I THINK I accepted that. But God knows the desires of our hearts and now I'm just filled with joy and awe! If you know John's and my story, you have seen God knit this family together in amazing ways since the day we met! The gift He has given us of bringing up three of His sheep is an overwhelming blessing! I can not wait to have our three children together and to see how they interact and bond with one another! It's going to be priceless! :)

The Package

FedEx delivered that package today to John's office carrying our acceptance letter from CCCWA (The China Center for Children's Welfare and Adoption). Also, in that package were the two pictures posted below and information about how we can send a package to Gracie Lin. I have collected a few items to send including a sweet lovie, a disposable camera for her care giver to take some more photos and some photos of her family!

Beautiful Girl!

Grace Lin Jing Xiao

Gracie Lin Jingxiao

September 13

Fuzhou City Children's Welfare Institute

Jiangxi Province

At the moment I don't think I can even tell you how we are feeling! For now, we'll just let you soak in those adorable cheeks and sweet lips! In June she weighed about 15 lbs. She goes to bed at 8 and gets up at 5:00am! She is a good eater, likes to be held but we aren't so sure about how well she sleeps. All of this information is about 2 months old. We also know that she is currently in foster care instead of the orphanage. Will post more as we get it! Oh and Jing means 'gifted woman' and Xiao means 'dawn.' From older posts, you all know what Grace is but Lin means 'a family name' and my middle name is Lynn. :) We will most likely call her Gracie Lin.

This morning Carter and I picked up Parker from school, which he did not expect. I told him that Daddy had a surprise lunch time planned for us. Of course, he went down the list of fun places he wanted to go - Chuck E Cheese, Dave & Busters... When we arrived at the CCAI office, he was asking if we were at an apartment or a doctor and by the time he saw the CCAI sign, John was opening his car door. He read the sing out loud and then said, what about lunch? :) We asked, don't you want to see your little sister's face? He just got a big grin on his face.

Once we were inside the office, Chaunda said that she hated to ask us to wait but she had to talk to someone in the Colorado office before giving us he paperwork. What was 10 more minutes after 5 years, but I was about to burst! It was only about 2 minutes later when she came out with the envelope. We all gathered around a little table and Chaunda placed a red folder on the table. She grinned at us and pulled out this picture at which point, I burst into tears! From the moment I looked at Gracie's sweet little face, she felt familiar to me! God has planned her for this family! John was watching me for reaction and had the biggest smile on his face! I looked over at Parker and he jumped up from the table and went back to the toys on the floor. I think he must have been feeling shy about his emotion and wanted some space. Carter just smiled at her photo and said, 'bebe!'

Matches Have Arrived!

Title from the CCAI website: "We are excited to announce that we have received a match group today!! We received matches for families logged in on July 14, 2006."

Tomorrow, just after noon, we will see our precious baby girls face! (The tickler on the right of this blog says, 5 years, 1 month, 2 weeks, 1 day we have been waiting and praying for this little girl.) We will also get to know her full name finally since we want to incorporate her chinese name. We are going to pick Parker up from school and go to the agency to get the information instead of having them call us! Parker has no idea yet so we can't wait to see his face when we meet up with John and he realizes where he is! Here is a little of what I wrote in Gracie's journal tonight.

'Right now, I’m feeling a little anxious knowing that I will see your face tomorrow! Daddy feels like it’s surreal. For about the last six months, I have felt like you were born and you were somewhere that I didn’t yet know. You were somewhere in China and I couldn’t see you or hold you, I couldn’t sing to you or rock you! I’ve wondered if you are comfortable and feeling safe, if you are missing your birth mother or if your caregiver is holding you and smiling at you every day. I keep thinking that tomorrow, we will finally know more about where you have been and how long you have been waiting for us!"

Also as a nice surprise, we received our "Notice of ... (something about our finger prints)" in the mail. So thrilled to have that after our scare less than two weeks ago!

Favor with USCIS

'Panicking' must be where I am! Yesterday around 4:30, I realized that we had missed our fingerprint appointment on Wednesday at 3:00! I didn't put it on the calendar when it came in and my brain just won't function these days!! (It takes about month to get an appointment and then another couple of weeks to get our documents back. I'm not sure we have that much time). My clear headed husband told me to stop panicking and call CCAI. Chaunda, who is the person we contact at our agency for most things, told me to try showing up there this morning and see if they give us mercy. We prayed before going to bed and asked a friend to pray for us this morning when we dropped off Parker at school. We are thanking God this morning because we did show up at USCIS... The gentleman who greeted us at the door recognized us and said, 'you guys are going to have about 8 kids before this is over!' I guess he thinks we've been adopting each time we go down there. :) He walked us thru basically and never even said a word about the fact that we were two days late showing up! Talk about a major gift to this mommy who has major adoption brain!! Whew!!!

First Day of School for Parker

Parker started 4th Grade today at Cornerstone. He was excited to get back but not happy about getting up in the morning! He didn't really want to say goodbye to his brother though. :) Those two sure do love each other!

Next Month

Another month has past and the update is that China matched log in dates through July 12, two days before our log in date. As far as I can find, there aren't any waiting families on July 13 so baring something strange, sometime next month, we will see pictures of our sweet baby girl! I really felt sure that we were going to be included this time and I think we were all very disappointed that we didn't find out where GraceLin is last week but it's all in God's time. That baby girl has been chosen for this family for a very long time.

We are enjoying the last two weeks of summer day by day and letting the house become a complete disaster. As always, summer has gone by way too fast! Carter is going to miss his big brother so much when he goes back to school. I don't know who will miss him more because when Parker is in school, Carter is going to look to me for his entertainment and I'm just not as much fun. :) Parker is going to miss Carter too because he is always so anxious to get back to him after he's been away doing something fun this summer.

Until next month...