Some weeks ago I wrote the closer we seem get, the less certain everything seems to become.
Today and yesterday, I have been watching the news from other families those who had dossiers in China in late July and up to around the 23rd August last year receive news of their referrals.
I am thrilled for them all, however this means a wait of a month for us. Our predicted timeline is for the call about a month from now in early March and travel to China around the end of the first week in May.
For those couples in the same position as us last month and this, my heart aches for you. The rollercoaster of the last couple of weeks, the waiting and agony of not really knowing has been truly gut-wrenching.
Yet each day is a day closer. We are both pleased to have the wonderful support of families that care and support us - and we know that there are other great Mom's and Dad's in anticipation of joining us on our flight to China with a common goal in May. We all feel the same way and cannot wait.
With the snow on the ground, May seems a lifetime away, but tomorrow is the First of February and one month closer with sad depressing January behind us.
The Friend Family Adoption of our Daughter from China The Chinese have a wonderful way of explaining how people come together, all people. In their culture, long before we meet the people who will be the most important in our lives, we are linked with lengths of invisible red thread. A red thread they will tell us, joins us to our child. As a red thread crossed the Atlantic to join Taney to me the thread continues to China and to our daughter.
Monday, January 31, 2005
Friday, January 14, 2005
January 14
This has been a roller coaaster of a week as with DTC of late August and the split of the July referrals we sit on the cusp of good news in February or later. If later we are aware of the trade show in China that effectively halts the adoption program for about a month as the hotels are booked by businessmen for the annual trade fair.
Nobody in America really knows the timelines and sometimes not knowing is really hard. Starting our adoption journey, other parents had told us that the hardest was the waiting after the paperchasing. This wait tests you and even my sunny optimistic disposition has seen more than a couple of black clouds this week in the wait.
Nobody in America really knows the timelines and sometimes not knowing is really hard. Starting our adoption journey, other parents had told us that the hardest was the waiting after the paperchasing. This wait tests you and even my sunny optimistic disposition has seen more than a couple of black clouds this week in the wait.
Saturday, January 08, 2005
The waiting...
It would seem that not everyone who had their dossiers logged in with the CCAA in July received a referral this week. The latest is around the 25th, leaving a number of frustrated parents waiting another month. Our concern is that as our dossier was logged in on August 30th, will we be included in the next group of referrals due around this time next month (possibly) or will their be a break as has happened with July.
It seems that the closer we get to the refferal date the longer and harder the wait seems to become. My patience is starting to unravel as I yearn for news that will start our journey to China.
It is a heartwarming thought that our dossier has found its way to the matching room. Perhaps the match was made last week, or perhaps we are one of the matches to be made next week. Knowing that we have reached the matching room is not enough now and we both have a desire to know what is going on over 6,500 miles away.
January is a sad time of the year, it is cold, the color of Christmas has been packed away and the house while warm and cosy lacks the magic of Christmas over the fireplace, dangling from a tree, hung over doorways and windows. Since October the house has prepared for Halloween, then Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year, now in the darkest days of the year with no celebrations to deck the halls with, we wait and wonder and pray.
February brings more than a possible referral, it also brings Chinese New Year, as the Year of the Monkey, a wonderful year moves into the Year of the Rooster.
But this is still over a month away and it seems like a very long wait indeed.
It seems that the closer we get to the refferal date the longer and harder the wait seems to become. My patience is starting to unravel as I yearn for news that will start our journey to China.
It is a heartwarming thought that our dossier has found its way to the matching room. Perhaps the match was made last week, or perhaps we are one of the matches to be made next week. Knowing that we have reached the matching room is not enough now and we both have a desire to know what is going on over 6,500 miles away.
January is a sad time of the year, it is cold, the color of Christmas has been packed away and the house while warm and cosy lacks the magic of Christmas over the fireplace, dangling from a tree, hung over doorways and windows. Since October the house has prepared for Halloween, then Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year, now in the darkest days of the year with no celebrations to deck the halls with, we wait and wonder and pray.
February brings more than a possible referral, it also brings Chinese New Year, as the Year of the Monkey, a wonderful year moves into the Year of the Rooster.
But this is still over a month away and it seems like a very long wait indeed.
Tuesday, January 04, 2005
January 4
Today we have discovered that there is a strong supposition that those adopting with their dossiers log into the CCAA system last July have been matched and that referrals are being sent to respective agencies over the next couple of days. All things being equal February 10 many of the parents DTC July will be holding referral photos and on the brink of the next steps of their journey.
There are rumours that the August group is large and may be split, although previous similar rumours have never been substantiatated. So again all things being equal, it is fair to assume that the dossier for Taney & I is sitting in the matching room as I submit this entry. It has possibly been sitting their for a month or two slowly rotating toward the top of the pile to be matched. This could be any day and the prospect of this alone is very exciting.
Again, all things being equal CCAA if CCAA do not split August there is a possibility that referrals are sent from China to the agencies this time next month. Allowing a few days for the couriers to arrive in the US and for the papers to be translated and the families like us to be contacted initally by phone, on or around February 10 I hope to have some great news to share.
Again, all things being equal travel to China will be 6 to 8 weeks later. The end of March is a huge trade conference in the country that effectively suspends the travel plans for adopting parents as their is no room at the hotels. So let us guess-timate that travel to China could well be just after Easter in early April. Spring will have arived, the clocks will be changing to summer time and the worst of a Pennsylvanian winter will be coughing perhaps a final snowfall.
The actual dates of travel will not be confirmed until approx 7-14 days before the date of travel so for those of you offering questions, anticipate vauge answers as it is possible the closer we get the less certain the final details will be until just before we leave.
As we have always expected we anticipate our port of entry being Hong Kong with travel in and around China as needed returning 10 to 14 days after with little blossom.
I honestly cannot express just how excited I am, standing on the threshold of inclusion in the next group of referrals is incredibly awesome and yet humbling.
There are rumours that the August group is large and may be split, although previous similar rumours have never been substantiatated. So again all things being equal, it is fair to assume that the dossier for Taney & I is sitting in the matching room as I submit this entry. It has possibly been sitting their for a month or two slowly rotating toward the top of the pile to be matched. This could be any day and the prospect of this alone is very exciting.
Again, all things being equal CCAA if CCAA do not split August there is a possibility that referrals are sent from China to the agencies this time next month. Allowing a few days for the couriers to arrive in the US and for the papers to be translated and the families like us to be contacted initally by phone, on or around February 10 I hope to have some great news to share.
Again, all things being equal travel to China will be 6 to 8 weeks later. The end of March is a huge trade conference in the country that effectively suspends the travel plans for adopting parents as their is no room at the hotels. So let us guess-timate that travel to China could well be just after Easter in early April. Spring will have arived, the clocks will be changing to summer time and the worst of a Pennsylvanian winter will be coughing perhaps a final snowfall.
The actual dates of travel will not be confirmed until approx 7-14 days before the date of travel so for those of you offering questions, anticipate vauge answers as it is possible the closer we get the less certain the final details will be until just before we leave.
As we have always expected we anticipate our port of entry being Hong Kong with travel in and around China as needed returning 10 to 14 days after with little blossom.
I honestly cannot express just how excited I am, standing on the threshold of inclusion in the next group of referrals is incredibly awesome and yet humbling.
Friday, December 31, 2004
Year End 2004
Dear Friends:
Today is New Years Eve. It is a time to look to the future and to look back at the year that has gone by. 2004 has been a good year for this friend house as Malcolm and I have been busy preparing for the new arrival to our family, our darling daughter.
This past Christmas marked our 1-year anniversary of the signing of our adoption agency application. By that stroke of the pen and with the ringing in of 2004 started us in the whirlwind of paperwork, letters of references, social worker visits, more paperwork, police clearances from the US and the UK, FBI checks, more paperwork, fingerprints, medicals, state clearances, more paperwork, a visit to the state capital of Pennsylvania, multiple phone calls to our agency, more paperwork, a very late night call to New Scotland yard, 3 visits to the British Embassy in DC, 4 visits to the State department, 3 visits to the Chinese Consulate in DC and more paperwork. All of this “Paperchasing” came to a finish where I made one visit to the Kinko's/FedEx and copied the completed documents required and sent the originals off to our agency in Colorado. Where they the agency translated all of the paperwork into Mandarin and sent it of to the offices of the CCAA in China. We heard officially that on August 30 we were officially logged into their system and so now we wait. The wait we were warned that it would be the most painful part of the adoption journey. Truthfully I did not believe them but they were right.
How the system works is that the CCAA works by months. In September they sent out the referrals out to those that had their paperwork logged in by March, October. April and so on. Sometimes things have happened which either doubles up the Months and sometimes things out of anyone's control like SARS can happen which can cause months of delay. No one really knows when they are going to send out the referrals next, not even the agencies. It is all down to China and of course Divine Providence. As one seasoned adoptive parents said to another perspective parent who was complaining during the wait, “Just wait till you meet your child you will be glad that you waited because you would not be matched with her if you didn't.” Awe, Divine Providence.
So as you ring in the New Year say a little prayer for our daughter waiting for us in China. We hope to get there as soon as we can.
We wish you ALL a Very Happy New Year. God Bless.
Taney & Malcolm
Today is New Years Eve. It is a time to look to the future and to look back at the year that has gone by. 2004 has been a good year for this friend house as Malcolm and I have been busy preparing for the new arrival to our family, our darling daughter.
This past Christmas marked our 1-year anniversary of the signing of our adoption agency application. By that stroke of the pen and with the ringing in of 2004 started us in the whirlwind of paperwork, letters of references, social worker visits, more paperwork, police clearances from the US and the UK, FBI checks, more paperwork, fingerprints, medicals, state clearances, more paperwork, a visit to the state capital of Pennsylvania, multiple phone calls to our agency, more paperwork, a very late night call to New Scotland yard, 3 visits to the British Embassy in DC, 4 visits to the State department, 3 visits to the Chinese Consulate in DC and more paperwork. All of this “Paperchasing” came to a finish where I made one visit to the Kinko's/FedEx and copied the completed documents required and sent the originals off to our agency in Colorado. Where they the agency translated all of the paperwork into Mandarin and sent it of to the offices of the CCAA in China. We heard officially that on August 30 we were officially logged into their system and so now we wait. The wait we were warned that it would be the most painful part of the adoption journey. Truthfully I did not believe them but they were right.
How the system works is that the CCAA works by months. In September they sent out the referrals out to those that had their paperwork logged in by March, October. April and so on. Sometimes things have happened which either doubles up the Months and sometimes things out of anyone's control like SARS can happen which can cause months of delay. No one really knows when they are going to send out the referrals next, not even the agencies. It is all down to China and of course Divine Providence. As one seasoned adoptive parents said to another perspective parent who was complaining during the wait, “Just wait till you meet your child you will be glad that you waited because you would not be matched with her if you didn't.” Awe, Divine Providence.
So as you ring in the New Year say a little prayer for our daughter waiting for us in China. We hope to get there as soon as we can.
We wish you ALL a Very Happy New Year. God Bless.
Taney & Malcolm
Friday, December 10, 2004
Referral update: December 10
Taney came into the family room this evening to tell me that June referrals were out and that this also included some from July. It is very early reports and we will know how wide the spread of referrals are for this month.
After the inital surprise, although I had been wondering when June was coming out, the reality that August DTC could be one month away is a real reality check. So mid January we could know so much more...
Keep posted for updates. Both of us are already grinning like cheshire cats at the thought of a few weeks to go.
After the inital surprise, although I had been wondering when June was coming out, the reality that August DTC could be one month away is a real reality check. So mid January we could know so much more...
Keep posted for updates. Both of us are already grinning like cheshire cats at the thought of a few weeks to go.
Wednesday, November 24, 2004
Thanksgiving
The nursery is all but done and Taney & I have had fun putting the room together. Uncle Pearse helped me get a sleeper sofa out before painting the room and Uncle Chris helped with the decorating.
The room is a disney fairy princess pink with white woodwork and trim, a white ceiling and blue carpet. The crib and changing table are white. A bedroom chair given to us by Grandmere sits under one of the two wall lights. The shades a waverly design depict caarousels and a storybook fair from what seems to be the 1930s. The chair complements the coloring of the shades and has flowers in the design.
Following the storybook theme, an Alice in Wonderland clock with the original pen and ink design of Alice, the Mad Hatter and White Rabbit are drawn on the face, while the cheshire cat swings on the pendulam below.
Taney & I attended a small get together of other parents in Dillsburg PA last weekend, hosted by Roy and Carol at their farmhouse. Also attending were Julie and Ross from Baltimore. All of us are working with difference agencies, although we are all along at the same point with our papers in China, hopefully in the matching room for the holiday season. With nothing confirmed at this time we are wishing for a picture of our daughter in the latter part of January.
The room is a disney fairy princess pink with white woodwork and trim, a white ceiling and blue carpet. The crib and changing table are white. A bedroom chair given to us by Grandmere sits under one of the two wall lights. The shades a waverly design depict caarousels and a storybook fair from what seems to be the 1930s. The chair complements the coloring of the shades and has flowers in the design.
Following the storybook theme, an Alice in Wonderland clock with the original pen and ink design of Alice, the Mad Hatter and White Rabbit are drawn on the face, while the cheshire cat swings on the pendulam below.
Taney & I attended a small get together of other parents in Dillsburg PA last weekend, hosted by Roy and Carol at their farmhouse. Also attending were Julie and Ross from Baltimore. All of us are working with difference agencies, although we are all along at the same point with our papers in China, hopefully in the matching room for the holiday season. With nothing confirmed at this time we are wishing for a picture of our daughter in the latter part of January.
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