Only One Thing Missing .......

Jacinda's room is DONE! She is the only thing missing at this point.

The crib and some Chinese characters. The ones on the left stand for Family and the one on the right is for Love.




















The window valance ended up inspiring some of the colors in the room.
















By the closet
































Closeup of the sign I painted.

Our New Look!

Our blog has a fabulous new look!!! My friend, Tracey, designed the header especially for us. She’s a very talented graphic artist and she puts up with all my crazy emails!

Anyway, the lotus flower is a perfect symbol for this blog. The lotus flower starts as a small flower down at the bottom of a pond in the mud. It slowly grows up towards the light at the surface of the water. Once it reaches the surface of the water, the lotus flower begins to blossom and turn into a beautiful flower.

Aaron and I always knew we wanted to have children. Fortunately, God had a different plan than we did. We went through infertility treatments to get Luke. We did a few more treatments when Luke was around 1. Those were unsuccessful. We then turned to adoption, which we had been open to from the very beginning. And now we’re very close to getting our little girl.

So even though we’ve been through a lot …. Infertility drugs, doctor’s appointments, adoption paperwork, refinancing our house, and lots of waiting, it has all turned into the family we’ve dreamed of. We are reserving judgment for now as to whether our family is complete. We want to get home and see what Jacinda’s surgeries and such will involve before we make that decision.

Thank you, Tracey, for giving us a visual symbol of the lotus flower to represent our journey to our family!

Aaron and Sherry

In the Home Stretch ......

Today, all of our paperwork was sent to China for the last time. This is the step where our agency requests appointments for us at the US Consulate in China to do our final paperwork - Jacinda's visa to get into the US, her medical exam, etc. Once our agency finalizes these appointments, we will find out our travel dates. We should probably get official Travel Approval (TA) around mid-late August. Then, we should hopefully travel in probably late September or early October.

Today, we also mailed off our passports to the Chinese Embassy in DC for our visa applications.

So we're definitely in the home stretch as far as paperwork goes. We still have a lot to do in the next few weeks .... finishing Jacinda's room, making a packing list, and getting a few major things for our trip (video camera and typhoid shots, to name a few).

Things you can pray for ..... that our final paperwork goes smoothly, that our passports don't get lost in the mail, that we all stay healthy (here and in China!), and that we all stay sane as we prepare for the greatest trip of our lives!!!!

Sherry, Aaron, and Luke

LOA is here!!!!!!!

We just got the phone call from Holt that our LOA from China has arrived!!!!!!!!  This is what China sends to us approving us to adopt Jacinda.  We're one step closer!!!!!!!

We're hearing that families are getting their Travel Approval approximately a month after LOA.  And then the actual travel takes place about a month after that.  So there's a realistic possibility we could be traveling around the end of August or beginning of September.

However, we're not getting our hopes up.  The State Department has issued a travel advisory for China due to the Swine Flu.  Our agency is still allowing families to travel, and we plan on going as long as we are allowed to.  We want Jacinda home!!!!!

Updated Pictures!!!!

We got a pleasant surprise this evening via email.  2 new pictures of Jacinda!  We also got some updated stats:  22lbs, 29.5 inches tall.  We think she might not be as tiny as we originally thought!

Without further ado ............ (Click on the pictures to make them a little bigger)

Another Question ........ and a sort of answer

When are you traveling to pick up Jacinda and why does it take so long?

To be honest, we don't have a great answer to this question.  Our agency is saying we will travel sometime between August and November.  We're holding out hope it could be earlier than that, though.  It takes so long for a couple of reasons.

First, China has more paperwork requirements we have to complete.  Second, US Immigration has new rules and it's sort of a guessing game at this point what those rules are.  We believe that the overall goal of changing the rules to make international adoption more regulated is good.  We just wish we weren't caught in the uncertainty of the rule-changing.

Right now, we are preparing a package of documents to send to our agency … they include the contract that we agree to accept Jacinda, several documents that get sent to China, the biggest check we've ever written (gulp!), and a travel release form.  Once the Chinese government approves all our documents, we'll get a travel approval.  This will probably take several months.

In the meantime, we're getting ready to travel.  We've gotten some shots, and have more to go.  We're figuring out bedrooms and furniture for both Luke and Jacinda.  We're getting our house ready for 2 toddlers!!!!  Sherry is finishing up the school year.  We're getting ready for our Disney vacation with Sherry's family in June.  We're definitely keeping ourselves busy while we wait!

Questions .... and Answers

There are several questions we've been asked lately and we thought we'd share the answers in case you were wondering, but haven't asked!  We'll make this a series of posts so it doesn't get too long.

How much does it cost?

Of course every adoption is different, but we think ours will end up costing somewhere around $20,000.  That's a LOT of money.  We truly believe that we are supposed to be pursuing this particular adoption and that Jacinda is supposed to be in our family.  So for that reason, we are confident the money will be provided.

One thing we've done is that Sherry went back to work full-time last August.  This has been a really difficult year, but it was a necessary sacrifice for us and we've been able to put away a little in our savings account.  We've also refinanced our house and taken out some equity.

We just found out that China has raised the country fee, so things will end up costing several thousand dollars more than we were expecting.  Also, we still have plane tickets to China to buy and we can only estimate those prices right now.  Once we have definite approval from China to travel, we'll begin ticket-shopping.

There's also an adoption tax credit that we can take advantage of once the adoption is complete.  So we'll claim that next year.

All of that to say that adoption is definitely expensive, but we are certain that we are doing exactly what God has called us to do, so we are confident that it will all work out.

More questions and answers coming soon!!!!  If you have questions, please ask!  Maybe you'll see your question in a future post ....