Announcement Day

We went to church today. My parents met us there and we had invited Tony's parents too. His mom came. The original plan was that my parents were going to come to church and then take us out for my birthday. So... we kind of changed things around and made it into our announcement day.

Church was good and then we all met at the Farmhouse. We got our orders put in and then we started our announcement. It sounded like Tony was going to tell them all about everything before last Sunday so I kind of pushed and we handed them envelopes with Beibei's pictures as we said, "We were wondering if you'd like to meet your new granddaughter".

Oh, both our moms started crying and we also almost cried. They are very excited and asked questions. We told them about the first referral that we turned down and we enjoyed a very good meal! We swore them to secrecy until they received the email. Then they can tell whoever they want!

Black Friday

So Thanksgiving Day wasn't too bad. No one asked about the adoption, although we each had our canned reponses just in case.

I actually went out shopping in the morning and was home before 10:30. I don't touch the malls on Black Friday but needed some more lights to do our flag pole Christmas tree so I went to Home Depot and while there, decided to get some Disney greeters for the inside (Mickey/Minnie and Tigger/Pooh). They are so cute! I figure that they are taller than Beibei right now. It might be fun to take her picture with them next year!

Tony also liked something in an ad I saw for World Market. So he went out EARLY to get a ROCKING PANDA! It's VERY cute!

I got the tree up and the NU-CU game was great (because we WON!) and they had 2 very memorable plays at the end--one of them a school record!

Just a little while longer...

When I got home last night I emailed the Chinese characters to Beibei's name to our Chinese teacher (who I'd spoken to earlier in the day) to have her tell us what they meant. I had found the "Bei" character online and she confirmed that it meant "flower's bud" and it stands for "beauty". The character used for "Qian" is the one used for "money" and is a common surname. So we will work her name now into the name we give her.

I was so glad to leave work today so there were no more chances of "slipping" to any of my co-workers! Now we just have to get through Thanksgiving Day at Tony's family's house tomorrow. Friday will be easy for me because I'll just stay home, lock the cats in the basement, put up the tree and then sit down and crochet on Beibei's afghan while I watch the NU-CU game! We're both rather "bursting" right now but have decided that our parents should know first. We keep discussing how to tell them--quickly or just lead into it.

We're Locked in to our Beibei!

Late last night we hadn't heard yet if we'd been locked in to Qian Beibei so I emailed Holt. Still today by noon I hadn't heard so I left a message for one of the China Team. She called later and said yes we are all locked in! Woo Hoo! Now.... we WAIT! AGAIN! What we are waiting for now is for the CCAA to send Holt their approval of us. This could take 1-3 months. After we receive our travel approval, we'll travel 1-2 months after that.

Another form

On the way to work today, I thought I'd better leave a message for our caseworker at NCHS explaining all the new emails he received over the weekend! Holt included him on the referral emails and actually called him before they called us on the first referral. I told him that the cleft palate of the first referral was beyond our comfort level but Holt called with another referral just yesterday and we'd included him when we sent our LOI.

He called back later in the morning and said that now is the time to decide if you can handle something like that or not instead of going for it and finding out later that you can't. It can affect your marriage and not be good for the child in the end. So, he's excited for us and he also has to do an addendum to our Home Study for this specific child.

Also this afternoon, another person from Holt called and said they needed another form filled out that they didn't seem to have yet. She emailed it to me and with Tony's and her help (looking at our dossier which it had to match) I got it filled out and emailed back. Once they have us locked in with Beibei, she'll let us know! We're almost there!

Tony mentioned on the way home today that he realized the wait for a special needs child was shorter (than the 3 years they are now saying it takes for a "healthy" child) but he figured it would be more like 6 MONTHS, not 6 DAYS!

Qian Beibei

We went to church this morning. I decided to sing in the choir this morning since I'd practiced the song with them. We did "All Good Gifts" from "Godspell". I love that show! The Lofte started with that show.

After church we made a couple stops--as usual-- to pick up some things. We drove home, planning to unload the wood, finish the laundry--have another normal day. UNTIL...we saw there was a message on the answering machine. We listened to the message from the China Program Director! She said she knew it was "off hours" and we probably weren't expecting a call but... they found another child--a girl, younger, with a cleft lip ONLY and it's already been repaired! Would we like to review another child? OF COURSE we would like to review another child! We left her a message (we figured she'd left her previous message as we were pulling into the garage). She called back and said we were very lucky! A second referral already!

She gave us the same basic information on this child -- her name (Qian Beibei), her birth date (December 16, 2007--2 days before Tony's birthday--which makes her just over 11 months old), her province (Guangdong) and the name of her orphanage. She mentioned again that the lip surgery was already done but that doesn't mean we wouldn't do a little more "fixing" later on. We said we'd definitely love to see her information.

About 45 minutes later we received the email. Tony came in from the shop and we looked at all the documents--same as last time. Beibei is very small and very cute. The information says she laughs aloud but the pictures haven't captured a smile yet. She looks pretty sober!

I called the doctor again and asked him if he could look at her labs and said we were OK with just the cleft lip this time. He responded later on that her labs looked good and the only "problem" he saw was the cleft lip.

I left soon after we forwarded the documents to the doctor to go to a bell choir concert at church. My mom was meeting me. We had decided that if this was a "yes" this time that we would try to find a way to tell all of our parents at the same time. So... I had to not let on to Mom that something was up! It wasn't too difficult. The concert was good and then Mom had to get to a store before it closed. I just stayed at church because my Bible Study class was meeting in a fairly short time and it didn't pay to drive all the way home and back again. I read and had brought a sandwich for supper.

While I was reading in our Bible Study room, Pastor Nancy came in and was amazed at how early I was! She asked how the adoption was coming. Hmmmm...... what to say without giving something away? "Well, every day is progress" is what I came up with. It sounded great! Another person asked also and I said the same thing. He liked that way to put it! So, that's what I'll say for now!

When I got home from Bible Study we got to work on our LOI for Qian Beibei! Holt had sent a sample which I had already typed into a document and left space for our child's name, condition and other information. We attached it to an email and both clicked "send" at the same time (!) at approximately 6:30 pm on November 23, 2008.

WE HAVE FOUND OUR DAUGHTER!

Another normal day

Today we did some shopping and then went down to Murdock and Tony & my dad split LOTS of wood. We came home with both trucks FULL of firewood! We again mentioned to Mom & Dad that Holt has told us we could get a referral very soon. We're hoping before Christmas!

Today was just another normal day.

Referral?

So... We've been a little busy lately!

I'm backdating the next few posts so you can get an idea of how things happened!

Holt received our Minor/Correctable Medical Condition Checklist on November 18. I had spoken with the China Program Director last Friday (the 14th) and even though they didn't have our form yet she took down some of the conditions that we were willing to accept. Some of these were cleft lip & palate, club foot, and crossed/lazy eye -- ALL of which are very correctable. She told me that because we were willing to accept cleft lip/palate, we probably would get a referral "VERY SOON". Cleft lip/palate is the most-referred condition of special needs kids in China. Next is heart conditions (which we were not open to at this point).

The doctor I wanted to visit with about some of the conditions and also to check with when we do receive a referral was in China bringing home THEIR son until November 14! I was going to wait until today to call him after they got home and got settled.

Lo and behold, at 10:19 a.m. this morning, my cell phone rang while I was "talking business" with a co-worker. I recognized the area code and knew it was someone from Holt. I answered and the China Program Director said she had a referral! WOW! Three days after they received our checklist! We had also earlier in the week sent digital pictures to Holt that they would need when we receive a referral. So, they had everything they needed and said we were ready for our referral!

I'll say right now that it's a good thing to take action when something is requested by the agency 'cause YOU NEVER KNOW when the call might come! Holt told us that it could come anytime. We'll be living our regular lives and the phone will ring and that ring could change your lives forever!

So, I was at work when the call came! She told me a little about the child -- a girl, 17 months old, cleft lip and palate 2nd degree, her name, what province she's from, what orphanage she's in. Do we want to review her information, including pictures? I called Tony and said "Holt called." He said, "Do I need to sit down?" I said, "Yes." So I told him what she had told me about the child. He said, "Yes, let's get the information."

So I called Holt back and said we'd like to see the child. Within a half hour we had the email. It included the child's pictures (before and after the lip surgery), the hospital report, the little information about when and where she was found, lab work, current schedule and development notes, and the English translations of all of it. I looked for a while at it and then called the doctor that I was going to call anyway today. He was working but said he'd look at the information a little later and call me back. (I was hoping to just visit with him in general, rather than calling and saying "can you help me, please?") I emailed all the documents to him and waited.

I could not concentrate on work anymore! I don't think Tony could, either!

Eventually, the doctor called back and talked a little about her lab work and also about the cleft lip/palate. He said the left lip/palate was more 3rd degree and told me what may need to be done to fix it. This particular case is pretty severe and he basically brought me back down to earth.

I also talked to our casworker at NCHS and he was telling me about some of the cases he's seen. Wow! That all sounded like it could get really expensive!

So when we both got home we talked and we both were agreeing that this particular case was outside of our comfort zone. Holt needed to have our Letter of Intent (LOI) by the end of the work day today so we called. The director had left for the day so we got a hold of another China Program person. We explained our feelings and said we didn't want to take "cleft palate" off the list but now that we were more aware of our comfort level, if they ever had a child with a less severe condition, we'd be more open to that. We were told to "not worry" and that another family would "snatch her up." I hope she finds a home soon because she if VERY cute!

I truly feel that if I'd gotten to visit with the doctor before this referral we may have been able to let Holt know that we would prefer the less severe cases.

Today was a hard, emotional day. We hate to turn down a child after we've waited so long but all the adoption education we've had has made us think about what is best for the child and the fears we had about this case are valid and if we didn't think we could give her the best care possible, we should let someone else have the opportunity.