Day Three!

So It’s 4 am again.  😀

Hope is doing phenomenally well.  She is such a smiley child.  Katie is also doing great and has not stopped talking since we landed in China!  I thought it was a little anxiety but I’ve decided that it is just being away from Jay!  Who knew she could challenge Jaden in the chatterbox department?

It is Wednesday morning and today Hope will see the orphanage people again.  I’m a little worried about this for Hope.  She obviously cares about these women (and is cared for) but I feel that it has the potential to hurt her.  

Tim and I walked to WalMart yesterday and I baby-wore Hope.  It was fun to get out and about on our own and the girls both did well and had fun.  Hope wouldn’t let me out of reach though and was more touchy than normal (which is saying something as she is really working on filling her touch bucket).  She was so relieved that she was giddy when we got back to our hotel.  Tim and I felt that she must have thought we were bringing her back to her former orphanage.  I’m worried that when she sees the orphanage folks, she will think we are giving her back.  I want to believe that she would consider that a sad thing but of course, she might think it was a good thing too.  Either way, it stands to be a wrenching thing for her.  If she is happy with us and wants to stay, seeing them will hurt, if she is happy to go back, seeing them leave will hurt.  

The only time she has cried since she joined us has been at bedtime.  Each night, she clings to my hand as silent tears run down her cheeks.  I don’t know the meaning of the tears, perhaps she misses the other littles more at night or maybe nights were hard for her at the orphanage.  Maybe the tears are just a way to release big emotions that build up all day.  Either way, it hurts this mama’s heart to see her sad.

Will y’all join me praying for Hope?  I don’t want her to let today steal her happy.  I hope this gives her a little closure and  confirmation that we will never abandon her.  

Gotcha!

Its 4a.m. And I’ll make this fairly short but we have Hope!

She is doing amazingly well so far.  She and Katie are doing great together and Katie is really trying hard to be a supportive big sister.

Gotcha was quick and to the point but there were some surprises.  Apparently Hope is one of the director’s favorites.  The director was tearful and obviously sad to see Hope go.  She asked if she could give Hope a special necklace that the director had gotten for both Hope and for her own daughter.  She also asked if she could keep in touch as her daughter lives in the US.  This was a first for us.

Hope is not potty trained yet, which is unusual, in our experience, for the orphanages.  They seem to generally train fairly early.  So, oops, we did not bring changing pads, wipes , diapers or a diaper bag.  Of course all of this is available here, it was just not exactly what we expected.  She is also a serious chunk.  Our others have been thin to the point of concern but goodness, not Hope.  She is seriously so heavy that I “oof!” When I pick her up or when she plops into my lap.  She already comes over to me and raises her hands and says “oof” to me when she wants up. 😂  She spent several minutes just getting up and collapsing back into my lap because Katie thought it was so funny.  Hope and Katie both had a good laugh over the abuse of my bladder.  (Sorry if that’s TMI.) She also doesn’t seem to have an off switch at meal times.  The only way to distract her is to leave the food which is tough because, (for those of you that have ever had a meal with Katie, you know where I’m going with this) Katie is the proverbial turtle at meal times.  Hope had eaten an entire plate of cut up fruit before Katie had finished 2 little squares of watermelon.  This is going to take some time to figure out the best way to keep both girls healthy.

Tim has been glowing he’s so happy to have our girl.  She definitely prefers mama right now she’s willing to let him feed her.  Initially she didn’t let him pick her up but she’s already over that.  She’s warming up to her daddy much more quickly than her big sis did and that makes Tim a happy daddy.

Ten hours til Gotcha!

Well, here we are.  

We have reached Beijing, and in less than 10 hours we should have Hope with us.

This is our fourth adoption journey, and in some ways it has felt like a somewhat comfortable routine, but in some ways it has been so different. 

At this point, our biggest concern is how Hope is going to feel over the next few days and weeks.  (Not how she will act, but rather the feelings, thoughts, and emotions that she will experience.) 

We can only pray that she will somehow have some sense of peace, or at least that peace may come somewhat quickly. 

Try to imagine leaving everything you have known ... and being placed with strangers who look different, sound different, smell different, and act different than anyone that you have ever been around. 

Even as an adult, I would be overwhelmed if you dropped me down into a culture that I had no previous knowledge of and expected me to just accept this as my new life.  And since I cannot imagine experiencing this as an adult, I certainly cannot imagine what this will be like for a 3 year old. 

The good news, though, is that we do have faith that she will adjust and accept love. We are confident that love will win in the end, but we just pray for her to have a sense of comfort during this journey. 

Thanks for everyone's prayers back home!  They are greatly needed and appreciated. 

The great news is that in just a few hours she will no longer be an orphan.  Instead, she will be part of a family that is ready to love and cherish her and is ready to shower her with love. 

Our expected meeting time is 8AM in Beijing on Monday, which is 7PM back in Oklahoma (counting the the time change). 

We'll be in touch soon!

🐥🐥🐥🐥🐥🐣

I800 approval and new Pics!

Yikes.  This has been such a slow process.  We’re doing what we can to speed it along but aren’t having much luck.  BAAS sent us forms that were out of date which caused our first set to be rejected, the lockbox was super slow to get ours sent on to USCIS and then we got Officer Blaylock who is notoriously slow.  We were approved 9 days ago and still do t have GUZ number yet, which means we can’t go to the next step yet.   If we get what we need tomorrow, and we get our RTF, which is the letter that our agency uses to be able to drop our Article 5, quickly, we may still make it to Hope in mid-March.  Chinese New Year is going to slow things up but we really, really hope to get our paperwork filed before the holiday begins!

We got pics of her with her family day cake we sent so we know that she has been told that she has a family.  At 3.5 years old, I don’t know how well she understands but at least we know she is aware.
😀 We sent her a pillow that has all of our pics on it and a little photo album so she can be prepared that we look very different from the ayi that take care of her.

I pray for her frequently, I’m always worried that something may happen to her shunt before we get there.  I’d love for y’all to join us in praying for her health and for these final steps to go quickly.

Pictures of our caboose!

We may be 8-10 weeks out and at LOA our agency will try to get an update for us.  Often we get to send a few questions and sometimes they are answered.  This time we didn’t ask any questions we just asked how she was doing.  They sent us a little video of her doing some fine motor skills activities and a few still shots.

Updated report

1、 Current measurement，height: 94cm、weight 15kg、head size: 51cm、chest size: 55cm、length of her feet: 13cm，number of teeth:16

2、 She is a outgoing girl with a ready smile.  She likes to interact with others. She is a bit shy with strangers. Currently she walks freely and likes to do exercises and she likes to copy the teachers. She likes to play with different kinds of toys including fishing and puzzles. She can say phrases with three to four words in them.

She has grown so much!  She is growing into her head size and they have let her hair grow!  She is adorable.  I can’t explain medically how this would happen so rapidly and so I just have to say God is good.

She is going to tower over Katie once she gets home!  She is already about K's height and weighs about a pound more.  I’ve bought a couple of sister sets in 3s and 4s.  If she is really as big as they say she is, she may get the 4's,  😀
Life in the Sanford family is about to become very interesting.

LOA!

We have officially gotten word from China that Hope is to be our daughter!  The “LOA” Or Letter of Acceptance, is the paperwork from China saying that they have matched Hope’s file to ours and that they see no issue with the match.  They are requesting our signatures that say we will accept her and understand the obligations and responsibilities that come with that decision.  Wouldn’t it be interesting if we had to sign a document that said we understand that our child was to be accepted and cared for regardless of any issues anytime we were pregnant?

As a very unexpected bonus, I connected with another mom-to-be of a Beijing child.  Her little boy had a birthday around Thanksgiving and they allowed her to send a birthday cake for him and his CWI sibs.  She had a 39 second video that they sent as proof that they used the money for her child.  (The video or pics are often one of the main reasons parents send the money for a birthday party.)  This particular CWI rarely ever allow people to see any child that they are not matched with and so it was very unusual that a couple of other children were in the video.  In that video, I not only got to see Hope for a few seconds, I got to see my very first bit of mischief from Hope!  She reached over and poked the birthday boy.  For some reason it really tickled me.  😂 I can’t really explain why, I think I just enjoyed seeing a little of her personality.

Typically, travel is 8 to 10 weeks after LOA but we are coming up on Christmas, New Year’s and then Chinese New Year.  This will certainly delay us but I am really, really hoping for the last week of February.  The timing would be incredible.  As our oldest,Laura, is now a fully licensed physician, she could keep the office running for us but she would have to take vacation from her current position to do so. She is only allowed to use 5 vacation days in any given months and even then, it is only allowed in certain months.  As God’s timing is, this timing is perfect!  Both February and March are months that she is allowed to request vacation and by falling at the end of one month and the beginning of another, she may be able to work for us for a good portion of the time we would be out.  She has even offered to give us a “Friends and Family” discount.  😁 I can say, with only a little bias, she is an awesome doctor and we would be incredibly blessed to have her keeping an eye on our patients and our other kiddos.  Mitch, bless him, has not hesitated to say he will watch the boys for us in March, (using his vacation) but I will feel less guilty if his sister is here to share the fun.

So, we would love to have prayers for God's perfect timing, for health for Hope until we can get there, for understanding by the littles at being left home, for patience and peace for my awesome bigs and for acceptance for all of the variables that we can’t control for Tim and me.

FINALLY we are LID

This has been a much slower process than for the first three.  (The wait for USCIS to approve our I800a was 80 days versus about one month on the other three, for example.) I am not being particularly patient with the process because I know how much quicker it can be.  On October 27 we were able to FedEx our dossier of paperwork to BAAS to be sent on to China and we found out today that we are officially logged in to the system in China!  From here it could be 4-5 months, give or take.

We have elected not to tell the little kids yet because that is a long time to be asked “When are we leaving?!”  I expect there will be some adjustments for the littles, particularly for Katie.  She is certainly used to being the family princess and may not enjoy sharing that title.  We are not sure yet who will travel on this trip.  Our inclination on this decision is leaning toward bringing only Katie in hope that it will help the two little girls bond.  Knowing that it is because of Hope that Katie gets a trip to China may be the tipping factor in encouraging Katie to accept a new family member.

We haven’t set that in stone and can’t until we know the dates.  The question of who will be with Jay and Ian hasn’t been fully answered.  Mitch is willing and had already scheduled out for March because before we decided to bring Hope home, we had a big,tropical, adults-only, 30th Anniversary trip planned.  We are praying for March travel (although Mitch may not be😂).  Traveling with 3 going and 4 coming home would be incredibly cheaper and simpler than traveling with 7 bringing home 8.   Even with that in mind, we may not be able to leave all of our travel-loving kids behind.  We are so blessed that all 5 are great travelers and love any trip that involves a hotel.  Maybe we should be hoping for a lottery win instead of March travel...but then I’d have to buy a lottery ticket.