LOA and the Emotional Rollercoaster

It has been about a month since I last posted and boy, have we been up and down.  On 3/11 I emailed our agency to see if there was any news on our dossier.  It was in the phase that tends to be the longest (and hardest) wait.  It is like waiting in line at Wal-mart, it purely depends on high quick your "cashier" is at their job.  Apparently we had someone who was fairly quick at translation because we were only on day 39 and were already translated and on the way to review!  Usually, review to LOA is about a 5-7 day wait; we were thrilled!  That meant that we would probably be getting Ian in May, whoot!  (Airfare goes up by at least 50% in June...there are 7 Sanfords traveling home from China.  Not a happy math equation.)

Our agency told us that we should have LOA by "early next week."  That became a phrase that made me sick in the next 3 weeks...Unfortunately, every time we checked, we kept hearing, "soon" and "early next week."  Yesterday, when she said again that it wasn't in but she hoped it soon would be, I checked with DHL.  (They are the carrier that China uses to send the LOAs and TAs to the US.)  They said that there was NO PACKAGE on its way to BAAS from China.  After much deliberation, I contacted my agency again and asked that they recheck about our LOA.  I don't think that Xiaoqing was particularly thrilled to do it but after gently reminding me that she had just checked 2 days ago and been told it was on the way, she did check.  What I knew was confirmed.  There had been a "computer on-line error"  (perhaps it was not plugged in to the printer???) and the LOA had been issued but never printed.  Sigh.  About 20 days just completely wasted.  The only sensation that I can relate it to is, perhaps, false labor.  Anyone who has been pregnant and  thought they were in labor and then were sent home from the hospital empty-handed can sort of relate.  I knew that didn't mean it wouldn't happen but I certainly felt like the rug had been pulled out from under me.  I know, too, that 20 days more in this wait of about 9 months doesn't seem like much.  Imagine though, if your child was moving away forever or dying; what wouldn't you give to have 20 more days?

Those closest to me know that right now I am struggling anyway.  Grieving for my sister, stressing over J's school stuff and whether to have him repeat Kindergarten, struggling with finding time to worship and feeling so disconnected from my church family (due to Katie not being able to comfortably stay in the nursery and Jay not really fitting in well with the children's program due to his sensory issues) have all contributed to me wanting to just crawl in bed and not come out until summer.  With my other children I have enjoyed the entire experience.  (Yes, I'm one of those weird people that truly loved the big round belly and all that went with it and loved all the craziness of the first 2 adoptions.)  I have felt sad and then felt guilty for not enjoying this process while wallowing a little in my grief.  The weather had turned pretty and I thought I had turned a corner and then this...ugh.  Adoption is hard.  It is also beautiful and so rich in blessings; a not to be missed experience.  Adoption is so much harder than childbirth.  I always knew that while those little ones were safely in my body, I could protect them.  With adoption, every day, every minute that you miss is another that you aren't protecting your child.  I wonder daily if Ian thinks we have forgotten about him or changed our minds.  We aren't allowed to send him a letter or care package until we get LOA.  So I can't even comfort him by sending a reminder that we are thinking of him and are trying to get there.  Adoption makes you powerless.  It is amazing following the journey of other families with children from PanZhiHua but it is also painful.  Each time a child leaves, I wonder if it worries Ian that he isn't leaving yet or if he is beginning to be afraid to leave.  I know he has no future as an orphan with no family in China but hopefully he is too young to see that.  It must be hard for him to anticipate leaving everything he knows behind.  Every delay just makes it harder for him.  I want to leave tomorrow.

Earlier today, I sent an email to another adoptive mom who works at our agency and asked if she thought they could go ahead and send the package of information that we need to file our next step.  They usually won't until the LOA is in their hands.  They actually ended up doing even better.  Xiaoqing was able to convince someone at China's Children's Welfare department that it was their error and they sent her an e-copy of our LOA so that we can file the I800 to the US a couple of days early!  Yea, that will let us get a couple of those days back!  It has helped so much just to get that little glimmer of seeing something turn in the right direction. 

Even with everything going on in our lives, we have managed to squeeze in some good things.  Laura finished her 4 months of rotations in Durant and is home (for a very little while),  Mitch and Laura were able to get away for a brief spring break trip to Six Flags with us and we got to spend an expected day with my niece and her family (including Bella, Katie's "hand twin").
Tim and I celebrated 27 years of marriage.  (Unfortunately, not on the beaches of Fiji  :) )
I was also able to connect with a doctor from the National Institute of Health about Ian's health, which was exciting to be making some headway with that.   And who says stress can't be good for you?  I'm at my lowest weight in years.  :) 

Often I pray with my patients and today I prayed with a woman whose husband of 60+ years is not doing well.  The first thing that came out of my mouth was "Lord, we know that it times of grief and worry we don't always see Your blessings but I'd ask that You help Your daughter (meaning my patient) see Your hand in the many ways You are blessing and protecting her--every moment, every day of this journey..."  Hmm, after I said it aloud, I realized that perhaps He was speaking to me even as I was trying to comfort my patient.  I want His peace, I want to know that He is orchestrating this.  It is a question that can't be answered but are even the delays part of His plan?  No, He isn't giving me exactly what I want (to leave NOW) but then Jaden wanted to bake a cake and decorate it with cookies tonight and I didn't give him what he wanted either.  We'll make a cake tomorrow but we may not decorate it with cookies; we'll get to China, it just may not be exactly when I wanted to be there.

 Lord give me the strength to believe that You've got this.  Help open my eyes to the ways You are blessing this journey.

Dossier to China

After my last post, my sister took a turn for the worse and didn't survive her fight with Wegener's disease.  I do appreciate all of the prayers and support.  Several people have brought food, sent cards or plants or flowers or prayed.  I am not at my best and I hope I haven't forgotten to thank anyone.  I will forever miss my sister and am thankful for the time we did have.  If you have sibs, hug them or call them; time is always shorter than we wish.

Jaden and Katie are doing well.  Jaden has officially been ours for 2 years now.  Weird to think that just two years ago, he didn't know we existed, had never heard English and was an orphan.  He loves, plays, writes and enjoys life so much.  And he never stops talking.  He is Mr. Social.  He hates when the waitress has to leave to put in our order.  He wants to talk and visit with them and get to know them better.  We went to the Aquarium and one of the docents was trying to talk to a group of kids.  If she asked for a question, his hand was up in a flash.  Unfortunately, the questions didn't always pertain to the fish.  :) He was more interested in her and her opinions than the fish.  I think after having such a limited pool of people to talk to, he is taking full advantage of the people he is exposed to.

He is still struggling with his sensory processing issues in school.  Academically he is fine but he has a very hard time with physical boundaries.  We are working on it.  Tonight at dinner, out of the blue, he reminded us that he used to live in China "where we didn't have any food."  Then he asked if he could go to his favorite Chinese restaurant tomorrow.  Yes, little man, you may.  (Tim and I both felt that like a kick to the gut.  It is so hard to know that there is nothing you can do to change the neglect of your child's past.  Sometimes I forget that there is a very good reason that he has the struggles he does.  Three years of neglect and hunger will do that to you.) 

Katie is growing, growing.  She can count to 20 (mostly) and recognizes most of the alphabet and so wants to be able to read.  I expect that she may be an early reader as she always wants to know what things say.   She has started into the "WHY???" phase.  It officially started at 2:19 PM on 2-3-15.  We are at 2314 times so far.  She has also begun noticing her differences a little more.  She periodically will count her fingers and then hold up her 4-fingered hand and say "Four?" and then the other, "Five?" back and forth several times. (Jay is so sweet, he often grabs her hands and kisses them and tells her how much he loves her hands.)  She also looks at her scar on her leg and studies it.  Perhaps it will help her one day that she has a hand-twin in my grand-niece and that I have scars very similar to hers on my leg.  We think she is perfectly and beautifully made and I hope she will feel that way too.

I'm a little late posting this exciting news but we are DOSSIER TO CHINA! For those of you that don't eat, sleep and breath adoption, that means that all of our paperwork, all 3-4 inches of it, is on its way to China.  At this point, we wait.  We wait for them to acknowledge our paperwork and log us in to their system (which will be our log-in date or LID), we wait for our letter seeking confirmation of intention to adopt (our LOA), we wait for the US to say that Ian is ok to come in to our country (I800), we wait for China to issue an invitation for us to travel.  During all of this, there is very little that we can do that will affect the time until Ian comes home.  There are parts of the process that can be shortened by sending things overnight and doing papers the moment they are received, but for now, we wait. 

Red Letter Day!

Today was a red letter day!  Quite the wonderful day, in fact.  It has not been a wonderful week leading up to it however...

My sister has been extremely ill.  She has been in the ICU in New Orleans and until yesterday, I had been there with her.  She has been diagnosed with a fairly uncommon disease that was not easily diagnosed and before we had a definite diagnosis, we nearly lost her.  It was awful seeing my normally sassy sister so still.  I had to leave the office suddenly when she made a turn for the worse and fly down to her.  I didn't get a chance to say "goodbye" to Jaden and it was the first time I've ever been away from Katie.  I am incredibly blessed that I have a husband that said "go" without thinking of what I was leaving him with...an office already short-staffed by one provider in the middle of flu season and 2 littles at home.  I am also very blessed to have an awesome mother-in-law and staff that jumped in to help however they could.  It really does take a village.  After a few days and lots of prayer and good medical care, my sister had taken a definite turn for the better and so I was able to get home in time to keep our planned fingerprint time. 

We had a bit of a good news/bad news situation with our Supplement 3.  Since our current paperwork was valid until Jan 5th and our prints until Jan 8th, we had two goals...to get our supplement 3 acknowledged before it expired on the 5th and to have it approved by the 8th.  The good news was that we did get it in early enough that our time was extended and we didn't have to start completely over.  And the bad...Had it been approved on the 8th, we would have been sent an approval the next day.  As it turned out, she didn't get to review it until the 9th at which point the prints had expired and so she couldn't approve it.  I think in sympathy, she did get a relatively quick appointment for us just 2 weeks later (1/23) but that meant adding on the 2 weeks until the appointment and then however long it took her to pull our file and approve it.  SOMETIMES, they will allow you to walk in early to print but it is totally dependent upon who is working security that day.  The official policy is that you are to come only at your appointed time and date.  We already had today (1/16) scheduled out of the office for my birthday and so we decided to try to shave some time off the wait and try to avoid rescheduling a full day of patients for both of us.  (I have to throw in here that we are also incredibly blessed with understanding patients...they have been very supportive of the time we have been away from the office due to adoption related things)  So, off we went to the USCIS office in OKC at 8:00 am.  I was so afraid that they would say no that I was shaking.  The security guards took our papers from us, handed them back and told us to continue through security.  (Now, whether they noticed that we were a week early and were being kind or just didn't notice, I just don't know or really care!  Either way, we were off to be printed!)  So we went to the back, nearly giddy with relief.  We got in line and hoped that the printing ladies either wouldn't notice or wouldn't care.  I went first and the lady (Elsa, btw) was super nice and didn't say a word.  Tim, noticing the ease of my interaction, changed lines to get my lady also!  :)  We were numbers 1 and 2 for the day and back in our car by 8:20.  Smooth, easy and what a relief!  (For the last week, I have been OCD trying to keep my hands moist and cut free as they will not print you if you have the smallest paper cut.  After we left, I wanted to go play with knives.  hehe)  Wonderful birthday present number 1.

Very shortly after we left, I found out that my sister had been extubated at the hospital!  Whoot!  She didn't really want the tube in the first place; I was relieved that she had it less than 48 hours.  Wonderful birthday present number 2.

About 10:30, I called our officer at USCIS, ostensibly to let her know that we had been printed early but also in hopes that she would have pity on us and not wait until Tuesday to pull our file.  She put me on hold for a minute, pulled up our prints on the computer and came back on the line to tell us she was approving us as we spoke and she would try to get the approval letter out today!  Wonderful birthday present number 3.

Then we drove our 12 year old Honda Odyssey van to Bartlesville and finally purchased to new Odyssey that I have been drooling over for many months and got a wonderful deal.  Wonderful birthday present number 4. 

When I got home, I found out both of my big kids would be home for the weekend!  Wonderful birthday present number 5. 

All in all, I can't imagine a much better birthday.  It has been an exhausting, emotional roller coaster that I fully understand will continue for months to come but at least for today, the ride has come to a stop.

More steps!

Today our home study was sent from Dillon to BAAS for approval so that our I800A Supplement 3 could be approved.  We also received a letter from the USCIS (immigration department) that was a "Notice of Intent to Deny" because they have not received the homestudy yet.  We sent in the application expecting a temporary denial but hoping to get the homestudy in quickly afterward.  It looks like we will be fine on this and so should get to avoid the 40-60 day wait for 1800A!  Whoot!!  Our agency usually takes 2 weeks to approve it but the lady at BAAS has said she will try to get it done tomorrow.  I really hope she doesn't forget.  Our current I800 expires 1/8 and Ian's birthday is 1/9.  I wish we could be there for his birthday or barring that send a cake.  :(  They generally don't allow you to send packages until you have your LOA, which is a few steps away for us.  With LOA we should be about 8 weeks out from travel.  I guess that they worry that parents will back out and how awful would that be for a child to be told they had a family and then not have one?  I know, too, that even 8 weeks is a long time for a 10 year old to wait once he knows his life is about to make a radical change.  Telling Ian now that he has a family would probably make the next 6 months difficult for him.  Sigh.  I can wait. 

From here, we wait on the official I800A, supplement 3 approval and then take that and about a dozen other documents to OKC to be authenticated.  Then we send all of that to the Houston Chinese consulate for them to approve and then we can be DTC (dossier to China).  That puts us in line for China to review our information and send us our letter confirming that we still want to adopt Ian.  Lots of steps still but we are excited to be this close to finishing this step.  We are still holding on to hope for early summer travel to China.

On to Katie and Jaden...
We had Christmas in Florida and celebrated Laura's 25th also.  The kids had a great time.

Before we left we had an early Christmas at NaiNai's house.  It was so sweet.  Jaden saw all of the presents and was bouncing around chanting "presents, presents" and his daddy pulled him aside to remind him to be gracious with his presents and his response was, "I'M getting presents, too?!"  He was so excited even thinking that none of them were for him.  He has such a sweet heart.

He is coming along in school.  Academically, he has made huge strides.  He is so much more comfortable with his letters and his numbers and is working on a few sight words.  With his sensory issues, he is also making strides.  He is starting to learn how to ask for what he needs and has put himself in a quiet area a couple of times when he needed down time at school.  Sensory processing issues will be something he has forever and the key to him being successful will be his ability to self-regulate his sensory diet.  (Meaning sensory experiences, not food.)  I am so blessed that his teacher really loves him and is forgiving when he doesn't do as well as we would wish.

Katie has continued to blossom!  She has had so much fun having all the family together for the holidays.  She is going to be sad when Laura and Mitch have to be gone for school again.  She is speaking so well; she is just amazing.  She isn't growing as much as I would like although she seems to eat constantly.  She is a busy, busy girl.  She is such a cuddler.  :) 

Thanks for continuing to pray us through this journey. 

Wonderful (maybe) news!

In looking through the paperwork last night, Tim asked me a simple question, "Are we doing supplement 3 or I800a?"  My answer was that I wish we could do the supplement 3 as it would potentially shave a month or two off the wait time.  In looking at our paperwork today, I saw that we actually still have a valid I800a until January 5th, 20 days from now!  That means that if we can get the paperwork filled out, fee paid, application sent to a lock box in TX and then forwarded from there to Missouri (don't ask--it's a government thing!) in the next 20 days and then within 33 days have our updated homestudy to Missouri, we actually get to skip a step in this adoption!  For our first adoption, that step was taking about 30 days (ours took a little less) by the time Katie's adoption rolled around, it was then at about 60 days and now it is between 60-70 for most people.  I would love to skip this step!  Our potential issue with this is that we don't have our homestudy back yet.  Our social worker is finished with us but still has to type it all out.  I'm hoping that a lot of it will be cut and paste since we just did this about 6 months ago.  I'm going to believe that this will happen.  Jay's paperwork was all quick.  Katie's paperwork consistently fell on the long side of the ranges.  Surely that means we are due for quick again, right? 

Many nights I tell the littles a goodnight adventure story.  Jay always reminds me to include Ian.  I love that he is already thinking of him like a brother.  I hope to get that brother here as soon as possible.  Ian won't be with his family for this Christmas or for his birthday next month but I can take comfort knowing that each holiday or event should be the last one of its kind that Ian will spend as an orphan.