Happy Halloween . . .

I remember in 2006 I was driving to the local Fed-ex hub to deliver our dossier on this day, except it was a Tuesday.  The lady at the counter was asking me about insurance for the 3 pounds of paper I was mailing.  When she asked me what it was worth, I told her it was "priceless".  I then proceeded to tell her "if Jesus Himself could deliver the papers then that's what I'd want".  She laughed and explained she'd mailed many dossiers for families and considered herself the "fairy godmother of adoption paperwork".  Well, that somehow made it better.  So I reluctantly left my package with her and said a little prayer.  At this point I went to Bob Evans to get potato soup for lunch and some pumpkin bread.  I ate the soup on my hour trip back to work, who would've thought I could've eaten soup while driving!  We were notified the next day by Great Wall that our paperwork looked good and would be China bound on Friday.  The long wait began and the huge slowdown occurred.  So here we are nearly 7 years later . . . Happy Fall and Happy Halloween, enjoy my pictures . .

4 more beans outta the jar!

Yep, I guess we get to take out a few more jelly beans from our "countdown jar".  We received an e-mail today from our agency that the "Stork" landed with referrals for families logged in on the 13th of November.  So we are getting even closer. 
It was wonderful to see all those beautiful little faces being matched with their "Forever Families" and so nice to congratulate all the people we've met on-line. 
On a very special note, we have friends about an hour away that received their referral for a beautiful baby girl only 10 months old!!!! Congratulations to Erin and Brian!!!  The Lord has truly blessed you! 

Six months?!!

We got an e-mail from our agency Wednesday stating we should have a referral in six months. Six months? Really?  We are so close, but so far away! 

Our previous referral counselor left the agency and we’ve been given a new one and this was the first email we'd gotten from her.  Okay, so we are closing in on the 6 month mark but I’m hoping for more like 3-4.  Last year at this time we thought we’d get  a  referral  around July of 2013.  Nope.  Then around May we realized it would likely be November.  Then by August we figured it would move to the end of December (worst case scenario).  Now as we’re in the middle of October it looks like it could be March, ugh!!!!  I feel like a broken recording, we told people “it’ll be about 2 years” for about 3 years then we’ve said for the last year “it’ll be about a year”.  Now for the last 4 months we’ve said it would be around 3-6 months.  I’m sure no one thinks we can count!!!! 

This is tough.  CCCWA totally skipped September so now the arrival times of referrals are not even predictable.  What am I supposed to do with  the time I’m waiting?  I’m trying to be as productive and focused as possible and trying to “live in the moment” but I find myself wishing the weeks away hoping its time for referrals once again.  I don’t like being that way.  We are only guaranteed the present.  I need to remind myself of that.  Maybe focus on others more. 

Where are referrals?

It was  August 29^th since the  last batch of referrals were sent.   So where are they?  We, (meaning the two of us, our facebook group and most everyone in adoption cyberspace), thought referrals would come around the end of September.  Then nothing happened.  CCCWA and most every person in China was having national holiday from Oct 1st to Oct 8^th.  So we figured it would be at least then before we heard the first rumor.  Supposedly they (CCCWA) has been back to work about a week and a half and we haven’t heard anything, ugghh.  So it may be another week.  I sure hope this month and a half timeframe between referrals goes back to every month.  It’s hard to wait even 30 days, let alone longer when you really don’t know why they aren’t  being sent.  Nothing to do but wait, and wait, and wait.  Really thinking about some retail therapy, although we did buy a box of diapers on the 27^th of Sept to celebrate our 82 months of waiting.  Now, I would desperately love to have a  little person to wear those diapers!!!!!