Almost!

(Edited to add: this is the new post- Monday morning. We're 12 hours ahead of US east coast) 

We woke up at 9:45 and rushed around as breakfast ends at 10 😁. Our last little breakfast without Marli. 

Last night was our last night to go to bed as a family of 3. It was Marli's last night without us. The last night as an orphan. But it was also the last night that she slept in her familiar bed, most likely snuggled up to foster mom. Our sweet girl is losing so much. I can only pray that she'll gain much. 

We will meet our guide and driver downstairs at 2 pm. We will meet Marli around 2:30. All her little trinkets are packed. It's almost go time! 

We're going to China!

VISAS!!!!

We finally FINALLY have our Chinese visas. It was quite the ordeal. But we made it. I went to the consulate (again) last week to apply for the visas. I met a wonderful couple that travels quite often to China. The husband coincidentally used to live in Miami. We had nice conversations.  I told them that we used to live in China. People are surprised when I say that I loved living in China. Who wouldn’t love that opportunity? I still feel that sense of gratitude and awe when I think about all I’ve done while there. I explained that we’re adopting. They suggested I ask for the 10-year visa. I told them that I don’t know if I can just request it. They said, “Sure you do. Ask for the 10 year visa, it’s the same price.” So, when it was my turn to be called at the window, the woman remembered me from the previous time (when I tried to show them Travel Approval from China and they had no idea what it was) and I told her I would just apply for regular tourist visas for all of us. 10 years please. J She said, “ok, let me check with the consul since it’s three of you. Give me half an hour, I’ll call you again.” I was expecting to stay there quite a few more hours like before. But within minutes she called me. I sat down and saw our passports in her hands. She said, “come pick up on Sunday 9:30 am. 10 years!” I was so happy, all I could say was “YESSS!” lol
So hubby went today during lesson breaks to pick them up.

I can’t believe that in exactly two weeks we’ll be in China. Just hours away from meeting our daughter! It hasn't sunk in yet. We are still busy with work/school. It doesn't feel real. That the school year is actually ending; summer is starting and WE'RE GOING TO GET OUR GIRL!
It's amazing. So surreal. 

We were supposed to video chat with her this weekend. But unfortunately, her foster sister had to be at school studying for a big exam and we couldn't. I was totally disappointed. We haven't seen her in so long. I hope she's still excited about us. As much as a three year old can understand anyway. I miss her. I desperately want for her to get used to us before being handed over to us. I would like to minimize trauma as much as possible. I do realize that trauma is inevitable. Her little world is about to turn upside-down. She's about to embark on the rollercoaster ride of her life. Everything will happen so fast, full speed. So many different people, sounds, smells... she's being ripped out of everything she's familiar with. All the people she's ever known and loved will be distant. Her culture, her language, foods, everything. All I can do is pray that God is preparing her heart.

I will try to blog as much as possible while in China. I know that it will be very hard to do so and we'll be very tired. But I also know how important it is to document every moment. I'm scared everything will be mashed together and a big blur if we don't.  Please do follow along. And please do leave comments. Comments will motivate us at such a trying time. Thank you friends. 

All set to travel... (sort of)

Today I finalized all booking for hotel and airlines. It's starting to sink in that we're really going to get our little girl. It's surreal and anxiety inducing. I've been rather calm and patient all this time, especially knowing that our daughter is being cared for by a foster family. But now it's starting to hit me hard and I have a sense of urgency to go get her. But with that comes the huge realization that she will grieve their loss. I expect it. Of course. And I hope she does. This means that she has formed bonds of attachment with them. It's healthy. But it will be really hard knowing that we're taking our child away from all she knows and loves; all that's familiar to her. We're mere strangers to her. Everything about us is foreign. I hope and pray that she will know that we are family and forever.




We're planning to have a "Welcome Party" at the airport in Miami when we arrive. This will give our loved ones an opportunity to welcome Marli into our family/lives. If you would like to come, we would love it if you wore your "Raise a Superhero" t-shirt that we're selling. All proceeds from its sale will go towards the Orphanage donation fee. It'll be fun to see everyone supporting us. Those photos will be wonderful memories. If you'd like to purchase a tshirt, here's the link.
https://www.bonfirefunds.com/marlis-orphanage-donation

We only have a few days left on that campaign. They do ship internationally, so it does not matter where you are in the world. If you are not in Miami, please do take a selfie in your hero shirt and send it to us.

Thank you for following along. I will try to blog as much as I can in China so that you may follow along daily.
Much love...

Travel Approval

Last night May 23, 2016, late late, late... I received an email from our agency letting us know that we had TA or Travel Approval. Christie called me from the US and needless to say, it was such a bad connection. We did get to discuss issues particular to our case. We're hoping to get positive answers. We want so dearly to be able to come home as a family of four immediately after China. We're going to see if it's possible. We do have the option to just fly to the US; but we're longing to spend a few days alone as a family. We want to show Meimei her room, her toys, her home.

Introducing...

Our beloved

Referral 2/19/16

On February 19, 2016, early in the morning our time; a Friday, I received an email from Nicole, one of our agency's fabulous rep. She said she had a preliminary file of a little girl we might be interested in. She would be working late and asked me to call her to chat. So I did. She started telling me a bit about a little girl whom she had met in November when she went to visit the partnerships. She explained that she had a video but it was taken outside of the orphanage as this particular one didn't have a playroom because all the children are fostered. She told me that it was a bit hectic and that the little girl was extremely shy and scared. She was overwhelmed by the strangers. Nicole said that they went ahead and got a second video of her in her own environment and to please look at both.
When I watched the first one, I understood that she meant. It's tough to make such a decision based on that video. But then... I saw the second video and I cried. My husband walked in at the very moment and was like "uh-oh! You can't start getting like that so soon. We have to make sure." LOL
The file was pretty plain. I couldn't understand measurements. Info was lacking. And I was a bit unsure what to think. We sent the file to a dr who is a friend of the family - great doctor, zero experience with int'l adoptions. The review was very negative. But something happened. Mama Bear came out. I tried to reason with that though. So to be sure, we sent in the file and paid for an int'l adoption specialist dr to review her file.
The dr called me and gave me a rundown of what she saw and it sounded pretty good. But she wanted for me to send them a list of questions and request photos and video of her doing typical developmental things such as talking, following directions, etc...
Well... (fanfare please)

We received a surprise. Our in country coordinator, the fantabulous Judy... called us on a video chat. We got to "meet" her. It was quite amazing. Judy spent the whole day with her and her foster family. They went out to eat, hung out in the neighborhood, and went to the playground. And she filmed it all. We got tons of videos with this little Blossom doing all kinds of developmental skills. We didn't need anything else.  We were pretty content with it all. We let ourselves talk about it and let it sink in for a few days. We also sent all the videos to Dr. Chambers.
But. I. Prayed.
I prayed specifically that if this little girl was meant to be ours, that confirmation would come from my husband. The very next morning after the prayer, hubby said "I don't think we need to wait around for the dr to reply. I mean, I'm fine with what we saw. Let's just say yes. What if they give her file to someone else?" :)
(they weren't. he doesn't know too much about how all of this works)

So, we said YES!
On March 8, 2016 I sent an email to Nicole officially accepting the referral of our little girl!
And submitted a letter of intent - LOI - to adopt this particular child.

Her file was a prefile, however. So we needed to wait for the official file to come in. And they couldn't send China our LOI until it did.

And then, after much anticipation, on March 21 it finally arrived.
We looked it over and requested for LOI to be sent immediately.

LID 1/27/16

We were LID - Log in Date on January 27. This means that our documents arrived in China and it was logged into the system.

We Were DTC 1/22/16

We were DTC (Dossier to China) on January 22, 2016

First day of the first month of 2016! Wow

*First day of the last month of 2015* - when I started writing this :) I have been so busy. My apologies.
Wow time flies. I can't believe it's the end of the a whole new year already.

I just re-read my previous post and I must have edited something out by mistake.
I wrote that "we had to meet one more time per my placing agency's rules. After a few tweaks here and there it is finally off for review. Then it goes to our agency for final approval." What that meant was that we had to meet one more time with our social worker in order to fulfill the demands of our placing agency - which is different from our home study agency. Then the home study report would be reviewed by us and then finally the placing agency. Well, that got done. But I wanted to make a small change to broaden our parameters just in case.  ;)

Well, after so many little bumps... we finally received the final draft of our home study report and got that sent to our officer as soon as we could after we filed i8ooa. The I8ooA was sent to USC1S (Un1ted St@tes Citizensh1p and Immigr@tion Serv1ces) on October 16. This form is an “Application for Determination of Suitability to Adopt a Child from a Convention Country”. So it's a petition to the US for them to allow us - if we're eligible - to adopt a child from a country which is part of the Hague treaty. In order for them to approve us, one of the requirements is that we have to have official flngerprints done for FBI complete background check. Once they receive our petition, they sent us a F0rm l-797C which was a bi0metric (flngerprint) appolntment for November 13, 2015 at 12 pm. 

We received and Yay! Right? Nooooooooooooooooooo............. the appointment was set for a local US office. In Mi@mi. I live in Dub@i! Another bump. :( 

But ok, let's hurry hurry and sort all that out. Amazingly, these USC1S officers are brilliant! They were so kind. We were able to get an app0intment for the following Monday the 16th in the C0nsulate in Du.ba.i. The 0fficer there was extremely kind and generous. We got two sets of prints done for each (just in case) at no extra charge. I sent the prints via Fe.d.ex as a priority over.night something or other service - the fastest one to them. And all was well in the world. You know, until it was time to solve another issue. Yup - it's a lot of "hurry up and wait" in the adoption process. They received the documents, but now I had to wait until the officer approved it. I was nervous about this step. Well, because, g0vernment. They could have questioned anything in our paperwork and asked to provide proof of something. Whatever it may be. This is called Request For Evidence. It delays the process but only by a bit - in most cases. In our case, it potentially could have delayed a lot more. It is very much a pain to obtain documents especially while you're living outside of the country. So, we were waiting and waiting for approval. Until I couldn't be patient one more day and emailed our 0fficer. :) She replied saying she had just approved us the previous afternoon. And finally, I was excited. I was so happy. Freely happy and not hesitant. For the first time in this whole process. I did the dance, I smiled, I hugged people, I announced it in our agency's family fb group. I did it all.
So now, while our agency waited to receive the hardcopy of the approval, they continued getting all our docs authenticated. I sent them 10 thousand pictures of our family instead of what 6? that they asked for. :) :) And they finally received the approval and sent it for authentication. The agency office has been closed on an off for holidays and there are families needing much more dire assistance at the moment so I've refrained from harassing emailing them for updates. At this point, I'm hoping we are DTC. sometime this coming week. That means that all of the documents we gathered for the past thousand months year and a half - including the h0me study rep0rt will be sent to Chlna - (Dossier to China)
After this we will have LID or L0g ln Date. At this point, we will start receiving files for us to review as potential matches. It's a rather difficult task, but I am just having tremendous faith that we will "recognize" our child when we see her. Lots to look forward to in 2016.

A very kind adoptive mama offered to do a fundraiser for us. It's for 0rigami 0wl. I have loved these lockets for ages and feel that my friends will like them too. Please please do not feel that you HAVE to purchase anything. But if you like anything you see on our fundraisers and would like to purchase something, some of the earnings will go towards our adoption trip. I will post links and also info on each fundraiser in more details as they come about. Like I said before, what's more important to us at this very emotional time in our lives is your moral support.

P.S. I'm sorry if my writing is a little crazy on this post. I wanted to change some characters in order to avoid being linked if someone did a search with the very common and specific language to lmmigration. I hope I didn't confuse the heck out of you. 

Who? What? Where? When?

 

Ha! We’ve received these and so many more questions. But most of all, an inundation of overwhelmingly wonderful, positive, loving, generous comments and private messages. Warm hugs and well wishes in person. We are so humbled and thankful.  

We signed with a home study provider here, out of Dub@i.  The social worker is licensed in the US. She will prepare our home study docs for us.  We are currently researching agencies that will work with us in our unique circumstances. Obviously, we also want the best, quickest service and that has their fee schedule very clear.  China is part of the Hague Adoption Convention and by law agencies must be transparent with where all fees go. 
We’ve been paper chasing this summer.  Many documents are required. Notary stamps. Aaall kinds of stamps and signatures. Sigh. And lots more are needed. As you might imagine, we’re planning on adopting from China. Preferably from the orphanage in which I volunteered at. At the very least, the same province. Well, we’d love to  be able to visit dear friends we have there.  We are leaving gender open and keeping with birth order,  0-4.  This process takes 12-18 months average. Sometimes more, some times less.

Most people who have reached out to us are asking what they can do to help.  Support is very important. We can tell who supports us in this amazing time in our life – growing our family. It’s a very exciting, yet trying time. There will be days that we might get overwhelmed with paper work. There will be days that we will just want to be there already meeting our baby. There will be days – after we get matched – that we will feel so much joy in seeing our child’s face, finally. The little eyes I’ve imagine for so long looking back at me through pictures. These days will be joyful, but also very hard. So emotional support will be so appreciated. 

Our wonderful family has asked specifically how they can help us financially.  We set up two easy ways that they can gift us. We weren’t comfortable with making that public; but after some gentle persuasion from some of our amazing friends who have fund-raised to help with the costs of adoption, we will.  International adoption has so many fees, stamps, immigration, papers, papers, papers...
For now what we’ve set up, donors’ amounts and well wishes will be able to either be private, public, or anonymous.  We encourage anyone who’d like to gift us with any amount, to not be shy to post it publicly. Every single penny will go towards bringing our child home. And we will always remember that you were a part of that.  Feel free to share this with anyone you think is keen on helping an orphan to become a beloved daughter/son, sister/brother.

Again, thank you for just being excited for us. We’re so happy and looking forward to many blessings in our little family.

Click to DONATE

Why are we so happy?

  

 

All photos shot by Natalie Atick @ Natalie Atick Photography Studios. All photos are copyright of Natalie Atick.

Decisions...

It is so hard to choose an agency! We were originally going with one which was very well recommended, but they're not currently accepting new applications. So, after months of communicating with them, we have to start searching again. It's hard because you do your research and some agencies get really nasty ratings. We don't know how to decipher what is accurate and what is just bad experience.
I communicated with a director of one agency last night. It was such a pleasant interaction. But, I can't get my hopes high just yet. I would love to hear personal opinions.