We woke up this morning to the cutest picture and thought we would share....We haven't received our LID yet. Hopefully these next steps will not be too painfully long. Aubrey Grace was enjoying a fun outside activity when our friend visited. How precious is this smile.

Since my last post we have gotten a lot accomplished. With a lot of stress and hair pulling but accomplished. We finished up our home study, got it approved and authenticated, sent off our I-800a, got fingerprinted and waited for approval.....which came and we got that authenticated. Now all documents have been sent to our agency and we wait to DTC (dossier to China) for everyone not in the adoption business. YEAH!!

Comparing photos of our girl with our bio son at the same age: too fun

 As we wait for our home study to come back (which it should any day now) so we can send off our I-800a. We have been so blessed to be connected with a couple who lives in Baotou and is working at the SWI where our baby girl is. This morning we woke up to the best email ever. Pictures and a letter which told us how shy she is and doesn't like loud voices and how much she likes snacks (all kinds). Man will she fit into this family, so does her daddy and brother.

Things have not gone as we have hoped over the last month. (Does it ever) My fingerprints did not turn out so our home study is still sitting in court not being processed. After getting new prints done and being told by DPS there was a 5-6 week back-up I have been a mess. That just delays our home study that much longer. I am so thankful that school is back in and football is in full force. I stay so busy with Jeremy Jr that I don't have time to worry about paperwork, which is a good thing. However it is always in the back of my mind. We are trying to hurry!!!

We hope everyone had a wonderful holiday. We spent a few hours of our day at the Chinese Cultural Center playing games, eating, and just visiting and meeting new people. We had a great time. Jeremy Jr and I are looking forward to starting Chinese school in August. As of today our home study has been approved by our agency (yeah) and will soon be sent to the courts to be finalized. Once that is done we can send off our I-800A. We are being hopeful that the judge approves our adoption within a couple weeks and not a couple months. Fingers crossed.

Today we have our final meeting with our social worker (whom we love) before our home study is sent to court to be approved and finalized. She has let us know it can take up to 4 weeks to get this back. We are hoping for a lot less. Over the last weeks we have been very busy getting all of the paperwork filled out and sent off for authentication to the places they need to go. Only to get most of them sent back for corrections or another reason. But, it has mostly been handled. So, we really don't have much paperwork left. The Chinese Consult in New York is DONE. The Chinese Consult in LA is sorta done and I haven't even started on the Chinese Consulate in Houston but I will get there. So, after we get back our home study from the court I then send off our I-800. We are hoping that doesn't take as long to come back as we have heard. So, this is where we stand as of now. I was told last night that even though we are only doing paperwork, we should still update our blog. So, Susan...this blog is for you...

Happy Birthday to our big girl Aubrey Xiao Jiao. Who today turns 2.

With today being Mother's Day it feels just a bit more special. I now have two children. Enjoy this updated pic of ....Aubrey

Introducing Xiao Jiao!

Our waiver has been accepted. WE ARE APPROVED!!!!!!!!!!!!

All of our paperwork is currently being submitted to China for pre-approval/ THE WAIVER. It could take one week up to 'who really knows'. I think they go at their own pace. They could want more letters from my doctor or they could just say NO. We shall see.

Wow has it been a long two months. So much has went on. We were moving fast down the adoption road looking at children then so much changed. I went to the doctor for a something minor which turned out to be something not minor at all. Without boring you it lead to about 50 test. It put adoption right out of our minds. I threw away every paper I had. I cleared away my adoption table. Well, months ago there was this beautiful little girl that I fell in love with from moment 1. I called about her and was put on "the list", way down at the bottom. I called and called. She was with family after family. Then out of the blue one morning I got an email that said, Dear Jeremy and Jamie : here is Jaci's medical file that you have been waiting for. No, not now. The timing is horrible. I can't take it. We were waiting for results to see if I had liver cancer. And, we had to tell them in 3 days if we wanted her. So, we had to turn her down. I was heartbroken. The following week my results came back in and I was fine. We called the agency and Jaci was with another family. We had to wait for them to decide and they didn't take her, so we put in our papers and now we have a lock on her. YEAH!!! so we are filling out the paper work trying to get our waiver from China. After all that China could still turn us down because of my seizures. But, we don't accept that . She is meant to be ours. I have known it all along. Sorry this is so long.

Nothing really has happened the last week. I am trying to be productive and keep my mind busy. Trying not to check my email every 5 minutes. I belong to a wonderful advocacy blog. As I read all the articles I wonder if we will ever be at some of the places these couples are at, Jeremy assures me we will. I had a nice conversation with the lady who runs the blog and she told me she had only heard of one couple who didn't get their waiver and it was under very different circumstances, so that made me feel better.  I am being productive and trying to get all of our paperwork we will need for our dossier and home-study, calling and getting birth certificates and marriage licence. We went and had our pictures done for the passports and will get those off soon. So, that's all that has happened this week.

Important Dates...

2/13/2012-Application, MCC, and Family Information Sheet received at CCAI. In the meantime we saw our beautiful girls pics on another agency's page and tried so hard for months to view her file.

05/02/2012 Changed agencies to ASIA

05/02/2012 submitted LOI (letter of intent)

05/09/2012 received PA

06/21/2012 finish home study and submitted to court

09/10/2012 sent off I-800a

09/13/2012 I-800a accepted

09/26/2012 fingerprinted

10/10/2012 I-800a approval

10/22/2012 DTC!!!

11/01/2012 LID

01/02/2013 LOA (62 days)
01/21/2013 I-800 approval
01/29/2013 GUZ approval and cabled to Guangzhou
02/20/2012 Article 5 Pickup
03/22/2013 Travel Approval!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The new journey in our life..........

Welcome to the newest part in our family's life. For a while now Jeremy and I have thrown around the idea of adopting a girl from China but have never seriously, seriously, talked about it for certain reasons. Now, we feel the time is right and we couldn't be more happy. We are having to do our paperwork a bit different than most. If they approve our family then we will start the home study, the dossier and so on. The application, MCC and Family Information sheet was received on 2/13/2012. Now we just have to wait on our adoption agency to match us with beautiful baby girl Lai.