Pre-Placement Packet

Well, today we received our "Pre-Placement" packet from our adoption agency, CCAI. They are preparing us for match day and travel to China. We have a few forms to fill out, sign and get back to them and a few things to read up on to prepare us for what will be a very grueling and rewarding travel trip.

What it means is that we are that much closer to an actual referral which could be here in about 2 weeks or in the batch after this one in around 6-7 weeks. Either way, we are so close to seeing our daughter's face for the very first time!

The timeline we're looking at:
Travel will be about 5 to 8 weeks after match day. There will be LOTS of stuff to do and prepare during those 5 to 8 weeks!
Travel will be finalized about 7 to 10 days before we actually leave for China. We will either travel to Hong Kong or Beijing (depends on the province that our daughter will be from) and end our trip in Guangzhou where the US Consulate appointments will be.

So, I think we're looking at travel around August or September depending on when we actually get our referral. Time to start getting the packing list together!

Projections... finally some great news

As those in the Chinese adoption community are familiar with, a few days after the last batch of referrals comes out, the "Rumor Queen" (RQ) comes out with a post with her latest projections as to when she thinks the next batch of referrals may hit. Well, if you look closely at this chart, you'll see that we probably only have 1-2 more months/batches to go until we're referred our child(ren).

So, how does this chart translate? As China started doing fewer and fewer matches each month, RQ kept having to downsize what she thought the typical batch size would be. During the Spring of 2008, we thought they were doing really small batches only to learn a few years later the batches would get even smaller. So Spring2008Small is a bigger estimated size than Spr 2010, and Wntr 2011. Are you confused yet? Well, suffice it to say that the 2 left-most columns are the more likely columns to look at for reality, which means that our day has finally come!

I hope Shan (from my amazing adoption group) doesn't mind me copying some of this, but if China does the same size batch they did this time around at the end of June, they will get to about July 22nd. When I tell you that, if that happens, you will hear screaming from CO to the East Coast and everywhere in between. I have been waiting all these years with some amazing women whom I've grown very attached to and the thought of some of us not traveling together breaks my heart. So if all you readers out there could cross your fingers and say a little wish for us, wish that the CCCWA gets to 7/22/06 next time.

So to my MaMa Sisterhood, it IS finally our time and we WILL be in China together soon enough! We'll need to do a group photo with our tees on!

Our First Hike of the Year

Today we took our first hike of the year up at Devil's Lake. We hiked the Balanced Rock trail to the top of the cliffs on the south side of the lake. It was beautiful. We had amazing weather with a good healthy breeze that kept us cool. This will be our first of many hikes there for the year. Even found out about a new (new to us) trail that we have yet to try out. Yeah summer!

Balanced Rock

View of the lake from the top of the south cliff

Shootingstar - a prairie plant that is in full bloom right now

It's confirmed!

Well, I can't believe it's finally happened, but the CCCWA referred families through June 30, 2006. So, what does that mean? It means that we're now finally (after almost 5 years of waiting) on our lovely little month of July Log-in Dates (LID)! We are now down to 14 LIDs to go!

So, I know you're going to ask - when will you get your referral? Well, it means that we will most likely be getting our referral in August, but we should be prepared in case it actually comes next month. Unlikely, but possible.

What does this mean for us? We now have to get our house baby ready! Everything that we've been putting off for the past 5 years now has to go into overdrive! Plug up the outlets, buy kid gates, car seats (once we know her age and size), baby carriers, bottles, diaper bags, and all sorts of other stuff I can't even think about 'cuz my mind is going faster than I can type.

My heart is racing and I'm excited and scared at the same time. We're about to move toward to this next adventure in life. These next few months are going to fly by.

For those who have done this before, please feel free to leave some pearls of wisdom.

Stay tuned...

"Good Fortune"

Referrals are around the corner and there are some positive ones being spread around. If the rumors hold out to be true (I'll believe it when I see it!), we could have only another 1 to 2 more referral batches to go until we're referred our daughter. How amazing will that be. Just the thought can send me into a tailwind spiral!

You would think that because we've waited 5 years for her to be home that we'd be all ready by now, but you'd be wrong. There are so many things that we've had to wait on until we actually see her face, know her age, and how many little munchkins there will actually be. If we get referred twins (unlikely, but possible) we'd have to redo the nursery and move it to a different room in the house (one that can actually accommodate 2 cribs). We also have so many projects around the house that need to be completed – like the baby-proofing! (I'm going to have to borrow a neighbor's little cutie to give our house the seal-of-approval before I deem it safe). HELP!

All I can say is that by the end of this year, all this waiting will be a distant memory. We will finally be able to begin the process of actually becoming a family. Happy thoughts indeed.

UPDATE: Matches have been mailed! Seems like we'll find out on Tuesday after the Memorial Day weekend holiday (no mail on Monday). Yippee! I hope it's June 30th! Keep those fingers and toes crossed!

Chinese for Travelers Class

Today I decided to sign myself up for a class at the University from their Continuing Studies courses (an advantage living in a college town). I'll be taking "Chinese for Travelers". It's a 5-week class that meets for 1.25 hours a week. It starts in June. According to the syllabus, I'll learn how to order in a bar or restaurant, book a hotel room (probably won't be as helpful for us as our agency or travel planner will have taken care of it for us, but who knows...), greet people, ask for information about a destination, and "much more". I'm pretty excited!

Little Girl Heaven

It's the beginning of Garage Sale season here in Madison. So, today before leaving I told Robert that I would like to look for a cute kitchen set for our daughter.  Every little girl needs a kitchen set to play with (especially since her mom loves food and cooking as much as I do!). We were about to head home when Robert spotted one on someone's driveway who was having a garage sale. I got out to inspect it and it was exactly the one I had been looking at over the past few years and it was in near mint condition.

It has so many cool features: when you place a pan on the burner it lights up and makes a sizzling sound, the microwave has beeps, a working clock, some nice baskets for play food, a drawer for her play utensils. The lady also gave us a chef hat, apron and play oven mits too.

I can't wait to watch her play with it. So many happy hours of playing to come.

Happy Mother-to-be Day!

Well, I think it's finally safe to say that this will be our last Mother's Day we'll be celebrating sans child. It's been a long road to motherhood and I know that all the hardships that we've faced before adopting will have better prepared us for the actual event. Along the way I've made some very close friends in the adoption community and they've been instrumental in my sanity these past almost 5 years. They continue to guide me and I continue to learn from them as some are already experienced adoptive parents and mother's to biological kids of their own. Parenting should be a continuum of learning and I look forward to the day when I get to hone my own skills and raise our own beautiful little girl. I hope to be as wonderful a mom to my daughter as my mom was to me.

Wishing all a Happy Mother's Day and Mother-to-be Day to my other July 2006 adoptive moms-in-waiting!

Binding is (mostly) attached!

After a bit of a rough start, we finally got the binding attached to the 100 Good Wishes Quilt. We're getting to be old pros at this now. All that's left for me to do is to hand sew the binding to the back of the quilt (that's going to take a while!). I think you know what I'll be doing over the next few weeks in the evenings!

I just stare at the quilt in utter amazement and the tears just start to flow - knowing that some day soon our daughter will be snuggling underneath it wrapped in all the warmth and love from everyone who helped to make it happen. And the biggest thank you goes to my mom without whom this quilt would not exist. I love you!

Referrals are in

On Friday, calls started being made and matches are in. I'm still waiting for the official notice to come from the CCCWA (will probably come on Monday), but from the calls that have been made they only matched through June 20, 2006. A 5-day referral batch. We were expecting a better showing for this batch, but I'm waiting to see if maybe expedited families got their referrals in this batch to help explain it. Well, we're still that much closer to our daughter.

Only 24 more referral days to go until we're matched with our daughter! Yeah!