Care package...

This evening Joe and I went shopping for Lauren's care package. I will be packing the items up and sending my box to Ann at Red Thread China. She is going to translate our letter to the orphanage staff and mail our box to Lauren's orphanage.

I love the soft, baby photo album we found at Target. It even has Chinese characters on the front and a spot for Lauren's picture so they will remember who's album it is. Thanks, Michele, those extra little photos you gave me came in really handy for this! We filled the album with family photos and a picture of our furbaby, Lucy (click to enlarge)...

I also love the Discovery Ladybug. We received two as gifts, so I'm sending one in the package. It makes crinkly noises when you touch the ladybug wings and the bottom is a soft book with fun little things to touch and play with...

We are also including a nice soft blanket, two disposable cameras and a couple packages of Jelly Belly candies for the nannies. It was so much fun picking out the items and putting this package together. I'll be sending it off to Ann early next week. I still need to write a letter to the orphanage staff for her to translate.

Ann is also going to help us try to get updated photos of Lauren and measurements. She will contact the orphanage and see if they will agree to this. I can't wait to find out if we'll get updated pictures! I was on the phone with our friend, Karen (from our travel group), when her updated pictures of Kaelie came through. Oh my gosh, it was SO exciting. Karen, my ears are still ringing! Ha! ;)

Great weekend...

I'm sitting here thinking about how very lucky we are to have such good friends. We have a small group of local waiting families who have shared this wait with us for so long. Several families in our group have brought their children home and now it's finally our turn! Michele and Ava hosted a shower for us this afternoon and it was such a nice time.

Check out these great favors she had for everyone. Dipped pretzel rods and fortune cookies, little framed pictures of Lauren and aprons in a great ladybug print. Michele, you are so creative and sweet to do all this!
Here we are with the cake...

Michele embroidered Lauren's name on this totally adorable outfit. I can't wait to see her in this...


Lauren now has her very own little kitchen to play with (thanks Nancy, Brian and Lily). It has lots of little buttons to press with fun sights and sounds.

We got some great bibs, including this "Bumkins" bib (thanks Kim, Scott and kids) which is super big to cover up the whole shirt. It should help out a lot if Lauren is a messy eater!

Michele, thank you SO much for hosting our shower...you are the perfect hostess and we had a great time visiting with everyone.

I received a special gift this past week. Julie and Tess sent me this beautiful pendant of Lauren's photo. I LOVE it and have gotten quite a few compliments on it already! I can keep Lauren close while we wait these final weeks.
We also received a special package addressed to Lauren from Lisa. It's a beautiful hand-made bear and he's wearing a red thread bracelet for Lauren...

Lisa, I LOVE this bear and the bracelet. I'm bringing the bracelet to China for Lauren to wear, but the bear will be safely tucked away in her crib waiting for us to get home. It goes great with the nursery colors. Thank you SO much!

There are only 7 more full weeks until we leave to get Lauren! Oh my God, I guess it's time to get ready! Ha!

Any resemblance?

A while back we were chatting on my Yahoo group about how they match the babies and we were talking about them matching to our passport photos. We challenged each other to post our passport photos with our referral photo to see if there is any resemblance. Keep in mind that our photos were taken back in August 2005 and I've packed on 20 stress pounds since then and now...sad, but true.

So, do you see any resemblance? Click on image to enlarge.

Referral day and video...

Several people have asked where Lauren's province is in China. You can see on this map, where the Guangdong province is and where Maoming is.

Here are some recent photos I found of her social welfare institute...


Last week, when the call came in it felt like it was out of nowhere. That morning there were rumors that referrals were starting to arrive in Europe, so I figured our call would come the next day. I got off work at 12n and stopped to pick up some lunch. By the time I got home and turned the laptop on it was about 1pm. The first message I saw was from Stephe saying that she just got her call!! Since she's with our agency, I knew this was it. After running around for a few minutes thinking...OMG, OMG, OMG...I called Joe...no answer...called mom...no answer. OMG, am I going to get the call all alone?? What the heck...they are supposed to be on red alert! Finally, I get my mom on the phone and all I had to say was "Stephe got her call...get over here". She was here in a flash. I finally got Joe on the phone and said "this is it, you've got to get home". About 10 minutes later, the phone rings and the caller ID is the agency!! OMG, this is it!!! I picked up the phone and mom started the video. My agency was able to conference Joe in on his cell while he was on the way home. As soon as our agency rep said "you have a daughter", everything after that was a blur! It was so surreal and thank goodness I have my notes and the video so I actually know what he said after that.

Once he was done with the details he had, he said "I just e-mailed you photos"...OMG, OMG, OMG...photos of our daughter and Joe isn't here yet! Luckily, by this time he was only about 5 minutes from home. As soon as he walked in the door, I was pulling up the e-mail and mom had the video rolling...



After we stared at the photos for a little while, I started making phone calls. My brother and his family came over and my sister-in-law brought everything to make dinner for us. My nieces and nephew brought a gift for Lauren...a panda they made at Build-a-Bear named Precious Joy. My niece, Emily, brought me a special gift she had been waiting to give me. It's the Angel of Patience from Willow Tree. We placed it in the nursery watching over a photo of Lauren.

It was such an amazing day that I will never forget! We feel so blessed to have been matched with Nan Qi Qing and can't wait to hold her in our arms.

Weekend stuff...

Well, this weekend Joe and I signed the letter officially accepting Lauren as our daughter! I'm overnighting that, along with some other paperwork, back to our agency tomorrow morning. The next step is our travel conference call on Monday the 17th. We should find out lots of details about our trip at that point. All I really know at this point is that we are traveling with 8 or 9 other families including our friends Stephe and Karen.

Joe and I went on a little shopping spree for cold weather clothes in Lauren's size. We think that while we're in China she will be about 32" tall and weigh about 20lbs. We bought everything in 12-18 month size. Check out the shirt and matching pants with the panda face on the back. How cute is that!


I ended up clearing some things out of Lauren's closet...all the items smaller than 12 months. Luckily, it didn't put that big a dent in her clothes selection...I've had LOTS of fun shopping over the past three years! I still have lots of 12/18 month clothes in the closet, but we didn't have any cold weather stuff yet.

We are still on cloud 9 and I haven't quite come down to earth yet. I still can't believe we have a daughter and are traveling to China in 2 months!!! It was so much more fun to shop for her today with the image of her sweet face in my head. With all the things we still need to do and the holidays, the time is going to fly by!

It's been a whirlwind since we received our referral! I'll be updating with more details later. I took off today to wait for the "stork" and he finally landed about 11:30. Here's the sign he was greeted with at the door...


My mom caught a glimpse of him through the window while I scrambled for the camera and she saw him snickering. Here he is...

He was really funny and didn't mind the photo one bit. He said he's been called many things, but never the stork!!! I bet he has a good story for his wife tonight!

Here's all the photos we received with our referral...for your viewing pleasure. Double click on the image to enlarge it.


I can't stop staring at her pictures! I went out to lunch today and even took her along! ;)

HERE SHE IS...

Oh my God, my heart is beating out of my chest right now and I'm still shaking. We have a daughter!!!! I can't believe I just typed that!

Here's the info:

Name: Nan Qi Qing
Age: 19 months
Province: Guangdong (a southern gal)
City: Maoming
Orphange: Maonan District
Height: 30.7"
Weight: 18.9 lbs

And I didn't mention yet, that she's BEAUTIFUL!!!! We fell in love at first sight!



As you can see, I'm going to work on changing up my blog. I had all this done last week, but I still need to finish up my sidebar.

Oh my God...we have a daughter!!! After three plus years our dreams have come true. Oh, and did I mention that she's beautiful? ;)

No stork in sight...

Looks like our stork is walking all the way from China!!!

Ok, stork, I'm running out of patience here...flap those wings and get your feathered self up in the air and headed this way!

It's Monday night and not a juicy rumor to be found out there. If Rumor Queen isn't reporting some good news by tomorrow, I may start loosing hope for this week and I really don't want to go there. Come on CCAA, get those referrals in the air!

Next week!

I feel like I'm totally watching the clock today waiting for next week to come. These last days before referral are brutal!

This weekend Joe and I need to decide how we are going to handle it when the call comes in. We really want to be together and at home if possible. This is hard since the call will come out of the blue and we both work. We are debating between two options right now and can use some advice from those who have BTDT. Assuming the call comes to me at work:

Option 1 - Take the call and conference Joe in; put the call on speaker phone; have a co-worker do the video taping; and have our agency e-mail the photo to both of us at work so we can see it separately, but at the same time.

Option 2 - Take the call and tell our agency that we'll call them back; both of us head come and have my mom meet us there; call the agency back and take the call together with my mom video taping.

I want to go with Option 2, but it hinges on Joe being able to leave work at a moments notice (not likely) and what time the call comes in. If it comes in later in the day, the agency may not be opened still by the time we get home (there's a two hour time difference). Those of you who have been through the call...can you give me your opinion on this?

So, here I sit waiting for Monday to come and hoping for a rumor that referrals are on the way!! I'm getting SOOO anxious! How old is she, what does she look like, is she healthy, where is she now? I have a million questions running through my mind. I feel like I can't concentrate on anything else until I get these answers.

Well, onto another subject...we dressed up in a 60's theme at work this year and decorated the office complete with beaded curtains in our office doorways. Here we are (I'm the hippie in the skirt)...


We have been dressing up every year. Here we are last year. We try to have fun and laugh whenever possible...if we didn't loosen up once in a while we'd probably snap!

It's looking like next week...

I've been on pins and needles all week checking Rumor Queen just about every couple of hours. I know, but I just can't help it!

I've updated our phone info on file at our agency so they can get a hold of us and I've printed out Stephe's infamous call sheet (you can find this on her sidebar). I also have the camera battery all charged up and ready to go!

I need to contact our agency again and find out what the best day is for us to both take off work. We both want to see Lauren's photo together at the same time. If we have a head's up on the call and they e-mail a photo when they call, we would like to be home on that day. If they just call out of the blue, then we want to be home the next day for the Fed-Ex package. I need to see if they can tell me how it usually plays out. I know this is a silly thing to worry about, but after waiting so long and anticipating the moment we see our daughter I want it to be as perfect as it can be. For you BTDT's, how did it all play out for you? I would love to hear about it.

Will this be the week?

It's hard to believe that this month is almost over and our referral will actually be on it's way soon.

I'm wondering if we'll get the call this coming week or next. Either way, our lives are about to change forever in ways I probably can't even imagine right now. We've been trying to become a family of three since 1996 and now 12 years later, that dream is about to come true. Everyone is saying that we should savor these final days of anticipation and take advantage of being a party of two before we travel to China. We definitely intend to do that!

It's going to be a heck of week waiting to hear when the stork will fly! I have a feeling my brain will be mush...should be an interesting week at the office. ;)

First offical rumor...

According to Rumor Queen today...

Matching?
October 22nd, 2008
An agency is reporting that matching has begun. Just one agency reporting it so far.

It may be only one agency reporting this right now, but I really do think that matching has begun. It gives me goosebumps to think that our agency's stack is sitting on someone's desk right now waiting to be matched!

Joe and I went to Pei Wei's for lunch on Sunday and check out what my fortune said for the Chinese vocabulary word...


I guess it's travel in January...don't ya think?

On another note, I want to send a BIG thank you to Fuzz and Fuzzlet for asking Kim to send their prize to me for Lauren!!! Check out these adorable little clippies and clip holder. All the shopping I've done and I don't have one of these holders...I love it! THANK YOU!

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32nd LIDversary and baby calendar...

Yesterday was our 32nd LIDversary, but there is finally a light at the end of the tunnel. As each day of October goes by that light gets brighter and brighter.

Last week I was ordering some 2009 calendars and couldn't pass this one up...


I know that we won't have Lauren for most of her first year, but I'm going to use this calendar to record all her firsts with us as a family.

This calendar has adorable graphics and comes with lots of little stickers to mark important dates and milestones. It's a blank calendar, so you can start it whenever you want.


I especially like how each month has a spot for a photo and space to write new things Lauren can do and make special notes about the month. I think this will become a special scrapbook type keepsake to put away for her.

Brain fog and fish tacos...

Tonight we had one of our favorite weeknight dinners courtesy of Costco. We get the frozen, breaded talapia and cut each piece into three strips once it's baked. We have it with flour or corn tortillas, shredded cheese, home-made salsa and shredded cabbage. Quick and yummy fish tacos! Gotta love Costco.

Well, so far this week I feel like I'm walking around in a fog. Is this a normal feeling for the weeks before referral? It's getting harder and harder to concentrate on any one thing for any period of time. My mind keeps wandering off to so many things:

• Is our file sitting on someones desk just waiting to be matched?
• What will Lauren look like?
• How old will she be?
• What province is she in?
• Is she healthy?
• Is she in an orphanage or with foster parents?
• Is she being taken care of?
• Did she have any of the tainted formula?
• Is she getting enough to eat?
• Is someone playing with her and caring for her?
• Where was she left and was there a note?
• Will she accept us as her parents?
• How will she adjust to her new life?

The list goes on and on and it's getting harder and harder to focus at work and on anything that's not adoption related for that matter. Is this normal or is this just me?

Baby carrier has arrived...

Here we are already heading into mid-October and I'm SO hoping that referrals come out before the end of the month and that ours is in the batch! I'm getting so excited! We may only have a few short weeks left until we see our daughter. I keep asking myself if this is really happening after all this time...someone pinch me!

Last week we got our Baby Hawk baby carrier in the mail. We picked out a dark espresso brown for the trim with this fun fabric on the front. Joe is modeling it with our new baby, little Miss. Idaho. She's 10 lbs and tastes delicious with a little butter and sour cream...

Here's what the back looks like...

Joe says it's pretty comfortable for him and distributes the weight pretty evenly. I'm a bad judge of baby carriers because I have a bad back and have daily trouble with low back pain. I'm going to have to pump myself full of meds and suck it up on the China trip because I want to carry Lauren as much as she'll let me while in China.

***Attention Target Shoppers***

If you like ladybug things for the nursery, I just picked up this adorable changing pad cover today. It's very soft and oh so cute! It seems to be a brand made for Target since there is a whole line of items that match. It's called tiddliwinks and was $12.99.

Projections are out...

Wow, our LID (2/17) finally made it to the top line of the Rumor Queen projection chart!!

For family and friends not familiar with her projections, referrals for the last year have fallen on her "Horrid Case" date, her "Spring 2008 Small" date or something in between. We can't be 100% sure we are in for the next batch, but I'm feeling pretty darn good about it. I would say I'm feeling about 95% sure. Over the past year, referrals have only fallen below the "Spring 2008 Small" projected date twice. I think I'll take those odds! ;)

Ok, now it's poll time to see which province you think Lauren will be from. Here's a map of the provinces...

and here's a graphic from the FCC website on most referrals by province...

and now it's time to vote...

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We are...

I was SOOOO excited on Monday morning to see that referrals got through 2/15! Yes, this means that we are finally next! We should see Lauren's sweet face by mid-November at the latest, but probably earlier.

I feel like I have lots of things to do now that we KNOW it won't be long. There are still things we wanted to get done before our referral. Gosh, where has the past three years gone? Life on hold...yup. I need to kick it into high gear now!

By the way, check out my sidebar countdown calendar...doesn't it look great with all those days marked off?

The cookie knows...

I was at Costco on Friday night and they had these chocolate covered fortune cookies packaged up so cute in this red box...

This morning I opened up the box, reached down in there and pulled out a cookie. Check out what my fortune says...


Now if it could only tell me if the seeds will blossom in October or November!!! I'm thinking it will be November, but we'll know for sure in a few days.

Special gift for myself...

I got my order from Lisa Leonard Designs today and as soon as I opened the boxes the tears started flowing (I told you I've been emotional lately). I LOVE the necklaces I ordered!

I've been wanting to order a personalized piece of jewelry to start wearing when we get our referral. I found Lisa's website and love her hand-stamped, sterling silver jewelry...


I fell in love with this personalized family tree necklace with a freshwater pearl charm (double click to enlarge)...


and I also couldn't help but order this silver necklace with gold flower, also personalized...


I can't wait until I can start wearing these...I'll be so proud to finally be Lauren's momma!

On another note, thank you for all your kind words on my post from Wednesday. I think you all have talked me off the edge and now I'm looking forward to next week when we should know how far they get with referrals. We will finally see our daughter's face either next week or in another five weeks. It doesn't even seem real that we are actually this close.

Crazy!

This graphic sums up how I've been feeling lately.

Between the stress at my office right now, not knowing if we'll see our daughters face in a couple of weeks or a couple of months and the China baby formula problem, I'm just about ready to tear my hair out! I've been stressed and SOOO emotional this week.

Just in case you're out of the loop on the baby formula situation, let me give you the Reader's Digest version of what's going on...some people decided it would be a great idea to water down milk with a dangerous chemical called melamine...yes, the stuff that's in plastic. This allows them to stretch out their supply of milk and causes a false high protein level when the milk goes through inspection. This milk has been used to make baby formula and distributed throughout China (yes, including orphanages) to feed babies. The melamine causes kidney stones and kidney failure, among other things. What kind of sickos would put babies in danger like this. I can only imagine what the parents in China are going through right now...not even knowing for sure what is safe to feed their babies. The thought of our daughter being feed a dangerous chemical for an unknown amount of time makes me sick to think about.

So far, the early rumors on referrals aren't good. Supposedly the CCAA may be checking into what type of formula the orphanages have been using, which may effect the number of referrals they kick out. At this point, we don't know what will happen. We don't know if they will continue to refer babies from orphanages using the tainted formula or not. Certainly if they don't that will more than likely decrease the number of referrals since the number of available children would drop.

I always thought the end of this journey right before referral would be happy and exciting...looking forward to seeing our daughter for the first time. Instead I'm feeling anxiety, stress and sadness.

I don't want to be a downer, but I'm having trouble seeing the light at the end of the tunnel right now.

31st LIDversary and new floors...

Today marks our 31st month of waiting. Yes, it's now been over 2.5 years, which is hard to believe. It honestly doesn't feel like it's been that long, but at the same time it's been a long wait. It's funny how that works.

Today I pulled up Rumor Queen and my heart skipped a beat when I saw our log-in-date in her post! It seems so strange after all this time to have her actually talking about our date. Here's what she had to say...

There is an agency out there that thinks their 2/17 families have a chance of being in the next batch, but the way it is worded does not sound like they think it’s a sure thing, just a possibility.

I'm SO trying not to get my hopes up for an October referral, but it's VERY hard not to. I know it's a long shot, but there is a remote possibility. At least we know that we'll more than likely be in for November if not October.

We are finally getting the house back in shape since getting our floors done over the weekend. From the tile and grout removal, everything in the house is covered in a fine layer of dust. It's almost like soot and can't just be dusted off, so we've been cleaning everything top to bottom.

The floors look beautiful and I love them. They even make our kitchen cabinets look nicer. I'm so glad to be rid of the ugly white tile and dirty carpet. Now Lauren will have a nice clean surface to walk and play on. Here's some pictures..