Finally!

After alot of hassle and frustration, we finally have confirmation that our new fingerprints were forwarded to Guangzhou.  It took 5 phone calls and alot of stress to figure this out.  We kept getting different answers to the same question.  When I called NVC tonight, I finally got the answer I should have gotten 2 weeks ago because of the info. was submitted on JUNE 21.  Of well, at least it's there.

Megan was 6 months old yesterday.  Hopefully by the time she's 7 months she'll be in our arms.  We went shopping today for several baby things:  bottles, nipples, diapers, etc.  Even Mikayla said it was fun to shop for baby stuff! 

We also got some other good news yesterday.  Our passports got to the courier a day earlier and therefore to the consulate for our visas earlier.  The best part is that we should have them back no later than Aug. 4.  Yeah!

Holding Pattern

Well, our passports are out of our hands for 2 weeks. Kinda nerve wracking! They should be back by Aug. 9. We’re in a holding pattern again with the adoption. Basically we’ve done all the paperwork we can until we get our travel approval. Then things will start at a sprint. Brian has been looking into possible flight connections.  From what we can tell, we will likely leave on a Wed.  We have been told to go through customs in Minneapolis and not Detroit. I’m trying to get some clothes figured out. Still haven’t found my 0-12 month clothes. I should really try to figure out more of what we are packing.

Visas

We started working on our Chinese visas today. We have to mail our actual passports to the courier! I was surprised, so I called Joan Rose and Di Zimmerman to double check and they said that was correct. Makes me a little nervous.

No Clothes

We got more measurements of you that apparently are from today: ht.64.5cm, wt. 7kg, head circ. 42cm, chest circ. 43cm. You weigh 15.5 lbs. already! Should be almost 17 lbs. by the time we get to meet you. This evening I decided to go through some our baby clothes to see what needs to be washed. Well, when I went to my clothes buckets, I couldn’t find anything smaller than 12 months. So I called my sister and she doesn’t have it either. She reminded me that when I was going through my clothes buckets last winter and purging that I purged everything under 12 months. I don’t specifically remember doing that, but it is very possible. I never dreamed that I would need anything smaller than 12 months size at that time. Go figure! Guess I’ll have to go shopping!

Deja Vu

Hopefully I spelled that correctly.  Anyway, the I-171H stuff is back to haunt us and try to make me anxious.  Something that was supposed to be a technicality is not going to be. I called the National Visa Center (NVC) to see if our info. had been forwarded to Guangzhou. We received our I-171H on 6/16/10. Well, for some reason the info. has not gotten to NVC yet. All I600A (I-171H) processing has now been moved to the National Benefits Center (NBC) effective July 1. Something must have gotten lost in the transition. It is nearly impossible to talk to a real person at USCIS, so thankfully I had a phone # for NBC and was able to talk to a real person who was very helpful. We had to email a PDF of our current I-171H and most recent home study. She will send it to the NVC tomorrow and hopefully they’ll have it by Friday. It is my understanding that the NVC can email that info. to Guangzhou.  Gotcha love it!  Thankfully I'm not anxious about it like I was last time.

We also sent our Letter of Confirmation and some other paperwork to CCAI today via FedEx overnight.

Referral Day Take 2!

Well, my optimistic prediction wasn't optimistic enough! We got our referral on Thursday! I had to work Thursday, so Brian spent the morning frequently checking on CCAI and RQ's websites. By noon, we were confident that referrals had come and we would get the call Friday. I asked Brian to email CCAI to confirm that we received a referral and when we would get the call. Well, we got much more!
Andrea actually called us and said she could give us our referral info! I was done with everything at work, so I asked if I could leave ½ hr. early. That was no problem, so I headed home. Brian was already there, so we called Andrea.  Here's what we learned:

• Her name is Tong (geographical region) Min (people) Xian (admire).
• Her birthday is January 27, 2010 and she is in foster care. She isn't even 6 months old!
• She drinks 280cc milk or rice based formula about every 4 hrs. and eat soups and mashed fruit.
• She's up at 8am, naps for 2 hrs. in the afternoon and goes to bed at 9pm and is a deep sleeper.
• She can hold her head up while lying on her stomach, roll, locate the direction of the sound of a voice, hold blocks in each hand at the same time, look for a dropped toy, follow moving toys, distinguishing between acquaintances and strangers, knows her name and turns her head when name is said.
• She is active and restless, fond of imitating, listening to music, reading picture books, and playing outside. Her favorite toy is animal toys.

Miranda is thrilled that she loves to play outside and Mikayla is thrilled that she likes animal toys (AKA stuffed animals as far as Mikayla is concerned). :)

Her health looks good from what we can tell. She weighed 12.1 lbs and was 23.6 inches long at 4 1/2 months. Andrea thought we would travel in 5-6 weeks. Our travel group is #1618.

Her new name will be Megan Mei MinXian Weiss. Orginally we thought that we might drop the "Min", because of so many Ms. But then someone pointed out that her first name starts with an M and how appropriate for our family, so we then decided we had to keep it.

Rumors

There are finally some rumors floating around. RQ is saying that the cut-off may be 5/10. That would be 14 days! They haven’t done that many days in years! I know there is a holiday in there, but that many days really boosts morale. Optimistically referrals could arrive Friday, but realistically I think Monday.

The Wisdom of Others

My sister told me today that she was sharing our story with an older friend/mentor of hers and that it's hard to understand why it happened. This mentor said, "It's because of prayer." Prayer, what do you mean prayer? "Well," the friend said, "because of this disrupted referral, Fu Jui Fen will now be prayed for by many people who know her story." In other words, if this had not happened, our circle of friends would not have known about it and not been able to pray. Given the religious condition of China, we can safely say that there are now exponentially more people praying for her than there would have been if this had not happened. Wow! Certainly never thought about it that way. Prayer for Fu Jui Fen touches the heart of God and will change her life even though we will probably never know how this side of heaven. So, when you think of our family, please pray for our future daughter, but also whisper a prayer for Fu Jui Fen and that her life will be touched by God.

Sad Day

Travel approvals came out today for the group of matches that we should have been in. This means that these families have the dates that they will travel. I'm happy for these families, but it should have been us too. Also, there are no rumors for the cut off date for the next batch of referrals, which means they aren't coming by Monday. The earliest I would expect anything would be late next week. I know in the grand scheme of things, it's not a big deal, but right now it is. The only thing I've seen is that CCAA is working on the matches.

July 4th

Hope everyone had a good 4th of July. We went to Old Mill State park with some friends on July 3. Unfortunately it was very hot, windy, and lots of bugs. Then a storm front moved through and a tornado warning. Thankfully it all passed to the north of us and we didn't even get any rain. Unfortunately, it also didn't cool down much and it was humid. Sleeping in a tent wasn't that much fun. July 4th was pretty nice and that night probably would have been OK, but we decided to go home and sleep in our on beds. When also went to the fireworks and Grand Forks. It was nice to spend Monday at home with no real agenda. There really aren't any rumors going around for referrals. I'll be surprised if they come this week. I'm thinking more like next Tuesday.