Gong Xi Fa Cai

Happy Chinese New Year! We celebrated tonight by going shopping for Milo's wardrobe. So fun!!

This week has been full of anxiety, phone calls, and email as we tried to figure out if our Article 5 had been expedited. And guess what; it was!! We are over the moon excited! It was picked up on Thursday! The only bad thing is that now CCCWA (China Center for Children's Welfare and Adoption) is closed until February 7th for Chinese New Year. Dang! The next step we need is Travel Approval!! After we have travel approval, we'll need a U.S. Consulate appointment. The next step after that is...WE GO TO CHINA!! While we're really praying for a March 3rd gotcha, I think the New Year holiday is going to slow us down and cause us to miss that date. It's not totally unthinkable that we'd get that date, but it's unlikely. It'll probably be March 10th or 17th. The sooner the better, though!

I have to say that while I'm excited as can be to be on this step, I am also starting to get really nervous! We have SO much to do before we go! And though we're going to hop on the first plane we can, it's admittedly giving me great anxiety not to know exactly when we'll be on that plane! How do you arrange time off work, childcare, travel arrangements, etc, etc, when you don't even know when you'll be gone?? It gets quite difficult! So while I hope everyone in China has a wonderful Chinese New Year celebration, I'll confess that I'm overly excited for them all to get back to work. :)

More Prayers Needed Around Here!

I have some updates on both adoptions. Let's start with Russia, shall we? We have been given the opportunity to advocate for Dasha to be adopted by Russians on some Russian adoption sites. We know it's a fairly long shot, but stranger things have happened! We would love so very much for our dear girl to find a family! I can't breathe right until I know she's safe from a mental institution!

Here is a beautiful article written about several of my friends who were in the process of adopting Russian orphans. It's worth the read! Such love!

Now for Milo. We've learned some alarming things about the condition of children going home from his SWI (Social Welfare Institute, or orphanage). They are severely malnourished, and one even has to be on a feeding tube for several months! I got in touch with Little Flower, and they let me know his weight before he was transferred. He hasn't gained weight since August. This has me in a constant state of worry!! We're doing absolutely everything we can to get him transferred and also expedite our travel. Please pray for our little guy, though! It's all out of our hands from here! I simply can't wait to get that boy home!! Until then, please continue to pray!

Included in our contact with Little Flower were some 200+ pictures of our little guy! There are SO many darling ones! I am over the moon excited about it! I can't wait to print some up to hang in his room! Here's a sneak peak of one:

I can't believe I'm lucky enough to be this kid's mom in a month and a half!! I don't know that I've ever seen a cuter face in my whole life! 

My Boy

It's been an emotional 36 hours! On Monday night I got Milo's updated measurements. He is, at 14 months of age, 12 pounds and 25 inches long. That is the same size my other children were at 2 months old. I have been in a complete panic ever since! I have been emailing everyone I can think of to verify that these measurements are actually correct. I can't even imagine bringing 3-6 month clothes to pick up a 16 month old toddler. So. Bizarre. Milo's file is very lacking in information that most other files contain. I only know his weight after he was found, but no other updated measurements. I have no idea if he's just tiny and is growing, or if he isn't growing at all. It's all very disturbing!
In my panic, I turned to the Little Flower Facebook page. I went searching for information and more pictures. So many of the precious pictures I do have are from Little Flower, and I was intent to find more. I actually did come across a few albums I hadn't seen before, and it was gold! I also paid very close attention to all the words typed about him. It's quite alarming to realize just how close he was to not surviving, but he did. He's truly a fighter, and I have to have faith at this point that he can fight for 54 more days until he's in our arms forever!!

Here are the all the pictures and posts from Little Flower:

December 1, 2012 Two week old Yang arrived today. He was born with a heart defect and needs surgery urgently. Can you believe all that hair?

January 28, 2013: Yang needs heart surgery. He's not doing well and will probably have surgery after the holiday.

February 7, 2013 Little Yang is back home from the hospital, but his condition is not good. Doctors would like to schedule his heart surgery as soon as possible. He will probably be admitted for that right after the holiday. In the meanwhile, please keep the little guy in your prayers.

 

March 19, 2013 Yang has been critically ill in the hospital for several weeks now. At one point the doctors felt his prognosis was very poor and he would never stabilize enough for heart surgery, but he has finally gotten strong enough that they are willing to try. His surgery is scheduled for tomorrow; please pray that all goes smoothly. 

This next post is the one that got me bawling and gave me some of the biggest chills I've ever had!! 

April 17, 2013 Little Yang is stable at home after his heart surgery, but he's still tiny and very weak. Several of the doctors on his team advised against surgery and suggested that we give up, but we are so glad he had surgery and that it was successful. Now we just have to help him get bigger and stronger - maybe by the time his file is ready there will be a family out there looking for a little guy with Down syndrome. We sure hope so! 

 YES!!! That's EXACTLY what happened!! I would pretty much give anything for him to have been able to stay at Little Flower. Not only did they fight for him and save his life, but they took such loving care of him! Also, his file was sort of MIA. It hadn't been translated and was just stuck with an agency that wasn't advocating for him. Because of the pictures from Little Flower, we had the drive to search and fight for his file (and pay to have it translated ;) I am so, so thankful for Little Flower and the life they gave Milo and the joy they have given us!! 

May 14, 2013 Yang is one of our very sweet little chromosomally enhanced babies. He continues to do well after his heart surgery 

June 15, 2013 Little Yang loves to blow raspberries now

June 21, 2013 Han and Yang - two precious babies born with Down syndrome

June 27, 2013

June 30, 2013

July 20, 2013 Yang, Yang, and Yang!

July 26, 2013

I am so overwhelmed with gratitude right now! Not only did I find all this information, but some friends from that also adopted from the same orphanage where Yang is have a representative for their agency traveling there TODAY! They are personally going to go check on my boy and hopefully get another weight and measurement done to be sure it's accurate! Please continue to pray for our little guy! I know prayers have helped him to this point, and he's SO close to being able to come home! Thank you all!!

8 Weeks

From estimated numbers, we'll be going to China 8 weeks from today. CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT!?!? I can't! We're SO close! In those waiting weeks, I have three friends traveling at three different times to his orphanage who have agreed to take pictures of him. Woot woot!! I can scarcely contain my excitement! I just found out today we have I-800 approval! If you think about it, that means we only really have one measly piece of paper left to fill out on this side of the ocean. Our paper chase for Milo is nearly done! It is hard to take in! Part of me truly doesn't believe it will ever happen. We have purposely put off decorating and putting together a nursery for him, because there's such a big part of my heart that's afraid he won't make it home. I couldn't stand to have an empty room; a constant reminder of what could and should have been. Now that it's getting so close, though, it's time to get our act together and get ready for him!

Milo has a package of toys and goodies coming for him. I'm so excited! We'll be able to get measurements once his package gets to him and then the fun begins with buying him clothes! His room will be painted next week, and my awesome mother-in-law is already sewing the nursery bedding and drapes from the fabric we picked out. I even started scheduling doctors appointments for when little man gets home! This is actually happening!!

Our Visa's made their way to our front door just this morning! WE ARE GOING TO CHINA!! It's still looking hopeful for a lucky gotcha day of St. Patrick's Day! I'm hoping our update comes quickly so we know how big this guy is...I can't wait to go buy him some clothes!

I have seen this picture on several different blogs. I think it's a great way to show where we are in the process! We're on step 10!

Now that the paper chase for Milo is nearly complete...I realized I need an updated home study for Russia so we can renew our USCIS approval for Dasha girl. Just in case. Oy! Hopefully someday I'll have my kids at home with me and we can stop worrying about paperwork ;)

Taken December 6th by a fellow adopting mama. Hang on, Buddy! We're coming for you!

Money Miracles

I haven't been very open about our adoption funding since Russia shut down, because it's both heartbreaking and personal. We had worked our tails off and raised a substantial amount of money by last December to adopt Dasha girl. We were extremely blessed to have friends and family give us unbelievable amounts of support in our Russian adoption. Let's admit it, though: fundraising is exhausting. It's embarrassing and humiliating and not fun at all to ask people to help you financially. We did it, though, because Dasha's adoption was going to cost $57,000 and we didn't know of another way to get that much money in such a short amount of time. Unfortunately, we ended up spending over $30,000 for that adoption. That wiped us out. It was every penny we'd earned plus thousands of dollars of our own money.

When I saw Cooper's picture and knew I wanted to be his mom, funding was one big hurdle standing in our way. It's one thing to fundraise for an adoption. It's another thing to fundraise for an adoption where the child was never able to come home with you, then turn around to fundraise for yet another adoption. I just couldn't do it. It made my physically ill to think about going through that part again. That would mean I would have to explain over and over again where all the money we had previously raised had gone. That would mean I would have to rehash in detail how Russia banned Americans from adopting, Dasha is still stuck, and $30,000 is gone. The money was spent on a home study, background checks, USCIS approval, two dossiers, countless apostilles, postage, dossier translations, agency fees, agency fees, and more agency fees, airline tickets, hotel, etc. We didn't just pay Russia $30,000, so no, we weren't eligible for some sort of refund (we got asked that question a lot initially). Lately I have been wanting to share that we were SO careful with money that was donated to us! We kept track of every penny we spent and 100% of it went directly towards adoption costs.

I knew if we proceeded with an adoption from China, we'd be on our own. We'd need to come up with the $30,000 it would cost by ourselves. We inquired about a home mortgage loan line of credit, and that's the route we took. It was really depressing to sign that paper, but also a relief to know that we wouldn't need to beg for money. Of course we didn't WANT to take a loan out, but we also know that money shouldn't ever be the thing standing in the way of saving a life.

Our first money miracle came from my dear friend, Tania. She and her husband were also trying to adopt from Russia. Their darling "Jack" ended up getting adopted and Tania ended up getting pregnant and having a biological child (they are still going to adopt in the future, but knew they weren't up for it for a while). Instead of  holding on to the funds they'd raised (which I would not blame them one second if they'd have chosen to do that!!), they decided to spread the love. They chose a few families and waiting kids and gave Jack's adoption money away. Tania reached out to me and asked if she could donate $4,000 to our FSP. I was blown away!!! This is a game changing amount of money! I'm so thankful for the money given to us from Jack's account that I cry every single time I think about it! What an honor and a gift!! You can read about their big giveaway here.

Our second money miracle came last Monday from the Sevenly offer I posted about. According to my math, we should get around $550 from their campaign!! WOW!! Again, such an unexpected (yet welcome) blessing!!

Now, a fellow adopting mom I didn't even know until last week has started a quilt giveaway and has included Milo and our family in their giveaway!! To learn more about that, click here. Even if we don't make one penny from her darling giveaway, what a treasure to know we are thought of and loved!

I am increasingly thankful and amazed at the generosity of others, even when not asked for. This adoption road has definitely not been an easy one for us. The unexpected blessings that have come along the way have been surprising and amazing! The friendships I have made (both long distance and local) I would never trade for anything! The tender mercies to sustain us will never be forgotten. Thank you for joining us in our journey, and thank you for the love!!

I wanted to share some amazing pictures with you in case you didn't get to read the article about the Russian picket/protest about the adoption ban. These are pictures of Dasha and us! So crazy!!

I love these Russians!

I also wanted to share a baby picture of Milo just for fun ;)

Have you ever seen a cuter baby!? This is the first picture we have of him. Check out that hair! Oh, I can't wait to snuggle this guy!!