3 days post surgery and looking more like a new "grandma" than a new "mama"

For all of those who did not know, yes, I had surgery and I resemble an 80 year old when I walk instead of the young 22 yr. old that I am (hehe). Seriously, I am happy to be home but do kinda miss my adjustable hospital bed but I guess that's the laziness in me talking! I have my "boys" here to wait on me and they are doing a great job so far but I think it will get old pretty quick here so I'll enjoy it while I can.

The reality is setting in that we will have our daughter very very soon. I have so many different visions of her, so many different ideas of what she will be like that it's driving me crazy.......what will her sweet voice sound like, how many chinese words/phrases will she know, will she be quiet (like her mama? Ha!) or loud and outspoken??? She is a bazillion million miles away from us right now but SOON, very SOON she will be a part of our family and be right here with us. Right here. How could we be any more blessed?

TENTATIVE DATES

UPDATE: We received an email today from our SW, Sara, saying that we have "TENTATIVE" travel dates!!! We do not have our Travel Approval yet, however they are telling us to tentatively plan on traveling to Shandong Province, accompanied with our ISS guide Mary, on May 13/14th! We will get confirmation on the dates once our travel approval, aka Letter of Invitation to Travel, comes but we can pretty much count on traveling to China (Honk Kong) around 5/10 or so and meeting our daughter for the first time on 5/13 or 5/14/07. May I just add one more thing? May 13th is Mother's day, and while I will be sad not to be able to spend it with Brandon (BTW he tells me it's O.K.!) it is turning out to be a most appropriate day to get our baby girl. WE ARE THRILLED. Stay tuned............

Ok, Ok Maria~Here you go!

Looks like I am getting some requests to post some more. I sure hope this isn't too boring!

For starters, our LOA was sent back to China on March 14th. Yay!!!!!! Now we wait for travel approval (TA). It appears that TA could come anywhere from 3 weeks to 6 weeks from March 14th. I personally think it will take about 4 weeks but one never does know......... When we get TA it is officially called our Letter of Invitation to travel. We will then receive the dates that we need to be in Hong Kong. All the travel arrangements are made by us. The agency will take care of booking the hotels. We will be staying in several hotels on our trip. Depending on where they have us flying in to (Hong Kong, Beijing) we will stay for approximately 2 nights in our arrival city, then travel by plane (China is freakishly huge) to Sydney's orphanage. We will stay in her hometown for close to 5 days or so and then we will have to make our way back down to Guangzhou (Guangdong Province), which is where the Consulate is. Everything will be finalized in Guangzhou. We will stay in Guangzhou for another several days and then make our way to Hong Kong for our departure. Lots of traveling but so many wonderful experiences I am sure!

We will definitely need our walking shoes as there are many tours planned and sites to see. This is all done by the ISS (International Social Services) staff in China. We have heard nothing but wonderful things about them and how they take such good care of you. We are gonna need it! Whooooo! Of course, if our sweet daughter is needing some extra TLC or we just don't feel like going anywhere we can also stay at our hotel, the choice is ours. I can probably safely say that although I am sure we will experiment when we can or TRY to be adventurous, our diet will mostly consist of KFC, McDonalds, and Pizza Hut. These are the three major fast food joints in China. Paul and I are pretty picky when it comes to food so we are hoping to lose a little weight on our trip. I know my belly is continually growing! I may be "paper pregnant" but they tell me it doesn't count and my belly should not grow. What do they know???

P.S. Kang Ling (Sydney) is in Shandong Province

It's a beautiful day! Letter of Acceptance came today!

Yes, it's true. Today was the day that we got the call from our social worker (the wonderful Sara) to let us know that our Letter of Acceptance (once again the lovely abbrev. LOA) came today. This is the letter that we sign our names to saying that yes, we DEFINITELY want to adopt Fu Kang Ling and make her a part of our family. It will be sent "overnight express" and then we will overnight it back to our agency and on to China it will go. Next step is receiving travel approval (TA). From the way it looks right now, we may not be traveling until early May because of the Trade Fair that takes place in China from 4/15-4/30/07 which we are hearing is a time in China that makes it almost impossible to get a hotel. We will keep you updated!
Today is a glorious day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Stay tuned.
P.S. Today was 84 days since LOI was sent (for all those fellow adopters who can truly appreciate this information)

Day 82 and counting............

Ok, thought it was time to give you all an update..............WE ARE GOING NUTS! It's getting a little more difficult every day that we have to wait to hear something but I will try my best to explain it. Today marks Day 82 since we have sent our Letter of Intent (LOI) to adopt Fu Kang Ling aka Sydney Rose. The average number of days it has been taking for other adoptive families who are adopting special needs (SN) children is right around 100 days from the time they send their LOI until they receive either a LOA (letter of acceptance) or TA (travel approval). Sorry for all the abbreviations but you would use them too! So you might say, well they are only 20 days or so away from getting their daughter.....? Well no. Not really. Here is just a short example of what we could be looking at until we get Sydney:

1) Receive LOA within the next 3 weeks

2) Sign LOA and send back to China

3) Receive TA about 3 weeks after that

4) Get travel dates, usually about 2-3 weeks later

5) Travel to China somewhere around 2nd week of May

(not our favorite option)

OR

1) Receive LOA within the next 5 days

2) Sign LOA and send back to China

3) Receive TA 2 weeks later

4) Get travel dates

5) Travel to China somewhere around mid-April

(one of our favorite options)

OR

1) Never receive LOA and just get TA within the next 5 days

2) Get travel dates 2 weeks later

3) Travel to China around March 30th

(a definite favorite option!)

The scary part is all of the above options are all distinct possibilities, every one of them. We just don't know. Sooooooo please hang tight with us as we try to get by these next couple of months. We know that God has a plan for us and it will be in His time. Prayers are accepted at this time, feel free to bombard Him with your prayers and if you feel the need to even beg a little, ga'head! LOL

We appreciate all the kind words, acceptance, and support from our family and friends.

Hold on Sydney, your family is coming for you.

Pics of Sydney's room