Referral Accepted

We received a referral late Monday night and had until Wednesday morning to decide if this was our little girl.  We accepted the referral for An A'li who is in Xi'an, ShaanXi, China.  Her birthday is August 21, 2008, so hopefully we will have her home before her third birthday.  We are very excited, overwhelmed, happy and scared.  We asked God to send us the perfect little girl and know that she is the one meant for us.  We will post pictures soon once our acceptance paperwork reaches China.

Wait, Wait, Wait

We are still waiting on our paperwork to make it to China.  After that, it should only be a week until we get our referral.  Hopefully, we will know who are little girl is in the next two weeks.  We'll keep you posted and put pictures up as soon as we have them.

I-800A Approved!

We just received the email stating that our I-800A application has been approved.  They have sent an electronic copy to our adoption agency and will send us a hard copy tomorrow.  I'm so excited!  Things actually feel like they are starting to progress and fall into place.  Continue to pray for us and for our sweet little girl.

Trevor told me yesterday morning that he woke up at 2 a.m. that morning and was starving.  It was the perfect opportunity to talk about how fortunate we are.  I told him "Just imagine what your little sister feels like right now.  She probably doesn't get enough food and she can't just grab something when she's hungry."  The boys are really getting excited about bringing her home.

Update

We completed our biometric fingerprinting at the immigration office in Birmingham on Monday.  Now we just wait for the FBI to approve them and then wait immigration to approve us to bring Katie into the country.  It's exciting to be one step closer.  I know summer will be here before we know it and I'll be fretting about getting her room ready and preparing for the trip.

We go back to Birmingham bright and early tomorrow morning.  The International Adoption Clinic is hosting a seminar on the joys and struggles of international adoption.  It should be very interesting and helpful for us to hear what the doctor and other presenters have to say on the subject.  We will also get to meet the doctor from the clinic, whom we will use to review our referral and who will also evaluate Katie when we return home from China.  We are hoping to receive a referral by February and will let everyone know as soon as we find our little girl.

It's Been Awhile

Our paperwork has been sent to immigration and we're waiting on our receipt to get our biometric fingerprints done.  A new list of children has been posted on the waiting children page of our adoption agency, but none of them actually meet our requests.  We're in a lull stage of the adoption and I'm actually quite frustrated right now.  Once again, I'm supposed to be learning patience, and I'm failing miserably.

Clearance Complications

Our paperwork cannot be sent to immigration yet.  Travis had to get clearance in Missouri as well as Alabama since he lived there when he was over the age of 18.  This clearance form has not made it back to Lifeline yet.  I'm extremely frustrated with this since it is putting us behind schedule.  Patience is not one of my attributes!

Forever Home

I was so excited to see that YunPing has been matched with a family!  I've been checking the waiting children's list to see who has been matched and she has found a forever home.  This was such a blessing to me since we had considered adopting her and have been praying for her.  She is such a precious child and I know that she will greatly bless a loving family.