Little bitty pretty one

Today was a very productive day! We received our fingerprint appointment notice from USCIS yesterday.  The appointment was for 11/3 but people often walk in and ask if they can get their appointment early so that's what we did today.  My excuse was that the appointment time was for 8:00 which is too close to when I drop the kids off at school.  My real reason was that I want to get to my baby ASAP!  They allowed it and now we wait for the approval and pray that it comes really quickly.  The other thing that happened is that we received our dossier documents that I sent to Austin to be certified at the Secretary of State, so I did a quick turn around and sent them off to a courier in Houston, who will take them to the Chinese consulate to be authenticated.  I'm a bundle of nervous energy.  I go between being absolutely thrilled that we're nearing the end of working on our dossier and being extremely tense that it is out of my hands. I'm mostly both...super excited and super tense! I'm praying that God will protect every single precious piece of that dossier!  If only Charlotte had any idea how hard we are working to get her home!

Last week, I asked the director of Charlotte's foster home how big she is.  Well, she's not...big, that is. She is teeny tiny!  She is about 28 inches and 18 lbs.  Her big brother, Ethan, is always off the growth charts because he's so big.  Well, Little Miss is off the charts tiny!  She's not even on the charts!  The good news is, she's proportionate and is growing consistently.  She's just a little bitty thing!  Oh my word, all of the clothes I have been buying are way too big!  It's so hard for me to buy smaller sizes than her age!  I can't quite comprehend this.  Ella and Ethan always wore larger sizes than their age...like at age 2, Ella was in a 3 and Ethan was in a 4/5!  Liana has always worn about the right size for her age, maybe a bit smaller.  I'm probably still buying clothes that will be too big but they're smaller now.  Of course when we received the update on her size, we also received some adorable pictures!  So here they are:

Jammies!

Getting there!

I'm feeling pretty excited today! Since we had to wait so long for our social worker to write up our home study, I started feeling frustrated.  The wait for our adoption agency to approve home studies has been 2-3 weeks lately so I settled in for the wait but 6 days into our wait, BOOM! APPROVED! Thank you, Holt!!!  I think they might have made us a priority because we're under a deadline.  Because we are already matched, we have 6 months from when we submitted our LOI (Letter of Intent) to having our dossier in China and logged in.  It's just a guess but I think they probably prioritize the families who are under this deadline since we have no time to waste. Who knows?! Maybe we just got lucky! So our social service agency had to sign it and notarize it and it got to us today.  As soon as it got here, I packed it up with our I-800A application and some other documents that needed to be included, and a decent sized check, and shipped it off to USCIS.  It will be there tomorrow and then we will wait for fingerprint appointments to come in the mail. 

In the meantime, we are doing really well on our dossier! Today, we ran down to the police department to get clearance letters stating that we have no criminal record. We already had to do an FBI background check and get fingerprinted for our home study.  And then we will be fingerprinted again for our I-800A so we will have had some form of a background check four different times!  Oye!  Good thing we have nothing to hide!  We will hopefully get the rest of the documents for our dossier finished and notarized in the next couple of days so I can send them off to be certified and then off again to be authenticated.  I want to get all of the dossier minus the I-797 (which is actually the approval of the I-800A) completely finished and waiting at Holt so that I can put a rush on the I-797 when it gets here to get it certified, authenticated and together with the rest of our documents at Holt. Can you tell I'm in a rush to get to Charlotte?!

On a cute note, Ella is always finding every chance she can to tell people that she is adopting a little girl from China. :-) She told me that in writing class, they have to write about something that they are looking forward to and she said, "I'm going to write about Charlotte so that my teacher and whole class will know that I'm adopting Charlotte!" Oh my gosh, I love her!

I'm just going to randomly post pictures of Charlotte on here. We have a bunch so instead posting a ton at once, I'll share some in each post to make it more fun. Here is today's dose of cuteness. :-)

And from our video chat

Paper Pregnant

Some people refer to adoption as being "paper pregnant". I guess I will take that term.  We're definitely "expecting" but in a much different way than through a pregnancy.  Ugh, the paperwork.  Yeah, paper pregnant fits.

We are currently waiting for our home study to be approved. Our social worker just emailed it to our social service agency who will approve it and then email it to our adoption agency who will also need to approve it.  Once it has been approved by Holt, it will be signed, notarized, and sent to us.  Then we will send it off to USCIS with our I-800a application and wait for a fingerprint appointment.  This is all for US Immigration to approve us adopting, basically. So anyways, those are the next steps.  While we wait on this, we will be finishing up all of our paperwork for our dossier, getting everything notarized, sent to the state capital to be certified, and then sent off to the Chinese embassy in Houston to be authenticated.  Got all that?! ;-) Ah yes, the paper chase. Such fun! Ha.

In the meantime, we are super blessed in where our little girl is.  She is living in a group foster home  and because it isn't her orphanage, we are able to be in contact with the director of the foster home and she is just wonderful! We are able to ask her questions about Charlotte whenever we want to, ask for pictures, and even VIDEO CHAT! We have gotten so many more pictures in the short time we've known about her than we did of Liana the entire wait.  And this last Monday, we were able to video chat with her!  It was AMAZING!!! She stared at us like, "Who are these weird looking people and what are they so excited about?!" It was so wonderful to see her precious little face! She walked around the home with the director as they showed us where she sleeps and the play room filled with toys and her friends.  In almost all of her pictures, she is on the floor playing or walking around.  It is clear, she isn't stuck in a walker or a crib all day.  She is actually able to be a kid and play!  It's fantastic!  I couldn't ask for a better situation for her while she waits to join her family!

I had said in my last post that I would talk about how the kids reacted to us adopting Charlotte.  Well, before we knew we were going to move forward with adopting, while I was just obsessing over her picture, Liana saw me looking at the picture and commented on the "cute baby".  Then, I saw her looking at her own hair like she was comparing it to Charlotte's and I could tell she was thinking, hey, same color! Then she said something about Charlotte's skin being a different color and I told her that yes, it's paler but hers was the same way when she was little, before we adopted her because she wasn't out in the sunshine all the time back then.  Then we talked about how they both have pretty, brown, almond shaped eyes.  It was cute to see her thinking, that's someone who looks a bit like me.  When we told the kids about her, we were still at South Padre and we showed them her picture and told them we were going to adopt her.  They were sooooo excited! Ethan was so cute because after a few minutes, he had this realization that he would be the only boy with THREE sisters and he kind of groaned and said, "I'll be the only boy!"  He wasn't really upset though.  A few weeks later, I had to take the kids for well visits at the doctor and told them that we would have some papers filled out by the doctor for the adoption to say that they were all healthy enough to have another sibling join the family.  Ethan said, "Thank you, Mommy, for letting us adopt Charlotte!" My heart melted! Sweet, sweet boy! <3 Liana is very happy that she will have a Chinese sister and tells everyone that we are going to China! Her teachers keep asking me about it because she tells them we're going this weekend...every weekend. :-D Silly girl.  Ella is thrilled about Charlotte and just can't wait to go and get her! She likes to text her friends pictures of Charlotte, in true tween fashion. ;-)

Overall, things are going great and we are so pleased to be back on the adoption road with all of it's twists and turns because we know that this sweet face will be waiting at the end for us:

HUGE NEWS!

It has been soooo long since I have written a post on here, I'm not sure I remember how to do this! But, we have HUGE NEWS so I need to get my mad blogging skills back! What? What, you ask, is the huge news?! Well...we're ADOPTING AGAIN!!! I know, we're crazy, and I never dreamed that we'd be adopting again.  Well, on our good days, maybe the possibility popped into my head but I usually quickly abandoned that thought as things were really tough for a really, really long time. While you can't exactly have an oops adoption like you can have a surprise pregnancy, I think this one is as close as we could come.  So how did this all come about? Well, we saw her face and just...that was it.  I have an account on Rainbow Kids, which is a website to advocate for children who need families.  I still receive emails from Rainbow Kids with photos of children and I usually delete the emails before I even look but occasionally I look at them, out of curiosity. So I looked at this one email and there she was, this adorable little girl in China. I had to log in to my account to learn more about her and when I did, I saw that this almost 15 month old little cutie was listed with Holt, who was our adoption agency for Liana. Well, of course, we love Holt so this had me even more interested but adoption wasn't on our radar, at all, so I casually showed Erik her picture and then tried to forget. Buuut, the next day, I, again casually, emailed Holt for more information.  I confessed to Erik and then anxiously tried to gauge his reaction to this.  He was amazingly calm about the whole thing. Typical. We're seriously opposites in a lot of ways. No wonder I love him so much! So we waited to hear back from Holt. It was a Sunday so we had to wait until Monday. They emailed me back telling me to call them if I wanted more information. So I did and had a great talk with one of the China staff.  We had to apply but didn't have to pay the application fee (yet) to get access to this little one's file if we were really only wanting to find out about this specific child. We were ONLY interested in this child and if it didn't work out with her, I didn't know that we would be moving forward with adopting at all.  So they let us apply and we received her file. There were more pictures and a lot of information (way more than we had ever received for Liana) and even one video. I quickly contacted a doctor at an international adoption clinic to review the file for us. It was too late for me. I was a goner.  Erik, being the more sensible one, did the best he could to keep my feet on the ground and make me wait for the call from the doctor before telling Holt that we wanted to move forward with adopting her.  Ugh. So we waited. Luckily, he was able to call us the next evening and he was reassuring about what he learned from her file. She has a number of special needs, including a repaired cleft lip, unrepaired cleft palate, a PFO (minor hole in her heart which was one of Liana's special needs), and an extra finger on one hand. We didn't learn anything unexpected from his review so we knew that we were ready to give Holt the go ahead. When I had first spoken with the staff on the phone about her file, I was told that if there were more families interested in adopting her, a decision would be made by the matching team. On the one hand, we have access to world renowned medical specialists for all of this little one's special needs, we are an experienced adoptive family, and we have experience dealing with special needs. But on the other hand, they also take into account how far along families are in the adoption process and we were at step zero.  I heard back from Holt that they were pleased that we wanted to move forward with adopting her and they sent us a questionnaire to fill out about our family and, basically what we know about adoption, and how children are affected by having been institutionalized, etc.  They said that they would use it to make a decision in their matching meeting on Monday. In the middle of this crazy week, by the way, we went on vacation.  We, luckily, took our computer, realizing that now we were in the middle of (maybe) beginning another adoption. So, while everyone else slept, I filled out the questionnaire in great (probably too great) detail.  We were staying at a water park and on Monday, I was nervous that we would miss the phone call so I bought a waterproof case/necklace thing so that I could carry my phone while we played at the water park.  I got the call while I was riding on an inner tube on the lazy river so I baled off and trudged up "river" to a set of stairs leading out of the water.  Of course, I missed the call.  So I called back but got their voicemail.  ARGH!!! I told Erik to keep having fun with the kids while I waited for them to call back. After waiting a while, we gave up and headed back to the hotel and THEN the phone rang while we were walking back so I sat off in a quiet corner and finally was told that by unanimous decision, they chose US to be her family!!! Okay, we were the only family in the running, but still!  So, after this ridiculously long and probably boring to anyone but me (and my mom...ha!) story, here it is, the exciting part...introducing our newest (soon to be) daughter, Charlotte Jing Yi!



She is 16 months old and isn't she precious?! I have heard some adoptive parents say that they saw their child on a photo listing and they just knew.  I never really believed that that could happen to me because, I mean, if you look at those photo listings, the kiddos are so adorable, how can you just fall in love with one?? But, it did happen to us.  There was just something about Charlotte that just, I don't know how to explain it, she just got into my heart and I couldn't get her out of my head. And Erik was on board almost as instantly as me. I think he was struck by her just like I was! That face! That smile! Those eyes!!!  I still can't explain that feeling exactly, I'm still so shocked myself!

So we jumped into the adoption process head first and we are doing really well! We have all of the paperwork for our home study done and had our first home visit on Monday.  We have our next one next Tuesday and Erik doesn't even have to be here for it.  Our social worker is so great! Sadly, we have a different social worker than last time but we love her already.  She said that she will be able to get our home study written up early in September!! We are well on our way in our paper chase for the dossier too.  It's going faster this time around because, well, we've done this before.  It's overwhelming again, but not nearly as much as the first time around!  I'm super anxious, just like last time.  I don't think that goes away. It's so exciting starting the process being matched with a child but it also makes you more anxious to get there ASAP!!!  She's waiting for us! Well, I think that is more than anyone felt like reading for the first post.  Sorry for all of the details of the process.  It's probably boring but someday Charlotte will read this and I won't remember every exciting detail of that first crazy week of learning about her.  I want her to know the whole story! :-) So, the blog is waking up after a long hibernation and I will write more soon about the kids' reactions and share more pictures! But for now, I'll leave you with just one more. Aww... :-)

Long time, no write

I have been dismally failing at the blog lately.  I'm just done, I think.  I always only planned on doing this until Liana had been with us for one year but then she had her surgery coming up and I wanted to cover that.  This is, after all, Liana's story and that was a pretty big deal for a teeny, tiny girl.  So, since her surgery, a month ago, she has done really well.  She came home a couple of days after her surgery and just jumped back in to playing like nothing had happened.  Honestly, I was so exhausted and she was so energetic, I was beginning to wonder which of us had the surgery.  It was a little rough in the beginning because she couldn't have any food for a while.  We had been told that she could have soft things, like small pasta, but we quickly learned that she could not.  First attempt at macaroni and cheese led to her retching in a restaurant, which was very scary for her and us.  We knew that she was okay but she didn't know what was happening and it scared her.  So we were back to liquids for quite a while.  Having the nissen fundoplication, her esophagus is tighter than the normal esophagus.  She can't burp or throw up.  That's just how it is.  But right after surgery, it's swollen, of course, and much tighter and, as her surgeon explained to us, being her second time having this surgery, it was even more swollen so it took a while for that swelling to go down.  But gradually it did.  She had to learn to take smaller bites and to chew, chew, chew her food.  We can tell when things start to get stuck in there.  She doesn't panic anymore, just waits and drinks something and waits some more.  When the food is down, she shrugs her shoulders and smiles and moves on with eating her food a little more carefully.  She can be such a tough girl.  She is our little drama queen a lot of the time, who will cry over nothing and we will tell her to shake it off, and she does.  But, I swear, when it comes to the big things, she is so tough!  Erik called it her survivor side and I think that is a perfect way to explain it.  She handles the things that would be tough for anyone with such amazing strength.  It's just in her, this survivor side.  Some people have it and some people don't.  Liana just does. She's been through a lot in her tiny life, things that most of us can't even imagine having to go through.  Yet she smiles through it all!  Life can be rough and has been for this little one but she handles it with such strength.  It's amazing how you see qualities in your children that you admire and want to learn from yourself!  I have seen qualities in all of my kids that I would love to have myself!  They are amazing little people who teach me things every day!

 Spoiled by family!  Thank you Uncle Tim and Auntie Carri!!

 

Thank you Grammy and Papa!

 

Going home!

 

Back at home and ready for fun!

 

Special gifts for all of the kids!  Thank you Char and Wes!



Surgery and the day after

Liana's surgery was yesterday.  We woke up bright and early and rushed over to the hospital, with Ella and Ethan in tow.  As we waited, Liana was her super friendly self, teasing and calling everyone who came into the room "baby."  Silly girl!  Her surgery took about 2 1/2 hours and it went really well!  This surgery usually takes about an hour or so but the doctor had warned us that it would take longer since it was her second one.  It's just a bit more complicated.  He was able to do it laproscopically, which was a relief.  Liana was pretty sore and tired yesterday.  She wanted nothing to do with anyone, except for family.  She cried any time the nurses came near her and gave her doctor the stink eye when he came to visit.  Any time she cried, her oxygen levels went down but she never had to be given any oxygen because she always calmed down once the nurses left.  Her poor little throat was so sore from having a breathing tube during her surgery.  She wasn't able to drink anything but she could have ice chips, which was an amazing relief!  She did manage to sit up and even walk a little yesterday!  The amazing girl even managed to let us know when she needed to use the potty and sometimes even walked to it herself!   I was afraid to pick her up until she cried and cried, "Mommy" over and over and her oxygen levels got really low but when I picked her up, she calmed down right away and back up went her levels.  It made me so happy that I can be there for her but it also made me so sad, again, that the first time she had this surgery, she had no mama to take care of her.  She had to be by my side most of the day, preferably in my arms.  It melted my heart.  She would get so sad if I even tried to sit on the couch and if I went to the bathroom, forget it!

Today has been fantastic!  She woke up in a great mood!  When the cleaning lady came in this morning, Liana started smiling and being silly and called her "baby."  Oh boy, this girl is such a tease!  The nurses today were warned by last night's nurses that she is afraid of them but today's nurses have seen none of it!  She is smiley and chatty and playing peek-a-boo with them.  She's a totally different child!  She also got to play!  It is good for her to walk because she needs to get the air out of her tummy and walking helps so we walked to the playroom this morning and she hopped right on a big wheel and started scooting all around!  I could hardly keep up with her as I drug her IV all around the play room.  We had to keep telling her to slow down!  She is now on a liquid diet and has had some apple juice and a popsicle.  Later, she might even get to have some pudding or a milkshake!  If she continues to do well and not have any issues with her diet, she may even get to go home tomorrow!!!  So far, so good!  She's been unhooked from the machine that monitored her heart rate and oxygen levels and hopefully will be taken off of the IV soon.  The doctor even told the nurses to not check her vitals at night so we can actually get some sleep, bless him! 

I am just amazed at the strength of our little girl!  I had no idea that she would be riding a big wheel less than 24 hours after having surgery!  I can't believe how she's back to being her charming, sweet and spunky self so soon!!  This experience is just reminding me all over again how blessed we are to be her family!  I am so happy to get to be the mama to this wonderful child!

 

Being silly before surgery

 

Poor, sleepy girl

 

 

She did manage to smile for me after she got her ice chips (and some morphine)!

 

 

Battle wounds- 4 in all, 1 in her belly button.  Ouch!

 

Play time!

 

 

"Though she be but little, she is fierce" -William Shakespeare

Redoing the fundo

We had Liana's appointment with the surgeon today.  They called last week to reschedule and we actually ended up able to come in 3 days sooner so we were happy about that.  It turns out that Liana definitely needs surgery.  Her hernia isn't just a hiatal hernia anymore, it's a paraesophageal hernia.  With a nissen fundoplication, the curved part at the top of the stomach is wrapped around the esophagus.  That part of her stomach ended up misshapen when the nissen came undone and actually went up through the diaphragm right next to her esophagus.  There is risk that it could wrap around the esophagus.  So we're off to redo the nissen fundoplication, or fundo if you're hip to the GI lingo.  Haha.  She's having her surgery one week from tomorrow.  Yikes.  She will have to stay in the hospital probably 5 days, maybe less depending on how she is doing.  Her surgeon was great and really knows what he's talking about so that was a comfort.  I had a whole list of questions but he had already answered most of them.  I feel a little overwhelmed but ready.  We're glad to be having the surgery done so soon.  So please pray for this little cutie that everything will go smoothly and recovery will be quick!