The Holidays

The visas have been in Virginia for a while now. Maybe they will be on their way back by the latter part of next week.

I find myself thinking about Ari frequently. How can you miss someone you have never met and has no interest in seeing you?

Visas

After the applications get to Virginia tomorrow (12/21) it will take about 10 days for the applications to be processed, and then a couple of days for them to return. Who knows over the Holidays, but it doesn't matter since it will take time for the Chinese Government to approve/setup appointments with our agency.

Looks like we can return to focusing on the Holidays and seeing family!

Visas in the mail

Last night and this morning Lora finished up all the application paperwork for our travel visas and I sent them off to a courier service named "Assistant Stork" with our passports, applications for visas, and of course, money for the chinese embassy and the courier. It's a great time to visit the Post Office and I highly recommend it. You have a lot of time to get to know other people just hanging out, standing in line, and enjoying the ambiance.

It is a little bit disconcerting just sticking your passport in a mailer and hoping it makes it. Apparently they are worth a lot of money in todays identity theft climate. Sure there is tracking, but so what if the tracking tells you it made it and nobody knows where it is. Yes they are replaceable, but again, that isn't real feasible given the short time frame.

Nothing to worry about, but a thought non-the-less.

LOA back to Small World

Lora took the LOA back to work and had FedEX come pick it up and return it to Small World by December 19th at 10:30 am. Apparently we were the last family to get ours back as they called to check on it.

Doesn't anyone work?

Lora's note: It wasn't a phone call. It was just an e-mail asking, "Did you mail it(LOA)yesterday or today?" Not a real finger-shaking, but enough to imply that ours was the one that had not arrived.

The LOA made it

The LOA document made it to our house. Lora is working today to get it back to Small World. Looking at the document, you had to choose one of two check boxes indicating if you still accept this child or not (yeah right).




The letter from small world talked about getting your Visa's going (which Lora has already been doing). Wait a minute.... the letter says to put an entry date of January 2nd. That has to be off by a few weeks!!

Wait?? What?? What does that mean?? LOA?

It’s an early Christmas Present!

Every time I see the initials LOA it makes me think of Leave of Absence. In this case, it means Letter of Acceptance. Our LOA was received in the United States and was sent via FedEx on Monday to our home address. It took about 70 days instead of the usual 100.

What does this mean?

1. Ariana is officially ours in the eyes of the Chinese Government.
2. The timeline has changed.
3. Serious panic is setting in!

We will be signing the letter and returning it to our adoption agency today/tomorrow. There are 3 other families that have received their letters as well. Once all the signatures are collected they will be sent in a batch back China.

In China, they will schedule appointments with the consulate and other agencies. These are fixed appointment dates and will determine when we travel.

We will be working on our travel visas. The visas need to be completed and state where we plan to be traveling (but not exact dates). The visas and paperwork have to be couriered (delivered by hand) to the Chinese Embassy in San Francisco or Washington DC, and then be picked up (by hand) and returned to us. This process will determine the earliest we can travel.

Typically this means we could be traveling in as few as 4 weeks, and as long as 8 weeks. It is totally outside of our control.

We expect to be in china from 14-21 days.

Once we know our appointment dates we will need to by plane tickets and do some serious packing. You are pretty much allowed 1 carry-on and one checked baggage per person. That’s not much space for the length of the stay and needing to provide everything for a young child.

We are still in a bit of a panic (the wife says I need to emphasize this more) with the revised timeline but trust we will make it through this process by the help of others. Depending on the moment we are hoping for a 4 week turnaround, and then in the next moment longer.

Stay tuned as we learn more.

Ariana

For clarification -- Ariana is pronounced Are-ee-ah-na. (No "airy" and no "anna.")

The name Ariana is from the Greek name Ariadne ("most holy", "Holy one"; Cretan Greek αρι [ari] "most" and αδνος [adnos] "holy").

That is the translation/orgin I find on most baby name sites. Some other origins found less commonly were:

Welsh: meaning silver
Latin: (aria) meaning melody or song
Persian: meaning Persian, nobility

Sī Jìng

This is what Sī Jìng looks like written in Chinese.

 In English, it translates to "Serenity." (Will be her middle name.)

See this post.

Almost A Birthday Girl Here

Sweetie

Getting Hooligan Trained Already

We don't really know, but I'm assuming this is a foster brother. It's good to know she's getting hooligan trained.

September 14

Shannon's birthday. :)

Big Smile!

Hepu

 

Happy Birthday, Little One

Every day now, waiting is hard since we've seen your little face. Today, you don't know it, but I'm thinking of you. Happy birthday.

We'll come to bring you home soon, and I'm so happy about that. It's hard to realize that while we're waiting for you, you are not waiting for us! I believe you're being well-loved right now, and while I'm anxious to bring you home, I'm also sad about how we're about to disrupt your little life.

I promise we will make everything all right again.

I've Been Waiting For This

 

Here is Si Jing's posting verifying, "I found my family!"
Too cool!

Here She Is!

 

Small World says that, having signed LOI, I can post the pictures! The mischief in that smile makes her look like she'll fit in just fine.

On The Suddenness Of This Referral

Anyone following our journey knows that the wait times for "healthy" or "non special needs" children from China is increasing . . . and increasing. On our home study, we were approved to adopt a child with no known special needs, or to adopt a child with special needs if we chose to do so. We have some expertise and knowledge of resources that we feel makes us a suitable family for a child who has special needs.

Parenthetically: This was a horrible decision-making process. Working with children who have special needs, on the one hand, I know very well that there is a CHILD behind every special need. I also know first hand, however, a lot of the difficulties that come with special needs. For every diagnosis I could think, "That would be too much for our (extremely active) family," I could also think of a child whom I care about who has that condition.

Being open to a child with special needs made our wait more unpredictable. We were in the long line at the CCAA, but we could potentially be matched by our agency with a child from their waiting child list at a completely unknown time.

I hoped - and knew it might not happen - that there would be a miracle and we would find our child in summer or fall 2008.

The call from our social worker to see if we wanted to review "Sophie's" file was unexpected, out of the blue, overwhelming. . .Wow. Of course, there was excitement, elation, amazement (and e-mails and multiple rapid-fire calls to all of Michael's numbers--pick up, pick up, pick up, you have a daughter!)

In the whirlwind of all these emotions, there were also the anxieties (some so laughably petty): We don't have room for another car seat! Gabrian is not ready to share his mommy! I don't have any vacation time. We can't afford COBRA benefits to take time off work. I have two CFY's to supervise; this is a very bad time to take off work. I thought we'd have more time to knock back some debt. Michael doesn't have his hepatitis shots done. And so on.

Then, I saw her name & its translation (Sophie is just the alias to keep her anonymity on the waiting child list). Si Jing. Si= think, consider. Jing= calm, still.

Psalms 46:10 - Be still and know that I am God.

So we will. Be still. And at peace. And wait. And be thankful.

Letter Of Intent

We signed our LOI at Small World yesterday afternoon! A copy gets faxed to China so that it can be translated. Then, when the original signed documents arrive, the translation is ready to go. Now we wait for the Letter of Acceptance.

Technically, China could review our care plan and decide that we're not a suitable family still. Thankfully, Kathy (at Small World) assures us that this never happens. All of our paperwork is in order, our care plan is good, and she (Kathy) personally knows (just spent 10 days in China with, in fact) the woman who will be reviewing our file. In the unlikely event that there were any questions about our dossier, "Jenny" at the CCAA will contact Small World and help us to clarify.

She's really ours!

We got our Travel Packet from Small World as well. (We won't travel until we have Travel Approval from China, but this is to start learning about how this works.) It's terrifying! There's a lot of paperwork on the way there, and on the way back. Even getting travel visas before we can go looks like it could be a big project. It's recommended that you take an accordian file to keep everything organized while you're in China, and the instructions are very thorough. I'm confident that Small World has all the bases covered. I'm NOT confident I'll remember it all. Perhaps I need to take the whole packet of instructions with me for daily reading!

We will spend 5 days (with Si Jing) in Nanning, the provencial capital of Guangxi. (Si Jing is from Hepu, in Guangxi province). Then we'll spend another 5 days in Guangzhou. Then home again to be a family of 7. . . Can't wait!

Oh -- Kathy and Janell at Small World estimate that we will travel in March.

I Think We Have A Daughter!

The social worker at our agency called and said there is a precious little girl in Guangxi Province who is waiting for a family, and they thought she might just fit in our home! Would we like to review her file?

Her name is Sī Jìng, and her birthday is 10/15/06. Although she is described as easy to comfort by hugging when fussy and as a good sleeper, she is also described as "active and restless" and with "quick reactions." Yes, she sounds like a Norton!

The next step is to develop a care plan saying we would like to adopt her and outlining how we will care for her. The paperwork we did last winter was general evidence suggesting that, in general, we would be suitable adoptive parents. This time, this round two paperwork will be supporting our assertion that we will be the right family for this specific little girl. She is going to need some extra care, and we feel we have the background and resources to offer it.

I don't know the exact timeline, but I'm hoping that we'll be going to bring her home in the spring 2008. :)

China Orphan Series from a College in Maine

News article:
http://www.sunjournal.com/story/223589-3/Advice/Mainers_on_global_mission/

Web site:
http://china.sunjournal.com/

Isn't This Guy Sweet?

"After reading your article, it reassured my conviction that I really have no sympathy for people who get scammed in the international adoption process ("The Adoption Scam," 5/23/07). First of all, international adoptions are nothing more than legalized human trafficking and black-market baby exchanges. Second, there are more than 1,000 children in Minnesota's foster care system alone, with at least 600 of those children waiting to be adopted (for free through the county or through Minnesota Children's Home Society), most over the age of six years old, so there is little reason to have to leave the state or country to adopt a child—unless, of course, your purpose is to adopt a white baby or you feel the need to ride the trend and adopt from eastern Asian countries so you can wear your child like an accessory. . .

--Craig Kohner
The City Pages
Minneapolis/St. Paul"

Choosing a Name

I think I have an idea of our daughter's Chinese name (though nothing definitive on her English name). See Choosing a Name post of April 22 for more information on this topic.

I think her Chinese name should be Wén Míng. Wén means "coloring on the clouds" or "colored clouds." Míng means "[1] bright; light; brilliant [2] day; daybreak; dawn; [3] intelligent; clever." So put together, it approximates a meaning of light or color on the clouds at sunrise. (Or intelligent/brilliant). She could use the English translation "Dawn" if she wanted. Dawn is a good name, isn't it?! :)
Having read that "it is very easy to make a bad Chinese name," I polled my resources. I sent the characters and my attempts at combining them and translating them to my friend Jen, who has been teaching English in China, asking her to ask her Chinese friends if this would be an OK name. I got an e-mail from a kind Chinese woman saying that the name is OK and that I am correct about the meanings. She wanted me to be aware that there is a homophone* for Wén Míng that means "cultivated." Also to keep it written in two parts (not Wenming or Wen-ming).

Then again, Michael could veto the whole idea. We'll see.

*homophone: the words are pronounced the same but written differently and have different meanings. In English -- bare vs. bear. In Chinese, same pronunciation, different characters.

Info on Wait Times 1

Again, from Yahoo China adoption groups:

This came from an agency rep. who attended the Joint Council on
International Children Services. Please know that the China Center
of Adoption Affairs (CCAA) has not given any of the following
information in writing, so unless otherwise indicated, the
information below is simply a collaboration of information from
adoption professionals throughout the U.S. who are currently working
with the CCAA:

1. There are currently 25,000 dossiers at the CCAA that have been
processed and are waiting to be matched with referrals.

2. There are only 400-700 kids' files being sent to the CCAA each
month. The CCAA has to wait on these files to be sent to them from
the Department of Civil Affairs in each province, and the Dept. of
Civil Affairs must wait on the files to be sent to them from each
respective orphanage.

3. The backlog is thus caused because there are more dossiers
waiting for referrals than there are available children's files
being sent to the CCAA.

4. Orphanages must file a tremendous amount of paperwork in order to
register one child for adoption. The paperwork is being done, but
not fast enough to keep the waiting period less than 18 months.

5. There are no longer specific orphanages that can send children's
files to Civil Affairs and then to the CCAA, any orphanage in China
is now permitted to send files to the CCAA.

6. The Chinese government is working to register more children for
adoption (who are deemed abandoned children and thus legally
available for adoption).

7. Regarding the new regulations that will go into effect on May
1st, 2007, China made the decision to implement much stricter
regulations because they want to decrease the wait for referrals.
They talked through many different ways to decrease the waiting
time, and they decided to tighten up the regulations to accomplish
their goal. They do not desire to cease adoptions altogether.

8. The CCAA has confirmed that the 2008 Olympics in Beijing will not
affect the adoption process at all.

9. The new regulations going into effect on May 1st are not
retroactive. This means that no dossier sent to the CCAA and
arriving there before May 1st will be reviewed according to the new
guidelines, however, the CCAA has already begun reviewing dossiers
with much more caution. It has recently become commonplace (amongst
all agencies working with the CCAA) for the CCAA to request
additional documentation regarding finances, medical conditions, and
various other items in the dossier. Dossiers submitted after May 1st will be under very strict review according to the given guidelines.

10. How long will the waiting times for referrals of non-special
needs children extend to? The CCAA refuses to predict waiting times
of any kind. Any timeframe given to any agency is approximate and
cannot be guaranteed.

Ni Hao, Kai-lan

I read in the adoption groups that Nick Jr. is making a preschool show "about what it's like to be bicultural in America, as seen through the eyes of an inquisitive 5-year-old Chinese-American girl" that "will be to Mandarin Chinese what 'Dora the Explorer' has been to Spanish." Conor, Cameron, and Gabrian have all loved Dora and Diego. It will be cool if Kai-lan is a character that they take an interest in as well.
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=591289

Choosing a Name

Most people in the online adoption groups, it seems, give an American first name and keep the Chinese name given by the orphanage as a middle name. This is meant to preserve her Chinese identity and show that you honor her background, etc.

I found a different perspective on an adoption blog, though, from Chinese parents who have adopted from China. They chose a new Chinese name for their adopted daughter because, "Even though [she] has a Chinese name, that name has no particular heritage other than that of the orphanage/city in which she was born."

It seems that children in a given orphanage will all have the same assigned "surname," and the nannies will choose a given name. In this respect, the names on their Chinese documents are actually a marker of abandonment, which would not be honorable to the Chinese, but in fact, would be considered very bad luck and emphasize that there isn't a family lineage.

Because of this, I like the idea of choosing a new Chinese name, as this family did. But I understand that it is nearly impossible for an ignorant American to do. (Check out this article:
http://www.chinasprout.com/html/naming.html) So maybe it's just a bad idea.

A Good Thing To Remember

"Patience is a hard discipline. It is not just waiting until something happens over which we have no control: the arrival of the bus, the end of the rain, the return of a friend, the resolution of a conflict. Patience is not waiting passively until someone else does something. Patience asks us to live the moment to the fullest, to be completely present to the moment, to taste the here and now, to be where we are. When we are impatient, we try to get away from where we are. We behave as if the real thing will happen tomorrow, later, and somewhere else. Let's be patient and trust that the treasure we look for is hidden in the ground on which we stand."
–Henri J.M.Nouwen

Mèi Mei

In response to questions: No, Mèi Mei is not the name of our daughter. Mèi Mei means "little sister" in Chinese. For the boys, "dà gē" means eldest brother. "Gē ge" means older brother.

A Picture is Worth 1000 Words. . .

This is a picture of "finding ads." That is, abandoned babies have ads placed, asking for their families to claim them, before they are classified as orphans. It is like a lost pet section in an American newspaper. This picture is from Brian Stuy, who has two very interesting web sites: http://research-china.blogspot.com/ and http://research-china.org/.

LID 3/2/07

On 3/19/07, we found out we have an LID. That is "Log In Date." It means that all of our paperwork has been translated to Chinese, reviewed, and accepted by the China Center for Adoption Affairs.
http://www.china-ccaa.org/frames/index_unlogin.jsp

It means it's official! No more worrying about the timeline or regulation changes. We're now expectant parents.

Now, we just stand in the long line at the CCAA.

Wait Times Table

At the time of our LID, wait time is 16.5 months. As you can see from the table, the wait time is increasing each month. China is processing 2 weeks worth of LIDs each month, so each month, they will be 2 weeks further behind if these same variables continue.

Wait Times Graph

This graph shows the steady climb in wait times. If the wait times hold steady at 16.5 months (most internet sources say that it is unlikely to stay that short, but we can still be hopeful. China has significantly tightened regulations and reduced the number of people who can qualify. Maybe that means fewer applications and faster processing), then we will receive information about our daughter approximately mid-July, 2008. If, however, they continue to climb at this rate, then we can expect to be waiting until mid-March, 2010.

Surprising Statement on Home Study

Michael says this is because we live in Elk, and they didn't find a meth lab in our home.

US Approval

We meet all of the requirements for the State of Washington. Now, we just hope we will meet all of the requirements of the People's Republic of China.