3 years!!!!!!!

Say what!!!? You have got to be kidding me!!!!

Yes... Three years ago our Dossier was logged into the CCAA in China for our daughter KimberLei Anne, and maybe her twin. Surprisingly this was not the beginning of our quest for Kimi, as we call her around here. A year and a half earlier we had started a dossier for Kazakhstan requesting 2 unrelated children there... Alex and Kimi. Not long after our dossier was turned in and over there we received word that they had changed some rules and 2 unrelated children were no longer allowed... devastated, but sure we had a daughter somewhere else we felt God calling us to China. So we applied and about 4 months later, our dossier was sent to China July 19! Three weeks later it was "logged-in" giving us our Log-in-Date (LID). At that point the wait was only about 10 months until referral!!!! Who would have dreamed it would take sooooooo long to get her!!! Since then we have twice for the boys and we still think about Kimi everyday! Alex talks about her quite often and asks what she will do in certain situations, like where she will sit in the big bus grocery cart we take around the store... It's very sweet! Anthony has no clue and he is such a momma's boy that i think he may have a hard time when she comes home! Should be fun.

We are really looking forward to our trip there... we have already decided, as hard as it is... that we will most likely leave the boys at home Grandma and Grandpa. Then Jerry and I can focus on Kimi and not worry about taking care of Alex and Anthony all the time and making sure they are safe and all that goes with travelling abroad! We are excited to find out which province Kimi will be coming from and can't wait to visit and photograph her city and country.

We currently have about 139 days between our LID and the LIDs being matched now. So we are expecting to Travel within 2 years at the very most!! Hopefully about a year... but i will live with 2... *groan*

Today we received our 3rd I171h approval in the mail! We were very excited to see the piece of paper! So we are still ready... for the next year and a half!! We will have to do our fingerprints again next Spring...

I hope referrals come out again soon!!

Happy LID-versary to us!!

Dreams...

Seriously... I do not dream often, but last night I had the most wonderful dream!!! If only it would be true... I dreamed that we suddenly, surprisingly got our referral of Kimi!!! We were shocked and Jerry was somewhere and i couldn't get a hold of him, so i couldn't tell him and i couldn't keep it in so i had to call some friends to tell them! When i opened the email I couldn't believe how many pictures we got!!! oh... one freaky detail... we were living in China! So when we got the referral I drove over to the orphanage and visited her... well looked at her. It was only a 45 minute drive! The one thing missing was her birthday in the information! But she was little, very young and i was hoping that her birthday was sometime in the summer! She had the cutest face ever, of course, and had quite a bit of hair, BIG round Asian eyes, big cheeks, a round face, and cute little lips! She was just perfect... It was a shame I woke up. *sigh*

Well... it has been a few months since i wrote anything in here. We have applied, once again, for renewal of the I-171h. We had to get fingerprints taken from the state of Michigan for the homestudy and fingerprints for Homeland Security!!! Good Grief! Fingerprints are probably our most annoying part of the applications!! Everybody in the house had to get physicals because the doctors wouldn't write letters stating we were in good health unless we had them... So it cost us a fortune this time! I couldn't believe it! But at least we can stay "grandfathered in" by staying up to date. We are still waiting for the new 171h to come back, but it is a 3 month long wait for that and it was sent the first of May so... I am sure there is not a problem and it will come sometime soon-ish.

Also our Agency contact stuff has changed a little. We had signed a contract with World Partners, who partnered with Faith International for Chinese adoptions. WPA is no longer offering the Chinese program so I have been dealing with Carol at Faith International. I love her! She is very helpful and checks up on me to make sure I got everything done ok and if I need any help! Someday it would be great to meet her, although not likely, i guess, as they are located out in Washington state!

So China (CCAA) has referred LIDs through March 14 2006. Crazy huh? We are August 8, 2006 so if they keep this rate up... it will be another 2 and a half years!!!! however... this is unlikely since the numbers of people logged in after March start to decline. Apparently March was a really big month for people logging in. Also a lot of people have changed from the non-special-needs "line" to the special-needs list and many have already brought home their children. Which is awesome for them and kind of good for us left in the non-special-needs line too. For all the latest news, I check the "Rumor Queen"site at ChinaAdoptTalk.com. This lady reports on all the various rumors that people come across and tries to find information supporting the rumors or disproving them. The most important information to me right now is how many LID dates the CCAA refers every month-ish. So the people currently receiving referrals lately have been waiting about 39 months since LID. We have waited 34 months so far.



We are really hoping that we only have a year to a year and a half until referral! Oh!!! We can hardly wait to see who Kimi is going to be! We are wondering how she is going to be different from the boys, who are about as different as night and day most of the time! Dreaming about her is just so much fun!

Happy 2009!!!

Funny thing happen today... I opened the envelop with my truck's registration for the year in it... it is good until January 2010!!!! My goodness! My first thought... That may be the year we see our daughter's face! I soooooo hope! 2010. Crazy! I guess it is not too far off! Unless they keep giving referrals only a few days at a time... like this year... it took China the entire year to cover 2 months worth of Dossiers! If they keep that rate it will be Fall 2011 before our referral! *sigh* But i am praying for Christmas 2010!

Happy New year!