Not Quite Sunk In

The group I'm in has seven doctors and four locations. We share rooms with people who are on alternate days. The rooms have photos of the families--grandchildren, children. I've spent eleven months saying, no those are not my children. When we got the referral photos, I made four copies and framed them nicely so I could add to the collection. I was so set to finally say, this one is my daughter. I finally got asked yesterday by the last patient of the day, and, yep, I said no, no children.

Unexpected Surprise

We recieved an email from our agency today with a notice from the CCAA in China (they are the government agency that does adoptions) that they have processed and accepted our letter of intent to adopt Julianna. We did not expect to receive notice of approval of our LOI because we had already submitted our dossier and had only expected to receive travel approval. Still waiting for that and still have the generic 90 day range. But none the less, it was nice to have this approval.

I have a couple of dresses I need to photograph and post. I cannot find the digital camera right now. Hopefully later today.

Thanksgiving Traditions

For the past four thanksgivings, Phillip and I lived in Madison, Wisconsin. My job did not consider the day after thanksgiving a holiday, which prevented us from traveling home. One of our favorite dishes for thanksgiving has kumquats in it, thus began our holiday tradition called "Hunting the Kumquats". We would start the Saturday before thanksgiving driving to all the grocery stores in Madison in search of kumquats. The game often carried over to the Wednesday before. We would scour the produce section, quiz the workers, shrug our shoulders and move on. After our first year, we began each subsequent years by starting at the place that we actually found them the year before. They never had them (must be some ordinance against carrying kumquats two years in a row). One place clearly thought they were table decorations because they had them in a little basket lined with pretty green paper. One basket, about 20 kumquats and that was it. No more in the store, but I did get a funny look from the stocker when I emptied the basket. This year, life was different. One store, one cruise through the produce section, no funny looks from stockers.

The last of our paperwork went to China today. Now we just wait for China to issue us travel approval. We spent the weekend in Pensacola. I was on call for the group there. We got to stay at a condo on Pensacola Beach. It was quite beautiful, but way too cold for swimming. We spent Saturday driving around P-cola in search of a rocking horse. Still unsucessful. We did see a table and chairs set that we liked, but they were out of it. Hopefully the Toys R'Us here will have it.

It is back to more paperwork on the adoption front. We have to do a nurturing plan for a waiting child adoption. We will send it to the agency in the morning for their review. Hopefully it will go to China shortly thereafter. Then we can start decorating her room in earnest. I have a lovely quilt that my grandmother made for me. I want to make curtains to match it. We are also trying to find a rocking horse. Julianna's paperwork said she liked to sit in the rocking chair and rock herself, so we thougth she might like a rocking horse. Phillip wants one that looks realistic--no blue plastic ones. Thus far we have not found any. Maybe as Christmas approaches.

Life changes quickly. Our adoption agency approved us to pursue the adoption of a particular waiting child on Thursday. They always caveat everything with "the CCAA has final authority", but we are very excited to have a child identified and to have a picture to memorize. Our agency asks that we don't post her picture until we do have final approval from CCAA. I guess it is a privacy issue to protect her. We don't mind, though, we can look at her lovely face while we wait for approval.

This is yet another pattern from AS&E. Phillip picked out the fabric. It is blue and red stars. It is very patriotic and will be the "coming home" outfit for our little American.

I had been planning out a post for when we were finally DTC, but in my excitement to finally hear from the agency, I posted something quick. My planned comment was this: After eight months of paper chasing, fifteen months since our first adoption seminar, twenty-two months since the last of the "baby work-up" and fifty-four months since deciding to have children, our paperwork is in China (at last). We bought the duck in Chicago after attending an adoption seminar about China adoption.

Happy Dance

I just heard from our adoption agency, we are finally and officially DTC 11/3/06!!!

Inching slowly closer

We received a confirmation email from our agency that the dossier was received. Our dossier consultant will review it and contact us by Friday about the review. Barring issues, it will be mailed at 5 pm on Friday.

This is another dress from AS&E issue 71. It is called "My Little Hen" and is a size 5.