So, Some News

Grace emailed us the other day, and she said it looks like we are departing on January 11. There is still the possibility that it could move up a day or two. She said that she will have a definitive answer next week.

The CCAA has matched more families with babies, which is good news for everyone who is still waiting for their referrals.

We saw on one of the email lists that there are a few travel groups in Nanchang right now, and a whole bunch of the kids were from the Poyang orphanage. All of the babies are really healthy, and “there has been minimal grieving and mostly they just want to be held.” This is also very good news.

So, We Had The Shower

Nancy, Laura, and Kristen managed to put together an amazing baby shower for us in four days! The shower was on Friday, 12/7. We were so touched by the shower itself as well as the turn out! Once we get some pictures we’ll post them. Matt’s Aunt from CT made it down, as well as many friends from PA and NJ, many with over an hour drive, on a Friday night during the holiday season in the snow! We are just so blessed.

The Chinese food was perfect, there were red ribbons and balloons throughout the house. Nancy is currently working on a 100 wish quilt for Gracie, and I believe she will be contacting everyone who was invited to the shower to write their wishes on fabric scraps to be incorporated into the quilt! This is a long standing Chinese tradition, and we feel so fortunate to provide our baby with this very special gift. We also received Gracie’s stroller, car seat, tons of feeding stuff, clothing and a full library.

We just wanted to thank you all for the wonderful outpouring of love and generosity you’ve shared with us!

So, Still No Firm Date

December 4th was a bit of a tough day. After the mad dash to get all the last minute details together for our holiday trip to China, for the best present EVER, we found out that we will not be traveling until the new year.

Our travel authorizations came in yesterday, but arrangements with the US Consulate can’t be made in time to travel in December. No firm date, but they told us to plan on sometime between January 8th and 12th.

Well, the Christmas tree is already de-Christmastized, so this year will be a quite holiday, as we anticipate our delayed, but pending travel.

So, We Call The Agency

Over Thanksgiving, we found out that another agency received its travel authorization pretty quickly, and will be traveling to Nanchang in early December. This caused a flury of emails from our travel group.

Ang followed up with an email to our social worker, who was on vacation until today. This morning, I had to drop off some paperwork at the agency, and Angela wanted to followup.

At 12.30p, Angela got a call from our SW to let us know that both groups will be traveling in December! Right now we’re waiting to hear if we’ll be in the first group around 12/15 or the second group around 12/22…. Looks like we’ll be spending Christmas in China with our new daughter!!!

So, We Just Got Off The Phone With The Doctor

Angela and I just got off of a phone call where we reviewed Gracie’s translated medical records with a doctor who specializes in international adoptions.

The great news is that Gracie is very healthy. Her birth weight was on the low side by US standards, but her head measurement was good. Her detailed medical records were from when she was about three months old. The blood work was all normal, and her weight was at about the 50th percentile. The doctor said that she was “thriving”, even though the Chinese translation said she was “thriftily”. (Which had the three of us laughing through part of the call).

Our daughter is also doing quite well on her diet of “fruit mud and egg yolks…” Luckily, we found out that there is a Walmart in Nanchang (from another family who just returned), so we can pick up her formula there.

While we can’t be certain, the doctor told us to plan on her being in the 50th percentile for height and weight for when we get her. This means that she will be starting out in 9-15mo clothes and about 17lbs (at 9 months). Ang’s back is already killing her, just thinking about that (all the more reason to get the core muscles in shape…) Believe it or not, but that is actually more than Sparkles weighs.

So, We Have Our Travel Meeting

Our travel meeting was Saturday, November 17th. It seemed like an eternity from the initial email that we may be matched (on Thursday, November 1st), to the actual match on Wednesday, November 7th to our travel meeting. We had originally thought we would be receiving translations of Gracie’s story and medical records a couple of days following the referral. Much to our chagrin, we were later informed that it’s normally 2-3 weeks before the translation would be in, but they would try to have them for our travel meeting. For those of you who are not familiar with the process, please let me explain the significance of this really important meeting! The purpose of this meeting is to get the families prepared to travel to China to adopt their children. 25 of the 28 families that will travel to China were at this meeting. Some families traveled in from as far as Arkansas and South Carolina. Many others came from Northern NJ and all over Pennsylvania. The families have an opportunity to meet the people who will share in an amazing life-changing event. We had known that there were going to be two separate travel groups. Ours, (consisting of 15 families, one of which will be bringing home twins) will travel to the JianXi Province, and most of our girls are coming from the Poyang Orphanage. The other group has 13 families, and they are traveling directly to GZ for their journey. The other part of this meeting is for the agency to collect our passports and a variety of other paperwork that needed to be completed prior to the meeting. The agency will then handle our travel assignments (TA) and obtaining our visas. The whole meeting ran close to 5 hours, and we had to wait until the very end to get Gracie’s translated medical information and the overview of her short life to date! The waiting was torture! We also had to provide several checks to cover expenses for our hotel in Hong Kong, roundtrip airfare from Newark, NJ to Hong Kong and our departure bus ride from the famous White Swan Hotel back to the Hong Kong Airport. (As an aside, the White Swan is a very well known hotel in China adoption circles. This is the hotel where all the new forever families stay as they wait to finalize their adoptions with the American Consulate.)Our expectation had been that we would leave the meeting with a fairly definitive idea of when we would be traveling to China. What we were told was that probably one of the groups would be traveling in December- it was thought around December 22^nd. Then, there is a 7 day holiday in China where all government offices are closed from 1/1 through 1/7. This is a bit of a challenge, since everyone we need to meet with works for the Chinese Government! The second travel group will travel in January, possibly as early as the 5^th, since a couple of days are dedicated to travel. We got to have dinner with several of the families from our group following the meeting. We feel very privileged to have several families that live locally!

So, Angela Refreshes The FedEx Website

Angela’s Perspective

I had called our social worker, Joan Kim on Monday 11/5/07, after we confirmed through the CCAA website that matches had been made through December 08, 2005, and that our referral for Gracie was on it’s way! Joan told us that we should have IT in hand Tuesday or Wednesday. Tuesday at 4.30p she confirmed that we wouldn’t be receiving the package that we’ve waited oh, so long for yet another day. At 11am, I was provided with the tracking number, and I hunkered down next to my computer, hitting refresh oh, every three or four seconds on the FedEx website tracking page. At 1.50pm on November 7th, WE RECEIVED OUR PACKAGE! I ran home as fast as I could… record time from Manyunk to Havertown, about 14.3 minutes… (approximately). Anyway, I got the package, and per my previous agreement with Matt I opened the package, saw our baby’s photos and cried. I called Matt immediately! He told me to get back to work and scan the photos on the good scanner and email him ASAP. As I was looking over the adoption agreement, (half in Chinese and half in English), I found one other note in English from our agency. After waiting two years, we had about 4 hours to sign the agreement (we had to coordinate a meeting at Kinko’s in Wynnewood) to both sign the agreement, make copies and fed ex back to NYC for the next morning… I had one of my co-workers from Hong Kong, give us a quick translation of Gracie’s story and her growth at the orphanage. The hardest part was watching Wicky read the report and chuckle, while waiting for him to tell me, and then I could call Matt!

Anyway, we signed the paperwork, and made FedEx just in the nick of time. The travel meeting is November 17th- hopefully, we’ll have a definitive travel date at the meeting. Our best guess with what we’ve heard from other families that have been through the process is that we’re looking at traveling mid to late January.

Matt’s Perspective

Coming soon.

So, We Check the CCAA Website

The agency was right, the CCAA has placed more families, and we are included in the new bunch.

Angela calls the agency, and they tell us we should be getting our paperwork Tuesday or Wednesday.

So, We Check Our Email

So, we check our email today, and there is a note from the agency. They have unofficial word that the CCAA has matched families with LID dates up to 12/8/2005. We are 12/7/2005. Based on the history of matches the last year or so, we don’t know what to really expect.

Angela’s Perspective:

I’ll let Angela write this. The agency emailed both of us at our personal email addresses, but Angela happened to check hers first.

Matt’s Perspective:

OK, I was having my normal day at work. Even though we had an update from the agency, we didn’t really expect to be matched with this batch of referrals. About 96% of the day I am in front of my computer with easy access to my work phone, cell phone, email, and IM. The other 4% reflects time when I have to leave my desk for one reason or another.

I work in one of the original parts of the city, and our office building is about 300 years old. Inside, much of the original floor plan is still intact, and the office has the feel of a residence. We use interoffice phone and IM for simple communication, but at this particular moment I had to go over to other side of the office to talk to someone. It just happened that Angela called my desk, and I wasn’t there, so the call rolled over to the main number and someone else picked up. The conversation was pretty short, and I was quickly back at my desk.

Pretty soon after I sat down, Tom came by my desk. I am not sure what exactly she told him, but Tom told me that Angela was on the phone and that it was very important that I talk to her immediately.

I pick up the phone, say “This is Matt”, and Angela says “We’ve been matched.” Needless to say I was speechless. No, I really mean that I was speechless. I didn’t know what to say. That whole day is still a blur, but I made out that the agency emailed us that we should be expecting our match next week. Angela also tells me that I left my cell phone at home.

At this point, I want to call my mom. There is no real privacy anywhere in the office and my cell phone is on the dining room table, so I ask to borrow Steven’s cell phone. He kinda overheard the conversation, but doesn’t say anything. I go outside, and call my mom and tell her the news.

After I call my mom, I spent some “alone time” thinking about everything. Words can not describe what I felt. I don’t use this term lightly. After the long wait, shock was pretty high on the list; it just didn’t seem real. The other side of the picture was the sense of joy that you only experience a few times in your lifetime. The combination of shock and extreme joy was overwhelming.

I finally make my way up to my desk. I tried to gather everyone in the office together to make an announcement in person, but people were scattered in meetings and on the phone, so I compose a quick email and send it out to the team.

Right after I clicked “Send,” Tom comes over to my desk to ask me something. Now, Tom is a project manager (and a very nice guy), and unfortunately takes the brunt of most of my blunt responses. I don’t remember what he asked me (I think it had to do with a schedule update), but my response was “I really don’t care right now.” I think I may have added an adjective in there. Tom smiles, and walks back to his desk.

Two minutes later, he walks back to my desk and says “Congratulations.”