LINK TO OUR JOURNEY TO JILLIANA

LINK TO OUR JOURNEY TO JILLIANA
CLICK ON JILLIANA'S PHOTO TO FOLLOW OUR JOURNEY TO CHINA

Friday, March 31, 2006

RETAIL THERAPY

I Have been advised by some people in my June DTC group (and you know who you are) that the best therapy for this wait is, RETAIL THERAPY. So after many months of saying I would wait until my referral to buy clothes for Emma, I broke down last month and bought her a cute lady bug jumper and shirt. Of course at Gymboree they have this thing called Gymbucks. Basically it is very smart of them. You come back on the set days that Gymbucks are good for and you get $25 dollars off every $50 dollars you spend! And then they get you back again by giving you a coupon for April 13th. I still won't have my referral then, so again I will be guessing sizes. So I had to go back and this is what I found. They are not shorts, but capris. And since we don't know Emma's size, I got 6-12 month and 12-18 month! They are so cute! Thanks Diane!

Thursday, March 30, 2006

REFERRAL PICTURES

When we get our referral picture it might look something like this. We will post Emma's picture to our adoption website, www.pomafamily.com, here, and at our Yahoo DTC groups referral sites. They are listed on the right, but for some reason I cannot get the link to my June Jitterbug site to work so I will post it here and see if the link works. If you would like to see some of the babies picture's that have been referred from my April Panda, Mei Dreamers and June Jitterbugs here are the sites. They are all beautiful! Enjoy! http://www.geocities.com/aprilpandas/index.htm http://www.geocities.com/meidreams2005/referrals.html http://junejitterbugs2005.homestead.com/index.html just click on referrals! Yeah! from some unknown place in my brain, I was actually able to figure out how to make my June Jitterbug site work in the links. I don't know how I did it, but sometimes I actually amaze myself!

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Finally the CCAA site is updated!

Here it is, the OFFICIAL word! The referrals will only cover until May 30! Three days of LID!

Monday, March 27, 2006

CCAA site back up with no change!!

I really don't know what to THINK. Now the CCAA site is back, but with no change! I don't think I will ever figure this out! Maybe God is telling me something! There is nothing to figure out! He is in control! I need to give the control over to him and he will take care of everything! The CCAA has finished the review of the adoption application documents registered with our office before August 31, 2005. The CCAA has finished the placement of children for the families whose adoption application documents were registered with our office before May 25, 2005.

CCAA site is down!

Web Site Not Responding The web site you have requested may be experiencing technical difficulties due to a busy or broken server. Please try again by clicking the Reload icon on your navigation bar or, if that doesn't work, you may want to return to the site at a later time. 502 Connection Hangup This is the message that we think we like to get when visiting the CCAA website. It means either there is a problem with the website or (what we really hope for) that they are making a change to update their site, ie: Change the dates that they have sent referrals for. Right now the CCAA site is not responding, so the hope is they are updating to say that referrals have been sent for dossier's received before May 30. But, what I really want it to say is that referrals have been sent for dossier's received before June 2. This is not going to happen this month, but hopefully next month!

Thursday, March 23, 2006

APRIL FOOLS!

I just want someone to tell me this is all a big April Fools Joke! I don't understand! Mike called and talked to our adoption agency last night and although they do not have the "official word" yet, they also have heard this and expect that it will be true! I think they are just as shocked as we are. Never have they only done 5 or 6 days of referrals. It looks like it will only go until May 30 or 31. Most people are saying May 30. So if it is May 30 we missed it by two days. Our LID is June 2 and there were no LID for June 1. My biggest worry now is, WHAT IF THEY ONLY DO ONE DAY next month? It is possible. Look at this month. We never expected them to do only 5!!! And the rumor (oh, I am getting tired of these, but I need them!) is that there are over 400 dossier's on May 31!!!!!! Please tell me this is all a sick April Fool's joke!!!!!!!!

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

LOOKS LIKE IT IS TRUE!

It looks like the Spain rumors are true. There is no official word yet from the CCAA or my agency, but many agency's are now reporting this. Needless to say I am devastated.

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

It can't be true!!!!! Today, the people from Spain are posting a rumor that the next referral's will only cover until May 30th!!!!! I cannot believe this! I don't know how much more I can take of this. I know after I sit and think about this I will see a way to handle this if it is true. I know that God will not give me more than I can handle, but at this moment my heart is breaking and there is a huge lump in my thoat and I feel like throwing a temper tantrum! I never even thought that there would be a possibility of us missing a referral this month! I have been so confident that we would be next! The only thing I can say is that Spain was WRONG last month and like I said before, rumors are rumors and we really won't know until the CCAA posts the dates on their website.

Monday, March 20, 2006

RUMORS!

This is usually about the time that we start to get rumors about when referrals will come and to what LID (Log-in-Date) they will cover. The rumors are just that, rumors. The CCAA will post on it's website when the referrals have been sent. Up until then it is just a guessing game. Some agencies profess to have an inside scoop at the CCAA, but I think that some of these rumors come from when an agency has a need to talk to the CCAA and they let something slip. We also get rumors from other countries. Spain has been a big one for rumors. In the past they have been right, but the last few months they have been off. So....with that said, there was a rumor today that all of the June LID's would get referrals and they would come the end of March, beginning of April. I would love for all of June to be covered, but I just don't see that happening based on the past few months.

Glamis Weekend!

Here we are at our weekend at Glamis! I am the one by myself. Mike is the one on the red Honda motorcycle. This was our little diversion to keep our minds off of waiting for Emma. We hope to hear something, at least a rumor, by next week! We had a really fun weekend with all of our friends! I think there were up to 20 motorhomes in our group!

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

MAGNOLIA

Today I received the "Magnolia" doll I ordered for Emma. She comes with a tag that says,"There is a Chinese Legend that says when a child is born there are invisible red threads connecting her to all the important people in her life, and as she grows these threads become shorter, drawing her closer to these special people... " When you look in Magnolia's pocket, there is a red thread that has been personally selected by a Mom when she went to China to meet her third daughter. When she chose the thread, she said a prayer of blessing for all little children waiting for their "forever family". Magnolia has an embroidered red-thread heart that is a symbol of the love that blossoms in the heart of each parent. I am so ready for Emma's referral. Time seems to be creeping along. I imagine at this very moment our picture and her picture are sitting on a desk. Someone is picking up our file. They are reading about us. They are picking up a picture of Emma and maybe her twin, there is a match! What a wonderful job someone has! I am saying a prayer at this very moment for our match. May it be a match made in Heaven! And I know it will be! You can order Magnolia here http://www.bizlatino.biz/magnolia/order.php

Saturday, March 11, 2006

Update on Joy!

If you have read our adoption website you know that in December we decided to be a "foster parent" to a child in China. This means that we were able to pay for her to get foster care in China. We were assigned Zhu Joy. Joy was found on Sept. 8th, 2005. She was a premature baby. She had a lung infection and then was placed in a foster home to get better care. Joy lives with a foster mother, father, and two big sisters that are 18 and 24. Joy's foster family took good care of her. I just got my quarterly update on Joy and was sad to find out that she has been very sick and nearly died. When the man who writes the reports went to visit Joy at the Foster Family's home the mom was playing and talking with Joy when he arrived. Joy looked good but when he took off her cap he discovered Joy's hair had been cut and there were pinholes all over her head. (Often IV's are given in the head to children in China) The foster mom teared up when she had to report that Joy had been very sick from November 11th to January 6th. She started with a cough that didn't get better. On December 11th Joy was diagnosed with pneumonia and put in the hospital. During the time she was in the hospital the foster mom was informed that she might not survive, several times!. She finally did recover and left the hospital on January 6th, 2006. That is all that was in the report. You can see our original pictures of Joy on our adoption website, in the photo section. www.pomafamily.com Please pray for Joy that she continues to stay well and that she is soon available for adoption. This is where Joy lives and how you can sponser a child. Guilin, Guangxi Guilin, located in the Guangxi Province, in Southern China is famous for its exquisite beauty and limestone formations. The plains around Guilin are mostly agricultural with the city becoming a modern metropolis of almost a million residents and has many tourists every year. The Guilin SWI is provides a home to over 450 orphaned children in this area. Working with Grace-Hope for Children (www.grace-hope.org) we are able to offer foster care for both children minor medical needs and special needs children. For more information about foster care in Guilin contact LeeAnn at leeann@lovewithoutboundaries.com.

DOUBLE YOLK-TWINS

Some of you may know that we have requested twins. That is all that it is, is a request. We of course will be just as happy to have one! The chances of getting twins is very small. At most I see one set of twins referred each month. I took a poll of the end of May and June DTC groups and I found that 25 families have requested twins just in this group! So as you can see as much as I would love to get twins the possibility is very slight. Some people say there are the "unwritten rules to get twins". Here are some of those rules: 1. A certain income 2. One of the parents must be a college graduate. 3. Stay at home Mom. 4. No kids living at home or some say never had kids before. There have been instances where families did get twins even though they have kids at home. I don't know about the other rules. So really this is just speculation. Although it looks like if those were the rules we would be ideal candidates! You might be wondering why the double yolk egg? Well, not too long ago I cracked open an egg and it had a double yolk (twins)! In all my years of eating eggs I have never had a double yolk! So of course with all this adoption talk of signs, I got really excited! I even researched how common it was to get a double yolk egg. Double yolk eggs occur about once every 1000 eggs. Double yolk eggs are also considered good luck. So do you think we will get twins?

Friday, March 10, 2006

Good News!

Our agency contacted us yesterday and told us we were in the matching room and should be matched within the next couple of weeks!!! Finally some "official" word that is not just rumor or speculation. As you can imagine we are getting so excited that it is finally going to happen. Today we have been waiting since LID, 282 days, or 9 months, 8 days! We are overdue! When we get the famous "CALL" this is what we expect will happen. When EAC, our adoption agency, gets our referral they will call us. They will try all the numbers we have given them. They have our home, both of our cell's and Mike's work. We will learn Emma's name, her age, where she is from, whether she is in an orphanage or foster care, a description of her, height, weight, and a little medical information. By the end of that night we should get her picture by e-mail. The next day the stork (I mean FED EX) will deliver a package with all of her information and picture. We will then have 48 hours to review her information and accept her referral

Tuesday, March 07, 2006

A LULLABY FOR EMMA

This is a lullaby we plan to sing to Emma. Mama Hao (Mandarin) Shi shang zhi you mama hao. You ma de hai zi xiang ge bao. Tou jin mama de huai baoXin fu xiang bu liao. Shi shang zhi you mama hao. Mei ma de hai zi xiang ge cao. Li kai mama de huai baoXin fu na li zhao. English translation: Only Mama is the best in all the world. With a mama, you have the most valued treasure. Jump into mama’s heart andYou have endless happiness. Only Mama is the best in all the world. Without a mama you are like a piece of grass, Away from mama's heart, Where will you find happiness? It has a very graceful and soothing sound.
Listen for yourself here.

Monday, March 06, 2006

Ladybug Ticker/Counter

You may have noticed the Ladybug Ticker/Counter at the top of my blog. It is just a guess. There is no way of knowing the "real" date of our referral until it comes. So, I chose April 1 as a guess. I really hope that it comes earlier. More like the last week of March. I needed, however, to have a target date and April 1st seemed like the date that I really think I will have it by. There of course is always the chance for further delays, but that is out of the realm of my thinking at this point!

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

MATCHING!

Right here in this building, "The CCAA", there is a file of a little girl without a family. There is also a file of a family wanting a little girl! The magic, as some people refer to it, happens here. From what I know we are at that final stage. We have come through the review room where all of our papers are gone over and we are approved to adopt from China. The CCAA has people working at computers to match families! They have hundred's of dossier's each month. You can see all the dossier's they have to go through! We know that it is more than magic and that God has our daughter already chosen for us!