Christmas at the Root house

It has been a wonderful Christmas at our house! Bobby received the new bike that he “just knew” he wasn’t going to get and Abby has kept her new kareoke machine HOT! Her daddy is also quite the kareoke singer–we have pics to prove it. We had a lovely time at home on Christmas day and then celebrated again with my sister, her family and our parents at Laura’s and John’s the next day. Laura and John announced that they will be adopting a little girl within the next couple of years–YEA, that’s what I like to hear!!

I was fortunate to meet Meredith and Mike’s little Tate this afternoon. I got to hold him and kiss him and only cried a little bit (he didn’t notice, he was asleep). What a cute little muffin he is. Congratulations Edmison Family!!

We are eagerly awaiting our BROWN ENVELOPE from the US Consulate in China. It will contain all of the necessary paperwork for when we actually go to receive Maisy. We are not suppose to lose it. I may sleep with it, but lose it? No chance.

Please continue to pray for Maisy, her birth mom, and all of the little children waiting for forever families–maybe you are one!

Love and a Happy New Year to All!

Just Put a LID on it…Please!

No, I’m not asking anyone to be quiet…LID stands for “Log in Date.” Our LID will be the day that our dossier is registered in China. Our DTC was December 14, 2007–very memorable. We are now in the referral stage of our adoption and will miss our sweet Diedra who knew just what to say when I was depressed or discouraged. She even called and let me bawl when I didn’t think we could make it through all the waiting and paperwork. We love you, Diedra!!

We look forward to meeting our referral specialist. As soon as our dossier is logged in it will go to translation with the entire kit and caboodle being translated into Mandarin. I’m told that this doesn’t take very long. From Translation everything goes to Review, which does take longer, but I believe will surely speed up in 2008. In Review all of the embassy stamps and authentication and certification seals are checked and the dossier is checked for all mandatory documents. I think this is where Great Wall stands heads and shoulders above the rest–we used the Dragon Plan for our dossier preparation and Diedra absolutely held our hand through the entire process. She thought that I needed an additional medical letter before mailing our dossier and so I got it and she sent it off. I am completely confident that there will be no need for additional info. when our dossier is being review because IT WAS DONE RIGHT THE FIRST TIME. There is no way that Ben and I could have done all of those mailings for certifications and authentications without screwing it up. I recommend the Dragon Plan whole heartedly. Trust me it will save you time in the long run–it certainly did us!

From Review our dossier goes to Matching which is where the good old lifestyle pics. come into play. The Chinese folks believe that you can tell a lot about a person’s personality by their facial characteristics. So the specialist in the Matching Room will look at our pics and decide which little baby to match us with. They will also rely upon our Letter of Intent; stating the reasons we want to adopt from China and the kind of family and life that we want to give to our little Maisy. I just hope that my facial features don’t say “squirrely” and “slightly weird.”

After we are matched our dossier goes to Referral!!!!!!! Woo Hoo! Our referral will be mailed to Great Wall and then we will get THE CALL!!! Then we will accept our referral (Duh) and it’s off to China in about 4 to 6 weeks. I’m rapidly conquering (with the help of The Great I Am) my fear of flying. I am slowly understanding the science behind flying but more importantly I Know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that, which I have committed, unto Him against that day. With the Lord it’s all or nothing. He has yet to tell me to jump and then failed to catch me. Thank you Lord for all the blessings you have given me and my family!!

I know that there are many rumors flying around on the internet about the “wait time” in China. Well, my God holds time in his hand and he is not worried. I believe that we will recieve our referral in 2008–but whenever the time comes it will be God’s time.

Please pray for Maisy’s birth mother. I can never forget that our happiness comes at the expense of her broken heart. I pray that nobody will be cruel to her, that she will have enough to eat and that she will be warm enough. Mostly I pray that she will be introduced to Jesus and come to know Him as her Lord and Savior. Someday I want to introduce her, my sister, to our daughter in Heaven.

Ben and the kids go back to school on Monday (after an impromptu week off thanks to the ice storm.) I am planning to make cookies and candy during my vacation and hopefully (Meredith are you reading this) see the little Tater Tot and kiss his face off. I still have Christmas shopping to do. Please remember that there are thousands of children in the United States waiting for families. Consider adoption–it’s the gift that keeps on giving.

May God bless you and keep you, Amy.

Jingle Bells, DTC, HO, HO, HO, HO, HOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Here’s a little update for everyone! We heard from our wonderful dossier specialist, Diedra Connolly at Great Wall China Adoption and she had some wonderful news. Our I-171H and our home study have been certified by the Oklahoma Secretary of State and have been taken by courier through the consulate in Houston so, (prepare for all caps) ON DECEMBER 14TH OUR DOSSIER WILL GO TO CHINA!!! We will have that wonderful DTC very, very soon.

The kids are having parties and singing in programs and Ben and I are closing in on the completion of Christmas shopping.

Happy Holidays to my pal Meredith–Monday is the big day; she will be holding little Adrien Tate for the first time!!!!! And to Meredith’s friend Jocelyn–I’m praying for you and your baby girl–here’s to a speedy homecoming!

Love to All–Amy

Drum Roll Please!!

TAH DAH!! The I171H arrived on our 12th wedding anniversary. My sweet husband bought me a spa day for our anniversary and then picked me up in my car (which he had washed) and handed me a big anniversary card. My first thought was “hmmm…this card is thick, I wonder if there’s money in it (a strange anniversary gift but who am I to turn down cash–even from my beloved) and then I opened it! All I had to see was that return address. There was much screaming and crying and I even kissed the envelope (and you thought that only happened in chick flicks). Of course, I asked Ben how long he’d had that precious piece of paper and he assured me that it had come that very afternoon! Wow! The Lord has great timing and Ben’s isn’t too shabby either!

So now, friends and family, everything that needed to be sent to the agency has been sent. We are awaiting our DTC and the giant step from “paper chase” to “referral phase”! And we all know what comes after the referral phase–YES–The TRAVEL PHASE!!! I’m carefully studying the travel advice from all people who have traveled to China. We will be taking plenty of medicine, hand sanitizer and chap stick. But most important of all we are officially waiting on that picture of our little sweetheart!

Tomorrow our Princess will turn 11 years old. I cannot believe it. She is so big and cannot wait to open her presents which are currently on top of the bookshelf. We have princess party stuff and a strawberry creme filled cake. Nope, I didn’t make it. I no longer feel the urge to prove my culinary prowess. Prowess don’t load the dishwasher, Kids.

The tree is up. I’m not finished with the shopping and I don’t think the animated reindeer are going to make it out into the yard. But, hey–it’s easier to see them from the sofa when they are doing their little deer thing in the living room. Both of the kids will be singing in school programs and having parties I’m sure. For the first time ever we had our family picture made. I’ll post one if I can figure out how to do that. We have yet to go look at lights, make cookies and candy or hear I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas on the radio. But–it isn’t even December yet!

I did buy Maisy a Christmas gift and the nursery is coming along nicely. Please continue to pray for our baby girl and for all the baby girls and boys waiting for forever families. A very Merry Christmas to my friend Meredith as she and her husband Mike and son Jack welcome baby Adrien home!

God bless you and keep you. May you be richly blessed. Amy

The lotion paid off!

Well, the FBI has not contacted me to inform me that my fingerprints were not “readable” so that means I just slid right on through!! Ben got an e-mail from USCIS today saying they do not need any additional information or documents from us so we should just wait for our I171H. From the time that USCIS has all documentation until we receive our I171H is approximately 60 days. Our 60 days has already begun so I’m expecting that 171 this month and then it’s all about the DTC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We have made additions to the nursery. Ben is “nesting” almost as much as I am!! The crib is now sporting a mattress that has gorgeous linens on it and an Asian Cabbage Patch Newborn lying in it (hardly an adequate substitute for our baby). We also have a stuffed Panda and a set of frogs–one big and two little to play with in the bathtub (I just thought they were cute)!

I want to take this opportunity to encourage you all to consider adoption as an opportunity to expand your family as well as your capacity to love. There are so very many children world wide who need loving parents. Some of these children are disabled, some are teens or have siblings but they are all children. Imagine if you had grown up without ever “belonging” to anyone. Our adoption agency is Great Wall China Adoption. Their website is www.gwca.org If you live in Oklahoma and would be interested in adopting from the state the website is www.okdhs.org there are plenty of adoption links on the site. Please prayerfully consider opening your home to a child. You will be blessed beyond measure!

Continue to pray for our family and our precious little Maisy.

Love, Amy

Fingerprint update

I should buy stock in lotion because I sure have used a lot of it. Bright and early on the morning of Sept. 29th I was removing my sandals and watch under the careful scrutiny of the USCIS security guards. They remembered me as the woman with the insulin pump and so refrained from “wanding” me this time (not a fun experience in case you are wondering). I went through the usual process of form signing and hand cleansing and then was one of the first people called into the print room. The fingerprint tech. remembered me (I’m just so darn memorable) and we started talking about kids with disabilities and really hit it off (seems he dated a woman who had a little boy with CP). Anyway, he really tried to get good prints!! So, as I was leaving he chased me down and told me he was going to try and arrange something extra to help me if I could wait just a minute. Naturally, I waited!! It seems that USCIS will only fingerprint someone twice–that’s it. If your fingerprints fail a second time the FBI has to have an interview conducted at USCIS and submitted. The nice technician arranged for me to have the interview so that I could send it off with my fingerprints “just in case.” Nice because it saves me a trip in the event that these prints are no good (but they will be). The woman who conducted the interview and took my statement was so nice. She took my paperwork to the “orphan officer” herself and explained my situation. I think this time the prints will be clear and WE WILL HAVE OUR DTC BY THE END OF SEPTEMBER–HEBREWS 11:1. I appreciated the kindness of everyone at our USCIS office.

We are still working on the lifestyle photos. Must I be such a dud? I’m afraid that my great scrapbooking skills have not made us look anymore exciting in our pictures. Sure, the kids can rely on cuteness alone–but Ben and I…that’s a different story!

Ben met a couple the other night at Babies R Us who have two daughters from China and are awaiting the arrival of a son from Vietnam. That happened on Saturday night. Of course I grilled him about it when he got home. I am hungry to hear any stories about babies from China. Anyway, he isn’t as nosy as I am so was unable to answer all of my questions. However, God cares about even our smallest interests and curiosities–that must be why the couple greeted Ben at church on Sunday morning and invited us to join their group of families with children from China. Yea!! Fellowship and adoption! It doesn’t get much better than that.

We bought Maisy’s crib and Ben put it up as soon as we got home. No, he wanted to do it at 11pm. I didn’t say a word about doing it right then. The room is really coming together.

Bobby and Abby are enjoying school and doing well. Please continue to lift our family up in prayer as we pursue God’s desire for our family. He has shown us in no uncertain terms our capacity to love and nurture; skills that we want to use and expand to His glory. Remember, Friends, that we are all adopted the moment we accept Jesus as our personal savior. So many children need families. Check your heart and see if you have room for just one more.

Amy

Fingerprints and more fingerprints…

This is the second time I’ve typed this post. It is very difficult to be as technologically inept as myself–don’t try it at home.

Ben and I went to CIS and were fingerprinted on the 18th of Aug. Last week we found out that my prints were rejected by the FBI because they were “unreadable”. When I had the prints done on the computer the technician told me that because I handle so much paper and have scars from checking my blood sugar, my prints are almost gone. How can I have no fingerprints? I have been ink printed before and they always worked. I will return to CIS on the 29th of August for a second printing. Any tips on fingerprint restoration or preservation will be appreciated. If these next prints are not good we will have to get a letter from our congressman requesting a fingerprint waiver and that the FBI search my name and social security number instead of my prints. Please pray that these prints are very clear. I still believe that we will have our DTC by the end of Sept. The passports have not arrived yet but I am sure they will be here when we need them!

Ben, who has perfect fingerprints, is enjoying working at Babies R Us and helping all the new moms and dads pick out car seats and strollers. We have chosen Maisy’s and can’t wait to get them and put her in for a ride!

Ben goes back to school this week and the kids go back next week. It seems that this year is going so fast. Hopefully, by next Christmas we will have Maisy at home.

Please continue to pray for our family and for all the families (perhaps yours is one) considering adoption!

Amy

“Nobody gets in to see the wizard, not no way, not no how.”

Not without an appointment anyway! We have received a letter from our regional office of the USCIS saying that they had received our I600A and that we would soon receive our appointments for fingerprinting. We have been warned NOT to attempt to reschedule these appointments otherwise we may get moved to the end of the line. We do not want that to happen! USCIS said that processing time for the I600A is about 60 days. We can see that DTC date from here!!!
We still have not seen any sign of our passports. RATS!
My mom aka, YaYa has said that either I am going to have to quit shopping or we are going to have to build another closet in Maisy’s room. It’s beginning to look like Babies R Us in there.
Well, that’s all the news thats fit to print! Keep praying for us and our precious little Maisy!
Amy

Another step forward...

Well, today Earlene came by and dropped off our official notarized home study; exactly what we needed to send off the I600A to CIS. We checked the CIS website and it doesn’t look like they are moving very quickly since they are currently processing orphan petitions that were received on March 15th of this year. That doesn’t seem like a long time unless you are really bad at waiting like yours truly. Anyway, we will mail ours tomorrow and pray for the CIS to hurry up. We are still waiting on the passports. Tomorrow will mark the 12 week time period in which we were told we would receive our docs in the mail. What a hoot if they came tomorrow–nothing like waiting until the last possible moment. But as long as we get the I171H back from CIS we can at least send the remainder of our docs for certification and authentication–just cannot get the DTC date without the passports. We can work on our lifestyle photos while we are waiting. The GWCA website has captions in Chinese that we can put with our pictures. They say “this is your mama” and “this is your daddy” in Chinese. Funny, our little Maisy won’t be able to read in Chinese or English!–Cause she’s just a baby! It seems like such a long wait but we are closer than we were three months ago, so that’s progress. Just wanted everyone to know that the good ol’ I600A will be going out tomorrow!! Take care and pray for our little precious and her birth mother. We cannot lose sight of the fact that out of someone else’s heartbreak comes our joy.

Amy

Baby thoughts...

Well, Maisy has more clothes! I have become addicted to buying baby clothes and baby stuff. I just cannot walk past little nightgowns with bunny mittens attached (even if Aunt Laura does say Maisy will hate them and she is going to cut them off). We even have bunny slippers now!

We are doing the nursery in Beatrix Potter so there are plenty of bunnies around there too. Ben has bought Maisy her first “buddy.” Bobby’s was a dog, Abby’s was a bear and Maisy has a bunny. The nursery colors are light sage, yellow and paprika. We have yet to pick a crib. It would help if I could settle on just one.

 I just want to take this opportunity to give some more props to people who really deserve them. The folks at my office at Eagle Ridge Institute are the best. Kisha is the best office manager in the history of managing offices. She listened to every draft of our letter to the officials of the China Center of Adoption Affairs and handed me Kleenex at the necessary moments. Kisha created any form I needed and made copies “just in case.” Thank you so much, Kisha. Jina, our program director, has been incredibly supportive and has taken time out to calm my “new mom” worries. She has gone beyond the professional and been my friend. Thanks, Jina. Mindy, the world’s greatest placement coordinator, how is it that just being around you makes me smile? I will gladly let you share in some quality “baby therapy” when our little Maisy arrives. The Eagle Ridge Executive Secretary, Miss Dorothy, has been very patient with me; having taken time to notarize documents when I know she didn’t have time–even though she insisted that she did. Thank you, Miss Dorothy for all of your encouragement and patience. And to our CEO, John Mayfield, thank you for your support and obvious enthusiasm about our adoption. Your committment to all children and families is inspirational.

As an interesting sideline–our cat, CoCo, who ran away 2 1/2 months ago when we moved into this house, came home this evening. YEA we are all happy and amazed.

Moving right along...

Well, our home study has been approved by our agency office in China. This means that as soon as we receive our notarized copies of the home study from our worker we will send it, our I600A and the appropriate documents (ie:birth certificates and marriage license) along with the fee to CIS (citizenship and immigration services) and wait for the I171H to arrive from CIS. When we have the I171H we will send it, our lifestyle photos, the home study and the appropriate fee to the agency. Hopefully our passports will be in at this time because they are necessary in order for us to receive our DTC date. All of these docs must also be certified and authenticated–THEN WE GET THE DTC DATE–YEA!!! Our mailer one docs have been authenticated by the Chinese Consulate and are on their way back to Diedra, our dossier specialist, at the agency.

Please join us in praying that the wait time from DTC to referral will not be 18 to 19 months, but if it is a reflection of God’s time that he will help us bear it and be patient–not my strong point as most folks can attest.

We are finding the most difficult part of the whole process (other than the waiting of course) to be the lifestyle photos. Maybe we are just boring but other than standing lamely in front of the camera, well, I’m at a loss.

Cross your fingers for our passports to arrive soon!!!

Off to a good start…

We have turned in our Mailer 1 documents and are working on our Mailer 2 docs. The sooner we get this done, the sooner we get our baby!

Ok, I have no idea as to how to create a new post so I just have to add to this one even though it was actually posted a couple of weeks ago. Maybe Moose and squirrel are catching up…I’m just not sure about the rapidity of our progress!

We had our home study last Saturday (7/2) and it went great. We really like our worker, Earlene Logan with Oklahoma Home Study and recommend her highly. We should be able to preview the home study in a couple of weeks and then file our I600A with CIS and have our DTC (dossier to china) date about 3 to 4 weeks after that. It is all waiting after that. I pray that the time goes by quickly.

We have a lot of thank yous to send out. The first one goes to my sister, Laura. She has been a constant source of encouragement and information. No one can navigate the internet like my sister. She is a fabulous mom and wonderful aunt. I hope she and John are still living close by when we get our little Maisy!

I also want to thank my good friend, Meredith who has a knack for saying the thing I need to hear and giving some pretty darn wonderful advice!

Fairo, my friend, my pal, my brother in all the ways that count. Thank you.

Mark, I haven’t made anybody cry–but it’s only Wednesday! Thank you for your encouragement, support and unconditional friendship.

Angie, our family could not be who we are today without having had you in our lives. You give us hope and we love you.

Laura, Meredith, Fairo, Mark and Angie–If you had not taken the time to fill out our references we couldn’t have had our home study done as quickly as we did. We are so blessed to have you in our lives. Thank you for helping us bring Maisy just a little closer to home. —Amy