A New Glimpse of Our Boy!

Today, we were blessed with a wonderful gift. Bill, our agency's facilitator in China, sent us these three new photos of our David. We are so excited to see what he looks like now. He's grown a lot - he's not a baby, but a little boy now. And a real bruiser, too! I just can't wait to hold him tight and never let go!

Holiday Photos

I tried to take our Christmas card photo yesterday. This is one of the choices...

Back to the camera...

The Effects of Tryptophan on a Five-Year-Old

Update On David

Yesterday we received a wonderful gift - an update on our David! Bill, our agency's facilitator in China, contacted the welfare institute where David is living, and asked them a long list of questions we had given him. Here is some of what he found out for us...

Our little guy is a pudge! He is in the 25th percentile for height, but the 95th percentile for weight! The really good news, though, is that his growth is staying on the curve, so he's a healthy boy - what we most hoped for him!

His development is normal and on target.

He likes vegetables! Oh, happy day! Let's see how long that lasts...

He enjoys balls, toy cars, a rocking horse and a slide.

He naps from 12:30 to 2:00 - not very long. Wonder if he has an early bed time.

He's not potty trained yet. Which is fine with me. I was hoping he'd either be entirely potty trained or not at all. That in-between stage is rough when they're transitioning to their new family. So we'll tackle that once we've been home a while (oh, joy!).

He is afraid of strangers. I'm thinking our placement is going to be interesting.

He is called "Shi Shi", so that's what we'll call him for a while. I like it!

He uses regular bottles to drink. It sounds like he has learned to eat and drink without special equipment. Don't know if he's ever used a sippee.

Just these little bits of information have really lifted my spirits! This is a challenging time - we know about him, we know he's going to be our son, but there's no activity right now - we're just waiting. The new little bits of information help it to feel more "real" for us - he's a real boy, not just some paperwork being shuffled around!

We're hoping for new pictures soon...

Happy 2nd Birthday, David!

Today is David's second birthday.

I have never missed one of my children's birthdays. Hannah was placed with us just two days before her first birthday. Rachel and Abbie were placed at 9 months and 8 months respectively. When we accepted David's referral, I knew we would miss his birthday, and it made me sad.

Today I just kept reminding myself that this was the last birthday we would miss. That every birthday from now on we would celebrate with him. I thought it would be fun to celebrate him anyway, so I went to the Jewel for a tiny little birthday cake and a "2" candle. It was all I could do to keep from crying as I bought my little cake and took it home. The girls were great tonight, as they sang Happy Birthday for their brother. I wonder if his birthday was observed in any way in China?

These are the challenging days of waiting. So much to do here at home to get ready for David's arrival, as well as holiday preparations. I need every day I can get to prepare. There is no news right now. We are waiting for our updated endorsement letter from DCFS, and then for USCIS to update our immigration paperwork. We are also waiting for Travel Approval from China. Once those three things happen, things will really move forward - scheduling our US Consulate appointment in China, booking flights, planning the itinerary, shopping for little boy clothes.

And getting ready to hold my two-year-old.

Today I had to drive down to our adoption agency to drop some stuff off. Well, I didn't have to go in person - I could have just dropped it in the mail and it would have gotten there by Monday, which would have been fine.



But no, I did have to go.



I appreciated the hour and a half round-trip drive. Quiet time to think, pray, listen to some good radio. But what I really needed was to just connect with our agency, even if only for a couple of minutes.



I don't get to go to the OB for periodic checkups. No ultrasounds. When you're waiting to adopt, particularly from China, all you've got is a couple of pictures (in our case, 9-month-old pictures), and some dated medical and developmental reports. And you do a whole lot of "hurry up and wait", and you don't really know for how long. There's no "due date", really. So sometimes, you just need to connect with someone who is helping you through the process. Just to get that feeling that it's still happening. That it's still being worked on.



I'm not complaining (well, maybe just a little). I'm actually making a conscious effort to treasure this time. Afternoons to myself while the girls are in school, doing things with our big girls, savoring the anticipation of a new little one in our family. But when David finally gets here, we will be so ready!

Sister Love!

The other evening, while I was preparing dinner, Abbie asked me how to spell David's name. Later, I went into the living room to see what she had been up to, and found this...

We Got Our LOA!!!!!!

"Joy"


That's "Letter of Approval"!!!!!! It's the final approval from China saying yes, we may adopt our David Heshi!!!!!



We were told it has been taking three to four weeks after pre-approval to receive the LOA. It took 8 days for us to get it. Oh. My. Goodness!!!!!



I actually got dizzy when I read our social worker's email giving us the good news.

Stay tuned - it's gonna be a wild ride! One step closer to our son!!!!