God's Special Gift to a Frantic Mom

Well this past week has been busy busy to say the least. The kids started school so it was a little hard to get on schedule but I have to say I have been getting a lot more done for our trip with them in school. But the hardest part is the emotions that are going through you. I wake up in the middle of the night and can't get back to sleep because my mind is racing. I am excited to go, scared to death for Sophia and already starting to miss my kids. Most of the important things are taken care of but still waiting for the actual TA to be in our hands and paranoid that the carrier will loose somewhere.

So yesterday when I checked one of my yahoo group postings and saw "Lu Xin Yan" I just about jumped out of my skin! To try to make a long story short, there was a wonderful woman who went to China in July to get her little girl. She had pictures from her daughters birthday party in China and was smitten by the little smiling girl beside her. She inquired about her when she went to get her daughter found out her name(Lu Xin Yan) and has been praying for her to get a family. Well she finally decided to post on the Tianjin Families yahoo group. Fast forward, she has sent me PICTURES of our little girl that are from late May along with what she knows. I was above cloud 9 yesterday( and still today). Just seeing her gives me such a peace, a peace that only God can give.

Thank you Lord for your wonderful surprise!

So here are my favorites:

Isn't she just beautiful!!!

Back to packing!

Labor Day .... Gotcha Day

Yes, we finnnnnallllly got our Consulate Appointment and needless to say it was a very long week. We should have heard by Tuesday or Wednesday the latest but there were problems at the consulates fax machine. Our agency really went the extra mile but it was hard since there is a 12 hour time difference. So finally we got our appointment today. It will be September 14th. So we will leave September 1st and our Gotcha Day will be September 6th. Next step is to finalize flights and hotels, actually start putting the piles of things I have collected into suitcases... wow it is starting to really sink in.. 12 days until we leave... 17 days until we get to see that beautiful face in person.

TA!!!!!

YES today was the day. We received the call that our TA had arrived. I was very hesitant that it would come today, I was thinking it would be more like Wednesday and I was totally caught off guard. In fact, when the phone rang, I thought it was our doctor calling back about a perscription I had requested for antibotics to take to Chin@(just in case). But when I saw the caller ID was our agency, I was stunned more than anything else.

Now I don't have a lot more information than that because we have requested our CA( Consulate Appointment) which will be toward the end of our trip and will hopefully get confirmation Tuesday. Our agency said that we could request an appointment for as early as September 7th or 8th, which would mean that we would leave next Wednesday( because we want to leave two days early to tour Beijing first). I was totally floored. Only 9 days to do it all?! But we ended up picking September 14th or 15th as our first options which would mean we leave 9/1!

Of course after I hung up the phone I was second guessing myself all day but Russ agrees with me, it will be the best. I can get the kids in school, Dominic will have 1 week to get started before he leave for 2.5 weeks and I won't be totally miserable to be around the next week as I start to loose me mind. (Correction, I would not loose my mind but my "mind won't be functioning" - quote from my husband who is knows me so well.)

One issue that is beginning to surface quickly is how Micah is going to deal with this all. Up until now, he has talked about us traveling to China and getting a new sister but I think somewhere it is just a story to him, like one of the many he makes up during the day. Today when I told the kids that we can start finalizing plans, he told me he didn't want us to go. So we sat and talked about why we had to go and that Grammy would be here to take care of him. He seemed ok with it until I got on the phone and he proceeded to totally destroy our family room. When I came in all the pillows, magazines and toys were everywhere and no where to walk. Mind you, he seemed to be doing this in fun not anger but that is usually how he disguises his feelings. Also, the first things he asked me when he woke up from his nap, "Mommy, are you back from China?" So one big thing to add to my list of things to do..... Increase the amount of time I spend with Micah( and all my kids).

I will keep you updated.

Will let you all know the dates for sure when I find out.

9 MONTHS and Approaching Our Due Date!!!

Yes, I noticed today on my ticker that it has been 9 months since we first saw Sophia. Wow, so quickly and yet so long. I guess I am now in the last few weeks of "Paper Pregnancy" with the Braxton Hicks contractions( heart stopping every time the phone rings) and Lamaze breathing ( anxiety attacks wondering how I will get through the day waiting for the phone call).

And yes, there has been no TA!!! I was sure that it would be here by now, and I think my agency thought so too but for some reason many TAs for our agency have not arrived so they are thinking that the director is out of town or something like that. Monday was torture for me but by Tuesday I was emailing with another mom waiting too and she was keeping me up to date on what our agency thought so as each day passed I became more accepting that we would not get one this week. BUT we now have a new week ahead of us so I guess I will be starting all over again with hopefully a better result. I am still hoping that we can leave by September 1st but it might be later than that so we will at least be able to get the kids going in school. I have a few little projects to finish up this weekend and then I am ready to pack, hopefully I won't be totally packed before my TA arrives.

Enjoy the sultry hot days of summer!

Testing

"This is a test. This is just a test of the China blocks blogger system." Since blogger is blocked in China, I could use some other sites but I would prefer for everything to be in one place for our adoptions. So I am trying out option one to see if I can email posts to blogger. I have included a picture from our trip last September to Italy( the only pictures that I had on our laptop). It is from Venice - oh how I loved Venice. Hopefully it all works out ok. The only downside is that I will not be able to read comments and I really loved reading them when we were in Russia. I will have to figure out something else. So lets see how it goes.  Monica