overwhelmed is an understatement

You asked for a packing post and here it is. Just kidding. Although I did just print out a 7 page single spaced document from the friendly China adoption online community of things to pack for China. My head is exploding. Send chocolate and wine. Actually can I pack those? Anyways, I digress. They weren't on the 7 page list.

Last week was a doozy. We got travel approval (YAY) on Tuesday, and then overnight on Tuesday  night I got the dreaded stomach bug, given to me by a child in the family who shall not be named who had it earlier in the week. Wednesday morning after some of the worst 5 hours of my life, in a haze around 9 am I saw an email that said that we had to find flights and have a preliminary itinerary to our adoption agency by 11 am if we wanted to be able to book flights before Monday due to the Thanksgiving holiday. Insert panic. We are already flying at one of the most expensive times of the year and this basically gave us a heart attack (4 more days, 2 weeks before your trip is like an eternity). We did end up booking flights and they'll be fine, but they definitely aren't our first choice, especially for the trip on the way home. So that was a crazy stressful day. And then Adam got the stomach bug and I worked 4 days in a row and somewhere in there we had Thanksgiving and celebrated the birthdays of our bookends. AND... what?, I'm leaving for China in 16 days? #holdme

From the end of the earth I will call unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed; lead me to the rock that is higher than I. -Psalm 61:2

I have been praying this for myself the past several days. My heart is overwhelmed and exhausted. How is it possible when we are already feeling so depleted, that we are leaving for China in 16 days to add a new member to our family. A precious, longed for, desired daughter. A daughter that we don't know yet.

I. Have. So. Much. To. Do.

And in the midst of feeling so completely overwhelmed, what have I been turning to? Things. Stuff. Packing perfectly. Control.  After an emotional breakdown Friday night, I realized the Lord showed me that I have been putting my hope in the things of this world that I can control in the midst of all the uncertainty that is coming for our family. Having the right clothes and shoes and outerwear and medicine and matching pajamas (I know, but it's Christmas! ok, ok, just laugh) and packing them all perfectly into packing cubes organized by color (ok people, I'm nothing if not type A, and let's be honest, I'm the opposite of a light packer) for five people for three different climates. And having the right gifts for the littles while we are gone and the right gifts for the bigs on Christmas day wrapped in my suitcase for China and having all my Christmas gifts for everyone in both of our families totally done and wrapped. Etc etc etc. It's like my mind can't even contain all that has to be done. So if you get a random email from me in the middle of the night, it's because I just thought of something and I had to get it out of my brain.

Is it actually the trip to China that is stressing me out? No. I love adventure, I love something new, I'm so looking forward to it. Part of my underlying anxiety is the idea that I have absolutely no earthly idea what to expect with regards to A NEW CHILD joining our family. I like knowing what to expect (insert big eyes emoji here). A huge change is coming for our family and I have no idea what it will be like. We get to China and they hand me a screaming (?) Chinese baby and what is it going to be like? I so want to know. But I don't. There is One who does and He is with me and He promises to never leave me or forsake me. And I need to fix my eyes on Him. I love how that verse in Psalms says, when my heart is overwhelmed, lead me... The prayer in that verse is that my heart is so overwhelmed, I have to be led. So this is my prayer. Lead me to the rock that is higher than I. 

As I've been thinking about this, I've been realizing it's somewhat like when people get married. They spend all this time planning the wedding, which is a temporary thing, but the marriage is (hopefully) forever. What they/we should be doing is planning mostly for the marriage. I should be planning mostly for the marriage of our family to this new child and vice versa. But I think that instead, I've been trying to distract myself with the 'wedding' / the details of the trip because the idea of the marriage part is all just so unknown.

So what do we need? How can you help? Pray. If you read through this whole purge from my journal basically, please say a quick prayer for us. That in the midst of this uncertainty we will fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith. He is the one who is before all things and in him all things hold together. We need more of Him to do this. And pray for the details. And pray so much for Mary Carson. Because however uprooted and unsettled I feel by all that is about to happen, Mary Carson will feel all the more so. Our change in residence to China for 17 days is transient, but her change that her little body is about to go through, her addition to our family, is permanent. Pray that that leads me/ us into compassion for her. Pray that the Lord would lead our whole family, including Mary Carson, to the rock that is higher than us.

From the end of the earth I will call unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed; lead me to the rock that is higher than I. -Psalm 61:2

baby shower for Mary Carson!

Some of my sweet friends threw me a baby shower for Mary Carson. I loved that they (thank you Lauren, Mary, and Anne!) and all the sweet friends and my mom and mother in law, Vicki wanted to take the time to celebrate this sweet life as we have paused to celebrate the others. Since we didn't really need anything I checked with our adoption agency who checked with Mary Carson's foster care center in China to see what type of donations they needed. They responded that they really needed toys. (well, that narrows it down right?). Although a lot of our toys are made in China, from what I understand, they are made to be shipped out, and therefore if they are bought in China they really cost the same as they would in the States. Which makes them cost prohibitive for many. Basically any toy would work as long as it didn't need batteries or have English all over it. So I registered for some that I thought would work and this is what friends brought. We are taking them all in a suitcase that we will just donate to the foster care center as well. Thank you to all my friends who joined with us in blessing the orphanage and foster care center this way. I know they will be so thankful. Some friends also brought some things just specific to Mary Carson and some adoption themed books for her, which was so great.

All in all it was a great time with sweet friends to pause and pray and celebrate this newest blessing.

These two girls had a blast being with the grown-ups at the party.

I love how they've been friends since they were literally days old.

So thankful for this friend and her attention to detail. Love all the nods to China at the shower. It was perfect!

The same lovie that all our other kids have with her sweet name on it, love it.

So thankful for my sweet prayer triad and the way the Lord has knit us together.

 Wish I had gotten so many more pictures with friends!

Overall, just so blessed and thankful for the blessing of another child. Mary Carson, whose name Mary, means wished for child. She truly has been wished for for so many years. Thankful for this answer to prayer. Oh how the Lord is faithful to us. 

And we have our travel approval!

We received our travel approval! We are going to China! So excited. So thankful to have something concrete. We are coming for you Mary Carson!

We are scurrying now to try to book tickets but will leave around December 14th and will return probably late on December 29th. We will meet Mary Carson for gotcha day / family day on December 19th. It cannot.come.soon.enough. (But so so much to do!)

no TA

Well... yesterday came and went and we did not get our travel approval by the 18th as we had hoped. It was disappointing to have prayed so much for something, to have hoped and truly believed that God would do this, and then to realize it wasn't His plan for us. But we do not lose heart. We are perplexed by this, but definitely not driven to despair. One thing that I just keep thinking is that God knows the entire situation. He knows Mary Carson, knows her heart, knows her circumstances. We don't know her yet. We thought this would be the best situation. But since we know that "no good thing does he with withhold from those who walk uprightly," (Ps 84:11), we know that if it was good for us to travel for Mary Carson and be back by Christmas, we would have. But for whatever reason that would not have been good. Even in the midst of disappointment, He has already been helping me to see some of the possible good from traveling a week later - such as - the big kids will miss less school (there was a concern for possible need for re-enrollment upon our return due to so many consecutive absences and that they could be put into different classes - so now this is no longer a concern) and since we'll be gone over Christmas, there will be less (fun) chaotic gatherings to navigate when we get home with Mary Carson since we'll need to keep her close to home for awhile as she acclimates to family life. So God is working on my heart. And we just continue to trust and submit ourselves to the One who fully knows us, all of us, including Mary Carson. We will keep praying for a timely travel approval. We need to have it by December 2nd to travel to get her in December (likely leaving Dec. 14). We fully expect and trust that this will be the case and are so excited. This means that (baring any unforeseen circumstances) we will meet our little peanut one month from today. God is so good. So excited to celebrate her today with a sweet adoption shower for her thrown by some of my friends.

where we are now and what we're waiting for

So after we received our LOA - letter of acceptance, that triggered somewhat of a paperwork cascade, with each step having to be done before you can move on to the next step. And all of these steps are working toward to final ultimate letter from China which is called Travel Approval. So the paperwork cascade culminates in the travel approval. 

It's all very confusing. Before we started this final 'cascade' Adam and I had to listen to a travel call with our agency that gave us an overview of what the next 2 months would look like leading up to travel. In that call they threw out all these terms like I800, DS260, GUZ, NVC, RTF, Article 5, and TA. After the call, Adam was like, "Do you know what all these acronyms mean?" Well... at that point, yes, kind of, mostly because I am majorly organized when it comes to paperwork (I secretly kind of love it. As a kid I actually loved filling out forms and would do it for fun. Yeah, I'm weird.) Actually if you're thinking starting an adoption, they say that one spouse is usually the paperwork person, and for sure I'm that person in our marriage. I lay out all the forms that Adam needs to sign and put little stickies where he needs to sign. Maybe I should've been a secretary instead of a pharmacist. Anyways, I digress. So we are in this paperwork cascade. It looks something like this...

Clear now, yes?

Basically if anyone out there cares about the details, after we got our LOA, we had our I800 filled out and ready to send the day that we received our LOA. Unfortunately we had to wait another week before we could send in our I800, because we needed one sentence added to Mary Carson's finding information. This was done and we prayed like crazy and the Lord provided that it would be received a week after our LOA, the day before China shut down for a week long holiday (the Golden Week). If we wouldn't have gotten the additional information by 10/30/16, it would have delayed us to travel over Christmas or after. But God graciously provided. 

God really used that week to strengthen my faith that He was absolutely able to do this thing (Eph 3:20), and that no good thing would he withhold from us (Ps 84:11), thus if it was good for us to receive this additional information by 10/30, we would, and if not, then His plan is good and His ways are higher than my ways (Is 55:8-9). 

So we received the additional finding information on 9/30/16 and mailed our I800 that day. The I800 is Mary Carson's first step to US citizenship - it is the form to classify her as an immediate relative to us. We had previously done the I800a which was a provisional approval for us as a family to adopt, and the I800 is the petition to classify this particular child as our immediate relative. So we sent this to the NBC - the National Benefits Center (Department of Homeland Security). It was received at the lockbox on 10/3 and it was approved on 10/17/16. After this I800 approval, our paperwork was mailed to the NVC (National Visa Center) in New Hampshire and logged into their computer, which generates something called a GUZ number. We received that on 10/26/16 and immediately filled out the DS260 that afternoon. The DS 260 is the online application for Mary Carson's US immigrant visa. We had to fill this out from Mary Carson's point of view which was kind of strange. On 10/27/16 we got the PDF of our NVC approval letter and our agency forwarded this to their representative in Guangzhou, China. 

After the representative in China receives our documents, they are able to go to the US Consulate in Guangzhou and drop off Mary Carson's documents. This is the final visa process and it's called Article 5. Article 5 drop off and pick up can only happen on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. So our Article 5 was dropped off Monday 10/31/16 in Guangzhou. The Article 5 process always takes (at least) 10 business days and this is where we are now. We are waiting for Article 5 pickup which is scheduled for 11/15/16 (and yes, if you counted, that's 11 business days). 

After Article 5 pickup, our packet gets couriered/mailed/sent somehow (?) to the CCCWA in Beijing. This is the same organization that our dossier went to. They are the China Center for Children's Welfare and Adoption (kind of like a bigger, centralized type of DSS) and they are the ones that will make sure everything with our file and Mary Carson's documents are in order so that when we come to China to get her, there will be no hiccups. Once they make sure that everything is in order they will issue travel approval for us.

We are seriously cutting it down to the wire with travel dates/Christmas. 

Our agency sends travel groups. So there is a group traveling on December 7th. The cutoff to join that group requires having travel approval by November 18th. That would be a 3 day TA. A 3 day TA is the fastest I've ever heard of. They can run up to a week or more. But it's possible. And if it happens it will be totally God. We are praying so much for this group. For one it would allow us to travel and be home a couple days before Christmas. Otherwise we are looking at being gone over Christmas and the week after. It's not the end of the world, and we will absolutely do it, but since we're leaving our little two at home, it will be somewhat sad to be apart from them for Christmas. Secondly, there are a couple other families that will be traveling to our same province in this group and one of the families is taking their two older bio kids like are planning to. Please keep praying with us that we will receive a lightening fast TA and will be able to travel in the December 7th group - this is the desire of our hearts, but we know His plans are for good and whatever He chooses for us, we'll joyfully do. Can't wait for this adventure!

this week

Nothing new to update really. We're moving through the paperwork cascade. Our I800 was approved on 10/17/16, which probably means nothing to you, but basically it is Mary Carson's immigration documents. Now we're waiting for her information to be logged in at the National Visa Center.

So as we wait (and wait, and wait some more), we're doing things like, practicing our 'Chinese food' which I say in quotes because it is totally the American version of Chinese food. I love how Caleigh is so excited about the food in China. She hopes we will have honey chicken (no) and, then she hopes that if they don't have that, then she wants orange chicken (no again). Insert crying laughing emoji here, which is my favorite one by the way. So anyways, we're working on our 'Chinese food'. Here's the latest recipe. It was awesome! I will absolutely make it again. It's a sweet and sour chicken as requested by Adam with a hearty squirt of sriracha into the sauce before it baked (and lots more upon eating, because, the hotter the better, #duh #itsnotgoodunlessyourecrying). Here's the recipe though, would definitely recommend it.

And we've been working on our Asian baby love (and building our collection of Asian baby dolls).

That's our week!

after the park

After the park, where Adam and I opened the email together and found out about Mary Carson...

what do you even say or do when you're trying to wrap you head around this life changing event but the rest of life is supposed to go on... dinner, homework, baths, etc.

We choose to proceed with a medical review of her adoption file which meant we had 72 hours to review her file with any physicians we choose and use that to help make our decision about whether to proceed or not. We submitted her information to two physicians that night and another one the next day, Tuesday.

We got the first report back early Tuesday morning and everything was pretty straightforward as we had expected after our initial look - no huge red flags. As we were waiting for doctors reports, Adam and I just kept dialouging and I so wanted to just decide yes it's her. But Adam, so wisely, said, let's just wait until we get everything back and then we'll decide for sure. A friend asked me during this time period, what would make us say no? And even then Adam and I couldn't really put our finger on anything major that would make us say no, now that we had seen her precious face.

We decided not to tell our kids or families or really anyone during this time except for our prayer triad, because we didn't want to get anyone's hopes up if this wasn't 'her' and because this just felt like a private thing that Adam and I would decide on and we didn't want to be swayed one way or the other by others.

By Wednesday we had gotten all the doctors' reports back and there were no major red flags and we started letting ourselves get more excited and we decided to move forward. That day we wrote our letter of intent (LOI) which is a letter that you send to China stating that you intend to adopt this particular child. Basically in the letter you state why you think they will be a good match for your family, and that you promise to love and care for them always and to give them every opportunity you can, and that you will never leave or abandon them. I almost cried writing the letter.

One neat thing about the letter is that you are supposed to use something particular from their file to explain why you think they would be a good match for our family. In her file, which was prepared last January when she was about 10 months old, there were a couple sentences about her personality and one part said. "She likes noisy place, and likes playing together with other children." Well... our house is quite the noisy place and there are lots of littles for her to play with! This felt so much like God confirming to us that she was indeed the one that He had chosen for our family.

We sent the letter to our agency along with the other requirements for them to send it to China and the next day, Thursday 9/15/16 we were LOI. After that the next step was to wait to receive the letter of acceptance which is an official letter from China, which is basically China saying an official yes to us adopting this particular child. We received our LOA from China on 9/23/16! As of that date, it was official that Mary Carson would become our daughter! And after that date we were able to post pictures of her and tell publicly about her. So exciting. So many intricate steps. A whole world of adoption and paperwork and politics that I never knew before.

how did we come to be matched with our girl?

I'm going to try to give some details as to how we were matched with Mary Carson, mostly for my own memory, and for her to look back and read one day. So we found out about her on Monday, Sept 12th. It was just a regular Monday, I had just picked Caitlin up from preschool and I had Hudson in the car with me and we were on the way to Caitlin's gymnastics that she takes on Mondays. I got a phone call, and since we're in this waiting stage - I looked to see who was calling (because normally, I almost never answer the phone - my friends know this! - amiright? textplease) and AWAA (our adoption agency) popped up on the screen. Which I thought was weird because...

Rewind to Friday, Sept 9th. I'm working at the hospital and I get a call at work and see AWAA pop up on the caller ID. My heart starts racing, I start sweating, I can't breathe properly, I start shaking. THIS MIGHT BE THE CALL... is all that was running through my mind. Since you're reading this after the fact, you know that it was not in fact the call. Our agency did call us that day about a little girl who was 38 months old. Our family coordinator (agency worker) called to tell us she had a little girl we might be interested in, but she was 38 months old and we had stated that we would accept a referral for a child 0-36 months old (we stated this because Hudson is 34 months, and we thought it would probably be around his birthday that we'd get a referral, and we were hoping to keep the same birth order). My heart immediately dropped, and I immediately felt sad, a feeling of this is not her. Adam and I had discussed another little girl (not a referral but a waiting child with more intense medical needs) a month or two ago who was 4, closer to Caitlin's age and Adam really felt like we shouldn't disrupt the birth order of our kids. So since Adam and I had already discussed not adopting out of birth order, I felt confident with saying to our family coordinator- "no, we would not like to view her file." But I felt awful. I was so sad and basically prayed that day and all weekend that another family would say yes to that little girl (they did, I found out later). It was such an emotional roller coaster, that day.

So back to Monday, Sept 12... since I had just been called by AWAA on Friday, it didn't seem like that big of a deal that they were calling back. We were expecting to wait several more months before getting a referral (we had only been waiting almost three months to the day since our log in date, and we expected we would wait 5-6 months after the log in date to get a referral). We had been praying we would know who our baby was before Christmas. So to get another call from AWAA, I honestly thought our family coordinator might just be calling back about the child that we said no to. So I answered the phone, without the accompanied adrenaline rush, and she says, "is this a good time to talk?" and I responded with something to the effect of I'm driving and I have my two younger kids in the car but, sure, why not. And she says, we have another file for you to look at and I think this one with her age might be a much better match for your family. (ohmygosh - seriously! I'm dying. Can't believe it. So excited but kindof in disbelief.) She told me that she had the file of an 18 month old girl with cleft lip and would we like to look at her file? Well... seeing as that's almost exactly what I pictured our little China baby like - I said definitely! She sent me an email with Mary Carson's picture (the two pictures that exist of her in America), along with all of her referral documents (her medical form, etc) in Chinese and also a PDF of the English translated version of what we know about her. Adam and I had agreed that we would wait to open the email together and see what she looked like at the same time, etc. So I got an email with all of this info around 1:30 on Monday but Adam wasn't available (because of work meetings) to meet me until almost 4:15 that afternoon. All I knew was what they told me on the phone was her age, and the area in China that she is which is Guizhou. It took an inordinate amount of self control to not open that email and so I just read everything I could about the area that I knew that she was in while I waited. There was lots of texting Adam, like are you sure you can't get out of that meeting?!? 

But alas, 4:15 rolled around and after I had dropped off Caleigh at ballet, I met Adam at a little park near the ballet studio that we frequent and he opened up his computer. He opened the email and there she was. I think I expected that there would be some super magical feeling, a super emotional response, like - she looks like a Dyer, or an immediate knowing for sure, a light beam shining down from heaven or something. But there wasn't that. Instead there was just peace. As we read over her medical information and details about her there was just this thought of, yes she could fit in our family, yes we have room for her, yes we can do this. I think in this culture, emotions are everything and often what we want from God is an emotional experience. We want to really 'feel' it, we want to be in the moment, etc. But that's not always how God works. I wanted that big emotional response, and I'm not even an emotional person. One of my closest friends asked me, as I described this to her, how did you feel when you saw your biological babies for the first time? Did you have a big emotional response then? And I said no I didn't. There was a thankfulness that they were here (and not inside me), and a love that grew as I looked at them and took care of their needs... and I had been bonded to them for 9 months while they grew inside me, so I shouldn't be surprised that with this finding out about Mary Carson, I didn't have a big emotional response. But there was peace. And as I looked back on that day in retrospect, I saw in my journal that the Psalm that I read that day (I read a Psalm every day before my Bible time - I just start that Psalm 1 and read it and then go through them all one day at a time and then start over) as the Lord was preparing me to find out about Mary Carson was Psalm 23.
Which is just so fitting. A passage that to me has always brought comfort. My grandmama's favorite passage, one of the Mary's Mary Carson is named after. The Lord was preparing me to find out about her.

After that afternoon of reading her information, my favorite part of which said (the few sentences on her personality that were included in somewhat broken, translated English), "She likes noisy place, and likes playing together with other children. If she plays outdoor she can share her toys and food... She likes the cell phone and remote control best." The Lord planned that she would be in our family, that this would be her story. And I love that He made her as one who likes a noisy place and likes playing with other children - let me tell you our house is quite noisy, and we have lots of other children for her to play with. I love that she likes the cell phone and remote control best :) - so developmentally fitting for an 18 month old. I feel like since September 12th when we found out about her, as we've started 'nesting' for her - putting her picture up everywhere, talking about her so much with our kids and with others, etc, the Lord has been knitting my heart to hers from far away. I'm thankful for that and would love if you would pray that that would continue to happen. How has it been almost a month since we've known about her?? Feels like we've known forever, and also, like we hardly know her at all.

Next up - after the park...

our precious China baby

I've wondered for a long time what it would be like to write this post but for today I'll keep it short and sweet and then I'll hit you with more information in the coming days...

If your heart is beating faster, it should be...

WE GOT OUR REFERRAL!

We know who our China baby is!

She is a seriously precious 18 month old sweetie in the Guizhou Province of China (southwest China). She has a little cleft lip and we think she's the most adorable little peanut ever!

Without further ado...

We'll name her Mary Carson (a double name) and we're planning to incorporate her Chinese name as her middle name but still working on that. More on her name in a later post too.

She was 10 months, almost 11 months old when these pictures were taken at the end of January of this year. She turned 18 months on the Sunday after we found out about her and we celebrated with a proper Chinese dinner. We've been laughing so hard because we were so excited, we printed out a bunch of pictures and put them all over the house. I mean, there's one in the den, one in the living room, one in the kitchen, one on the dining room table so she's eating with us, one in our bedroom, one in our bathroom, one in her bedroom that she'll share with Caitlin, one in the kids bathroom... you get the idea - but what makes it funny is there are way more pictures of her in the house then there are of Hudson (our almost three year old) right now (insert crying laughing emoji). We can't stop staring at her and marveling at the Lord's faithfulness to us and to her in this process.

Almost 11 months since we started this adoption and yet God has known from the beginning that this was the story that He was writing for us and for her.

"Have you not heard that I determined it long ago? I planned from days of old what shall now come to pass..." - Isaiah 37:26

We've known about her since Monday, September 12th and it's been killing us not publicly spread the word - but we were waiting for the official approval from China (our LOA - letter of acceptance) to arrive and we found out today that we actually got it on Friday. Praise God.

Travel in 10-12 weeks - um, hello, Christmas! More on that later too. 

For now, praise God with us for this precious daughter. And a snapshot of her name... Mary means wished for child. Praise God with us for this wished for child. May He bring us quickly to her!

waiting, waiting, waiting...

Well, I haven't posted in a while because there's really not much to post. No updates. We are still waiting. Everyone asks where we are with the adoption and I am so thankful for the questions because it reminds me that I'm not the only one thinking about China baby - but the answer makes me sad, "still waiting..." And if I'm honest, I have been really struggling in the waiting this past month. I've been feeling so melancholy. I've been feeling this urgency, this wringing of hands, this striving in my soul desiring information, desiring to 'fix' this waiting situation. I've been dying to email our agency worker and say - is there an unofficial list? Where are we on that list? How much longer?? Case in point of my melancholy, Adam came home the other night late from work and the kids were in bed and I was sitting on the couch in the living room listening to this Bethany Dillon song on repeat and sobbing. (I am obsessed with this song right now and pray over our baby girl so much as I hear it. I remember when she was just a heartbeat; just a whispered prayer and a secret hope for so long and now I know that we are so close but she still feel so far away - on the other side of the world. Can't wait until we're humming and dancing through the years together.)

So I struggled with this for a couple weeks and then I read something on a blog that really encouraged me. The gist of it was that God is completely in control and sovereign over all things and a reminder that He works all things together for our good. Adoption involves a lot of hardship. Financial hardship, emotional hardship, the waiting is hard, etc. If God wanted adoption to be easy, it would be. But our adoption as children and heirs into the family of God through Christ shedding his blood for us was not easy. Adoption at it's very beginning in the Biblical narrative has always been hard. But the hard is for our good. That's the point that I wasn't getting. It seems and feels like a senseless hard. Wouldn't it be better, Lord, if China baby was just already with us? Wouldn't it be better if she was already home with us instead of languishing in an orphanage? Wouldn't it be better if this process was faster or cheaper or _________? But God is sovereign. "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." (Isaiah 55:8-9). His ways are higher than my ways. His thoughts are higher than my thoughts. He is God and I am not. "This God - his way is perfect; the word of the Lord proves true..." (Psalm 18:30). So the point of it is God's way is perfect and his way is for us to wait right now. This waiting is for our good. The striving and restlessness that I was feeling in my soul this past month were actually a distrust of God and His plans for us. The striving I felt was necessary was me trying to make my own way to get out of this hard instead of leaning into the hard place where God has me. But God has me here waiting for a reason. This God - his way is perfect... and that includes this waiting. It is perfect. It certainly doesn't feel like it but the more I speak truth to myself as I feel the striving rising up, the more I feel a rest in my soul. A sitting down at the feet of Jesus like Mary in Luke 10:42, only this one thing is necessary. I love how that verse says "Mary has chosen the good portion." This choosing to believe, this choosing to listen to what Jesus says in the Scriptures - it is just that, a choice. I was defaulting to being anxious and troubled about many things. I have to chose the good portion. And so we wait, and we hope, and we live life in the present. 

We keep eating our Chinese on the 13th day of every month (at least) to mark the number of months past our log-in date. I'm trying my hand at making Chinese and it's turning out pretty good! Caleigh now says it's her favorite food. Although she also hopes that they have orange chicken and/or honey chicken in China (insert my favorite crying laughing emoji here). Here was the veggies before I added them to our Mongolian beef (the meal from August 13th - 2 months logged in)...

Also we are planning on the big kids coming with us to China! We are so excited about this and so are they. We went to get their passports and though I stressed about this all summer, it was truly one of the easiest things. And then we received them on Saturday (10 days after application day and we didn't expedite or anything - amazing!).

I'll post again soon a little bit more about how the referral process works in China. In the meantime keep praying with us that we know who our China baby is before Christmas (though much before that would be awesome), pray for her that the Lord would sustain her, and keep asking us about her - we love it!

silent tears

"Mom, when we get China baby will we teach her that she doesn't have to cry silent tears?" Asked by Caleigh while laying on China baby's bed in the room that she'll share with Caitlin, as she watched me switch out clothes in the drawers. Y'all. I'm not a crier (though it seems this adoption is attempting to make me one) - but I almost burst into tears right there. 

The purpose in our adoption was not to open our kids' eyes to the lonely, the oppressed, the unloved, but it's doing that. Actually the purpose in our adoption was not about us at all. That's one thing that has been sticking with me these past couple weeks. We are not adopting for us. Adoption is not primarily because we want more kids (though we do), not because we feel like we don't have enough kids (though the world would say we definitely do), not about us at all. Adoption is not about finding the right child for us. If I think that the adoption is about me, about fulfilling something in me, or saying something about me, or achieving something for me, then I am setting myself up for disappointment and failure. Adoption is about the child. It's for the child. It's about her, loving her, serving her, being a family (THE family) for her. I think that's why I internally cringe when people hear we're adopting and say, "What, you didn't think you had enough kids already?" 

But it's not about us. It's about God and the narrow road that he's calling us to walk in this life. Does it look countercultural sometimes? Yes, totally. And that's a good thing. They will know we are Christians by our love. 

Caleigh's question that typical Thursday morning is just part of the normal conversation around our house. We were talking awhile ago about how orphanages are unusually quiet because the babies don't really cry. They learn as infants that crying - out of hunger, out of a desire to be held, out of a need for a diaper change - doesn't illicit any response and so they cease crying when they need something. We've talked about how with China baby we'll be celebrating different milestones. For example when she cries for something from us, we'll be so glad. When she gets hurt and comes to us for comfort, we'll rejoice. Because it means she is opening her heart. She is trusting us. Oh how we pray for that! So yes to you, Caleigh. Yes, absolutely we will teach her that she doesn't have to cry silent tears anymore. And we will teach her with love. "And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love." (1 Corin 13:13). 

 (Can you spot the baby panda?) 

the all important LID

The China process for adoption is very streamlined. They've got a system and everything flows by the system and basically never deviates.

This is one thing I'm so thankful for with our adoption of our sweet baby girl. 

Typically, a family receives their log-in date about 1-4 weeks after their dossier to China (DTC) date. We got our log in date on Monday (6/13/16), a little more than 2 weeks after our dossier was sent to China.

Basically having the log-in date means that we are officially logged into the CCCWA's system and are able to receive a child's file when they become available. SO exciting! And yet...

Now we wait. We know the Lord knows who our China baby is. Adoption is His good plan for a world that is wasting away from sin - a good plan for a bad world. I wish that every child could grow up in their biological family, that no child had to endure the pain of separation from that which they once knew, that no child knew what it was like to be truly hungry, to be truly alone, to be neglected in terrible ways. And one day Jesus will come back and make that happen, He will come and make all things new (Rev 21:5).

But for now, on this side of heaven, we wait. We wait for heaven and long and hope for that day with eager anticipation. And we live as God calls us to live on earth in light of that. I am so sad for the brokenness and sadness that our daughter will know before she even comes to us, the depth of it that I can't even understand having not experienced it myself. But I am so thankful for a God who sees, El Roi (Gen 16:13). He knows our baby fully. He knit her together, not in my womb, but in her first mother's womb. With intention, with purpose. And I just pray that as we wait, as she waits, that her little heart will hold onto hope. Hold onto the hope that God sees her. That He cares for the orphan and He has a plan for her. That He will soon change her name - that she will no longer be called orphan, abandoned, unwanted, but beloved daughter, precious sister, beautiful grandbaby. And though her story involves pain and hurt, God has a good plan for her life --a plan to prosper her and not to harm her, a plan for a hope and a future. 

I wear a necklace often that says, "Blessed is she who has believed that He would fulfill his promise to her." It's from Luke 1:45 and it is Elizabeth speaking to Mary when she is pregnant with Jesus our Savior. 

And blessed is our China baby, who believes that the Lord would fulfill his promise to her, that "he sets the lonely in families" (Psalm 68:6). Pray for us as we wait, and especially for our girl as she waits. She is the one whose circumstances as she waits are dismal. The waiting time goes by quickly sometimes for us with big kids activities and time with family and friends and summer and school, but for her the waiting time is the same. The same crib. The same food. Nothing to look forward to. So please pray for her. She is so loved and treasured by us, but even more than that she is loved and treasured by the God who sees and knows her so intimately. Pray that her little heart would hold on to hope whatever that looks like for a baby girl, and that the Lord would bring us quickly together.

Praise God for LID!

when we pray, coincidences happen

It is amazing the way God works. Isn't it?

There's this great quote in a book called A Praying Life by Paul Miller (sidenote: This book is probably the most or one of the most influential books I have read as a Christian. It has hugely impacted my spiritual life, and it is so easy to read. Seriously you could read it in a couple days - though you might want to ponder over it for more than that. Check it out!) -
       In the book the author quotes Sir William Temple who said, "When I pray, coincidences happen, and when I don't, they don't." Isn't that true? We'll be praying for something and then it will happen and we will sometimes forget that we even prayed about it, and instead when the thing comes true, we will somehow attribute it to chance - coincidence - or we will somehow attribute it to ourselves (thinking that our good planning, or hard work, made xyz thing that we prayed for come true).
But y'all.
It's God.
It really is.

Well, God orchestrated something this year in Caleigh's 2nd grade class that I couldn't have even thought to pray for, I wouldn't have even come up with the idea. He is just that good. Here's the story of this good thing that He did (it's kind of a long story):

So (just pretend we're sitting down having a cup of coffee or a glass of wine while I tell this story)... when you begin an adoption, one of the things that you have to do is the dreaded medical checklist. Basically it's a giant giant checklist (multiple columns per page single spaced, multiple pages) of every medical condition you've never heard of (hello Dr. Google), and you have to go through and check, yes I'm willing to accept that or no, I'm not willing to accept that. Basically it was awful because when you check no, you feel like you are saying no to an actual child. I wanted to be brave when we filled out that form and I wanted to check yes on lots of things (and we did), but we had to wisely examine our family, our resources, the hospital and medical and pediatric specialists around us as we filled out that form. For example we decided to check no to osteogenesis imperfecta (brittle bone disease), because it requires you to be super fragile with those kids and super careful because their bones break super super easily. Well, as the youngest of 5 kids and with a dog and a trampoline in the back, that's just not feasible for our family. So these are the things we had to consider. Anyways, one of the things we are open to is cleft lip/cleft palate (CL/CP) - a common medical condition in China. It's definitely not a minor need, as many surgeries are required over many years, but it is manageable. I have been on quite the journey with CL/CP and I would not be surprised if our little China baby ended up with that as her medical need. Also have I said before on the blog that all adoptions from China now are some kind of medical special need? Hence the medical checklist... Anyways... So, in our conversations with our social worker she had wisely recommended that we start preparing our kids for the possible medical conditions that China baby might have so that they weren't shocked when the time came. So we started talking to them a lot in January/February about how God makes everyone differently and how no one is perfect. How some babies in the U.S. and in China are born with a "rip in their lip" which is what we are calling cleft to them. We showed them pictures of sweet China babies with cleft (and they were shocked, as was I, until I got used to it, and then loved it, and now I think a cleft smile is basically the cutest thing ever). And we talk about that, it's no big deal, it's just the way God made them, and it can be fixed up with a little surgery and then they'll have a scar. Which always prompts every kid to talk about the scars they have, especially Caleigh who talks about the scars she has inside her ears from 3 sets of tubes (very true). So this conversation was just a constant for a month or two at our house. One night at dinner we're talking about this again. And we're talking about how if China baby has CL/CP, she would just have a couple surgeries and a scar but how it's no big deal, because once again, nobody is perfect. And Caleigh says, oh yeah that's like my friend Lilly at school. So Caleigh in 2nd grade has 2 best buddies - Reeves and Lilly. I know Reeves because they were in K together and have been buddies since then, but I didn't know Lilly. But Caleigh has talked about Lilly all year, about how they play together with Reeves every day, etc. Back to dinner - I said, "Oh really? What do you mean?" And Caleigh said, "My friend Lilly at school has that, she's had like 4 surgeries, but it's not big deal, she just has a little scar." And I say, "Oh wow, that's interesting. So was she just born with a rip in her lip?" And Caleigh says, "No Mom (in her slightly exasperated way), she's Chinese! She was adopted from China." And my jaw basically drops. Shocked. One of Caleigh's best friends at school this year has been a sweet girl who was adopted from China with cleft lip/cleft palate? I could not have orchestrated or planned that if I tried. How amazing is that? God has used this little friendship to normalize adoption to her even more, to normalize cleft lip/cleft palate even more, to prepare her for this adoption in a way in her heart that I'm sure I won't know about for years to come, if ever. Praise God for that, for this family, and for this sweetest little friend of Caleigh's.

(from a recent sleepover)

Wow. Just wow. Seriously in awe of God and the amazing ways He works. When we pray, coincidences happen, and when we don't, they don't. 

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. 

~Isaiah 55:8-9

DTC!!!!!

Almost 7 months of paperwork after starting this journey, we are DTC (dossier to China)! A file of our entire life's history: background checks, employment verifications, financial statements, etc etc etc are on their way over to the People's Republic of China now. 

After it's long Fedex journey, it will arrive at the CCCWA (China Center for Children's Welfare and Adoption)- basically similar to our version of the Department of Social Services, where it will eventually be logged in to their electronic database and on that day we will be issued a log in date (LID). Once we get the log in date, we are eligible to receive a match at any time- though we expect our wait will be several months. 

Join us in our celebration of this milestone in our journey!

China-lina

In my mind, I've gone to China-lina...

Oh wait... that's not how the song goes.

But really, China is probably one of the biggest topics of conversation in our house.

Caitlin worked on this one day while I was working...

Caitlin carried this thing around with her everywhere until it was tattered and torn and as you can see in pen, she kept adding to it as she talked about China baby's journey. It is so neat to see her processing (and as she processed, she worked on the map, and she stapled to it and added to it and I eventually threw it away while she was sleeping because I'm a bad mom - but don't worry - we've made several more!). Caitlin loves to chat about Mommy, Daddy, Caleigh, and Andrew flying on an airplane to go to China to get China baby and then how she is going to be at the Lake House with Gammy and Bampa and Hudson, and how she will meet China baby at the airport, and how she will teach her everything, like how to swim and how to swing on the swing outside and how to sleep in her room. She has the sweetest little heart as she processes it all. And I know I've posted before about her sweet heart towards China baby, and I've been meaning to do a post about the big kids (and I will) - but God just works in mysterious ways, and He is working in Caitlin knitting her heart together with this baby girl, her sister, from across the ocean. I pray the same for our baby girl - that God would be working in her and preparing her heart for all that is to come - adoption is ultimately a good plan for a world broken by sin. But with it comes so much loss and my heart is heavy with that for our youngest-soon-to-be-Dyer. She has a big change ahead of her in becoming a Dyer, and though it will ultimately be good (a family!), there will be much grief in the process - much loss - the loss of everything she has ever known. And my heart hurts in that for her.

I got word today that our final documents are being picked up from the US State Department today and they'll be couriered to the Chinese Embassy on Friday (tomorrow) for final authentication. Once that is complete, our agency let us know that we should be DTC next Friday, May 27th. So exciting!

mothers day 2016

My mother's day this year was fantastic. I felt so loved. Adam did a fantastic job of celebrating me, and really it was just a great semi-regular day of being a mom. I think part of the greatness of it was that the kids are getting older and really want to participate in making it mom's day... and part of it was that my favorite thing to do, and our annual mother's day tradition is something they also love and look forward to: a Sunday late afternoon walk to Brixx for pizza outside on the patio and then ice cream at Ben and Jerry's. The weather was fantastic and we just all really enjoyed being together. It was such a great great day. 

 A stop at the park on the way home...

 It's hard to take a selfie with 6 people... (see below)

I think one of the reasons this mother's day was so sweet was that I was still riding the elation of knowing all of our paperwork is in to our agency. It feels like I'm pregnant! With a China baby! And it's so exciting. As opposed to the melancholy of the ups and downs of waiting for prior paperwork approvals when everything felt like it was moving so slowly and like it would never be here, now I can almost feel how close we are getting. It is still our hope and prayer that we would receive a referral for our China baby before Christmas. I think it's likely, but Adam will be there first to tell you that I have a thing with expectations ;) ... as in I really like them, I probably hope in them too much, I probably get too disappointed when my expectations aren't met... so I don't want to get my hopes up, or plan on a specific date. But honestly, I'm a planner, I already know I'll be disappointed if we're not matched by Christmas. But I know that "the heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps." (Prov 16:9) I know we will be matched in His timing.

But anyways we're excited and it was a great Mother's Day. And it is all from the Lord. For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. (Romans 11:36)

I'm so looking forward to the day when we're attempting 7 people selfies, and we've got a little China baby in the middle of our blond haired crew.

all of our documents...

Some exciting movement happening! After we got our I800a approval in the mail on Saturday, April 23rd, I had to go and get a notarized copy made on Monday and then we overnighted our remaining 3 documents to the NC Secretary of State to be certified. We received those three documents back with their official NC state seals on Wednesday afternoon May 4th. Woohoo!

On Thursday morning I spent some quality time with the copy machine and finished preparing all of our final documents to send to our adoption agency. I was in a time crunch and trying to get it done in not-quite-enough time and was a bit overwhelmed and stressed. (And trying not to break out in tears over my copier-woes... technology hates me!) I was trying to get to an appointment with a friend and ultimately had to text her and cancel our plans. She was so completely gracious and sent me the sweetest prayer that she was praying for our family (thanks Trish!) God continues to amaze me with the way He works in mine and the lives of my friends - praise be to the Lord!

So after my mini breakdown I snapped a pic on the way to drop off our precious compilation of documents that we've been gathering for the last 6 months. All the documents for our dossier arrived at our agency in Virginia this past Friday. Woohoo! It's out of my hands! Insert praise hands emoji.

There are still 3 documents in the package that our agency will courier over to the US State Department and the Chinese Embassy in DC. Once those documents get their final (Chinese) seals of approval - our agency will notify us that they are sending everything to China and then we will finally be dossier to China (DTC). Hallelujah, praise Jesus. These last couple documents should take about 2 weeks to make their way through the system. We.Can't.Wait.

Seriously, we're so happy! So excited to have some movement and to be one (big) step closer to our China baby.

On another note, we have been so blessed recently by some generous donations from a couple friends to our fundraising account: www.adopttogether.org/thedyerfam

We need your help to bring home our China baby!

With our big package of paperwork, also went a check for $6,730. Completely worth it, and most of the money that we've saved toward this adoption. Once we are DTC, our fundraising efforts will kick into higher gear - we have a friend of a friend very generously working on a t-shirt design now. If you're able, we would love if you would prayerfully consider supporting us in #bringinghomeourchinababy.

best email ever!

I'm sure I will say that several more times in the next month or so as we hit exciting adoption milestones, but today it really feels like it! We got great news- I inquired on the status of our I800A application and I received this email back today...

Seriously so so excited. I didn't realize how much this had been weighing on me until getting this email today and feeling a huge weight lift. I had worried that I had circled the wrong box somewhere, not included enough information about something, etc. But the immigration officer found everything to be in order and approved our application! Praise the Lord! Our China baby, who has no idea that a family across the globe already loves her, nor that we wake up randomly in the middle of the night and pray for her (seriously, twice this week), is on her way to becoming an American citizen! Insert praise hands emoji here. 

It's also pretty fitting that we're hosting supper club tomorrow night and had already planned a Chinese meal; now we really have something to celebrate. So thankful! One step closer...

ugh... no update... still waiting

Well, I haven't posted an update in a while because there is nothing to update. We are still waiting for the completion of our last step before we can send everything to China. And then we'll be matched some time after that.

It feels like we have been waiting for approval of our I800a FOREVER. In reality it's been 42 days... (but who's counting?)

Apparently, these applications used to take only 2 weeks to receive approval, but there is a big slowdown at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration office with additional employee training and movement to a new facility which has delayed approvals to being somewhere around 50-60 days. 

I'm tired of telling people we're in the same place.

I'm likening it to trying to get pregnant. This waiting period before we are DTC (dossier to China) - the HUGE date - it feels like when we were trying to conceive a baby. I think it feels like that because technically there is still 'stuff' I can do. Once you're pregnant with an actual baby, everything is pretty much out of your hands for the remainder of the pregnancy. Once we are DTC with all of our documents in China, everything is pretty much out of our hands. We will get a referral after we are DTC in the Lord's timing. He knows who our baby girl is. But this time before DTC really feels like trying to get pregnant and at this point it's been taking awhile and I'm weary of it.

I can't wait until we are DTC! I can't wait until we receive our approval of our I800a application. But I know that "the heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps." (Prov 16:9) I'm admittedly a planner. I like to know what's coming, I like order, I like timelines. In my head I had planned/hoped that we would be DTC by the first of May (about 6 months from beginning paperwork) and in reality it probably won't be too long after that. I think I can feel like a failure if I don't meet my pre-conceived standards or timeline. But the Lord establishes our steps. Things happen in His timing for His purposes. There is a purpose in this "long" wait for our I800a approval.

And who knows what the purpose is? The Lord does. Maybe our baby girl's papers are still being prepared so that she can be adopted from China and if not for the long wait, we wouldn't be matched with exactly who the Lord intends for us. But God knows.

I'm sad because at this point of longing to be paper "pregnant" - I'm missing the emotional connection that I had to our baby girl in the beginning of this process. In the beginning, after the culmination of so much hoping, I felt so connected to her story. Everything made me think of her. Every song I heard, every thing we did - I imagined what she was doing, where she was, what her circumstances might be. I was often tearful - a rarity for me! And now, I'm missing that aspect. I feel weary of waiting. I wish I could feel her growing and kicking inside of me, though I know that even though she is not growing in my physical body, she is growing in my heart - stretching me and molding my heart in ways that I wouldn't have imagined were possible.

And so we wait. We hold the course. We trust the Lord to bring us to our baby girl in His timing. 

not the same - what does it look like to love kids from hard places?

There was a great blog post a week or two ago on website that I follow called No Hands But Ours. The website is maintained by a host of adoptive parents, and is specifically focused on providing information and resources for others who are involved in the world of special needs adoption from China. The post really hit home for me and I found it really helpful and wanted to share it.

The post dealt with the differences between parenting a child who had a traumatic start to life (ie a child that comes out of an orphanage situation, foster care system, older child adoption, or other hard social situations in which there were many cycles of unmet needs) and parenting a child with a 'typical' start to life - it which they were raised in a loving home and had many 'met' cycles of need.

The premise of her blog post is that even though these kids' actions may look the same on the outside - they are coming from very different places emotionally and can't be parented the same way. Before we did any adoption training and before I had a clue what a cycle of need even was, I have to admit I was/am guilty of comparing kids who have been adopted to my kids or other kids who were raised in stable, loving environments. I really think I did it out of a place of love, saying - look, your adopted kid is doing what ____ other kid is doing, they're "normal." It was my measly, uneducated attempt at comfort I think? But in reality, we can't compare the two children. A hard beginning with many unmet cycles of need truly changes a child's brain.

What is a cycle of need anyways?

Basically a cycle of need is when a baby has a need (like they're hungry or need to be changed or they're scared), then they cry, the caregiver meets their need (feeds them or changes them or holds them if they're scared), and trust develops. This is a cycle of need and this is the cycle by which healthy attachments are formed.

On the contrary, in children from hard backgrounds, there are often many unmet cycles of need:

A baby has a need (hungry or dirty diaper or scared), so they cry, their needs are not met - i.e. they are not fed, they are not changed, they are not picked up. And trust does not develop. Instead of trust, rage develops instead. And when this rage develops there are many other downstream effects of this unmet cycle of need. Cortisol, a stress hormone, is released in the body and this has many detrimental effects to a tiny, developing body. Babies in these situations will often develop self-soothing mechanisms - head banging, self rocking, etc. They stop crying because there is no point. Often you hear of 'silent' orphanages... in high school I went on a missions trip to Romania and we spent some time in an orphanage and experienced this. It was so eerie. So many babies and kids in there and you could hear a pin drop. This is the place that kids from hard backgrounds are coming from. Their brains have been hard-wired with a distrust for authority, they've been hard-wired to believe that starvation is right around the corner, etc. Seriously this little blurb does not even do justice to or scratch the surface of all the intricacies of attachment and the importance of it, but I truly encourage you / urge you - if you have anyone in your life/in your church/ in your community that has adopted, or if you are ever around adopted kids, please read this article:

http://www.nohandsbutours.com/2016/04/05/not-the-same/

It is so important for us to come around and support those who have adopted, and to do it from a place not just of niceties, but to be able to love and speak to them in a way that will really encourage and really meet their needs.

Really though, read the article. :)