Consulate Appointment and Plane Tickets

We have our consulate appointment confirmed - January 27th. So we will actually come back on January 30th. We also purchased our plane tickets yesterday. We will be flying from Wichita to Chicago, and then into Beijing. And on the way back we will be flying from Shanghai to Chicago, and then into Wichita. Now we are waiting for our agency to send us an itinerary for the in China travel arrangements. After we receive that we should have all arrangements made!! Now we have to make sure we can fit all our stuff into 4 suitcases with each suitcase weighing under 44 pounds. I think we have some fine tuning to do!

Travel Approval

Our travel approval arrived yesterday from China. Our agency has estimated we will leave on 1-14-10 and return home on 1-29-10. They should have confirmation on our consulate appointment either tomorrow or the next day. That will determine for sure when we will travel. We are so close to getting Raegan!!!

Updated Information and Pictures

We sent a care package to Raegan at her orphanage last week. The lady who sends them out also calls the orphanage to get updated information on the babies. Today we got updated measurements and two new pictures. We were so excited to get these!

Her updated measurements are:

Height 26.8"

Weight 17 pounds

Her weight of 17 pounds is probably not accurate. Most of the time the orphanages weigh the babies with their clothing on, especially in the winter. As you can tell from the pictures it looks like Raegan has on several layers of clothing. Most of the orphanages don't have heating so they bundle up the babies to keep them warm.

This makes us even more anxious to go get Raegan.

Dena

Raegan's Name

Raegan's name will be Raegan Faye Elizabeth. Each of these names has special meaning to us.

Raegan: The Rae in Raegan is in honor of our dearly beloved father, father-in-law, and grandfather, Ray Robertson. He passed away in November 2002. We miss him every day, but even more so when we have reasons to celebrate such as Raegan's referral. He loved Marshall and Madelyn so very much, and found special joy in spending time with them. We know he would have felt the same for Raegan.

Faye: We are especially blessed that both of our mother's middle names are Faye. We are able to name Raegan after these very special women who are so important to us. Our children mean the world to them and they are anxiously awaiting Raegan's arrival. She will know unlimited love and care from her grandmothers.

Elizabeth: All of our children have a second middle name. This name is a Biblical name that has special meaning to us. I'm sure most of you know but Elizabeth and her husband were unable to have children. They prayed to God and he blessed them with a child.

Visa Application

Friday we got our Visa applications sent off. We had to send a visa application for each of us, pictures, passports, paperwork for our agency, and of course money. But we are one step closer to going to China. I have been busy going through all the stuff I have collected for the trip over the past three and a half years. Now I have to start eliminating things we really don't have to take. We can each take one checked suitcase weighing 44 pounds or less. Also, we can each carry on one personal item (such as a backpack, purse, or laptop bag) and one other small suitcase or bag. Our only problem is that we ALWAYS over pack when we go on a trip.

Hope everyone had a great weekend -
Dena

More Information

We received Raegan's translated medical and growth history on Monday so we know a little more about her. Here is some of the important information:

Chinese Name: Jiang Jing Li
Orphanage: CWI of Pingjiang County, Hunan Province
Her medical report was all normal.
She is described as a deep sleeper, enjoys music, and is quiet.

We returned our acceptance paperwork on Monday and our agency will send it to China on Friday. We received an e-mail from our agency today stating they anticipate we will travel in January. Our next task is to get our paperwork ready and sent out for our visas.

We will keep everyone updated on anything new.

Dena

It's a Girl!

We received our referral today and we are so excited! Here is the basic information we got today:

Birthdate - May 10, 2009 (almost 7 months old)
Measurements on 8-18-09
Height 60 cm
Weight 11 lbs

She is from Hunan Province

We should receive more information from our agency when they finish translating her referral packet. We will keep everyone updated with anything new that we receive.

Shawn and Dena

Travel Schedule

We haven't heard anything about referrals. Our agency is e-mailing us every day to let us know that they don't know anything new. Hopefully next week they will know a little more about when to expect referrals but we aren't counting on it!

So, I thought I would write about what we will be doing during our two weeks in China. This is our agency's projected daily schedule.

Day 1: Leave Wichita and fly to Beijing
Day 2: Arrive in Beijing
Day 3: Tour Great Wall, Tiananmen Square, and Forbidden City
Day 4: Leave Beijing for Raegan's province
Day 5: Adoption registration - this is when we will get Raegan
Day 6: Adoption notarization - this is when we will complete the China adoption paperwork
Day 7: Apply for Raegan's passport
Day 8: Free day
Day 9: Notarization of adoption documents and get Raegan's passport
Day 10: Leave for Guangzhou
Day 11: Raegan's physical exam and photo for her American visa.
Day 12: Visit the American consulate for Raegan's entry visa interview
Day 13: Pick up Raegan's visa at the American consulate
Day 14: Leave Guangzhou and fly to Hong Kong
Day 15: Depart for U.S. from Hong Kong

Most days we will be spending a little time doing paperwork or going to appointments, but then the rest of the day will be free. Probably our busiest day out the of the two weeks will be on Day 3 when we tour. We will get up early and tour most of that day. The rest of the time we can stay as busy as we want to. A lot of days our guide will actually have short tours planned which we can go on or stay at the hotel to do our own thing. Speaking of guides, our agency has arranged guides for our group that will be with us 24 hours a day for the entire trip. They will pick us up at the airport, make all our arrangements, translate for us, and be on call the entire trip.

We are really looking forward to going to China. The best thing of course will be getting Raegan but we feel like the trip itself will be an incrediable experience for our family. It will definitely be something we will always remember!

Dena

The Referral Process

It seems when I talk to people about getting a referral they don't understand exactly what that means so I wanted to explain the process.

When our agency sent our paperwork to China in 2006 the CCAA (China Center of Adoption Affairs) received our paperwork and logged it into their system. This is called our LID or log in date. Our LID is March 29, 2006. Our file then went to the review room. In the review room they check all your paperwork to make sure you meet their requirements. It took us about a year to hear back that we had made it through review and we had officially been approved by China to receive a child. At that point our file was sent to a room to sit on a shelf until our LID was ready to be matched with a child.

Each month orphanages from around China send in files on children that are available for adoption. Each child must meet certain criteria to be approved for international adoption. The CCAA goes through all the children's files to make sure their paperwork is in order. Then, they begin matching the children's files with parent's files. When our file is matched with Raegan's file that is what is called our referral.

Once all the children have been matched and paperwork signed off on by one of the CCAA officials the referrals are shipped to the individual agencies around the world. Once our agency receives their package of referrals they will contact us with basic information about Raegan such as her birthday and where she is at. They will also send us pictures that day. Then they will get busy translating all the information in her packet into English and have it overnighted to us. So, we should receive all Raegan's information the next day. This will be information like measurements, medical exams, etc. We then sign the paperwork accepting the referral and overnight this back to our agency. They will in turn send it back to China to the CCAA.

We will travel to get Raegan about 6-8 weeks after receiving our referral. It takes this long because once the CCAA receives our acceptance paperwork they contact the orphanage to make sure everything is okay on their end. Then they will send us a Travel Approval or TA. This is basically a paper stating it is okay to travel into China. When we receive our TA the next step is for our agency to contact the American consulate in Guangzhou China for an appointment. This is where we must go for our Visa to bring Raegan into the US. This appointment will be at the end of our trip so all our travel arrangements will be determined by when we get this appointment. Once our agency has this appointment set they will begin to schedule all our travel. It usually takes 3-4 weeks to receive our TA and then a couple weeks before we actually leave for China.

I hope this helps explain the whole process a little better. We are expecting to hear from our agency that referrals have been shipped either this week or next. Of course we are hoping it will be this week!

Dena

Two Home Sick

Shawn and Marshall are both home today sick.  They have high fevers, head congestion, and coughing.  Friday was the end of the first nine weeks of school for the kids and Marshall was so excited to have perfect attendance for a nine week period.  This is a first for him out of all the years he has been in school!   He would have been very disappointed if he had been sick last week instead of this week.  Shawn is on the mend but just isn't feeling very perky yet.  Hopefully by tomorrow Shawn will be back to work and Marshall back to school.

Referrals for October

Our agency received October referrals on 10-12-09 but unfortunately CCAA only referred through 3-28-06. We were so certain we would be in this batch! So, we are pretty bummed this week. The only good thing is that we know for sure we are next. Hopefully the next batch of referrals will arrive around the middle of November and we should still make it to China before the end of the year. We might not be back home until sometime in January but that is okay with us.

No referrals in September

October is here and we have nothing new to report on our referral. CCAA did not send out referrals at all during September which is very unusual. Of course since it is possibly our turn for referrals something odd had to happen!! And to top it off October 1 - 8 is a national holiday in China so we won't hear anything at all until next week. Hopefully when they return from their holiday they will send out referrals right away. We are definitely anxious to hear whether or not we will get Raegan's referral with this batch of referrals or the next.

Happy Anniversary

Today is our 14th wedding anniversary so . . .
Happy Anniversary Shawn, I Love You. The last 14 years have been incredible and just keep getting better!

Tonight we are going to our favorite restaurant and tomorrow Shawn is going to take the afternoon off so we can watch a movie.

And Shawn, if you are reading this, next year will be #15 and I bet Hawaii is beautiful in September!!

Dena

First Rumors for September

The first rumors about referrals are coming in for September. Some people with LID's up to and including 3-29-06 have been told by their agency that they are included in this month's referrals. Unfortunately, the first rumors often end up not being true. We are trying not to get our hopes up and really think it will be next month when we get our referral - but it never hurts to hope.

September is here . . .

and we are settling into a routine with the kids back in school. Marshall goes to a different school this year and has to be on the bus an hour and twenty minutes earlier than last year. Boy has that been hard on him. He definitely likes to sleep in so 6:30 comes way too early. Madelyn is at the same school so doesn't have to get up nearly as early as Marshall but she usually does anyway. She wouldn't want to miss anything! One thing that has been very nice this year is the kids get ready for school at different times. No fighting over the bathroom!!!

No news about September referrals yet. Hopefully in the next week or so a few rumors will start floating around. We are hoping CCAA will match people with LID's (log in date) through March 28, 2006. If that happens we should definitely get our referral in October and travel in December.

August Referrals

We received an e-mail this afternoon from our agency letting us know that August referrals have arrived!

The CCAA (China Center of Adoption Affairs) has matched people with paperwork registered on March 23 and 24, 2006.

We are getting SO close to a referral. It seems very likely that October will be the month we finally get to see Raegan's picture for the first time! That would also mean traveling in November or December. What an incredible holiday season it will be this year.

But for now we definitely need to get busy on all the projects that have to be finished before going to China.

Welcome to Our Blog

We are starting this blog so our family and friends can follow our adoption journey.

Our paperwork was registered in China on March 29, 2006. At the time it was taking about six months to receive a referral. Unfortunately, things slowed down A LOT! We have currently been waiting for 3 years and 4 months.

We are now just a few months away from getting a referral. We will then travel to China about 6 to 8 weeks later for 2 weeks.

We hope that you enjoy following our journey. We would love to hear from you, so please leave comments for us to read.