6 weeks

Approximately six weeks from today we may be in China. We got our next approval this morning (NVC cable and pdf, for those who have any idea what that means) and we only have a couple steps left, which seems crazy at this point. I mean, aren't we supposed to spend the next 3 years with nothing but paperwork to busy ourselves with?

So what is going on now? Well, our I800 approval went to the national visa center, who looked it over and approved the approval. Then, they emailed us a pdf of the approval which we emailed to our agency. Our agency then emails it to their contact in Guangzhou, who will take the approval to the consulate for review (or something). It's a standard 2 week wait before that same contact picks up the approval, called an article 5. Once we have that we are only waiting on our travel approval, which has been taking another 2 weeks or so. Travel approval is the final go ahead from China for us to come get Nora, so we can book flights and hotels and scramble around for another week or two wondering why we procrastinated so many things. Should be fun!

There is one element that will potentially throw off the timing: Chinese New Year. For those who don't know, the entire country pretty much shuts down for a week or more during CNY. This year, it falls on Jan. 23-28th. Because of how things work with the trip, most people won't be traveling after the first week of January, which means there will be a bit of a backlog once things open up again. It's entirely possible that the backlog will push us into the first week or two of February for travel, but we are hoping it doesn't.

As far as Nora goes, she is doing extremely well. She is walking on her own, can go up and down stairs with help and eats solid food. Apparently, she eats rice, noodles, fish, chicken, shrimp, and vegetables. She has 11 teeth with another one on the way and is very active. She weighs about 22 lbs, and is about 30" tall. She has also said her first word "gege" which means older brother. Since she lives with 6 boys, it's not entirely a surprise. Here's hoping the next 6 weeks cruise by with no hiccups.

Yes, we are spoiled

This is a long post. There, you have been warned.

For anyone not familiar with the China adoption program and how things typically run, please don't think that our experience is the typical one of all adoptive parents. It's really not. Most children are not in foster care or western-run group homes. Most will get one update with a few pictures if they are lucky. Most have to worry about if their child is warm enough, getting the care they need, or even being taken out of their crib each day. It's not that orphanages are horrible, it's just that there are usually so many children that caretakers are lucky if they are able to get everyone's basic needs (being fed and changed) met each day.

I fully admit that we are one of the very lucky couples who know that our girl is being well cared for. She gets played with and fed more than just thickened formula. She knows her name because the nannies talk to her. In fact, they are now calling her XiaoNora (pronounced kind of like the first part of shower. It means little) so that she will be used to her English name. They help her practice her walking daily, and she is developmentally right on track. It may not seem like much, but believe me when I say that these are huge things that are not the norm.

In addition to that, Eagles Wings has volunteer groups come help out. In October they had a group come and live with the kids for a month. They helped care for, feed, play with, and go on outings with the children (no field trips for the babies yet, obviously). They also made the following video the help educate about what Eagles Wings is and what they do. It's short, but very well done. Watch for Nora being adorable at 3:50



We've watched it a few dozen times now, and I thought it couldn't get better than seeing my sweet girl smiling so big and looking so happy. I was wrong.

A bit of searching led me to the main page of the group that volunteered in October. Imagine my surprise when I saw that there were blog posts from people who had been in China during that time (it's a big organization, not everyone was at Eagles Wings). Then I found a blog post with pictures written by the girl who narrated and filmed the above. I found a picture on Nora and was so excited to see there was a contact link on her blog. I wrote her a quick little note telling who I was and thanking her for what she had done. I didn't expect to hear from her, especially since she was now in South Africa.

That same day I received an email from her thanking me for the kind words and telling me that the orphanage director had told them that Nora had a family waiting for her and they had seen the picture book we sent. She wanted to know more about our family and told us how cute Nora was. Again, awesome and I thought that was it.

A couple days later I got an email that included the following information:

Nora is such an amazing girl and is always smiling (I am sure you saw the video clip of her whipping her head around with a huge smile on her face). She rarely cries and she holds her own around the 6 toddler boys she lives with. There are also two other girls in the house, but they are both younger than Nora.

When I left a few weeks ago Nora was just starting to walk, she could take a step or two on her own but then she sits down. The house moms have been working with her on it everyday though, so I would not be surprised if she is now walking on her own.

The baby house has three rooms. One for the older boys, one for the babies (where Nora sleeps) and one for the house moms. They have lots of toys to play with, which usually end up all over the floor and [orphanage director] is great about making sure each kid has their own set of clothes.

As if it couldn't get any better, she included 9 pictures. 9! That almost doubles the number of photos we have! Since that is what you came for, enjoy!


Nora is in the pink on the left. This is the group that was there. She is getting so big! Don't let the outfit fool you though, she probably has on about 4-5 layers adding to her bulk.
The play area. We've seen it in photos, but never the real layout. Kinda cool!
Nora in her crib. We've never seen this room and didn't know what bed she slept in. This will be so nice to her for her to see as she gets older and wants to know more about her first year.
Two of the guys looking silly, Nora looking cute, and AiBi looking like she is forming an escape plan that involves a helicopter.
Food time. I love her little socks.

I don't really know what it is about this picture, but I love it so much. Its just beautiful.

Awesome sweater? Check! Slightly exasperated look? Check! Chubby (albeit scratched) cheeks? Check! That must be my baby!

This is my new happy thought.

On Stumbling Toward Fatherhood

Kevin here! I know, I write maybe one in five posts here, and those probably go unnoticed except by those intrepid readers who notice the faint "Posted by... " text at the bottom of each post. This probably means I will love our daughter 1/5 as much as Jen will.

Anyway, WE GOT THE LETTER OF APPROVAL! We got it a few days ago. This is big, huge, gigantic news. This is the fulcrum of the massive lever of paperwork involved in getting her here. Everything before this was the application process, and everything else after this is just hammering out details. This marks China's official blessing for us to come and bring our little girl home.

I got to sign it. It was on really fancy paper with shiny watermarks and everything.

So we're headed into the final lap of this three-plus-year marathon! Exciting things are certainly afoot, but I've been slowly coming to the realization of how completely clueless I am. I'm sure this will sound trite to those who have experienced parenthood already, but there's a tiny part of me that's freaking out that I'm going to travel to a foreign country and they're going to hand me this tiny person and I'm supposed to just know what to do. There are a few steps missing in my brain between "change first diaper" and "attend MIT graduation."

I'm probably looking at this the wrong way, and I have a feeling other parents will tell me that this is all part of the grand adventure. I have a grand confession to make, though, and I don't want to shock anyone or send anyone calling the authorities: I have never changed a diaper. Ever. My experience in the daily operations of turning a human larva into a viable adult is surprisingly limited considering the sheer volume of younglings present at any given family gathering on either side.

Last weekend, Jen and I had the opportunity to babysit her brother's kids overnight while they had a night out. Neither of us had babysat anyone since we were both maybe 13, so we were both a bit nervous. Jen's nephews are two boys, 4 and 6, who are remarkably self-contained, for lack of a better term. We played in a tent set up in the living room, played a game of "wolves vs. tacos" (don't ask), watched Cars 2 (way better than the first one, I thought), made brownies, and goofed around with our two dogs.

Right at 7:30, we announced it was time to get ready for bed and they both went straight to get their jammies on, brush their teeth, pick a book to be read, and say their prayers without complaint (I should note here that the younger one made sure to thank God for the robots and the dinosaurs).

The next morning, one of our dogs was whining to be let outside at about 6:15 a.m. When I got downstairs from the guest bedroom where we were sleeping, I saw a strange glowing light in the corner. When my eyes focused, I saw that it was the older boy who had awakened, went downstairs, found his dad's iPad and was quietly playing a game, sitting on the heater vent under a blanket. We never heard a sound, even though he had to walk right past where we were sleeping.

When their parents got home the next morning, we had one burning question: how did you do that?

These are the questions that sometimes sneak into the edges of my waking thoughts. I already love that little girl and want to be the best dad ever. In the meantime, I'm more excited about China and finally SQUISHING THOSE CHEEKS (after an appropriate adjustment period) then ever before.

We're coming, Eleanor!!

The Best Halloween!

No, we do not have our LOA yet. Today is day 70, so it probably wont be for another couple weeks. Hopefully sooner.

First, allow me to thank those who offered kind words after my last post, it really means a lot and does help. Like I said, some days are good, some are bad.

Today looked like it was going to be bad. I follow a chinese adoption forum and several people got their LOA's today. When this happens I am torn between being happy that SOMEONE got something and jealous that it wasn't us. I'm only human, after all.

Then, I opened my email to get a link to the best Halloween present of all time! Talk about treat!

Looks like she got her care package :)

Is she making her ducky give kisses to the photos? Let's say yes.

I need to switch places with that ducky right now!

We needed this. We needed it very badly, myself especially. Then, just when I thought I could keep it together, I see there is a little video included (I hope I can make this work):



She is walking! Taking her first hesitant steps and we haven't missed it, not really. We get to cheer her on and see the joy on her face when she does it. Go baby girl, go! Not too many more months before we get to see her in person. I just hope we can keep up!

Apparently, the world really is small

We had a couple pretty cool things happen this week. I had forgotten (and I don't know if Kevin even knew) that once you receive pre-approval, the agency sends you the physical file that China sent them including original documents and pictures. Some families will go so far as to have their picture taken with the UPS guy since he is essentially playing the stork for them. Yeah, I don't quite get it either.
Friday I arrived home from work and found among the typical letters offering me credit cards and amazing interwebs service our referral packet. Cool! I figured it would be kinda neat seeing the original Chinese documents and it was. What I didn't count on was two pictures that had not been sent to us. The first being a tiny black and white pre-surgery shot. Sadly, the lack of colors doesn't properly display the majesty of the blue sweater, and she almost looks like someone made a part in her hair with a bandsaw. Still, we take what we can get.


Then I turned to the back of the file where the color photos were and wasn't I surprised to see this.

It may not be the most amazing shot, and I'm sure it has a different effect on other people, but when I saw it I immediately started crying. The thing is, if this picture had been included with the original referral, I doubt it would have taken me so long to recognize her. Its those eyes.

Anyway, that is not the coolest thing that happened. I was advised to join a Yahoo group or two, so I did some searching and picked three groups: The FCC (Families with Children from China) which gets together for picnics and Chinese New Year and stuff, Adopt Cleft which is a support group for families adopting cleft lip/cleft palate kids, and a group that is devoted to adopting from Zhengzhou (basically pronounced jeng joe, for those playing at home) province. Fun fact: I tried to join our local FCC about a year ago and they turned me down. I'm tempted to bring YinCi around and shout hysterically, "Am I good enough for your group now??" while weeping and wailing. Maybe not.

I posted a pretty boring and standard into into the groups and got a very quick reply from one of the other newer members of the Zhengzhou group welcoming me. I was glad to see that it seemed like a friendly bunch and figured it would be fun to connect with people whose kids are from the same area and YinCi, maybe even her same orphanage. The next day I got a message that I was certainly not expecting:

Welcome, Jen! Your little girl is totally adorable, healthy and a lot of fun. I will miss her very much, but still wish you could get here next week. Congratulations! PS - And she has about the best lip repair I have ever seen thanks to operation Smile.

Yup, her orphanage director is a member of the same group. She knows our girl, she is there with her and can tell us first hand that she is healthy and happy. I wanted so badly to just write her a huge email with tons of questions and request some more pictures as well as updated measurements and who knows what else, but I stopped myself.

Here's the deal. Our agency has sent us instructions on how to proceed as far as care packages, etc. and one of the big things they have stressed is that we are not to make any direct contact with the orphanage. It could jeopardize the adoption, the agency, and the orphanage as well. There are procedures for these sort of things, and you don't make friends with China by going against the rules. Rather than take a risk, I chose to send a simple message letting her know how much I appreciated her taking care of our girl and assuring her that I didn't want to do anything that could jeopardize anyone's standing with those in charge, so I wouldn't ask any questions or request more updates. It was hard, but I figured it would be for the best. We'd have plenty of years of pictures when we got her.

I got a response from her that night (yay 14 hour time difference!) basically saying that she is in close contact with our agency and told me to feel free to send as many questions to her as I want through our agency contact. In addition she said she would be sending pictures very soon since the ones we had were months old. She sent great info about sending care packages and just further emphasized how awesome she is and how indebted we feel to her and her organization. Seriously, guys, they are an amazing charity and I can't say enough great things about them. The fact that they doubled our daughter's low weight in only 3 or so months should give good indication of how much time and effort they put into these children.

We're so excited! It's finally feeling real. There are actual baby clothes in our house. There are pictures on our fridge. There is a little girl halfway across the world who has no idea what a miracle she is to us and those around us. Hang in there, sweetie! We'll be there as soon as they let us! Zaijian women de bao bao.