Why China?

So, I have been thinking about whether or not to answer this question on our Journal. But after years of people asking us “Why China” I felt we should. Without getting too personal and too lengthy, we felt this was the right decision for us. This decision was not made lightly and many other options were considered over the last 7 years. Many people like to give their opinion of what we should do or should have done but China felt “right” to us. We felt like our child is in China. From the moment we watched the adoption
video about China, we felt this was what we were meant to do. This is our Journey we were meant to follow. We both feel that to judge is not what we should do about other people’s lives. So if anyone has any doubt that this is right decision for Rich and I, please don’t worry as it is the decision that was meant for our life. Someone else may have a life choice that is better for them when it comes to having a family. We choose not to judge other families about their decisions as you just never know what made them come to their decision. Our child is in China and we are just so excited to go get her and bring her home!! She (or he) has been growing in our hearts for a long time. We love her so much and we haven’t even met her yet!!
Hugs!!

Change of Journal sites

Hello, Family and Friends!!

We have decided to change our Journal host. Blogger seems to be a little more user friendly for us and the viewer. I will try and copy and paste some of the orignal log posts from our previous Journal to this current one. We are not only doing this Journal for our family and friends but also for our daughter. We want her to know our Journey to go half way around the world to bring her home to us and all of you.



Terri and Rich

UGGGHHHH!!!!!!

We didn't get our referral this month!! CCAA only matched up Jan. 9th, 2006. We should (hopefully) receive our match in May. I wish I could tell you 100% positive we will receive our match but CCAA is very unpredictable so there are no guarantees. CCAA has never done less than "2" days but who knows. We are almost afraid to get our hopes up. If we get our referral in May than we should hopefully travel to China before July. My heart and gut tells me we will get our referral in May so we are planning on it and starting to "get ready". Just keep us in your prayers that we will see the face of our beautiful child by next month!!
Terri

One Month until Referral????

Autumn (my niece) enjoying Vern's bed!!

Well, we have good news for once!! We are very close to a referral. We think we may get a referral the first week in April. CCAA has matched up to Jan 4th. 2006. We are Jan. 11th, so if CCAA continues the trend of matching 7 to 8 days for the last 2 months then we are in. But they have been known to only match 3 to 5 days so we are cautious about getting too excited. We had our home study visit today so we are almost done with the paperwork to start filing for a new I-171H (which we need to travel to China), Our adoption agency has no parents logged in with China until Jan. 11th so we are hoping this is good sign that China will make it up to the 11th. If we get a match in April than we may possibly travel by May 10th!! After 2 1/2 years of waiting we are not ready??? Can you believe that? We have just been too nervous to get the baby's room ready too soon..we didn't want to put a jinx on anything. I guess the rush is on now! Please say prayers that we will be in the group of referrals!!
Hugs!!
Terri

Getting Closer

Vern..Dog-tired after opening Christmas Presents
Rich and Vern at grandma Sarah's

So, sorry it has been awhile since you heard from us. CCAA matched 8 days this month!! So now we are up to December 27, 2008. We have been busy updating our homestudy. Our adoption agency called to let us know that our I171H will expire May 29th, 2008 and they are thinking that we will not be in China by then so we must update our homestudy and refile with Homeland security. SOOOOOO fustrating as this is the THIRD time!!. Our social worker is just awesome and so understanding of our long Journey. We know it will be worth it but being put under a microscope again to renew the homestudy is challenging. New financial statements, medical updates, background checks and another home visit. If only every parent had to do this in order to have a baby, we may no longer have any neglect or abuse of our children? You know weed out the "bad" parents? There are rumors flying around out there that we may possibly get a referral in April and then it is 6 to 8 weeks until we travel. We finally started buying some baby stuff. It really seem to make things more real to be buying stuff for our baby. To all of my family and friends in Spokane, I hope you survived the largest snow totals in 20 years! I know I am very tired of shoveling! I think we will try and buy a snow blower this spring (when the prices come down) and I am sure that will mean no snow next year. Well, we will try and keep you all updated. We are soooo close!
Love to you all,
Terri

Referrals Made again

I am sad to say that China only referred 4 days this month. This is just getting so fustrating. Now there is a rumor that they may only match 2 days next month as Dec. 20th, 2005 is a very large Log-in-date (many people are Logged-in on this day), I pray that it doesn't happen this way. If it continues to be small amount of days we will never get to China until after the Olympics!! It looks like we will have to renew our fingerprints (which we already knew) and now for the 3rd time a new homestudy update and federal background check. All I can say is ugghhhhh..........

That Time of the Month Again

Well, there were another group of matches. It didn't go as far as I had hope. They only did 1 week again. Oh, Man this is torture. I just wish they would do more days. At this rate it is looking like a April referral for us. Christmas is coming so quick and I seem to be very bah hum buggy. We just thought we would have our child by this Christmas. Oh, well..when I am off at Christmas time we are finally going to start the process of making the extra bedroom into a baby room. We have held off for so long just afraid to do it and then maybe have the adoption fall through. Now that they are so close to Jan. 2006 we feel finally ok to start buying baby "things'. Well, hope everyone is doing well and thanks for all of your support during this loooong waiting period. We love you all!
Terri and Rich