Allie, Here We Come!!
Hi, this is Blair......just wanted to give you guys a little historical perspective on how wild these last four months of referral/travel planning have occurred, and how God has had his fingerprints all over this thing. (Although some of you have received my long winded emails recently.....bear with me, some new stories for you here) :)
First off, let me take you back a few months to when Tami and I had to go to Homeland Security again. It was the week between Christmas and New Years, both of us had off from work, and as is protocol, we had another appointment to have our fingerprints taken again, since they expire every year or so (go figure). The first time we had this done, the process was very swift and uneventful.......we were in and out of the Homeland Security office within an hour........this time, however, we sat in the waiting room for four hours, bored to tears.
Little did we know then that we had another important appointment.....to meet in the waiting room a couple who had just returned from China less than a year ago. They were in the process of going back to adopt again, and to my joy, they had their beautiful Chinese daughter with them. Since I'm no introvert (and we didn't have anything else to do, right), we struck up a conversation with them, and learned that their daughter, who looked perfectly healthy to me, was a "special needs" child, who was cross-eyed at birth, but otherwise very healthy. They told us of a simple procedure/surgery that corrected this after they returned to the States, and advised us that we should possibly look into adding a special needs addendum to our application (which we later did).
Less than two weeks later, our adoption agency---Faith International Adoptions (FIA)--sent us and other prospective parents an email with the pictures of special needs children now up for adoption. One of them immediately caught our eye---Nan Hui Yu, a beautiful baby girl in the southern province of Guangdong. As it turns out, her only special need was.....yep, you guessed it, crossed-eyes. Looking back later, I am so convinced that Tami and I wouldn't have even entertained adopting a special needs child unless God sent us that divine appointment at Homeland Security. Then, when we later learned that Yu Yu's birthday was December 28, 2005---the same day that Tami and I finalized our application/dossier and turned the last of the paperwork into Faith's offices---we were convinced that she was the child for us.
That was mid-January. That week, we signed an updated letter of intent to the China Center for Adoptive Affairs (CCAA), asking to adopt Yu Yu. In early March, we received our confirmation letter from the CCAA. After signing and sending that back (have I mentioned its a paperchase thing with the Chinese government? ;), we didn't expect to get our travel approval from the CCAA until March or April, and then actually travel until May......well.....
We got a call last Friday (April 6) that the US Consulate might be able to fit us in on April 26, so counting back the days in country, we would have to leave in five days, Wednesday, April 11th. AAGHH!!! You can imagine our panic (and happiness). :)
The last week has been one of the most stressful, yet rewarding. Two years after our initial thought of adopting, and after a year of waiting, we now only had a few days to get packed!! Also, it didn't look until yesterday that FIA could get our plane tickets/hotel accommodations worked out in time (There is a giant Spring Trade Fair in Guangzhou), but everything has worked out, thank you Lord.....We are leaving in four days to go get our little Allie, It seems so surreal to even type that!!
I will post our travel plans/rough itinerary in another post, but just wanted to give you an update on the craziness of the past three months.
China, here we come!!
First off, let me take you back a few months to when Tami and I had to go to Homeland Security again. It was the week between Christmas and New Years, both of us had off from work, and as is protocol, we had another appointment to have our fingerprints taken again, since they expire every year or so (go figure). The first time we had this done, the process was very swift and uneventful.......we were in and out of the Homeland Security office within an hour........this time, however, we sat in the waiting room for four hours, bored to tears.
Little did we know then that we had another important appointment.....to meet in the waiting room a couple who had just returned from China less than a year ago. They were in the process of going back to adopt again, and to my joy, they had their beautiful Chinese daughter with them. Since I'm no introvert (and we didn't have anything else to do, right), we struck up a conversation with them, and learned that their daughter, who looked perfectly healthy to me, was a "special needs" child, who was cross-eyed at birth, but otherwise very healthy. They told us of a simple procedure/surgery that corrected this after they returned to the States, and advised us that we should possibly look into adding a special needs addendum to our application (which we later did).
Less than two weeks later, our adoption agency---Faith International Adoptions (FIA)--sent us and other prospective parents an email with the pictures of special needs children now up for adoption. One of them immediately caught our eye---Nan Hui Yu, a beautiful baby girl in the southern province of Guangdong. As it turns out, her only special need was.....yep, you guessed it, crossed-eyes. Looking back later, I am so convinced that Tami and I wouldn't have even entertained adopting a special needs child unless God sent us that divine appointment at Homeland Security. Then, when we later learned that Yu Yu's birthday was December 28, 2005---the same day that Tami and I finalized our application/dossier and turned the last of the paperwork into Faith's offices---we were convinced that she was the child for us.
That was mid-January. That week, we signed an updated letter of intent to the China Center for Adoptive Affairs (CCAA), asking to adopt Yu Yu. In early March, we received our confirmation letter from the CCAA. After signing and sending that back (have I mentioned its a paperchase thing with the Chinese government? ;), we didn't expect to get our travel approval from the CCAA until March or April, and then actually travel until May......well.....
We got a call last Friday (April 6) that the US Consulate might be able to fit us in on April 26, so counting back the days in country, we would have to leave in five days, Wednesday, April 11th. AAGHH!!! You can imagine our panic (and happiness). :)
The last week has been one of the most stressful, yet rewarding. Two years after our initial thought of adopting, and after a year of waiting, we now only had a few days to get packed!! Also, it didn't look until yesterday that FIA could get our plane tickets/hotel accommodations worked out in time (There is a giant Spring Trade Fair in Guangzhou), but everything has worked out, thank you Lord.....We are leaving in four days to go get our little Allie, It seems so surreal to even type that!!
I will post our travel plans/rough itinerary in another post, but just wanted to give you an update on the craziness of the past three months.
China, here we come!!
posted by Tami and Blair Masenhimer @ 11:13 PM
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