When are you going to China??

A common question is “When will you go get your kiddos?”  I wish I had a crystal ball!  I will keep track of important dates here and I’ll try and update predictions as we go.

Adoption #5 Timeline

LOI (Letter of Interest to China requesting to adopt our son) – 7/16/14

PA (Pre-Approval from China agreeing to let us pursue our son) – 7/24/14

Homestudy complete – 9/29/14
i800a (US approval) application sent - 10/7/14

LOI (Letter of Interest to China requesting to adopt our daughter) – 10/24/14

PA (Pre-Approval from China agreeing to let us pursue our daughter) – 11/6/14 
Approved i800a - 11/11/14 
DTC (Dossier To China, official paperwork sent to China) - 12/18/14 
LID (Logged In Date, China officially recorded receiving our paperwork, we're "in line") - 1/12/15 
LOA (Letter of Acceptance, China approves us to adopt our children) - 2/15/15 
I800 approved (US approves us to bring our kiddos home) - 3/16/15

NVC (Visa center sends the US Consulate notice that we will be bringing home another citizen) – 3/25/15
Art 5 (US Consulate in China informs Chinese government that they will issue visas for our newest kiddos) – 4/13/15 
TA (Travel Approval, China says we can come and get our kiddos!!!) – 4/27/15
CA (Consulate Appointment, all travel revolves around this date which is set after TA and determines the end of your stay everything else is scheduled backwards from this appointment, your child becomes a US citizen and you get to travel home)- 5/26/15

So, will this timeline occur??  There are so many steps that can vary by weeks or even months!  I used averages from a main site where data has been stored for years from many families adopting from China in order to predict trends and changes.  We have always been able to “beat the odds”, speeding through this process in only 9 months the last two times.  I am praying that we “make up some time” somewhere through this process.  We have been in China during the fall (with Kaitlyn in late September), winter (with Meilynn in late December and early January), and the summer (with Ryan and Addisyn in July).  I would love to experience spring in China.  If we stuck with our 9 month usual paperwork stint, we would end up traveling in April.  However, having seen God’s hand over and over during this journey, I trust He has it under control.

We did make up time!  Praise God!  The LOA process went MUCH quicker than expected!  Looks like we will experience China in the Spring!! :)

Being a parent isn't always easy, but neither is being a kid!

Okay… tough morning!   We had Meilynn’s 1 year checkup with the physical rehab specialist.  Can I just have a minute to vent?  It is TOUGH to be mama to a kiddo with a visible physical need.  Your heart gets torn apart when the feelings that they deal with every day of their life surface.   We sat in the room, while our sweet little girl cried her eyes out.  She knows the future, but I think she always hopes secretly that something magical will happen and one day we’ll go to an appointment and she will be told her cerebral palsy simply disappeared.  We spent the time listening to her concerns and trying to figure out solutions to work with them… But, when it comes down to it (as the amazing Dr. Greene admitted), it’s just not fair!  It’s not fair that she has to deal with getting ready earlier than siblings because braces take a while to put on.  It’s not fair that she has to take longer getting boots on and off 3 times a day at school in the winter.  It’s not fair that I didn't pursue getting her braces adjusted, because she never  wants to be “a problem or complainer” and so she suffers  and now has calluses on her ankles.  We came up with solutions like, getting up earlier to adjust for time, 4^th grade has less outdoor time and she may not have to put braces back on after lunch, and mama promised to keep going back until the next set is just right!  We talked about the future plans and when the best time is to schedule a muscle releasing surgery.  Mind you mama needed a lot of Kleenex too and Dr. Greene needed to hug us both by the end of the meeting.

Then, we got out to the van and had a moment to really debrief.  Mark probed a little, knowing there was more to the story and wanting to be able to discuss the real problem.  Then the flood gates opened and the tears really started!  It is SO HARD to watch your sweet child share her anguish over being different, over the stares, and over the mean words that she shoves into the depths of her mind.  We shared with her what an amazing daughter she is, how smart she is, her amazing spirit, her beautiful heart, her caring personality.  But, when it comes down to it, it isn't fair!!  There’s no way to make it go away, to completely solve it, to make her invincible to the pain of being “different”.  

We’ll never know truly what it feels like and she’ll never truly know how much it tortures Mark and I not to be able to “fix it” and to watch her go through this.  In the end, I hope she felt loved and chosen today.  I hope she understands that the choices we make are to help her future.  I hope she realizes that her daddy and I would make all of the choices over again in an instant and that we wouldn't want her any other way.  I stand amazed at her strength and outlook on life.  She has taught US so much!  We couldn't compliment her enough on her testimony with the way she deals with her disability.  Love this beautiful child to the moon and back!!

White Whale Wandering - Solo

Alright, I did it!  I took the Whale out all by myself! Mark had a softball tournament and I had to get the kiddos to soccer.  It would have been rather silly for him to drive the Whale 40 miles just to get himself to an all day tournament (though he did offer).  I decided I could handle it (but did require him to back it out of the garage).  

I got the kiddos rounded up and fed breakfast, 3 in their soccer uniforms, and located the snacks I had signed up to bring (before realizing I'd be flying solo).  We loaded up the Whale and I turned the key, triple checking that all of the kiddos were buckled.  Meilynn mentioned that she wasn't quite as nervous as the last time I drove (3 miles home from the corner store).  Off we went, making our way across the countryside and avoiding all of the road repairs going on this summer.

We made it... all the kiddos and the snacks.  I found a spot that I felt I could park the Whale in (pre-game exercise is good, right).  Lots of cheering and entertaining the Littles since they had breakfast ahead of time and kept reminding me that I hadn't brought any snacks for them.  Handed out our snacks after Jayson's and Kaitlyn's game and sent 3 kiddos on their way for team pictures (yeah, add that to the crazy day).  Then, more cheering and more reminders of the absence of a snack.  Handed out our snacks for Brayden's game.

Now we needed to figure out lunch... hmmmm.  Where to go with the Whale?  Mom suggested Spagnuolo's. Pizza?  YES PLEASE!  Wait... that means driving the Whale all the way to Okemos.  Took a moment to give myself a little pep talk and mom offered to ride with me.  Mom?!?!  She's avoided the Whale since we bought it!  I had her in stitches as I reminded her that this was payback for the heart attack I would have the few times she would drive dad's pickup when her car was in the shop.  

Yes, dad took me straight through town and yes, he made me pass a tractor, but I think he felt it was a right of passage.  I am truly a soccer mom today!!  I can do this 7 kid-thing!  Mark may even lose his Whale, I might take it over... maybe not. :)

I know, this picture isn't from today (kiddos aren't in soccer uniforms).  However, I don't think a picture or selfie while navigating the Whale would have been wise. :)  Just wanted to give you a perspective of my "rear view". :)

Moving from 6 to 7

I was in love.  He was the cutest thing I had ever seen.  I loved his little dimple, huge smile, and the little hint of mischievousness!  

I kept casually bringing it up to Mark, but the answer was always no.  So, I began an advocacy site, as any adoptive mom whose heart is broken would do.  He was my first advocacy post.  It was only because of him that I even had the idea.  I looked for him every day on Children’s House International’s website.  Then, one day it happened.  He was released from Children’s House International, where he had been listed for 4-5 months.  I lost track of him and couldn’t find him on any other agency lists.  I put out pleas on a few of the forums I am a part of, but nobody knew where he was.  I finally found him on a copy of the April 9th Shared List.  I can see a copy of the list about every month. Whew, at least I knew where he was.  Then I found out that a family had their agency try to locate him on April 18th and he wasn’t on Shared List any longer.  I panicked, I spent every night (once the kiddos were in bed) searching every agency site I knew of looking for him.  The longer he was “missing”, the more reality set in that someone may be adopting him.  Finally, at Mark’s prompting (since I was always talking about not finding him), I got up the courage to email Logan (our social worker at Lifeline) and she had Lily check for him.  On April 30th I received word that they couldn’t locate him.  I was at school, it was the end of the day and Mark and I were emailing back and forth about me being disappointed that I couldn’t find him.  Then it happened!  I checked Great Wall’s site…and there he was!  I couldn’t believe I found him again!!  I excitedly emailed Mark, saying I found him!!  Mark emailed back, “Wow…seriously?!?!?!  You see without me knowing it and not more than 15 minutes earlier, Mark had seriously prayed to God, “I know how much April has loved this little boy and I started to get attached to him too!  So “IF” he is to really be a part of our family then let him show up!”  He was hesitant to tell me at first…realizing this could add another child to our family, but I am so glad he did.   

We started to pray about it and decided to start write emails to GWCA and Lifeline to try and get him transferred from GWCA to Lifeline, all to no avail.  We decided however, to put him on HOLD through Great Wall.  That night as we looked at financing this adoption, we were utterly frustrated and discouraged when we realized that we could NOT do it with our current finances.   

I then realized that we might be able to do a home equity loan.  We set up a time to talk with our credit union the next day about loan options.  This ended in sorrow, because we would only get about half of what we needed.   If only there were some way we could just get closer.   As a result, we decided to take off the HOLD and prayed for some sort of idea and trusted that if he was to be ours he would still be available!

I remembered the person we talked with at the credit union said that they used to do a higher percentage of equity.  So I worked the next few days making MANY phone calls to different banks, lending institutions, etc. trying to find someone who would maybe do 85% instead of 80% all to no avail.  Then one of my last calls was to a local bank.  The sweet lady there asked if I would consider a different solution.  Refinancing our 15 year mortgage and taking a cash out option.  I listened politely, but we had worked so hard to pay down our mortgage.  I was NOT going to change that.  So I was again disappointed.

Mark and I talked that night… what difference would it make to take out a loan or increase our mortgage a little bit more and still have a 15 year mortgage.  We could actually take the whole family this time…and get as much as we needed since we thought we had a lots of equity in our house.  I could always pay it back down as quickly as possible.

I decided to call her back.  Thinking we had lots of equity in our house and that we could use 100% of it she then informed me that they could only do 85% MAYBE 90% of the equity.  So I hung up the phone and thought to check out our appraisal from a couple years ago to see what 85-90% would actually be.  Then we checked on the appraisal and it was actually $10,000 less than I thought.  Wow, the obstacles were stacked against us!  So as we prayed, we decided to move forward with the appraisal just to see what it would come in at thinking all along that it wouldn’t be enough. 

Our prayer was constantly, if it’s Your will, open doors.  If it isn’t Your will close them!  Make it clear to us God!  The appraiser called late on a Wednesday evening and said that he would be there first thing on Friday morning.  Are you kidding?  So we only had one day to get ready for the “showing of our life”!   We were told that we would have at least a week.  We hadn’t gotten the upstairs window repaired, we hadn’t fixed the kitchen faucet, and there were still 2 ceiling tiles missing downstairs from the dishwasher leak repair!!  Well, there goes that idea!  Bless our kiddos, they all got up extra early and cleaned up their rooms that Friday morning and made their beds before school and Mark made sure the Littles didn’t make a mess before the appraiser came!  So we prayed to God to make it clear once again by making the appraisal more than what we were hoping for or a lot less!  Again throwing out another fleece! 

Our contact at the bank called Monday morning, with news.  She couldn’t say officially since our appraisal hadn’t been through review yet, but our appraisal came back (are you ready for this?) $25,000 over what it was just 2 years ago!!!!!  We were hoping it would be $10,000 higher (even though the credit union guy said if you’re lucky you’d get maybe $5,000 higher) and still wouldn’t be enough, but to get $25,000 was another clear sign from God that we needed to keep going with this process.  What a miracle!  We just saw God’s blessing in this again!!

We waited the whole week for some official news from the bank.  Nothing!  Paperwork takes FOREVER!  Finally, on June 17th we received the call with the final numbers.  The amount they would be able to finance was $10,000 less than we expected based on our conversation with the bank.  Our hearts literally broke.  This was not at ALL what we had expected!  Alright we got the clear answer and we told our kids that we were not going to be able to go ahead with the adoption.  Brayden literally cried when he heard the news.  Talk about tearing your heart apart!   

I decided to go into full blown advocacy mode for our little guy.  That same night, we had Addi and Ryan’s 1 year post placement visit.  We tried to make the best of it since we finally got the closed door.  To try and help lift our spirits, our thoughts turned to Disney.  We had originally planned a Disney trip with extended family next summer before the adoption option came about.  Now that the adoption was not happening, Disney was back on. 

The very next day the lady from the bank called.  She couldn’t sleep!  She knew that the numbers were not what we had talked about.  She even went into work early the next morning to check the figures…are you ready for this…they had miscalculated!  They were $10,000 off!!!  We were eligible for the full amount we needed!!!!  WOW, what a roller coaster ride!!  So, Disney is off and China is back on!

Next hurdle…we wanted to do the home equity loan and keep our initial mortgage, instead of doing both loans through the bank.  Another LONG wait, more paperwork, and more approvals.  It was a long shot, since this is VERY uncommon and not usually approved.  June 25th I called our contact and she said the approval supervisor was on vacation, but agreed to look over our paperwork!  She called later that same afternoon, the loan approval officer had agreed to the option that we wanted!!!  We can get our home equity loan and keep our initial mortgage intact! 

So hey, why not go for broke?!?!  I decided to call Great Wall to see once again about getting his file transferred thinking I would get the same answer that I got last time.  With fingers crossed (not easy when dialing), I called the matching specialist (the same lady that said no last time) and found out that she was on vacation until July 9th.  I contacted the person covering in her absence.  I explained our situation by summarizing the best I could.  SHE AGREED!!  She said his file was due to be released on July 4th to the main list.  Just to make sure, she ran down the hall to check if there were any families reviewing his file.  NO one!  So the two agencies agreed to work on getting his file officially transferred!  Yet another way that God has shown His will to us!!!

The next day (June 26th) I went to the bank to pick up the disclosures… the craziness that signifies an Anderson adoption was quickly apparent.  Our contact asked if I was ready for another twist.  Of course, I was getting used to this roller coaster ride.  At this time, the bank was not equipped to set up an escrow account for this type of loan since they were breaking new ground.  We were actually the first ones to go through the process with this type of loan.  They have learned from our experience, but we will NOT have to escrow our taxes and insurance.  This is HUGE for us and another amazing blessing from God.   Then came the truly amazing part!  This freed up some funds that would have been used to set up the escrow account.  We were now approved for $7,000 extra!!!!  WOW!  When God blesses, He goes all out!!  We don’t know why we may need this extra, but when God provides you accept and wait.

We found out on Friday June 27th that Great Wall released his file.  Something went wrong in the transfer of his file.  He was supposed to go right from Great Wall to Lifeline but since the portal wasn’t working correctly, his file went back onto the shared list where any agency could pick him up.  Normally, this would have me EXTREMELY concerned!  But, this was status quo for our adoption experiences (happened with Kaitlyn and Meilynn) and God had MORE than proven Himself in the last few months.  So we once again waited for any news about his file; hoping we could secure him soon!!

June 30th, brought many surprises and many more blessings!  We travelled 2 hours away to look at a 12 passenger van.  We knew we would need more room with our expanding family and the 8 passenger van wouldn’t hold our growing family.  We received a phenomenal deal on a 12 passenger extended van and we decided to move forward with getting the “White Whale”.  While we were working to complete the sale, we received an email from Logan, our social worker.  The wonderful trumpet sound coming from Mark’s phone clued us in that the email was from her.  I slyly checked it and whispered to Mark that we had reason to celebrate!!  Our little guy’s file was successfully transferred to Lifeline and on hold for our family!!  Such excitement, I could barely contain myself.  I remember Mark telling the salesman that we have a new van and a new son (since his file was transferred)! 

We went over his file that night.  I read it for what seemed like the millionth time, it was like a story that you hear over and over and never tire of.  I had to pinch myself to realize that this time I was reading OUR son’s file, not just the file of a cute little guy that I advocate for!  We sent an email to our pediatrician including his file and a couple of links to recent videos.  Even though it was very late, she actually emailed back within an hour, giving the green light.  We are so blessed by this amazing woman, who takes the time to truly decipher sometimes confusing records and give us her best analysis.  She has been on target EVERY time, even with our little mysterious Addisyn.  Then, when we get our kiddos home she is their greatest medical advocate, getting them into the very best specialists.

We had to reapply to Lifeline since we were starting another adoption and on July 1st we found out that our application to Lifeline had been approved.  So, we started working on all of the paperwork and scheduling doctor appointments.  Our current homestudy agency also agreed to work with us again.  We get to keep our local social worker and they will use our visits, education, and most of the old homestudy.  This should (hopefully) speed up the process!!

Everything was completed to send in our LOI (Letter of Intent) to the Chinese government (CCCWA – China Center for Children’s Welfare and Adoption).  This is a letter officially requesting him to be a part of our family.   We received word that our LOI was submitted on July 16th, which also was the one year anniversary of when our sweet Addisyn became an Anderson.  We expected to receive PA (pre-approval) in less than 2 weeks!  Once you have pre-approval, families can announce it to everyone!

WE GOT “PA” ON JULY 24th!!!!!  This is China giving us the green light to pursue adopting our little guy!  We have LOTS of paperwork ahead of us and would love your prayers!  We know God is leading this journey and are so very thankful for the peace that brings!