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This time it is of our sweet boy laughing and smiling. Enjoy! These were taken on February 22, 2008.
Vicki
Lukas' home for now...
Monday, February 25, 2008
Friday, February 22, 2008
UPDATED photos of Lukas
We are incredibly grateful to all the families that have or are in the process of adopting children from the Xi'an Children's Welfare Association in Sha'anxi. They have provided us with some awesome updated photos of our son. These were taken on Feb 21. AND I am currently waiting for some more that are said to be of him smiling and laughing!!
How did we ever get so lucky?!?
This is truly a "pay it forward" gift as we will do the same for the other parents waiting for a glimpse of their child who is living half way around the world.
Anyway, I'm sure you aren't interested in my proud ramblings so I will stop now and let you enjoy these photos!!
Vicki
BACKTRACKING
I guess I should have started out my blog with a little information about our family. I,m brand-new to the blogging experience so you will have to bear with me. LOL!!
Don and I were married in December 2001. We both have four children from our previous marriages, but really wanted the opportunity to parent a child together. We tried to have a baby, but had lots of strike against us. So we turned to adoption. There can be alot of heartache involved in domestic adoption and it seemed that we suffered our share after two failed adoptions. Michael, my oldest, suggested that we look into international adoption. So we did.
We adopted our daughter Mariella 3 years ago from China. Back when we started the process with her, we were told that the expected wait time for a referral was between 10-13 months. We were ok with that time frame, but as we worked through the paperwork for our dossier, the wait got shorter and shorter. We were logged in on June 15, 2004 and received our referral for her on December 13, 2004!! Just two months later on Valentine's Day, we were winging our way half-way around the world to bring her home. We just celebrated our family day yesterday. It is hard to believe that she has been with us only 3 short years. Seems like she has always been with us. She is such a delight and joy. Learning new things everyday and teach mommy and daddy a thing or to also!!! She is one smart cookie and we love her to pieces.
Before we even left for China the first time, we knew we would return for a sibling for Mari. We initially thought it would be sooner than later, but it didn't quite work out like that. We decided to wait until our travel mates were ready so that we could travel together again! So in August 2006, we sat down with them and our caseworker to start "paperchasing" for our mei mei (little sister). I stated my desire to have a boy, but Don really wanted to have another girl so we could get more use out of all the girly stuff we already had. LOL!! I reluctantly agreed to work toward a girl, but secretly held out hope for my little boy.
We were logged in on February 9, 2007 and were told that referrals were coming in at around 16-18 months. So we settled down for the long wait. It went by incredibly fast since we were so preoccupied with our daughter and with me starting my online boutique business. As the year passed by, we noticed a disturbing change in the issuing of referrals. They were taking so much longer than originally stated. At the beginning of 2008, I had noticed that from Feb 2007 and Jan 2008, the only referrals that were issued were to the families that had been logged in Oct 2005 thourh Dec 2005. That meant China only covered two months worth of log in dates in a entire year! YIKES!! What that meant for us is that we were now looking at a projected wait time of another 5-6 years!!!
We had a deep desire to have the girls be closer in age so we started talking about switching to the Special Needs/Waiting Child program and requesting a child that was around 2.
So many of these children have such minor needs. Things such as birthmarks, clubbed foot, cleft palate/lip, heart defects, etc. Things that are easily correctable and treatable here in the USA, but not in China. We searched our hearts along with our travel mates and agreed that we should consider switching so as to decrease the age gap between our children.
We were told that with the switch, the possiblity of traveling together was not likely. It would be hard to find two children that fit our age requirements and special needs request and would be in the same province. Unlikely, but not impossible. Our caseworker told us to research and decide what needs we could live with and submit our request for the next list in April/May. So that is what we did. January consisted of lots of questions of doctors and research of medical information on a few of the needs we were considering. Also, we knew that we needed to wait to submnit our request since we still needed time to save the funds needed for our adoption.
Well apparently God had different plans for both of our families. Because, unexpectedly we both received a call about two children on the same list that were only three months apart in age and in the same province. One girl and one boy. Both families decided to review the files. It only took us a few minutes to know that this was the child we had been waiting for. And I got my boy!!
AND we will still get to travel together!!!
So now here we sit trying to figure out exactly how we are going to gather enough finds to get to China and complete our adoption. The time fram has changed considerably and we are expected to be in China some time in late spring. I know that faith has brought us this far and faith will get us the rest of the way. Only God know how we will do it, but we know that He has intended for Lukas to be a part of our family.
Don and I were married in December 2001. We both have four children from our previous marriages, but really wanted the opportunity to parent a child together. We tried to have a baby, but had lots of strike against us. So we turned to adoption. There can be alot of heartache involved in domestic adoption and it seemed that we suffered our share after two failed adoptions. Michael, my oldest, suggested that we look into international adoption. So we did.
We adopted our daughter Mariella 3 years ago from China. Back when we started the process with her, we were told that the expected wait time for a referral was between 10-13 months. We were ok with that time frame, but as we worked through the paperwork for our dossier, the wait got shorter and shorter. We were logged in on June 15, 2004 and received our referral for her on December 13, 2004!! Just two months later on Valentine's Day, we were winging our way half-way around the world to bring her home. We just celebrated our family day yesterday. It is hard to believe that she has been with us only 3 short years. Seems like she has always been with us. She is such a delight and joy. Learning new things everyday and teach mommy and daddy a thing or to also!!! She is one smart cookie and we love her to pieces.
Before we even left for China the first time, we knew we would return for a sibling for Mari. We initially thought it would be sooner than later, but it didn't quite work out like that. We decided to wait until our travel mates were ready so that we could travel together again! So in August 2006, we sat down with them and our caseworker to start "paperchasing" for our mei mei (little sister). I stated my desire to have a boy, but Don really wanted to have another girl so we could get more use out of all the girly stuff we already had. LOL!! I reluctantly agreed to work toward a girl, but secretly held out hope for my little boy.
We were logged in on February 9, 2007 and were told that referrals were coming in at around 16-18 months. So we settled down for the long wait. It went by incredibly fast since we were so preoccupied with our daughter and with me starting my online boutique business. As the year passed by, we noticed a disturbing change in the issuing of referrals. They were taking so much longer than originally stated. At the beginning of 2008, I had noticed that from Feb 2007 and Jan 2008, the only referrals that were issued were to the families that had been logged in Oct 2005 thourh Dec 2005. That meant China only covered two months worth of log in dates in a entire year! YIKES!! What that meant for us is that we were now looking at a projected wait time of another 5-6 years!!!
We had a deep desire to have the girls be closer in age so we started talking about switching to the Special Needs/Waiting Child program and requesting a child that was around 2.
So many of these children have such minor needs. Things such as birthmarks, clubbed foot, cleft palate/lip, heart defects, etc. Things that are easily correctable and treatable here in the USA, but not in China. We searched our hearts along with our travel mates and agreed that we should consider switching so as to decrease the age gap between our children.
We were told that with the switch, the possiblity of traveling together was not likely. It would be hard to find two children that fit our age requirements and special needs request and would be in the same province. Unlikely, but not impossible. Our caseworker told us to research and decide what needs we could live with and submit our request for the next list in April/May. So that is what we did. January consisted of lots of questions of doctors and research of medical information on a few of the needs we were considering. Also, we knew that we needed to wait to submnit our request since we still needed time to save the funds needed for our adoption.
Well apparently God had different plans for both of our families. Because, unexpectedly we both received a call about two children on the same list that were only three months apart in age and in the same province. One girl and one boy. Both families decided to review the files. It only took us a few minutes to know that this was the child we had been waiting for. And I got my boy!!
AND we will still get to travel together!!!
So now here we sit trying to figure out exactly how we are going to gather enough finds to get to China and complete our adoption. The time fram has changed considerably and we are expected to be in China some time in late spring. I know that faith has brought us this far and faith will get us the rest of the way. Only God know how we will do it, but we know that He has intended for Lukas to be a part of our family.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Our Surprise Referral!!!
On February 6, 2008, at 8:50 am, I received a phone call from our case worker. She asked me if I was sitting down 'cause she wanted to talk to me about something. Started off by saying that she knew that we were considering the special needs program and weren't prepared financially to do anything until later in the year, but that they received an unexpected list and there was a little boy that she wanted to tell me about. "He's a year old, he has albinism and he has red hair!!" Then she went on to say, I know Mari's birthday is in December (she didn't know the exact date) and said that we would have another birthday to celebrate in December if we decided to accept this referral. Imagine our shock when he had the SAME birthdate our daughter!!! An Dong Lin was born on December 23, 2006 and currently residing in Xi'an Children's Welfare Association in Sha'anxi in the Peoples' Republic of China.
I called my husband and told him the situation and he said, "Go for it!!" So I called our caseworker back and she sent emailed the file about 10 minutes later.
The first picture of him was his visa photo that was taken with a red background and boy did his hair look red!!! As I scrolled down through the paperwork, I found two additional photos of him. What a cutie!!! He has blond hair and blue eyes and is said to be quite healthy! In this photo, he is only 9-1/2 months old and it stated that at his 10 month check up he weighed 21.5 pounds, 30" tall. Quite the bruiser!!!
All the same, we were head over heels about him! And big sister Mariella was so thrilled to be a big sister finally!!!
So in a span of about 40 minutes, I called the pediatrician and asked if I could run his file over, we arranged to me with our caseworker at 1 pm to go over any other questions, gathered up Mari, who was home sick with that terrible influenza, wait for daddy to come home and then off to meet with our CW. My head was swimming and all I could think was that we have a son and somehow God will provide us a way to make our way to China and bring him home. This truly was and continues to be a leap of faith. I'll post more photos and info as we know it.
I called my husband and told him the situation and he said, "Go for it!!" So I called our caseworker back and she sent emailed the file about 10 minutes later.
The first picture of him was his visa photo that was taken with a red background and boy did his hair look red!!! As I scrolled down through the paperwork, I found two additional photos of him. What a cutie!!! He has blond hair and blue eyes and is said to be quite healthy! In this photo, he is only 9-1/2 months old and it stated that at his 10 month check up he weighed 21.5 pounds, 30" tall. Quite the bruiser!!!
All the same, we were head over heels about him! And big sister Mariella was so thrilled to be a big sister finally!!!
So in a span of about 40 minutes, I called the pediatrician and asked if I could run his file over, we arranged to me with our caseworker at 1 pm to go over any other questions, gathered up Mari, who was home sick with that terrible influenza, wait for daddy to come home and then off to meet with our CW. My head was swimming and all I could think was that we have a son and somehow God will provide us a way to make our way to China and bring him home. This truly was and continues to be a leap of faith. I'll post more photos and info as we know it.
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