Big news! Great news!

Our consulate appointment arrived today and we have purchased our tickets!

We leave March 12th (two weeks from today!) and we come home on the 28th. The typical trip is 14 days, but ours will be 16. That is the best we could do to get the low airfares and ensure we could sit together on the long flights.

I'm really happy with how everything is coming together.

**I added links on the right to the blogs of some of my travel mates. There are 12 families in our travel group, but only 4 of us (I think) with blogs. Check 'em out!

Happy Birthday, Baby!

Cen Li Jin is 11 months old today. By the time she is 12 months old, she will have a new family and a new name. The joy and the sadness of the whole thing is a bit overwhelming sometimes.

We did not receive our consulate appointment today, but we are hopeful for tomorrow!

Travel Approval!

We got it. That means China says we can come get our baby. Now our agency schedules our Consulate Appointment (hopefully that will happen tomorrow), and once that is done we will be given exact travel dates. We'll know for sure soon, but it looks like we'll be leaving on March 13th, and meeting our daughter on March 16th.

Has it been awhile since you've seen my baby? Here ya go!

Do you hear that?

Its the sound of my credit card crying. Target, Wal-mart, and BabiesRus. They're putting a hurting on my poor card!

Yesterday I made a packing list. And today I purchased nearly everything that I didn't already possess. Baby meds, travel sized doo-dads, and assorted what-nots. We hit Target hard this morning, and finished up at Wal-Mart tonight.

In between crazy shopping trips with a rather patient Jeff, I laid out the suitcases and started packing the Zoe stuff. Oh My, is there a lot of Zoe stuff!

The really good news is that the airfare prices right now are SUPER! $800 or so from Atlanta to Hong Kong. I'm hoping for travel confirmation very soon, so we can jump on these prices! Hopefully, this week!

OH MY GOODNESS!!

Some people got their TA's today!!!

(TA's are Travel Approvals...this is the next step we are waiting for. Once they come in, the rest of the travel can be scheduled)

Our agency says travel can take place between 7-14 days from TA. I think it will be less than 3 weeks before I'm on a plane!!

I'm serious when I say...I'm not ready. Not even close. What have I been doing for the past 2 years? Not sure! I gotta go work on my packing list...

A brief update.

We're in a lull between the excitement of referral and travel. We have a few things to keep us busy, but mostly, we're back to waiting.

We expect our Visas back from the Chinese consulate tomorrow. Yeah!
We're starting to look at airlines.
And I've shamelessly registered nearly everywhere.

I need to whip out those baby and attachment books. I also need to wash all of Zoe's clothes and decide which ones get to go to China. Since all of the babies in my group will be right around the one year mark, we're planning their first birthday party while we're in China. Now my baby needs a party dress!

Our Travel Group

So far we know there are at least 10 families in our travel group. Almost immediately after our match appointment I called my friend and waiting buddy Dawn (same agency, same LID) to find out about her daughter and which travel group she was in. Imagine my glee when we found out we were in the same travel group and would therefore be traveling together! Yeah! It was like the day kept getting better and better.

My wait was over. My daughter was healthy, beautiful, and everything we could have hoped for. On top of it all, I already know and am friends with someone I will be traveling with? Wow! Awesome!

So I convinced her to start a Yahoo group for our travel mates and we have grown to the size we are now. Our babies are all from the same Social Welfare Institute (orphanage), and are within 2 months of age to each other. All of the women (the actual participants in the yahoo group) seem so nice, and so fun! I think we are going to have a great trip!

As a treat, here are a few pictures of some of Zoe's travel mates, published with their Mommies' permission. The best quote ever, was by the Mommy of the baby in the middle. After referrals started pouring in she said...

"Can you believe that they found so many beautiful babies?.... one for each
of us!! ;)"

The Care Package

Our agency is kind enough to give us our baby's address in Chinese along with other tips for getting them care packages as quickly and safely as possible.

The picture above is the one I sent to Zoe. We have a little baby photo album with our pictures in it. I'm hoping her foster family will use it to help her get "acquainted" with us before we come. We have a couple disposable cameras, so we may get some pictures of Zoe before she met us as well as her current home and the people who are important to her. The flower blanket is the one I have have sleeping with in hopes it will smell like me and aid in bonding. (That's what they say, and I'm willing to go with it.) The candy and lipstick are for the orphange nannies or hopefully Zoe's foster family.

Busy, busy!

I always wondered why bloggers seem to fall off the planet after they get their referral. Now I know. They're busy!

The day after referral we received our "Letter of Seeking Confirmation." This states that we will accept Cen Li Jin as our daughter. I was surprised to see there were two boxes to check whether we accept or decline our referral. Who could ever check "decline?" It was pretty obvious we would be accepting Li Jin wholeheartedly, but it seemed appropriate to have her medicals checked first, so we had to squeeze in a visit to the pediatrician. I got a yucky one, because the guy I intended to use wasn't available, and I was working on a short time line. The Dr. may not have been pleasant, but she went to Med School and she told me what I wanted to hear. "Everything looks fine." The information they give you is so scanty anyway, but I feel better for having it looked at. My girl is small (7% on US growth charts), but she's apparently healthy, and that's all I care about.

So, after the Dr, we rushed to FedEx with our form saying YES! YES! YES! We want her!!

Since then, there have been a bunch of forms to sign, get notarized, and send back. We had to apply for our Chinese visa, write some pretty big checks, and we put together and mailed a care package for Zoe. There's also been a bit of shopping!!

And then we still have those pesky jobs and the laundry that won't stop! It's hard to believe the rest of the world keeps going on as normal, and I'm suppose to play along, when I don't want to do anything but sit around and talk Zoe.

Mail? Shmail! What size does my baby wear??

Coming up this week we will have a conference call with my agency and travel group. I still need to gather up documents I need to take to China with me, and then after that, I need to start worrying about packing lists. One of the wonderful things about my agency is that they ensure we will get to our babies as soon as absolutely possible. Because of that, things are moving quickly and our time has been pretty busy.

According to my agency, I should be in China in 4-6 weeks!! I hope they're right because my baby's first birthday is in 6 weeks and 1 day.

My First Movie!

UPDATE: I would like to thank everyone for their kind words about my first movie. I would also like to thank you for not pointing out I had the wrong date on the very first screen. 2007? Silly me.

Also, since several people asked, the music is "Sunny Days" by Jars of Clay.

More pictures of my Sweet Li Jin

Here are the promised pictures. She is so beautiful. I thought I had examined every inch of the pictures this afternoon, until Jeff pointed out her shoes don't match. My baby is wearing mismatched shoes! And I think they have her in brown fleece pants hiked up to arm pits!

I am grateful for all of the care my daughter has received. I am grateful for any piece of clothing she has on to keep her warm, but I can't wait to put beautiful AND warm clothes on my beautiful girl. And now I am dying for updated pictures of her. We should get those in a few weeks.

Let's talk about Zoe, shall we?

My little Li Jin. She is perfect. I've never seen a more perfect nose, and the heart shape to her top lip mesmerizes me. I can't stop staring at her beautiful face.

This picture was taken when she was 6.5 months old. We will get more pictures tomorrow, but I don't know if they will be more recent photos or not.

What we know about her...
She is quiet. Likes listening to music. Knows her name. Laughs out loud. Is sometimes obstinate. Her favorite toy is a rattle. And her favorite activity is watching TV. We're very glad about that, because we just bought her a new 50" last week! Whatever my baby wants, my baby gets. :-)

Here are a few pictures from the day.

Baby Zoe is here!!!

I'll write more later, I promise!! It's really busy here right now and I wanted to get the quick information out. We all know you just want the picture anyway!!! So here's my beautiful Baby!




Her name is Cen Li Jin.
Cen is her surname.
Li means Beautiful.
Jin means money, gold, or metal

Born on March 26, 2007. (10.5 months)
She is in foster care from the Heng Feng Social Welfare Institute.
JiangXi Province.

I promise to write more later!

Super Tuesday? Yes, indeed!!!

Today's the day! This morning I woke up (at 4:40am!!) for the last time not knowing what my daughter looks like.

We decided to go to the office to get our referral. They will call us around noon to tell us we can come over, and I plan to be very close by! (Do you think I would scare them if we were actually in the parking lot?) We'll spend the morning running some errands, maybe head to a mall near my agency, and perhaps have an early lunch if I think I can handle food.

I expect to have something posted here around 3pm as long as I can get ahold of everyone I need to call first.

Here was my morning funny for you. We bought this girl frog at Target last night. She spent the night on the kitchen counter.



This morning I'm catching up on e-mail, and when I turn around, she looks like this!!!

Jumping for Joy!

Our agency has announced they received referrals for their 12/20/05 LID's. THAT'S US!!!! I haven't talked to them yet, but they would never put that on their website if they didn't have one for us!!!!!! We have a BABY!!

We are STILL trying to decide how we will receive our match tomorrow. 1) Go down to their Atlanta office and receive it in person. or 2) Take the call at home. I have less than 24 hours to make up my mind.

The only reason I would receive a call from them today would be if there was something unusual about our referral. (a boy, or widely outside or requested age range) We haven't received a call yet, so I assume all is as expected.

I'm giddy! GIDDY, I tell you!

Not much longer!

Happy Sunday morning to you. I thought this weekend would be agonizingly slow, but it really isn't. It's moving at what I suspect is normal weekend speed. The only thing different is my sleeping. I keep waking up during the night at the tail end of the strangest dreams. And the last few days, about 6am , I wake up for the day. Bright, sunny, no more sleeping. Normally, I'm one of those slow waker-uppers. On a typical morning, the alarm goes off around 6, and I lay there for at least another hour listening to the radio while drifting in and out of sleep. Not now, though. Nope. I'm wide awake. So GOOD MORNING!!!

And since I'm awake, I can't stop thinking about Zoe. Where is she from? What is her name? How old is she? I'm amazed by the fact that all of that is already decided. There's a folder, in an envelope addressed to my agency, somewhere in delivery facility, somewhere in Colorado. In that folder is a picture of my daughter, and all the available information about her. Someone in China looked at her info....then looked at our info, and decided we would become a family. Amazing.

I posted these before, but here's a refresher for you. These are the pictures the CCAA used to match us with our baby. They are our passport photos. We sent a bunch of other pictures to China, but later found out only these make it to the Matching Room.

I suspect Zoe will be a very serious baby dressed in black. :-)










I've always said I hoped Zoe will be very young, and I do. I want to be there for as much of her life as possible. I want bonding to go as smoothly as possible. Please don't think I would be disappointed with an older baby, I wouldn't! But I have a new reason to hope for younger baby.

As we get closer to "having" Zoe and not "waiting for Zoe", I'm starting to think about what I will call the blog when we get home. Well....if Zoe was born on or after February 18, 2007, she will have been born in the year of the pig, like me. If she was born before that, she will be a year of the dog. I have to say, I really hope she is a year of the pig baby so I can rename my blog, "Two Pigs and a Monkey" I laughed now just typing it. It's funny. It makes me happy! And it rolls off the tongue so much better than "A Monkey, a pig, and dog." That won't do at all.

And as an aside, Jeff spent his entire life thinking he was born in the year of the Rooster. Every Chinese restaurant menu told him he was a Rooster, but his birthday was early in the year, before the Lunar New Year...making him a Monkey!

Referrals Are Here!!!

Not mine, though. My agency has already had it's deliveries today, but another agency got theirs!!!! Yeah!!! Which mean mine will be soon. Oh my gosh, I don't know what to do with myself! Actually I think a nap may be in order because I am EXHAUSTED!

Shoooeeey! This has taken a lot out of me.

Now I can go into the weekend a VERY happy girl!!!

New Hope...

Sorry to string you along like this, but now it seems several agencies are expecting packages TODAY!!! Others are expecting packages Monday. We don't know for sure if the packages have referrals, but c'mon...it has to be. What else could it be? Either way, we will know later today when those packages start arriving. Hopefully there will be wonderful announcements later today.

Zoe Stork Watch is back ON!!