We have NEW pictures! Thanks to Ladybugsnlove.com!!!!

We were able to get an updated on Gigi and the most beautiful pictures of her. This treasure was made possible through Ladybugsnlove.com. They are able to contact Gigi's orphanage and ask a few questions on our behalf and get an update on how she is growing and developing. Along with some what she looks like currently we received pictures of her as an infant. Something we know she will treasure always as will we!!! THANK YOU Ladybugsnlove.com!!!

The great news continues to arrive!!

Today we received word that our group has a confirmed and official consulate appointment date of July 28, 2009. This is the day that we bring Gigi to the US Consulate and are interviewed and sworn in as her parents and sign lots of papers and our adoption is more or less official, at least as far as China goes. More to the point, this is a meting that takes place toward the end of our trip, meaning that we should be leaving for China about 10-14 days earlier. That means about three weeks from now we should be heading to China and holding Gigi in our arms within two or three days of arrival.
Later, we had our phone meeting with our agency and, among the other information discussed, we were told they are shooting for us to leave on July 17th (or possibly the 16th) and return home on August 1st. For those of you keeping score at home, the 17th of July is 22 days from now. We can now officially move from feeling like "we are not ever going to get to China" to "we are not ever going to be ready in time!!" This is a good problem to have in my humble opinion.
It is a cliche to say this has been a rollercoaster ride, but I am glad that we are finally coming into the station and will soon be on a much more entertaining and fulfilling ride with Gigi seated next to us!!
As Denise said yesterday, we are so thankful to everyon for their good wishes and, of course, their prayers!! WE canot wait to introduce Gigi to all of our family and friends!! I am bursting with pride and am so ready to get this party started. I apologize in advance for how annoying I am going to become as a bragging, doting, and over-protective Daddy!!

GREAT News to Share!!!

We received word from the US Consulate in Guangzhou, China that they have received our Visa 37!!! Woohoo!!! We are so very relieved.

Thank you Aunt Jen and EVERYONE for all the prayers and positive thoughts...keep them coming! We have a meeting Thursday night at 6:00pm with our agency. We hope they will share good news with us. Please pray for travel dates and safe travel!

I Want My Baby Now!

I can't take much more of this. Today was a very sad day. Lots of tears! We woke to an e-mail from our agency saying that the US consulate in China still doesn't have our Visa 37 (updated home study). We made all the calls again just as we've done twice now but this time we took it to the next level and contacted Senator Bill Nelson's office and asked for their help. Hopefully they will be able to assist us.

We have a call-in meeting again this Thursday night with our agency where they want to discuss "the latest developments with the group's travel". It doesn't sound like this going to be a call where they tell us our travel dates. There is now a travel alert from our government in place through September due to the swine flu. Many in our group were planning on bringing their children and, with the chance that they could be quarentined separately from their parents, I'm sure this will be the focus of the meeting. Could there be any chance that they ask us to wait until October to travel? Oh, I just don't think I could handle that emotionally. The wait since 4/3 has been long enough could you imagine waiting until October? THAT'S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!!!

Please pray that everything will happen soon and our travel experience will be safe and wonderful.

We'll post another update as soon as something happens.

Hoping This Week Brings Good News!!

Well, there's not much to do but pray for good news and travel dates. We were told Thursday night that the US Consulate in China should now have access to our Visa 37 & hopefully when WHFC checks with them for the third (or is it fourth now??) time they say they have it! We are very hopeful to get our travel dates this week. It might not happen. Our agency said they would try to give us two weeks notice and so I'm thinking we won't hear until next week but we're tyring to keep hope alive!

This morning we went to Babies R Us and got Gigi her stroller. It's so great! We really like it and hope she will too. We were able to get it with all of the Babies R Us gift cards we received from friends & family. If you were one of them thank you so much for the wonderful stroller. We were so excited to get it. THANK YOU!!! :)

Dan had a fun Father's Day. Even though Gigi's not here yet she got him lots of fun gifts including his favorite, movies! She got him two blu-rays, Tinkerbell and A Bugs Life. He was super happy!! He also got boring stuff like new work clothes and slippers but had fun opening them all this morning. We had a fun afternoon at Nana & Papa's. It was a beautiful day for swimming!! We had fun relaxing in the pool. Even Max had fun in the pool. :)

Crazy Sad!!!

I don't know what to do. There are families that got their call 7 weeks after us and they already have their travel dates and are going the end of this month! I looked back to the blogs posted on Rumor Queen from families that got their call the same day as us. Many have been and returned at the beginning of this month already. Home with their babies. I don't understand what is going on and I'm just so frustrated! I'm trying hard to have trust in my agency but it's getting more and more diffucult as they continue to tell us things we're not seeing any other families have to deal with. I wonder if we'll even get to go in July. Meanwhile they told us not to send any care packages and won't really even tell me which of the orphanages my daughter is in since there are like six in Foshan. What else do we have to go through. Four years of paper work and waiting has really been enough now! I'm ready to bring her home now before she enters Kindergarten!!!

Hopefully tomorrow will bring better news! It's been two weeks since our last rollercoster ride of needing to get our homestudy updated and sent to China through Immigration. The policy of being able to deliver that in person when we go apparently changed two weeks ago so one more hoop for us to jump through. Took several days for our social worker to get us our addendum then several more to get in touch with some one to help us at our local Immigration office. Now we are waiting "several" days for our agency to check with the US Consolate in China to see if they got all of our 19 families updates before they make our consulate appointment and, sadly, our agency and us do not agree on what "several" means.

Well, that's all i have to complain about tonight. Hopefully we'll be traveling this time next month (at least we're not saying next year anymore!)